Guantánamo Bay detainees to be paid compensation by UK government
By Patrick Wintour
The government will announce today that it will pay millions of pounds in compensation to former Guantánamo Bay detainees following weeks of negotiations between lawyers for the government and the former prisoners.
Ministers appear to have decided on the advice of the security services that they could not afford to risk the exposure of thousands of documents in open court on how the US, with the co-operation of the UK, undertook illegal acts such as extraordinary rendition to interrogate terrorist suspects, including some alleged to have links with the Afghan Taliban.
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Today's payments pave the way for an independent inquiry into British involvement in torture and the degree to which MI6 knowingly took information extracted by torture by the Americans. |
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Mexico's $80M boom industry: Bulletproof cars
By David Agren
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A growing number of Mexicans — including many from the middle class — see bulletproofing their vehicles as a necessity and not a luxury.
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Extortion is now commonplace in some regions of Mexico. Kidnapping has soared by more than 300% over the past five years and since December 2006, more than 28,000 Mexicans have died in killings blamed on drug-cartel violence.
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Although exact figures for the industry are unavailable to the public, the Mexican Association of Automobile Armorers, an industry group, reports an annual growth rate of 10% in recent years and values the market at $80 million per year. Automakers such as Mercedes-Benz, Volvo and Volkswagen sell bulletproof models in Mexico dealerships. A bulletproof Volkswagen Bora, a model similar to a Jetta, sells for $70,000. |
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Russia, U.S. to pursue anti-drug effort in Afghanistan
By (RIA Novosti)
Russia and the United States will continue their joint operations to destroy drug laboratories in Afghanistan, the head of Russia's drug-control agency said on Monday.
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In early November, Russian and U.S. drug control services carried out their first joint anti-narcotics operation in Afghanistan, destroying four major drug laboratories.
Afghan drug production has skyrocketed since the U.S.-led invasion toppled the Taliban in 2001. Russia has been one of the most affected countries, with drug consumption rising steeply. |
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Few Blessings In Indonesia's Slow-Motion Disaster
By Anthony Kuhn
After two weeks of volcanic eruptions, life for people living near Indonesia's Mount Merapi remains dangerous and difficult. The death toll from the eruptions has surpassed 200, and more than a quarter of a million people have evacuated their homes. While vulcanologists believe the eruption is dying down, they can't guarantee it won't flare up again.
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The wind blows the ash from Mount Merapi westward, where it rains down from the sky. It crushes the vegetation, including the tropical fruit trees — mangosteens, rambutans and snake fruit — that farmers here grow.
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"Our modeling was good, and the preparations for evacuation were good," he says, pointing to detailed maps. "The problem was with communication — in other words, disseminating the information to the people."
Subandriyo believes a man named Marijan, the spiritual guardian of the mountain, is partly to blame. Subandriyo notified Marijan that an eruption was coming, but Marijan's contacts in the spirit world told him otherwise. Marijan was found burned to death in his home. Now the sultan of Yogyakarta must select a new guardian for Merapi. |
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Drug War Forces Residents To Flee Mexican Town
By John Burnett
Warring Mexican drug cartels have claimed a new victim along the U.S. Southern border: the town of Ciudad Mier. Constant gunfights and spiraling violence between rival drug gangsters have forced the evacuation of the Mexican town.
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Some 300 families have sought sanctuary from intolerable conditions in Ciudad Mier, where hoodlums from the Gulf Cartel and the Zetas mafia are battling for supremacy. Their brutal turf war has engulfed all of northeast Mexico, which borders Texas.
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According to Mier refugees, only a few dozen residents — besides the narcos — remain in their town of 6,500. There is no city government and no police; almost all clinics, schools, cafes and stores have closed; water and electricity are spotty. |
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Israelis debate swapping settlements freeze for U.S. jets
By Sheera Frenkel
Israeli defense officials urged the government Monday to accept a new U.S.-drafted deal to freeze Jewish settlement building temporarily in exchange for a $3 billion military package, including a U.S. gift of 20 F-35 stealth fighter jets.
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Israel already receives $3 billion in annual aid from the United States, much of which is spent on military equipment. Israel already had ordered 20 of the jets, which are capable of traveling long distances undetected by radar. Israeli news media suggested that the jets could be used on a stealth mission, such as an attack on Iran's alleged nuclear weapons.
The deal also requires the United States to support Israel's position at the United Nations, and, according to Israeli news reports, to block recognition of any unilateral Palestinian move to declare independence. |
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'Rebranding' US detention of prisoners in Afghanistan
By Paul Wood
The US military has an effective weapon in the intelligence war with the Taliban - the chocolate nut muffin.
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Often, what it took to get a hardened insurgent talking was the offer of a chocolate nut muffin, he said. That, or apple cinnamon.
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But the bad image from previous abuses persists, and US military prisons remain places of fear for many Afghans.
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So Parwan was built to replace the notorious Bagram.
It is - in marketing terms - an exercise in "rebranding". We got an escorted tour where officers proudly showed off the new cells, dental clinic and kitchens. |
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South Sudan leader Salva Kiir urges massive vote
By (BBC)
The leader of Southern Sudan, Salva Kiir, has urged people to sign up "en masse" for the referendum on the region's independence due in January.
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The referendum is part of a 2005 deal to end decades of conflict between north and south Sudan.
On Sunday, both sides agreed on ways to ease tensions ahead of the vote. |
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Meeting decline face-to-face
By Juan Cole
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Beyond being a goodwill ambassador for 10 days, Obama is seeking sales of American-made durable and consumer goods, weapons deals, an expansion of trade, green-energy cooperation, and the maintenance of a geopolitical balance in the region favorable to the United States. Just as the decline of the American economy hobbled him at home, however, the weakness of the United States on the world stage in the aftermath of president George W Bush-era excesses has made real breakthroughs abroad unlikely.
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The odd American urge to invest heavily in perpetual war abroad, including "defense-related" spending of around one trillion dollars a year, has been a significant factor further weakening the country on the global stage. Most of the conventional weapons on which the US continues to splurge could not even be deployed against nuclear powers like Russia, China and India, emerging as key competitors when it comes to global markets, resources, and regional force projection.
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American weapons stockpiles (and copious plans for ever more high-tech versions of the same into the distant future) are therefore remarkably irrelevant to its situation, and known to be so. Meanwhile, its economy, burdened by debts incurred through wars and military spending sprees, and hollowed out by Wall Street shell games, is becoming a B-minus one in global terms.
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This kind of regional near impotence is only reinforced by America's perpetual (yet ever faltering) war machine. Nor, as Obama moves through Asia, can he completely sidestep controversies provoked by the Afghan war, his multiple-personality approach to Pakistan, and his administration's obsessive attempt to isolate and punish Iran. In Seoul at the Group of 20 meeting, for instance, Iran was likely on Obama's agenda. This fall, South Korea, a close American ally, managed to play a game of one step forward, two steps back with regard to Washington-supported sanctions against that energy-rich country. |
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