President Barack Obama yielded to political opposition Monday, agreeing to try the self-professed mastermind of the September 11 attacks in a military tribunal at Guantanamo and not in a civilian court as he had promised.


Attorney General Eric Holder blamed lawmakers for the policy reversal, saying their December decision to block funding for prosecuting the 9/11 suspects in a New York court "tied our hands" and forced the administration to resume military trials.

His announcement was an embarrassing reversal of the administration's decision in November 2009 to try September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-conspirators in a court near the site of the World Trade Center attack that killed nearly 3,000 people.

That decision had been welcomed by civil rights groups but strongly opposed by many lawmakers -- especially Republicans -- and New Yorkers, who cheered Holder's announcement that the Obama administration had reversed course.

In moving the case back to the military system, the Justice Department unsealed a nine-count criminal indictment that detailed how Mohammed trained the 9/11 hijackers to use short-bladed knives by killing sheep and camels.

Another of the five -- Walid bin Attash -- tested air security by carrying a pocket knife and wandering close to the doors of aircraft cockpits to check for reactions, said the indictment, which prosecutors asked the court to drop so the case can be handled by a military commission.

In interview with Arab newspaper, former IAEA chief says if elected as Egypt's next president he will open Rafah crossing in case of an Israeli attack

Former International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohamed ElBaradei, who had previously announced his intetions to run for the presidency of Egypt, said Monday that "if Israel attacked Gaza we would declare war against the Zionist regime."

In an interview with the Al-Watan newspaper he said: "In case of any future Israeli attack on Gaza - as the next president of Egypt - I will open the Rafah border crossing and will consider different ways to implement the joint Arab defense agreement."

He also stated that "Israel controls Palestinian soil" adding that that "there has been no tangible breakthrough in reconciliation process because of the imbalance of power in the region - a situation that creates a kind of one way peace."

Discussing his agenda for Egypt, ElBaradei said that distribution of income between the different classes in Egypt would be his most important priority if he were to win the upcoming elections.

The presidential campaign of musician Michel "Sweet Micky" Martelly at first seemed like an afterthought, overshadowed by the short-lived run of the better-known star Wyclef Jean and dismissed as little more than a sideshow to an election that featured major Haitian political figures.

But Martelly, who has never held political office, turned out to be a serious, skilled and successful candidate. He captured nearly 68 per cent of the vote, defeating opposition leader and former first lady Mirlande Manigat, according to preliminary election results released Monday night.

When initial results of the flawed first round in November put him out of the race, Martelly mobilized supporters to protest as if he were a veteran of Haiti's rough politics, and a new count got him a spot in the March 20 runoff. He ran a disciplined campaign, deftly depicting himself as an outsider and neophyte even though he has long been active in politics.

Thousands of supporters danced and cheered in the streets after his victory was announced. They ran through the streets, climbed atop cars, and even fired automatic rifles in the sky. Carrying posters of his smiling face and bald crown, supporters showed up outside his gated compound in Petionville, a city in the hills above Port-au-Prince.

"Micky is a political animal, and the political establishment failed to realize how much of a phenomenon he is," said Garry Pierre-Pierre, editor and publisher of The Haitian Times, a New York-based newspaper. "This is a man who literally can get a million people to move to his groove."

Although Martelly supporters crowded outside his house, the pop-star-turned-candidate made no public statements except on Twitter, where he thanked his supporters and added: "We're going to work for all Haitians. Together we can."

When the economy imploded in 2008, how did the government respond?

Did it crack down on fraud? Force bankrupt companies to admit that their speculative gambling with our money had failed? Rein in the funny business?

Of course not!

The government just helped cover up how bad things were, used claims of national security to keep everything in the dark, and changed basic rules and definitions to allow the game to continue. See this, this, this and this.

When BP - through criminal negligence - blew out the Deepwater Horizon oil well, the government helped cover it up (the cover up is ongoing).

The government also changed the testing standards for seafood to pretend that higher levels of toxic PAHs in our food was business-as-usual.

