As first reported by the Associated Press, six of the remaining 13 Uighurs in Guantánamo have just arrived on the Pacific island of Palau, where they have been given new homes. The AP’s source said that, overnight, police were guarding the house where the men will live, in the heart of the capital, Koror.
In September, in an interview with Fox News, President Mikheil Saakashvili explained that Georgia was “absolutely” willing to host prisoners from Guantánamo. “You know, whatever we can do to help America in its war on terror, we will do,” he said.
If you listen to the happy-talk folks at Treasury and the Fed, and on the tube, you’d think things had finally turned a corner. The economy grew at a 3.5 percent annualized rate in the third quarter ended Sept. 30. “The Economy is Back in Gear,” shouted the headline on an article by CNN senior writer Chris Isadore. “The recession ended unofficially in September,” said a reporter on NPR.
The United Nations cannot account for tens of millions of dollars provided to the troubled Afghan election commission, according to two confidential U.N. audits and interviews with current and former senior diplomats.
President Obama has cut a swathe through the Bush-era National Security Program, forcing the CIA to close its secret overseas prisons and ban harsh interrogation methods. Russia Today’s Anastasia Churkina spoke to Human Rights lawyer John Sifton, who reveals the truth behind CIA secret prisons – the controversy, the lies, the torture, and the blacked-out [...]
Next time you see a junkie sprawled at the curb in the downtown of your nearest city, or read about someone who died of a heroin overdose, just imagine a big yellow sign posted next to him or her saying: “Your Federal Tax Dollars at Work.”
This report was originally published at The Political Carnival, where GottaLaff blogs regularly. Via former jailbird Judith Miller, that paragon of fine reporting, we get “news” that is simultaneously clearly laughable and utterly despicable: In an interview with PJTV’s Bill Whittle on Friday, former New York Times reporter and now Fox News pundit Judith Miller [...]
Robert J. Cabelly, 61, of Washington, D.C., has been indicted in the District of Columbia in an eight-count indictment charging him with conspiracy to violate the Sudanese sanctions regulations and to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign power, four counts of violating the Sudanese sanctions regulations, as well as one count apiece of money laundering, passport fraud and making false statements.
The 15th anniversary of the U.S. ratification of the United Nations Convention Against Torture passed last week with little fanfare and virtually no press attention from the mainstream media here. But according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), “U.S. policy continues to fall short of ensuring full compliance with the treaty.” For example, the organization said that an appendix to the Army Field Manual (AFM) can still facilitate cruel treatment of prisoners and detainees at home and abroad.
After railing against Senators and Representatives for their cowardly, uninformed and unacceptable attempts to prevent President Obama from bringing any Guantánamo prisoner to the US mainland for any reason — even for trials — I’m delighted to report that, last Tuesday, the Senate finally saw sense, voting, by 79 votes to 19, as part of a $42.8 billion bill for Homeland Security, to accept that the administration can bring prisoners to the US mainland to face trials.
