Top Story
- Nets Take a Stand on Prime-time Obama Pre-emptions.
By and large, they personally forked out for his campaign, they voted for him, and they know he is capable of boosting TV ratings just by making an appearance.
But executives at the Big Four broadcast networks are seething behind the scenes that President Obama has cost them about $30 million in cumulative ad revenue this year with his three primetime news conference pre-emptions.
Now top network execs quietly are hoping that Fox's well-publicized rejection of the president's April 29 presser will serve as precedent for denying future White House requests for prime airtime.
Meteor Blade’s Green Diary Rescue celebrates Daily Kos eco diarists 6 days a week!
War News
- Freedom for US contractor Don Ayala who shot dead handcuffed Taleban killer.
A former US military contractor who shot and killed a defenceless and handcuffed member of the Taleban walked free today after a judge decided he had been provoked by the Afghan’s brutality.
The extraordinary case of Don Ayala, a former US Army Ranger who once served as personal bodyguard for President Karzai of Afghanistan and Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister, ended in a Virginia courtroom when he was sentenced to probation for the killing of Abdul Salam in November last year.
US prosecutors, who originally charged Alaya with murder, had argued that he acted as judge, jury and executioner and was a cold-blooded killer after Salam had set fire to one of Alaya’s colleagues. But the judge decided that probation was warranted under the circumstances. Alaya was also fined $12,500.
- Iraqis Seek Death Penalty for Ex-U.S. Soldier.
Iraqi officials and civilians called Friday for the death sentence for a former American soldier who was convicted of a crime that pressed at the worst extremes of the complicated and often fraught relationship of Iraqis and the American military: the rape of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl, and the killings of her and three members of her family.
Steven Dale Green, 24, who was an Army private at the time of the assault, in March 2006, was convicted Thursday on all 17 counts, including four counts of premeditated murder, in United States District Court in Paducah, Ky. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.
- Did Blackwater Contractors Attempt to Hide Evidence of a Massacre in Iraq?.
Private security contractor Xe (formerly Blackwater USA) has fallen on hard times. Iraq has yanked its license, forcing Blackwater out of one of its former operations centers. Last December, five Blackwater employees were indicted on fourteen manslaughter charges and allegations they used automatic weapons in the commission of a crime. A sixth Blackwater agent pleaded guilty to two charges as part of an agreement to testify against his colleagues. Now the company faces more bad news. Bill Sizemore of the Hampton Roads Virginian-Pilot reports that charges are being brought based on obstruction of justice.
- Huge U.S. camp arises in Afghan Desert of Death.
A huge U.S. military camp is taking shape in the baking heat of southern Afghanistan for thousands of extra U.S. troops charged with defeating a resurgent Taliban.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited Camp Leatherneck, with concrete blast walls and semi-cylinder sand-colored tents, on Thursday as he surveyed preparations for what will be the biggest wave yet in a year that is seeing U.S. troop numbers doubled.
The camp is being constructed in Helmand province next to a British base, Camp Bastion, as Marines and other forces dramatically expand their presence in the most violent area of Afghanistan and heartland of the Taliban movement.
Construction workers clambered on the wooden frame of a new headquarters building as Gates spoke at the camp, where the majority of more than 8,000 marines now flowing into southern Afghanistan are expected be based.
- Iraqi Forces: Rebuilt and Stronger, but Still Stumbling.
Iraq’s security forces, despite significant improvements, remain hobbled by shortages of men and equipment, by bureaucracy, corruption, political interference and security breaches that have resulted in the deaths of dozens of Iraqi and American troops already this year, according to officials from both countries.
...In one small but telling example, an American project to train Iraq’s Army to maintain its fleet of armored Humvees has stalled because soldiers simply stopped attending a 90-day course after not being paid, according to a report by the special inspector general for Iraqi reconstruction.
- U.S. Admits Civilians Died in Afghan Raids.
United States officials acknowledged Thursday for the first time that at least some of what might be 100 civilian deaths in western Afghanistan had been caused by American bombs. In Afghanistan, residents angrily protested the deaths and demanded that American forces leave the country.
Initial American military reports that some of the casualties might have been caused by Taliban grenades, not American airstrikes, were "thinly sourced," a Pentagon official in Washington said Thursday, indicating that he was uncertain of their accuracy.
See also, Afghan civilian toll is lower than reported, U.S. officials say: Pentagon officials believe U.S. airstrikes killed 12 civilians after Afghan soldiers requested help in fighting Taliban militants. Afghan officials have said as many as 147 were slain.
- Afghans riot over air-strike atrocity.
Shouting "Death to America" and "Death to the Government", thousands of Afghan villagers hurled stones at police yesterday as they vented their fury at American air strikes that local officials claim killed 147 civilians.
