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21 killed in series of attacks in central Iraqi capital


Xinhuanet News
Thu, 14 Mar 2013 10:08 UTC
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© APBlack smoke from a car bomb attack is seen in Baghdad on Thursday.
Up to 21 people were killed and some 50 wounded in a series of car bombings and shootings in central the Iraqi capital of Baghdad on Thursday, an Interior Ministry source said.

"Our latest report said that 21 people were killed, including seven policemen, while some 50 wounded, including 15 policemen, by the blasts and gunmen attacks in downtown Baghdad," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The attacks took place around 1:00 a.m. local time (1000 GMT) within five minutes when gunmen blew up three car bombs and another believed to be a suicide bombing near some government buildings in downtown the capital, the source said.

One of the car bombs was close to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and another went off outside the nearby building of the Telecommunication institute in Alawi district, while the third car bomb ripped through the area near the Ministry of Culture, a few hundred meters away from the Ministry of Justice in the district of a-Salhiyah, the source added.
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Eye 1

Senators critical of military's 'convening authority' system to punish sex assault

Karen McVeigh
Guardian
Wed, 13 Mar 2013 09:52 UTC
Kirsten Gillibrand 'extremely disturbed' by leaders' defence of a justice system that grants commander ability to nullify verdicts


US military leaders have defended a key component of the military justice system which has been widely criticised amid growing concern at the way the armed services deal with cases of sexual assault.

Affording military commanders the "convening authority" - the ultimate power to nullify convictions by military juries - is necessary for "good order and discipline", military leaders told a Senate armed services committee hearing on Wednesday. It is the first time in 10 years that Congress has examined the issue of military sexual assault.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, the chair of the hearing, told a panel of judge advocate generals from the army, navy and air force that she was "extremely disturbed" by their answers.

The power of individual commanders to have final say on prosecutions has been thrown into the spotlight by a case at Aviano air base in Italy, in which the commander of the third air force, Lt General Craig Franklin, overturned the conviction for sexual assault of a senior fighter pilot last month. The case has fuelled concerns that the military does not do enough to protect members from sexual assault or act forcefully enough to prosecute offenders.
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Crusader

Flashback The sins of the Argentinian church

Hugh O'Shaughnessy
Guardian
Fri, 04 Jan 2013 03:20 UTC
Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires.
© Natacha Pisarenko/APCardinal Jorge Bergoglio, the archbishop of Buenos Aires.
The Catholic church was complicit in dreadful crimes in Argentina. Now it has a chance to repent

Benedict XVI gave us words of great comfort and encouragement in the message he delivered on Christmas Eve.

"God anticipates us again and again in unexpected ways," the pope said. "He does not cease to search for us, to raise us up as often as we might need. He does not abandon the lost sheep in the wilderness into which it had strayed. God does not allow himself to be confounded by our sin. Again and again he begins afresh with us".

If these words comforted and encouraged me they will surely have done the same for leaders of the church in Argentina, among many others. To the judicious and fair-minded outsider it has been clear for years that the upper reaches of the Argentinian church contained many "lost sheep in the wilderness", men who had communed and supported the unspeakably brutal western-supported military dictatorship that seized power in that country in 1976 and battened on it for years. Not only did the generals slaughter thousands unjustly, often dropping them out of aeroplanes over the River Plate and selling off their orphan children to the highest bidder, they also murdered at least two bishops and many priests. Yet even the execution of other men of the cloth did nothing to shake the support of senior clerics, including representatives of the Holy See, for the criminality of their leader General Jorge Rafael Videla and his minions.

As it happens, in the week before Christmas in the city of Córdoba Videla and some of his military and police cohorts were convicted by their country's courts of the murder of 31 people between April and October 1976, a small fraction of the killings they were responsible for. The convictions brought life sentences for some of the military. These were not to be served, as has often been the case in Argentina and neighbouring Chile, in comfy armed forces retirement homes but in common prisons. Unsurprisingly there was dancing in the city's streets when the judge announced the sentences.
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Airplane

Florida lawmakers fast-track legislation to limit drones

Michael Van Sickler
The Miami Herald
Tue, 12 Mar 2013 00:00 UTC
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Miami-Dade Police is reportedly the only agency in Florida to own drones.
The backlash against the use of unmanned drones has found its way to Florida, where lawmakers are fast-tracking legislation to limit their use by local law enforcement.

"It's fine to kill terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan with drones," said sponsor Sen. Joe Negron, R-Stuart. "But I don't think we should use them to monitor the activities of law-abiding Floridians."


Comment: It is not OK to kill people in other countries just because the U.S. considers them to be 'terrorists'. Alarming numbers of civilians, many of them women and children have been murdered by drones: Desmond Tutu blasts U.S. drones: American or not, all victims are human


Negron's proposal, SB 92, would ban local law enforcement officials from using drones without a warrant or threat of a terrorist attack and prohibit information collected by drones to be used as evidence in courts.

For lawmakers, it's more of a pre-emptive strike. Only three Florida law enforcement agencies have authorization to use drones - to observe, not to shoot - and none of them have used drones in a real-life situation.

