Obama UN speech text link here
45 Lies in Obama's UN Speech link here
2013 Brazil DILMA ROUSSEFF UN speech link here
2011---great speech wrong year!!! Brazil Pres DILMA ROUSSEFF UN Speech text here link here
Planning Nairobi mall attack link here
The plot was hatched weeks or months ago on Somali soil, by the Shabab’s “external operations arm,” officials say. A team of English-speaking foreign fighters was carefully selected, along with a target: Nairobi’s gleaming Westgate mall.
The building’s blueprints were studied, down to the ventilation ducts. The attack was rehearsed and the team dispatched, slipping undetected through Kenya’s porous borders, often patrolled by underpaid — and deeply corrupt — border guards.
A day or two before the attack, powerful belt-fed machine guns were secretly stashed in a shop in the mall with the help of a colluding employee, officials say. At least one militant had even packed a change of clothes so he could slip out with fleeing civilians after the killings were done.
UN weapons inspectors back in Syria link here
Islamist rebels in Syria reject National Coalition link here
UN weapons inspectors back in Syria link here
Islamist rebels in Syria reject National Coalition link here
Eleven Islamist rebel groups in Syria have announced they do not recognise the authority of the main opposition alliance, the National Coalition.
A joint statement says: "All groups formed abroad without having returned to the country do not represent us."
They also call for the opposition to unite under an "Islamic framework".
Islamist rebel forces have become increasing prominent in the conflict in Syria, and they are believed to command tens of thousands of fighters.
The signatories include members of the Free Syrian Army as well as more radical Islamists - among them the powerful al-Nusra Front, which has links to al-Qaeda.
It comes amid fighting on the ground between the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), an offshoot of al-Qaeda, and more moderate rebel forces, especially in areas along Syria's northern and eastern borders.
Where did Syria's chemical weapons come from?? link here
In the wake of a recent Russian-U.S. deal averting American airstrikes, Syria hasbegun to answer questions about its chemical weapons stockpile. One thing inspectors don’t have the mandate to ask is where those weapons came from in the first place. But evidence already out there suggests Syria got crucial help from Moscow and Western European companies.
Iraq 1988 Halabja Chemical Weapons attack trial sues western countries who supplied Iraq's Chemical weapons link here
A joint statement says: "All groups formed abroad without having returned to the country do not represent us."
They also call for the opposition to unite under an "Islamic framework".
Islamist rebel forces have become increasing prominent in the conflict in Syria, and they are believed to command tens of thousands of fighters.
The signatories include members of the Free Syrian Army as well as more radical Islamists - among them the powerful al-Nusra Front, which has links to al-Qaeda.
It comes amid fighting on the ground between the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), an offshoot of al-Qaeda, and more moderate rebel forces, especially in areas along Syria's northern and eastern borders.
Where did Syria's chemical weapons come from?? link here
In the wake of a recent Russian-U.S. deal averting American airstrikes, Syria hasbegun to answer questions about its chemical weapons stockpile. One thing inspectors don’t have the mandate to ask is where those weapons came from in the first place. But evidence already out there suggests Syria got crucial help from Moscow and Western European companies.
Iraq 1988 Halabja Chemical Weapons attack trial sues western countries who supplied Iraq's Chemical weapons link here
Twenty Iraqi Kurds have taken legal action to expose French firms who supplied poison gas to Saddam Hussein in 1988. The plaintiffs were among the victims of a chemical weapon attack that killed 5,000 in the town of Halabja during the Iran-Iraq war.
“The French companies we have targeted notable made equipment for producing chemical agents, reactors and columns and steel tanks to contain toxic agents to be used to make gas,” said lawyer David Père. “We want the individuals and companies that knowingly helped Saddam Hussein’s regime acquire chemical weapons which were used to commit crimes against humanity to be forced to face up to their responsibilities.”
GITMO funds denied for new prison link here
The Pentagon has rejected a military request that it spend $195.7 million to renovate the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, an official with the United States Southern Command said on Tuesday. The Obama administration has been trying to close the prison, but Congress has prevented it from doing so. (MORE BELOW!!!)Citing facilities that were built to be temporary a decade ago and are deteriorating, Gen. John F. Kelly, the head of the Southern Command who oversees Guantánamo, requested money in March to rebuild structures associated with the complex. The request included $49 million to replace a semi-secret prison where a small number of “high-value” detainees like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described architect of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, are housed.
While the money was denied sometime during the summer, it was publicly disclosed on Tuesday by a Southcom spokesman, Col. Greg Julian of the Army, in response to a question from The New York Times. He said the request had been rejected “because of a lack of Congressional support to use the overseas contingency funding that we sought to complete those projects. So now we are working on various measures to mitigate some of the conditions of the facilities.”
OBAMA CAN CLOSE GITMO!!! here here here
In January, the State Department reassigned the special envoy who had been in charge of trying to persuade countries to take Guantanamo inmates approved for release, Daniel Fried, and did not replace him. That was widely seen as a signal that Obama was giving up on closing the prison any time soon.