The riot started when people from three villages struck by US bombers in the early hours of Tuesday, brought 15 newly-discovered bodies in a truck to the house of the provincial governor. As the crowd pressed forward in Farah, police opened fire, wounding four protesters. Traders in the rest of Farah city, the capital of the province of the same name where the bombing took place, closed their shops, vowing they would not reopen them until there is an investigation.
See also, Afghan Leader Says Civilian Deaths Hurt Ties With U.S.: "President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan on Friday disputed criticism by the Obama administration that his government was not doing all it could to fight corruption. He said instead that any gulf between the countries had more to do with the civilian toll of American airstrikes in Afghanistan."
- General Odierno: US can’t confirm that Iraqis are holding Al Qaeda-affiliated leader..
The United States military has not yet been allowed to question what Iraqi officials describe as a top Al Qaeda leader in their custody and cannot confirm his identity, says General Ray Odierno, the top US general in Iraq.
"We have not yet had access to him to question him or ask him any questions so I can’t say that our intel can confirm it," General Odierno told reporters at the Pentagon Friday. He said he expected that the Iraqi government would eventually turn the man they have identified as Abu Omar al-Baghdadi over to US authorities to interrogate.
Odierno noted that it was important that American officers be allowed to question the man themselves. He noted that Iraqis want to do a "thorough" investigation first.
- Stability lets Basra, a city of poets, return to its roots.
At Al Rasheed radio, poet Khalid al-Mayahi leans into the microphone and pours out his heart to the city, using words that could have gotten him killed before Iraqi forces took back Basra last year from Shiite extremists.
"I am a monk for your love. I built the biggest church in my soul for you," he recites, waving his arms with passion to echo the verses he's written. The poignant improvisation of violinist Na'el Hamid next to him soars onto the airwaves. The announcer picks up a traditional Arabic oud to accompany them.
In this city, with its crumbling beauty and centuries of culture, the poetry and music that were driven underground when the militias were in charge are beginning to blossom again.
- Iraq blames Al Qaida revival on U.S. release of 4,000 insurgents.
raq has launched another offensive against Al Qaida, raiding suspected AQI strongholds throughout the Diyala province, capturing insurgents and confiscating suicide vests.
...Iraqi military spokesman Maj. Gen. Atta Qassim said the resurgence of Al Qaida was fueled by the U.S. release of nearly 4,000 insurgents in 2009. Qassim said the released insurgents have been returning to both Al Qaida and organized crime.
Environmental News
- Global warming's toll: Glacier in Bolivia is gone.
If anyone needs a reminder of the on-the-ground impacts of global climate change, come to the Andes mountains in Bolivia. At 17,388 feet above sea level, Chacaltaya, an 18,000 year-old glacier that delighted thousands of visitors for decades, is gone, completely melted away as of some sad, undetermined moment early this year.
''Chacaltaya has disappeared. It no longer exists,'' said Dr. Edson Ramirez, head of an international team of scientists that has studied the glacier since 1991.
- Climate change displacement has begun – but hardly anyone has noticed.
Journalists – they're never around when you want one. Two weeks ago a momentous event occurred: the beginning of the world's first evacuation of an entire people as a result of manmade global warming. It has been marked so far by one blog post for the Ecologist and an article in the Solomon Times*. Where is everyone?
The Carteret Islands are off the coast of Bougainville, which, in turn, is off the coast of Papua New Guinea. They are small coral atolls on which 2,600 people live. Though not for much longer.
- Death in the Orchard of Eden: The ancient forests of Central Asia gave the world apples, apricots and walnuts. Now they are under threat.
In Biblical legend, it grew in the Garden of Eden. In reality, it grew wild in Kazakhstan. And now the world's original apple tree, the progenitor of all our modern apple varieties, is threatened with extinction.
It is one of nearly 50 trees, including the original apricot and the original walnut, which have become endangered in a belt of forests in Central Asia – a region home to more than 300 wild fruit and nut species, including, plum, cherry, and many other important food trees from which domesticated varieties are thought to descend.
In the past 50 years an estimated 90 per cent of these forests have been destroyed, and a new survey has pinpointed the threat to the very existence of many of the wild tree species they contain. The Red List of Trees of Central Asia identifies 44 tree species in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan as threatened with extinction.
- Some houses of worship turn to green design -- 10 congregations in U.S. have elite LEED status; 54 more have applied.
Cypress wood reclaimed from barns in upstate New York was used for the new synagogue's exterior, white cinder blocks from the old building were crushed and recycled, and brown cabinet doors made from sunflower husks were hung in the offices.
As Americans are becoming more environmentally conscious, more religious groups are looking to make their worship spaces sustainable. The efforts range from small country congregations using energy-efficient bulbs to megachurches complying with complex green-building codes.
- Obama sticks with Bush-era polar bear.
