It has been three years since the US government approved a list of Guantanamo Bay detainees for release. On Friday, the names of those 55 inmates who had been authorized for transfer were made public.

­The Department of Justice stated that there was no longer a "need to withhold" the information. However, the prisoners in question remain on the island.

The US government has previously said that a list could not be released as it would hinder efforts to repatriate and resettle prisoners in other countries. A large proportion of the men are believed to be Yemeni.

In January 2010, President Obama suspended further transfers to Yemen, saying the country's atmosphere was too "unsettled" to be certain that detainees wouldn't engage in terrorist activities.

Shane Kadidal of the Center for Constitutional Rights claims the list still "seems to not include the Yemenis cleared for conditional release."

The Pentagon has awarded Academi, the security company previously known as Blackwater, part of a $20 billion five year contract to train military intelligence agents. It comes despite the firm earlier being fined by a US court for illegal arms trade.

­The US Defense Intelligence Agency announced on Thursday that it would hire six private security companies, including Academi, for the contract. The contractors are to train agents "before they leave on overseas deployments, to provide them with a foundation of hard and soft skills relevant to living and working in hostile and austere environments," the document says.

Academi declined to comment on the contract when asked by Wired's Danger Room blog, saying it is not finalized yet. But it may be one of the first US governmental contracts it received after changing ownership and re-branding for a second time. Blackwater dropped its scandal-tainted name and became Xe Services in 2009, but in late December 2011 changed it again.

In August, Academi struck a deal with the US Justice Department and agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle what the company described as a "legacy matter" left behind by former managers and owners, including founder Erik Prince, who sold his interest in 2010.

The US Senate has threatened to impose political sanctions on Ukraine over the jailing of former Prime Minister, Yulia Tymoshenko, urging Kiev to immediately release the opposition leader.

The Senate adopted a resolution on Saturday that stressed that the Tymoshenko trial was "politically motivated" and urged her immediate release citing her poor health condition.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry dismissed the resolution, saying in a statement that commenting on it would be "unreasonable".

It further claimed the resolution had been passed in great haste just minutes before the end of the session, with "less than half a dozen acting members of the chamber" still present.

"The friends of the Tymoshenko team did everything to bring into the Ukrainian media space yet another falsified pretext for groundless arguments and discrediting of the upcoming parliamentary election. These efforts go against Ukraine's national interests and are bound to fail," the ministry lashed out.

In October 2011, Tymoshenko - President Viktor Yanukovich's main political rival - was found guilty of abuse of office over a 2009 gas deal with Russia. Since then the former prime minister has been serving a seven-year sentence at a jail in the city of Kharkov.

The US government has already proven its intent to see all evil, with the use of Orwellian programs like TrapWire. But it can now hear all evil too, as law enforcement agencies implement a tool able to store, analyze and identify voices in seconds.

'Voice Grid Nation' is a system that uses advanced algorithms to match identities to voices. Brought to the US by Russia's Speech Technology Center, it claims to be capable of allowing police, federal agencies and other law enforcement personnel to build up a huge database containing up to several million voices.

When authorities intercept a call they've deemed 'hinky', the recording is entered into the VoiceGrid program, which (probably) buzzes and whirrs and spits out a match. In five seconds, the program can scan through 10,000 voices, and it only needs 3 seconds for speech analysis. All that, combined with 100 simultaneous searches and the storage capacity of 2 million samples, gives SpeechPro, as the company is known in the US, the right to claim a 90% success rate.

According to Slate.com's Ryan Gallagher, who spoke with SpeechPro president Aleksey Khitrov, the software is already being used in many different countries and for 'noble causes' only - like in Mexico, where Voice Grid helped identify and apprehend kidnappers during a ransom call, thus saving their victim's life.

Both the FBI and the NSA have expressed interest in the program, which is also expected to be used at 911 call centers and police precincts. And sample lists would, of course, contain 'persons of interest' - known criminals, terror suspects or people on a watch list.

Or would it?

A poll conducted by Monmouth University and cited in a Government Accountability Office report published yesterday indicates that only 15 percent of Americans say they are "not at all concerned" that the use of drones by law enforcement will invade their privacy.

At the same time, 67 percent say they are opposed to police using drones to issue speeding tickets.

The GAO report said that law enforcement agencies are "the greatest potential users" of small drones within the United States.

"Domestically, state and local law enforcement entities represent the greatest potential users of small UAS [unmanned aircraft systems] in the near term because they can offer a simple and cost effective solution for airborne law enforcement activities," said the GAO report.