Obama has blamed Congress for interfering with his plan to close Guantanamo. Starting in 2011, Congress began restricting transfers out, saying the Defense Department first had to certify a number of things, including that the destination country was not a state sponsor of terrorism and would take action to make sure the individual would not threaten the United States.
GITMO funds denied for new prison link here
The Pentagon has rejected a military request that it spend $195.7 million to renovate the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, an official with the United States Southern Command said on Tuesday. The Obama administration has been trying to close the prison, but Congress has prevented it from doing so. (MORE BELOW!!!)Citing facilities that were built to be temporary a decade ago and are deteriorating, Gen. John F. Kelly, the head of the Southern Command who oversees Guantánamo, requested money in March to rebuild structures associated with the complex. The request included $49 million to replace a semi-secret prison where a small number of “high-value” detainees like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described architect of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, are housed.
While the money was denied sometime during the summer, it was publicly disclosed on Tuesday by a Southcom spokesman, Col. Greg Julian of the Army, in response to a question from The New York Times. He said the request had been rejected “because of a lack of Congressional support to use the overseas contingency funding that we sought to complete those projects. So now we are working on various measures to mitigate some of the conditions of the facilities.”
OBAMA CAN CLOSE GITMO!!! here here here
In January, the State Department reassigned the special envoy who had been in charge of trying to persuade countries to take Guantanamo inmates approved for release, Daniel Fried, and did not replace him. That was widely seen as a signal that Obama was giving up on closing the prison any time soon.
Obama has blamed Congress for interfering with his plan to close Guantanamo. Starting in 2011, Congress began restricting transfers out, saying the Defense Department first had to certify a number of things, including that the destination country was not a state sponsor of terrorism and would take action to make sure the individual would not threaten the United States.
Starting last year, Congress let some restrictions be waived if it was in the "national security interests" of the United States. Obama has not used the waiver or certification provisions.
Two years ago, Obama signed an executive order establishing extra review procedures for Guantanamo detainees to determine if continued detention were warranted, but the Periodic Review Boards have not been used.
This option looks fairly simple, since it involves carrying out the president's own executive order. But there may have been no rush to establish more reviews boards since prisoners cleared by earlier review boards are still being held.
Wells Dixon, a senior attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, suggested the administration could use court rulings to help get prisoners released. Two members of China's Muslim Uighur minority were resettled in El Salvador in April 2012, four years after a U.S. District Court in Washington ruled there were no grounds to hold them.
When prisoners challenge their detention in federal court, the government could decide not to contest the case, paving the way for a court order effecting the prisoner's release, said Dixon. He said that could happen in any of the more than 100 detainee "habeus corpus" cases filed in federal court.
Obama could instruct the Justice Department to stop contesting those cases.
here
The impromptu comments were a little surprising for their rhetoric, sounding more like a 2007 campaign speech than the words of someone who has been U.S. president for four-plus years. As the New Yorker's Amy Davidson put it, "He spoke as if he had happened upon the place, like a bystander."
link here
Two years ago, Obama signed an executive order establishing extra review procedures for Guantanamo detainees to determine if continued detention were warranted, but the Periodic Review Boards have not been used.
This option looks fairly simple, since it involves carrying out the president's own executive order. But there may have been no rush to establish more reviews boards since prisoners cleared by earlier review boards are still being held.
Wells Dixon, a senior attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights, suggested the administration could use court rulings to help get prisoners released. Two members of China's Muslim Uighur minority were resettled in El Salvador in April 2012, four years after a U.S. District Court in Washington ruled there were no grounds to hold them.
When prisoners challenge their detention in federal court, the government could decide not to contest the case, paving the way for a court order effecting the prisoner's release, said Dixon. He said that could happen in any of the more than 100 detainee "habeus corpus" cases filed in federal court.
Obama could instruct the Justice Department to stop contesting those cases.
here
The impromptu comments were a little surprising for their rhetoric, sounding more like a 2007 campaign speech than the words of someone who has been U.S. president for four-plus years. As the New Yorker's Amy Davidson put it, "He spoke as if he had happened upon the place, like a bystander."
link here
The U.S. military says it will stop reporting the number of prisoners on hunger strike at Guantánamo Bay after its official tally has dropped to just 19 prisoners. Eighteen of the prisoners are listed for force-feeding with nasal tubes. The hunger strike against indefinite detention began in February. At its peak, the military counted 106 participants, while prisoner attorneys said the number was higher, with nearly all 166 prisoners taking part. The strike forced President Obama to publicly address his failure to deliver on a promise to close Guantánamo. Last month, two prisoners were moved to Algeria in the first transfer out of Guantánamo in nearly a year.
Bahrain jails American link here
GREAT ARTICLE from Maysoon Zayid on Anthony Bourdain in Palestine
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