The Obama administration will retain a Bush-era rule for polar bears, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced Friday, in a move that angered activists who noted the rule limits what can be done to protect the species from global warming.
The administration had faced a weekend deadline to decide whether it should allow government agencies to cite the federal Endangered Species Act, which protects the bear, to impose limits on greenhouse gases from power plants, factories and automobiles even if the emissions occur thousands of miles from where the polar bear lives.
"We must do all we can to help the polar bear recover, recognizing that the greatest threat to the polar bear is the melting of Arctic sea ice caused by climate change," Salazar said in a statement. "However, the Endangered Species Act is not the proper mechanism for controlling our nation’s carbon emissions.
- Energy Department Cuts Funding for Fuel Cell Cars.
After pouring billions of dollars of federal money into fuel cell car research over decades, the US Department of Energy is cutting back on future spending. In the 2010 budget that the administration is submitting to Congress, Energy Secretary Stephen Chu proposed slashing more than $100 million from the Energy Department's hydrogen program. That's a cut of almost 60 percent and one that will almost entirely come from transportation.
Dr. Chu said yesterday that he holds little hope for fuel cell cars in the coming decades. In a press briefing, he said, "We asked ourselves, 'Is it likely in the next 10 or 15, 20 years that we will covert to a hydrogen car economy?' The answer, we felt, was 'no.'"
- Coal ash is damaging water, health in 34 states, groups say.
People in 34 states who live near 210 coal ash lagoons or landfills with inadequate lining have a higher risk of cancer and other diseases from contaminants in their drinking water, two environmental groups reported on Thursday.
Twenty-one states have five or more of the high-risk disposal sites near coal-fired power plants. The groups -- the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice -- said that a 2002 Environmental Protection Agency document that the agency didn't release until March of this year adds information about toxic releases from these facilities to nearby water systems and data on how some contaminants accumulate in fish and deer and can harm the health of people who hunt and fish.
The report said that people who live near the most problematic disposal sites have as much as a 1-in-50 chance of getting cancer from drinking water contaminated by arsenic. The highest risk is for people who live near ash ponds with no liners and who get their water from wells.
- Pesticides blamed for some childhood brain cancers.
Little is known conclusively about what causes brain cancer in children, but research studies are consistently finding links to prebirth pesticide exposure.
A new study finds that children who live in homes where their parents use pesticides are twice as likely to develop brain cancer versus those that live in residences in which no pesticides are used. Herbicide use appeared to cause a particularly elevated risk for a certain type of cancer.
It is well established that many pesticides cause cancer in animals.
- Global wind power capacity up in '08.
Global wind capacity grew by 29 percent in 2008 with the United States surpassing Germany to become the world's leading wind power generator, Worldwatch Institute said. The Washington-based research organization said on Thursday that global wind capacity rose by over 27,000 megawatts (MW), or enough to power around 27 million homes, to some 120,798 MW last year.
Wind now provides 1.5 percent of the world's energy demand, up from 0.1 percent in 1997.
U.S. wind capacity increased by 50 percent to 25,170 MW, or 21 percent of world capacity.
- Warren Buffett Company Debuts Line of Green Prefab Homes.
Warren Buffett isn’t the world’s second richest man for nothing. He has an unsurpassed knack for picking good companies in strong industries at the right price. Most things he’s touched have turned into gold. So it’s exciting to see that a Berkshire Hathaway subsidiary called Clayton Homes has just launched a line of green prefab homes (called the i-house) that start at under $75,000 (or about $105 / square foot) excluding site costs and shipping. Clayton Homes is one of the largest manufactured housing companies in the world, having produced over 1.5 million units since 1934. They’ll clearly get the manufacturing, financing and logistics right, but can they deliver the amenities, materials and compelling designs that prospective green homeowners have come to expect from green prefab?
The first models are quite promising.
- Fears of global decline in bees dismissed as demand for honey grows.
The threat of a world without bees has been described as more serious than climate change. But world honeybee colonies have actually increased by almost half over the past 50 years, according to an analysis of UN figures.
While bees have been dying out in Britain, Europe and the US, managed bee numbers worldwide having been thriving because of global demand for honey, biologists suggest in the journal Current Biology. They also say that the bulk of agriculture, including wheat and rice, does not rely on pollination.
- Mercury in Fish Predicted To Soar.
A landmark study by scientists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) nd universities in the U.S. and Australia has, for the first time, documented how escalating mercury-laden air emissions, chiefly from coal-fired electrical power plants in Asia, are being transformed into methylmercury, a potent neurotoxin that is increasingly polluting the North Pacific Ocean and contaminating tuna, swordfish and other popular seafood.
The study, published May 1 in Global Biogeochemical Cycles (http://www.agu.org/pubs/crossref/2009/2008GB003425.shtml) , a scientific journal of the American Geophysical Union, predicts a 50 percent spike in the Pacific's mercury level by the year 2050 if mercury emissions from power plants increase according to current projections.