"For example, federal officials and one airborne law enforcement official said that a small UAS costing between $30,000 and $50,000 is more likely to be purchased by state and local law enforcement entities because the cost is nearly equivalent to that of a patrol car and much less than a manned aircraft," said GAO. "According to an industry trade group, local law enforcement can potentially choose from about 146 different types of small UAS being manufactured by about 69 different companies in the U.S."

Iranian President will address UN General Assembly for final time as President of Iran, accompanied by a 100-person entourage.

Eternally controversial Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in New York City and will make his final address as president to the 67th session of the United Nations General Assembly - a visit that comes at a particularly tense time for US-Middle Eastern relations.

The Tehran Times reports that 100 people will accompany the Iranian president to New York City, and that many more were denied visas to join him.

A spy device camouflaged as a rock exploded when it came into contact with Iranian troops near an underground nuclear enrichment plant, The Sunday Times reported this week.

Last month, Revolutionary Guards at the Fordo nuclear facility, near the northern city of Qom, came across the rock and attempted to move it, according to sources who spoke to the newspaper.

The guards, who had been on patrol to check terminals connecting data and telephone links to the site, reportedly witnessed the disguised spy device exploding when they came into contact with it.

Experts who surveyed the scene of the explosion, according to the newspaper, analyzed remnants of the device and found it had been able to intercept data from computers at the nuclear plant, where uranium is enriched.

News of the explosion was reportedly first kept secret by the Iranians. But last week, Fereydoun Abbasi the Iranian vice-president and the head of the nuclear energy agency, revealed that the power lines between Qom and the Fordo facility were blown-up in August.

The finding has sparked speculation over whether the spy device could have been a significant source of intelligence for Western countries, which has now been lost.

Tehran, Iran - Iran accused Germany's Siemens on Saturday of implanting tiny explosives inside equipment the Islamic Republic purchased for its disputed nuclear program, a charge the technology giant denied.

Prominent lawmaker Alaeddin Boroujerdi said Iranian security experts discovered the explosives and removed them before detonation, adding that authorities believe the booby-trapped equipment was sold to derail uranium enrichment efforts.

"The equipment was supposed to explode after being put to work, in order to dismantle all our systems," he said. "But the wisdom of our experts thwarted the enemy conspiracy."

Siemens denied the charge and said its nuclear division has had no business with Iran since the 1979 revolution that led to its current clerical state.

"Siemens rejects the allegations and stresses that we have no business ties to the Iranian nuclear program," spokesman for the Munich-based company Alexander Machowetz said.

On the eve of his first trip to the United States as Egypt's new Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi said the United States needed to fundamentally change its approach to the Arab world, showing greater respect for its values and helping build a Palestinian state, if it hoped to overcome decades of pent-up anger.

A former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and Egypt's first democratically elected president, Mr. Morsi sought in a 90-minute interview with The New York Times to introduce himself to the American public and to revise the terms of relations between his country and the United States after the ouster of Hosni Mubarak, an autocratic but reliable ally.

He said it was up to Washington to repair relations with the Arab world and to revitalize the alliance with Egypt, long a cornerstone of regional stability.

If Washington is asking Egypt to honor its treaty with Israel, he said, Washington should also live up to its own Camp David commitment to Palestinian self-rule. He said the United States must respect the Arab world's history and culture, even when that conflicts with Western values.

I contemplate my recent trip to the Islamic Republic of Iran and ask myself who wants war between America and Iran. I quickly surmise that it is not the American people, nor the Iranian people, but globalists (international bankers and their multinational beneficiaries). They control Israel, the American media and most of our politicians...and by extension our foreign policy.

My journey to this exotic and little understood land began with an invitation to "New Horizon - The First International Independent Filmmakers Festival". It was a conference and festival held in Tehran from September 2nd through September 7th. Filmmakers and intellectuals from around the world attended. It was one of the most stimulating experiences that I have ever had and an effective bridge between diverse cultures and perspectives - with the purpose of promoting truth, justice, liberty, and peace.

This initiative was undertaken, not by America or other world leaders, but by a country unfairly besieged with sanctions and threats of war. My observations were in stark contrast to the perceptions of most Americans. What I experienced was a devout country with a love of God, family, and nation - and an uncompromising respect for the noblest of human endeavors.

As I write this, a giant, beautiful book, Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, lies next to me. Khayyam's wonderful poems have survived the test of time and are a testament to the normally peaceful spirit of the Persian people. This treasure was given to me by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Inside its back cover, he inscribed the following for me (transcribed from Farsi):