So now that Japan is suffering the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl - if not of all time - is the government riding to the rescue to help fix the problem, or at least to provide accurate information to its citizens so they can make informed decisions?

Of course not!

Washington- The US Supreme Court on Monday rejected three appeals by Guantanamo detainees protesting their indefinite detention.

The US high court took no action on any of the three appeals, including one filed by ethnic Uighur Chinese Muslims who were arrested in error in Afghanistan in 2001, and are still being held at the US military base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
The three appeals asserted, among other complaints, that the inmates' rights to challenge their detention had been violated and maintained that the indefinite detentions violated international rights law.

As Americans focus on March Madness and Dancing With the Stars instead of the radioactive plume spreading all across the country, the US EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) is attempting to make the mainstream media cover up of the Fukushima cloud a bit easier.

The agency now notorious for its infamous claim that the air was safe to breathe after 9/11 is now seeking to raise the PAGs (Protective Action Guides) to levels vastly higher than those at which they are currently set allowing for more radioactive contamination of the environment and the general public in the event of a radioactive disaster.

PAGs are policies established by the EPA that guide the agency in enforcing the various environmental laws such as the Clean Air and Water Act in the invent of a radioactive emergency such as a nuclear/dirty bomb or factory meltdown like that occurring in Japan.

The son of a Vietnamese revolutionary leader was jailed for seven years on Monday for spreading anti-state propaganda, in one of the communist nation's most politically charged cases in years.

After a trial lasting about half a day, Cu Huy Ha Vu was convicted of advocating an end to one-party communist rule. The 53-year-old was charged after twice trying to sue the prime minister.

"Cu Huy Ha Vu's behaviour is serious and harmful to society. His writings and interviews blackened directly or indirectly the Communist Party of Vietnam," said Nguyen Huu Chinh, the head judge.

The veteran activist could have faced up to 12 years in prison on the charge, which rights campaigners say criminalises peaceful dissent.

His case led to "an unprecedented movement of popular support", much of it on the Internet, from diverse groups including Catholics, academics, and even high-level communists, said Phil Robertson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch (HRW).

High occurrence of cancer has been detected in Israel's elite naval commando unit, apparently due to the waste disposal by Israeli firms in Kishon River.

The river, which flows into the Mediterranean Sea in the northern city of Haifa, has been used for training the unit, known as Shayetet 13.

Carmel Olefins Ltd., Israel's sole manufacturer of petrochemical products used in the plastics industry, as well as other firms have been accused of directing their waste into the river, which is notorious for being the most polluted stream in Israel.

The manufacturer was in possession of thousands of documents on the servicemen's affliction with cancer following a long swim in Kishon.

The firm trusted an expert in New York with the papers so that they would be used in its defense. They, however, disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

Irish finance minister Michael Noonan said country had been left with an 'appalling legacy' as a result of the banking crisis


Europe's debt crisis deepened on Thursday night as Ireland was forced into another €24bn (£21bn) rescue of its banking system and jittery financial markets pushed Portugal closer to a bailout.

In a furious attack on the previous government, the Irish finance minister Michael Noonan said the country had been left with "an appalling legacy: a legacy of debt, of unemployment, of emigration, of falling living standards and of low morale" as a result of the banking crisis.

After stress tests to assess the vulnerability of the banks to a drastic worsening of the economy, Noonan announced that the government would take a majority stake in all the major lenders. These are to be radically reduced in size and focused on just two players.

'It would be fair to say this all happened rather quickly' says key Whitehall source of Gaddafi ally's defection


For a man so cultured in the dark arts of international diplomacy, perhaps it should not have been a surprise that Moussa Koussa engineered his escape in the way that he did.

Koussa, who spent Thursday being debriefed by MI6, appears to have taken the Libyan regime completely by surprise - and perhaps the British too.

The flight that took him from Tunisia to Farnborough on a rainy Wednesday afternoon was the last leg of a choreographed getaway that he may have planned for weeks, but dared not confide to anyone. Certainly he told nobody in Tripoli, the city in which he was born, and which he left on Monday in a cavalcade of armoured limousines, having convinced the regime that he needed medical treatment across the border.