Mercury exposure is especially dangerous to the fetus, newborn infants and young children during critical windows when the brain and other organs are rapidly developing.
- Suit Challenges New Uranium Exploration That Threatens the Grand Canyon.
The Center for Biological Diversity, Grand Canyon Trust, and Sierra Club today amended their lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management and the Department of the Interior to challenge newly authorized uranium exploration near Grand Canyon National Park. The new uranium projects are located within a 1-million acre area that was required to be immediately withdrawn from mining by a June 25, 2008 emergency resolution of the U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources. Today's amendment challenges new uranium projects authorized by the Bureau of Land Management on April 23 and April 27, 2009. While the Bureau initially denied that new uranium exploration activities had been authorized, it has since acknowledged that exploration on the lands in question could begin whenever the companies wish.
- The Princes and the Frog: William and Harry appear in YouTube video. (video at link)
The Dalai Lama, Daniel Craig, Harrison Ford and Pele form an unlikely line-up alongside The Prince of Wales in the 90-second clip to boost awareness of the Prince's Rainforest Project.
They all appear with a digitally-created amphibian in the film which will be broadcast on several websites, including MySpace, tonight.
n the clip, William and Harry, sitting side by side, say they are trying to save the environment "for all of us".
- Ocean Carbon: Dent In Iron Fertilization Hypothesis Previously Proposed To Address Climate Change.
Oceanographers Jim Bishop and Todd Wood of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have measured the fate of carbon particles originating in plankton blooms in the Southern Ocean, using data that deep-diving Carbon Explorer floats collected around the clock for well over a year. Their study reveals that most of the carbon from lush plankton blooms never reaches the deep ocean.
The surprising discovery deals a blow to the simplest version of the Iron Hypothesis, whose adherents believe global warming can be slowed or even reversed by fertilizing plankton with iron in regions that are iron-poor but rich in other nutrients like nitrogen, silicon, and phosphorus. The Southern Ocean is one of the most important such regions.
- Global warming flood in Wasilla forces Palin to cancel correspondents dinner appearance..
Because of a climate disaster, global warming skeptic Gov. Sarah Palin (R-AK) has been forced to cancel her attendance at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. The Wall Street Journal reports that an "unusually warm spring thaw in Alaska is causing some of the state’s worst flooding in decades, with rising rivers wiping out an entire village and bombarding another town with ice chunks as big as houses."
See also, Ice Flood in Alaska.
Torture and Prosecution News
- CIA Refuses to Turn Over Torture Tape Documents to ACLU.
The CIA claims the integrity of a special prosecutor’s criminal investigation into the destruction of 92 interrogation videotapes will be compromised if the agency if forced to turn over to the American Civil Liberties Union detailed documents identifying the individuals responsible for destroying the tapes, the reasons for the purg, and the contents of the videotaped interrogations, according to newly released court documents.
In a May 5 letter to U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein, Lev Dassin, the acting U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, said the Justice Department recently had discussions with prosecutors working on the criminal investigation into the destruction of the interrogation tapes and was informed that "the production of documents...would conflict and substantially interfere with the [criminal] investigation" into the destruction of the interrogation tapes.
"As the court is aware, the scope of the tapes investigation includes the review of whether any person obstructed justice, knowingly made materially false statements, or acted in contempt of court or Congress in connection with the destruction of videotapes," Dassin’s letter says. "The Government thus respectfully requests that [a previous court order demanding the CIA turn over detailed descriptions of the contents of the destroyed tapes] be withdrawn or otherwise stayed until the tapes investigation has been completed."
Amrit Singh, an ACLU staff attorney, said the move is "a classic CIA delay tactic."
- The Bush Era Torture-Homicides.
Writing at the Daily Beast, John Sifton takes us on a tour of the deaths that resulted from the Bush Administration’s torture policies. The Bush Justice Department knew about these homicides and did nothing. Here’s one that resulted from a formally approved practice that Capt. Ian Fishback described as "smoking a PUC," a person under control, or prisoner:
"in December 2003, a 44-year-old Iraqi man named Abu Malik Kenami died in a U.S. detention facility in Mosul, Iraq. As reported by Human Rights First, U.S. military personnel who examined Kenami when he first arrived at the facility determined that he had no preexisting medical conditions. Once in custody, as a disciplinary measure for talking, Kenami was forced to perform extreme amounts of exercise—a technique used across Afghanistan and Iraq. Then his hands were bound behind his back with plastic handcuffs, he was hooded, and forced to lie in an overcrowded cell. Kenami was found dead the morning after his arrest, still bound and hooded. No autopsy was conducted; no official cause of death was determined. After the Abu Ghraib scandal, a review of Kenami’s death was launched, and Army reviewers criticized the initial criminal investigation for failing to conduct an autopsy; interview interrogators, medics, or detainees present at the scene of the death; and collect physical evidence. To date, however, the Army has taken no known action in the case."