Negron's bill is similar to legislation filed in Congress by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who filibustered the confirmation of CIA director John Brennan over drone attacks overseas.
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Pistol

Gabby Giffords' husband reveals he bought an AR-15 assault rifle on a whim

Stephen C. Webster
Raw Story
Wed, 13 Mar 2013 18:12 UTC
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© AFP Photo, Valerie Macon
Former astronaut Mark Kelly, spouse of former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ), sparked an online firestorm recently by publishing a photograph of himself buying an AR-15 at an Arizona gun store, saying he made the buy to show how easy it is to pass a background check.

"I just had a background check a few days ago when I went to my local gun store to buy a 45. As I was leaving, I noticed a used AR-15. Bought that too," he wrote. "Even to buy an assault weapon, the background check only takes a matter of minutes. I don't have possession yet but I'll be turning it over to the Tucson PD when I do. Scary to think of people buying guns like these without a background check at a gun show or the Internet. We really need to close the gun show and private seller loop hole."

Kelly bought the weapons the day before he and wife Gabby Giffords appeared at the Tucson supermarket where she and 18 others were shot in January 2011. The shooter, Jared Loughner, used a semi-automatic pistol with an extended magazine, and wasn't stopped until he was forced to reload. Kelly and Giffords have since become two of the nation's foremost advocates of gun control legislation, including an outright ban on most semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15.
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Snakes in Suits

Rep. Alan Grayson: Paul Ryan wants sick poor people to die

Eric W. Dolan
Raw Story
Wed, 13 Mar 2013 18:06 UTC
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© Flickr user House Committee on Education and the Workforce Dem, Creative Commons licensedAlan Grayson
Rep. Alan Grayson, a notably blunt Democrat from Florida, blasted House Budget Committee chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) on Tuesday night.

While discussing the Republican congressman's latest budget proposal on Current TV, Grayson accused Ryan of wishing a large swath of Americans would die.

"In one case after another, you look at his principles, you look at his vision, and they're a nightmare for America," he said. "He wants Americans to work until they die, he wants poor people who get sick not be able to see a doctor, not to get the care they need, not to get better, he wants them to die, and he wants an America that consists of nothing but cheap labor for his corporate patrons."
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Bad Guys

North Korea threatens 'merciless' act of military retaliation as end of armistice is confirmed


Raw Story
Wed, 13 Mar 2013 18:03 UTC
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© AFP PhotoNorth Korean leader Kim Jong Un
North Korea confirmed Wednesday that it had shredded the 60-year-old armistice ending the Korean War, and warned that the next step was an act of "merciless" military retaliation against its enemies.

A lengthy statement by the North's armed forces ministry added to the tide of dire threats flowing from Pyongyang in recent days that have raised military tensions on the Korean peninsula to their highest level for years.

The statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency argued that the real "warmongering" was coming from the United States and its "puppets" in Seoul.

"They would be well advised to keep in mind that the armistice agreement is no longer valid and (North Korea) is not restrained by the North-South declaration on non-aggression," a ministry spokesman said.

"What is left to be done now is an action of justice and merciless retaliation of the army and people" of North Korea, the spokesman said.
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Question

Report: Man behind Romney '47 percent' video will reveal himself Wednesday

Arturo Garcia
Raw Story
Wed, 13 Mar 2013 17:57 UTC
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The Florida bartender responsible for capturing former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's infamous "47 percent" remarks will reveal his identity in an interview with MSNBC host Ed Schultz that will air Wednesday.

Both Schultz and Mother Jones, which released the video in September 2012, announced the interview on Tuesday, with Schultz playing clips from the interview.

"I debated for a little while, but in the end I really felt it had to be put out," the bartender said of his decision to leak the video, secretly filmed at a May 2012 fundraiser for Romney. "I felt I owed it to the people who couldn't afford to be there themselves to hear what he really thought."
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V

Women protest all-male conclave to elect new pope


myfoxorlando.com
Tue, 12 Mar 2013 17:46 UTC
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Demonstrations took place across the United States and internationally to protest the male-only conclave to elect the next pope.

Members of a church in Sarasota sent up their own smoke signals Tuesday -- not black or white, but pink.

They gathered at the St. Andrews UCC Church in Sarasota. The vigil was one of many held on Tuesday around the globe. Not all were so peaceful though: a melee ensued outside the Vatican Tuesday when two female activists who went topless were dragged away from St. Peter's Square.
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Bulb

U.S. Pacific commander declares climate change top security threat


RT
Wed, 13 Mar 2013 17:14 UTC
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© AFP Photo / Jay DirectoUS Pacific Command Commander Admiral Samuel J Locklear III.
The head of the US Navy's Pacific fleet has declared climate change as the biggest long-term security threat in the region. Anticipating severe typhoons and rising sea levels that will displace nations, he emphasized a weather crisis few had foreseen.

Fallout from the shifting global temperature is "probably the most likely thing that is going to happen... that will cripple the security environment, probably more likely than the other scenarios we all often talk about," said Navy Admiral Samuel J. Locklear III in an interview with the Boston Globe.

Locklear, a four-star admiral who is in charge of monitoring hostilities between North and South Koreas as well as tensions between China and Japan, discussed his concerns at a Cambridge hotel on Friday with national security experts at Tufts and Harvard. Previously, Locklear was in charge of maritime operations in NATO's conflict with Libya in 2011.

Stationed in East Asia, Locklear currently deals with the increasing number of destructive weather crises, which he believes will eventually have a negative political impact on countries in the region.
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