- Giving Voice to Tortured Detainees.
The New York Times ran a strongly-worded editorial pointing out that as the body of information about Bush-era torture policies continues to grow, a major missing piece in the torture debate is the voices of the detainees themselves.
...In March 2008, we filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit demanding the release of unredacted transcripts of prisoners describing abuse and torture suffered in CIA custody. The FOIA request seeks transcripts from Combatant Status Review Tribunal (CSRT) proceedings that determine if prisoners held by the Defense Department at Guantánamo qualify as "enemy combatants."
A lower court upheld the Bush administration’s refusal to release un-redacted transcripts of CSRTs for 14 prisoners who were formerly held in the CIA’s secret prison system and are currently detained at Guantánamo. But in light of the released torture memos, we are hopeful that the new administration will fulfill its promise of transparency and release the transcripts.
- Revealed: British Military Intelligence Agents' Secret Attempts to Recruit Prisoners at Guantanamo.
MI5 secretly tried to hire British men held in Guantanamo Bay and other US prison camps by promising to protect them from their American captors and help secure their return home to the United Kingdom, The Independent has learnt.
One of the men, Richard Belmar, was told he would be paid "well" for his services if he was willing to work undercover for MI5. A second detainee, Bisher Al Rawi, was told that if he agreed to work for the security service he would be "freed within months".
Three other detainees were threatened with rendition and harsh detention regimes if they did not co-operate with their British and American interrogators.
But MI5 failed to honor the promises made by its agents, a former agent has told The Independent.
- CIA Admits That Info About Torture Briefings For Dems May Not Be Accurate.
As I noted below, newly released documents appear to show that according to the CIA, officials briefed Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats back in 2002 about the use of torture techniques on terror suspects.
But a letter that accompanied these documents, written by the head of the CIA, appears to clearly concede that the information in the docs about who was briefed and when may not be accurate or reliable.
Republicans are pointing to the documents — which were produced by the CIA and the Director of National Intelligence, and sent to select members of Congress — to charge that Pelosi and other Dems have been lying about what they knew about waterboarding and when.
But the docs were accompanied by a letter from CIA chief Leon Panetta that appears to suggest the CIA can’t promise that the info is right. The letter was sent along with the documents to GOP Rep Pete Hoekstra, a leading critic of Dems on torture, and Dem Rep Silvestre Reyes, the chairman of the intelligence committee.
I’ve obtained the letter, and a PDF is right here. This is the key part (click to enlarge):
This information,however, is drawn from the past files of the CIA and represents MFRs completed at the time and notes that summarized the best recollections of those individuals. In the end, you and the Committee will have to determine whether this information is an accurate summary of what actually happened... .
- Hoekstra’s Office: He’s Seen Documents That Prove Pelosi Was Briefed On Waterboarding.
GOP Rep. Pete Hoekstra is upping the stakes of the torture fight in response to Nancy Pelosi’s claims that she wasn’t briefed on the use of waterboarding.
His office tells me that he’s seen documents that will prove this isn’t true.
Hoekstra spokesperson Jamal Ware says that Hoekstra is now seeking the release of the memos and notes that comprised the basis of the documents that came out today that claimed Dems had been briefed on enhanced interrogation techniques.
- Hoekstra considers hearings on Pelosi, interrogations.
He is also considering calling for congressional hearings on what members knew and when they knew it.
"I wouldn't have a problem with the intelligence committee or the Judiciary Committee having hearings on this," he said. "If [House Judiciary Chairman] John Conyers [D-Mich.] wants to have hearings, they shouldn't call in the Department of Justice attorneys as their first witnesses. The first people that should be called in and held accountable ought to be Congress."
Hoekstra also indicated he is considering sending Conyers a letter requesting such hearings.
"He now has a list of who should be the first witnesses," Hoekstra said.
- Psychologists' e-mails stir interrogation issue.
Newly public e-mails between psychologists involved in the Bush administration's controversial detention program have fueled a fierce debate over whether mental-health professionals should give advice on warfare, and whether the nation's largest psychology association tacitly blessed the government's use of abusive interrogations involving waterboarding and sleep deprivation.
The e-mails were part of internal deliberations of a 2005 American Psychological Association task force on ethics and national security that featured several military psychologists who served as advisers or trainers to interrogators in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. At issue in the e-mail deliberations was how to balance their profession's strict ethical code of "do no harm" with the military's attempt to coerce information on terrorist plots from suspects.
None of the e-mails, posted this week on the investigative journalism website ProPublica, advocate the use of torture. In fact, several describe how psychologists stepped in to prevent abuse of detainees in places like Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.
But the e-mails - written by military psychologists who were consultants to interrogators questioning detainees at secret, so-called black sites overseas - have angered medical ethicists and human rights advocates. They say the APA should have barred psychologists from playing any role in the interrogations, and should not have invited psychologists working for the Pentagon to help shape the organization's ethics code.
See also, A Secret E-Mail Argument Among Psychologists About Torture.
- Docs Show Rockefeller Was Briefed On "How The Water Board Was Used".
In February, 2003, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, then the ranking Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, was briefed -- along with Intel chair Pat Roberts and a staff member for each senator -- on "enhanced interrogation techniques" (EIT's, in the bloodless bureaucratic abbreviation.) (See Late Update below.)
The document's description of the briefing reads in part:
EITs "described in considerable detail" including "how the water board was used." The process by which the techniques were approved by DoJ was also raised.
Over the next few years, according to the documents, the full House and Senate intelligence committees would also receive briefings that explicitly mentioned waterboarding. But that February 2003 briefing is the earliest one listed in the document that mentions the technique.
- Binyam Mohamed’s lawyers welcome torture details disclosure.
Lawyers for former terror detainee Binyam Mohamed today welcomed a decision by two High Court judges to reopen their judgment on his case with a view to disclosing details of his alleged torture at the hands of US and Pakistani intelligence services with the collusion of British agents.
The judges have yet to give reasons for their decision and it is still open to Foreign Secretary David Miliband to argue that the information should not be made public.
- Royal Sheikh Detained by UAE Over Torture Tape Allegations.
A member of the royal family in the United Arab Emirates, Sheikh Issa bin Zayed al Nahyan, has been "detained" in Abu Dhabi by authorities investigating a chilling videotape that shows him torturing an Afghan grain dealer, according to officials in Washington.
UAE officials told American diplomats the Sheikh was put under "house arrest" this week and prevented from leaving the country as the UAE Ministry of Justice conducts a criminal investigation of the incidents on the videotape, the officials said.
The 45-minute torture tape, first broadcast on ABC News Nightline two weeks ago, shows the Sheikh, the brother of the UAE crown prince, beating his victim with an electric cattle prod and a wooden plank with protruding nails. Men in police uniform are seen on the tape restraining the victim, who has sand shoved down his throat and is later repeatedly run over by a Mercedes Benz SUV driven by the Sheikh.
- Cheney says prosecuting Bush officials for torture with adverse consequences of people reluctant to take "responsibility for anything".
Cheney also aired disturbed feelings about the calls for the prosecutions of Bush administration officials over torture.
"I’ve never heard of such a thing," he said. "And talk about putting a wet blanket on anybody in government’s willingness to be bold in their recommendations and so forth. Just forget that."
He warned that such action would have future consequences.
"Anybody who sees that kind of thing happen is going to pull their head in, and they’ll be reluctant to take responsibility for anything," he said, adding, "I hear this talk that there is going to be some kind of foreign prosecution of our guys, I just think that’s abhorrent, and I think they ought to do everything they can to fight that."
Political News
- Citigroup Spends Bailout Money Lobbying Student Lenders To Sabotage Obama Plan.
If Citigroup -- recipient of $45 billion in bailout funds and constant visits with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, and longtime employer of former Treasury Secretary Bob Rubin -- is supposed to be the government's friend, it's quite the underminer. Today the bank emailed borrowers who took out student loans with Citigroup encouraging them to write to Congress opposing the administration's student loan proposal.
- Are AIG FP Employees Using Bailout Cash To Get Jobs Elsewhere? Looks Like It, Says AIG Source.
Our source says it "is becoming assumed throughout the industry that AIG FP finding new ways to roll over" -- which is to say, using bailout money to offer counterparties on its trades generous terms in closing out its contracts with the massive issuer of credit default swaps and other exotic derivatives options. While he did not want to name names or go into detail about any specific transactions, he said we should watch for signs of AIG FP employees being rewarded for their generosity with jobs working for their old counterparties under eyebrow-raising terms -- "like if you have a noncompete," the source explained, "and you go to a competing firm doing something far below you for an extreme salary."
An exodus of employees at AIG Financial Products has already threatened to cost taxpayers hundreds of billions more dollars. And to think some executives might be hastening their departure from the zombie insurer by squandering billions of taxpayer dollars is...while perhaps unsurprising, still a little nuts.
"The staggering thing," our source says, "is the size of these deals."
- Family Research Council: We Could Support Gay SCOTUS, But Not One With "Pro-Gay Ideology".
Yesterday I reported that the religious right group Focus on the Family said that they wouldn’t oppose an openly-gay nominee to the Supreme Court on the basis of their sexual orientation.
Now a second top religious right organization, Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council, is declaring something similar — it’s a shift in emphasis from its harder-line stance against gay judges two years ago, and another sign of the changing times.
To be sure, the group is hedging a bit. Its position : Being gay would not in and of itself rule out getting the group’s support, though having a "pro-gay ideology" would.
"We don’t think that the process of selecting a Supreme Court justice should include asking questions about a person’s personal sex life," Peter Sprigg, senior fellow at the Family Research Council, told me moments ago.
"But if a person does publicly identify as gay or lesbian, or particularly if a person has been involved with homosexual rights activism at any level, then there would have to be serious questions asked about whether he or she would impose a pro-gay ideology on the court."
- Lawmakers Balk at Holding Guantanamo Detainees in U.S..
Worried that some former Guantanamo Bay detainees may end up on U.S. soil, congressional Republicans and Democrats are sharply questioning President Obama's plans for closing the military prison in Cuba.
The Democratic-led House Appropriations Committee yesterday passed a bill to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan while stripping the more than $50 million that administration officials had requested for closing the prison and starting the relocation of its 240 prisoners.
Lawmakers criticized the administration for not yet offering a detailed plan on prisoner relocation.
Republicans, who have said the issue is an example of Obama's weakness on national security, accused the president of endangering Americans. They proposed legislation dubbed the "Keep Terrorists Out of America Act," which would bar moving Guantanamo prisoners to a U.S. facility unless the receiving state's governor and legislature approved.
- Kyl Warns Obama Administration Not to Fire Bank CEOs.
A leading Senate Republican warned the Obama administration against removing chief executive officers at banks that received U.S. assistance, saying "the great fear" would be government management of companies.
"If you think that Washington can run car companies and banks and so on, well, then you’ve not been paying attention to how we’ve been doing back here," Senator Jon Kyl said of the Treasury’s threat of management changes at banks getting "exceptional" aid. Last month, the administration forced out General Motors Corp. CEO Rick Wagoner as a condition for more U.S. aid.
- Obama to hold town hall meeting on credit cards.
U.S. President Barack Obama will hold a town hall meeting next week in New Mexico to promote congressional efforts to reform credit card practices, the White House said on Friday.
Banks such as Bank of America Corp (BAC.N)>, JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N), Citigroup Inc (C.N) and Capital One Financial Corp (COF.N) face a new set of rules issued by the Federal Reserve last year aimed at reining in abusive credit card practices.
The rules are to be implemented by July 2010, a date some lawmakers and consumer groups complain is too far away to help struggling consumers.
World News
- Obama to address Muslims in Egypt.
US President Barack Obama will give a long-awaited speech on US relations with the Muslim world on a visit to Egypt, the White House has announced.
He will travel to Egypt on 4 June and a day later arrive in Germany for a visit to Dresden and the site of the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald.
- Obama Aide Puts Israel’s Nukes in the Diplomatic Mix.
Last month in Prague, President Barack Obama vowed that he would seek a world without nuclear weapons. On Tuesday, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Rose Gottemoeller spelled out that this policy would apply to Israel, as well.
Speaking at a conference on the 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Gottemoeller said that "Universal adherence to the NPT itself, including by India, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea ... remains a fundamental objective of the United States."
Israel is judged to have between 100 and 200 advanced nuclear weapons either ready to deploy, or only a few minutes away from being so.
Gottemoeller’s words sparked speculation that this arsenal might re-emerge as an issue in Israel’s relations with Washington. That would end a 40-year period in which Washington colluded with Israel in maintaining the fiction that Israel’s nuclear weapons capabilities were unknown, and anyway should never be openly discussed.
- Barack Obama to walk in footsteps of uncle who helped free Buchenwald.
President Obama is preparing to follow in the footsteps of his great-uncle, Charlie, with a visit to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany when he returns to Europe this summer.
The site is laden with historic and personal significance for the President. More than 50,000 people died at the camp before its liberation in April, 1945 by American soldiers, including Charlie Payne, the uncle of Mr Obama’s mother.
- Somali Pirates Fire At US Navy Supply Ship - US Navy.
Pirates fired small arms weapons at a U.S. naval supply ship during a high-speed chase off the coast of Somalia, the U.S. Navy said Thursday.
USNS Lewis and Clark was chased for more than an hour Wednesday morning by two pirate skiffs off Somalia's eastern coast, the Bahrain-based Naval Forces Central Command said in a statement.
It said the pirates got within one nautical mile of the Lewis and Clark before its crew conducted "evasive maneuvers and increased speed to elude the pirates."
The security team on board had used a "long range acoustical device" to warn the approaching skiffs.
- More than one million flee Pakistan fighting, says UN.
A spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees says the fighting between Pakistani security forces and the Taliban has led to massive displacement in the area.
At least half a million people have fled fighting in Swat Valley, where a peace deal broke down earlier this week, bringing the total displaced in recent months to 1 million.
...Pakistani aircraft continued to bomb Taliban positions in the militants' bastion in Swat valley bastion today, a day after the prime minister ordered the military to "eliminate terrorists".
National News
- Santa Barbara wildfire expands, more losses.
A wildfire raging along coastal mountain slopes burned more homes Friday as it expanded in two directions along a five-mile front, and mandatory evacuation orders grew to encompass some 30,500 people, authorities said. Thousands more were urged to be ready to move on a moment's notice.
Towering columns of brown smoke roiled off the face of the face of the Santa Ynez Mountains after a fierce overnight battle as the 4-day-old, 3,500-acre blaze repeated its pattern of relative calm in daylight and explosive behavior when winds arrive in the evenings.
"Literally last night, all hell broke loose," Santa Barbara city Fire Chief Andrew DiMizio said.
- Poor U.S. roads hit drivers in wallet.
The nation’s rough roads are leading to higher driving costs for American motorists -- $400, on average, and $750 for drivers in urban areas, according to a new report released this morning.
A third of major U.S. interstates and major highways are in poor or mediocre condition, but it’s a particular problem in urban areas with populations of 250,000 or more, said the report by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and the road advocacy group TRIP. It was released this morning at a news conference in Bloomfield Township.
- US stress tests find $75bn gap in bank reserves.
After more than two months of testing, the US Federal Reserve and the Treasury said that ten of the 19 US banks tested needed to raise a combined $74.6 billion to boost their reserves against a deteriorating economy. If the recession becomes more severe, the 19 banks could run up losses of $600 billion over the next two years, the tests found.
But Timothy Geithner, the Treasury Secretary, said that making public the results would "provide the transparency necessary for individuals and markets to judge the strength of the banking system".
- Ten US banks fail 'stress tests'.
The 19 banks that were tested by Treasury Department and Federal Reserve officials account for two-thirds of the total assets of the US banking system, and more than half of the total amount of credit in the US economy.
The banks that require extra capital have been given until 8 June to finalise their plans to do so, and get them approved by regulators.
Mr Geithner said earlier on Thursday that no US bank being screened by regulators was at risk of insolvency, comments echoed by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.
The treasury secretary said he believed that while the majority of the banks would be able to raise any additional money they need from private sources, if they were unable to do so the government may have to provide them with more taxpayer money.
- Obama vows to retrain unemployed.
US President Barack Obama Friday announced a new scheme to use unemployment insurance as a springboard to get laid-off workers back to work, by offering expanded access to retraining education.
"Our unemployment insurance system should no longer be a safety net, but a stepping stone to a new future," Obama said in excerpts of a speech he was due to give later on Friday after the release of monthly jobless figures.
"It should offer folks educational opportunities they wouldn't otherwise have, and give them the measurable and differentiated skills they need to not just get through these hard times, but to get ahead when the economy comes back," Obama said.
The plan, coordinated with the Department of Labor and the Department of Education, will help unemployed workers get better access to Pell Grant scholarships worth up to 5,350 dollars and attend local community colleges, a US official said.
- Job losses slow, but is it from government hiring?.
Friday's better-than-expected employment report from the Labor Department gave another sign that the U.S. economy may be bottoming out, but the jump in the unemployment rate is a reminder for millions of Americans that the outlook for jobs will remain bleak for some time.
...April's net job loss total actually was somewhat misleading: Private-sector employment actually fell by 611,000 jobs, but government hiring, which added 66,000 jobs, mostly for the upcoming census, offset some of them.
Civil Rights, Discrimination & Hate News
- Ohio Christian school tells student to skip prom.
A student at a fundamentalist Baptist school that forbids dancing, rock music, hand-holding and kissing will be suspended if he takes his girlfriend to her public high school prom, his principal said.
Despite the warning, 17-year-old Tyler Frost, who has never been to a dance before, said he plans to attend Findlay High School's prom Saturday.
Frost, a senior at Heritage Christian School in northwest Ohio, agreed to the school's rules when he signed a statement of cooperation at the beginning of the year, principal Tim England said.
The teen, who is scheduled to receive his diploma May 24, would be suspended from classes and receive an "incomplete" on remaining assignments, England said. Frost also would not be permitted to attend graduation but would get a diploma once he completes final exams. If Frost is involved with alcohol or sex at the prom, he will be expelled, England said.
Human Rights News
- Child Miners: Legacy of Conflict.
Since the end of the civil war seven years ago, the Sierra Leonean authorities and child welfare agencies have been battling to remove children from the diamond-mining fields, a trend which began at the height of the conflict, when children were abducted by rebel forces and coerced to work in the mines.
"It is now a major post-conflict problem and a threat to social stability," remarks Patrick Tongu of the Network Movement for Justice and Development (NMJD), which monitors mining activities in the country.
