“Safe, Humane, Legal, Transparent”: so goes the slogan of the world’s most famous offshore prison. It’s an Obama-era rebrand, a bid by Gitmo’s PR people to persuade Americans that today’s is a kinder, gentler Guantánamo Bay. There’s just one wrinkle: Gitmo is stilldangerous, nasty, lawless and secretive – and the evidence just keeps piling up.
At the forefront of this war over the truth is the first-ever trial concerning the practice of force-feeding prisoners on hunger strike, due to start Monday. My client, Abu Wa’el Dhiab – a Syrian man who has never been charged, and indeed has been cleared to leave Guantánamo by the US government for more than five years – has been fighting for over a year to reform the way he and other hunger-strikers have been treated. He’s finally about to have his day in court.
Gitmo hunger strikes are a cry for help. Why is the US fighting back with secret torture?
Hillary and the far right; admits role in Honduran coup
In a recent op-ed in the Washington Post, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton used a review of Henry Kissinger’s latest book, “World Order,” to lay out her vision for “sustaining America’s leadership in the world.”
In the midst of numerous global crises, Clinton called for return to a foreign policy with purpose, strategy and pragmatism. She also highlighted some of these policy choices in her memoir, “Hard Choices,” and how they contributed to the challenges that the Obama administration now faces.
Turmeric may ward off dementia, heal the brain
A new study by scientists in Germany has found a that a main ingredient in curry powder, the spice turmeric, can help the brain regenerate neurons and repair itself.
When researchers coated neural stem cells, isolate in petri dishes, in a chemical extracted from turmeric, the cells grew more prolifically into neurons than did control cells untouched by any foreign substances. The same turmeric-derived chemical compound had similar effects when injected into the brains of live rats.
New York scientists unveil 'invisibility cloak' to rival Harry Potter's
Watch out Harry Potter, you are not the only wizard with an invisibility cloak.
Scientists at the University of Rochester have discovered a way to hide large objects from sight using inexpensive and readily available lenses, a technology that seems to have sprung from the pages of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter fantasy series.
Cloaking is the process by which an object becomes hidden from view, while everything else around the cloaked object appears undisturbed.
"A lot of people have worked on a lot of different aspects of optical cloaking for years," John Howell, a professor of physics at the upstate New York school, said on Friday.
New Yorker Magazine Exposes 9/11 Truth: The Twenty-Eight Pages
On the bottom floor of the United States Capitol’s new underground visitors’ center, there is a secure room where the House Intelligence Committee maintains highly classified files. One of those files is titled “Finding, Discussion and Narrative Regarding Certain Sensitive National Security Matters.” It is twenty-eight pages long. In 2002, the Administration of George W. Bush excised those pages from the report of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into the 9/11 attacks. President Bush said then that publication of that section of the report would damage American intelligence operations, revealing “sources and methods that would make it harder for us to win the war on terror.”
“There’s nothing in it about national security,” Walter Jones, a Republican congressman from North Carolina who has read the missing pages, contends. “It’s about the Bush Administration and its relationship with the Saudis.” Stephen Lynch, a Massachusetts Democrat, told me that the document is “stunning in its clarity,” and that it offers direct evidence of complicity on the part of certain Saudi individuals and entities in Al Qaeda’s attack on America. “Those twenty-eight pages tell a story that has been completely removed from the 9/11 Report,”
Bruce Enberg: What's the daily bag limit on McDucks?
Dallas Federal Reserve President Richard Fisher said Friday in a Fox News interview that the US economy is threatened by higher wages. His solution is to head this calamity off by raising interest rates so that hiring is cut back. He fears that higher wages are inflationary.
The Fed as a whole has been trying to create inflation in order to stop the rich from hoarding cash. The Fed has set a modest goal of 2% inflation instead of the 4 to 6% we really need to make such a policy work to jump start real investing (real as in creating jobs). Creating jobs is part of the Fed's legal mandate and the results have not been stellar to say the least.
U.S. Appeals Court Orders Disclosure of Secrets in Chevron Oil Pollution Case
One might assume that after 21 years of litigation, all the sordid details surrounding the epic Chevron oil pollution case had been made public. Not so. A three-judge federal appeals court panel in Richmond, Va., ruled unanimously on Tuesday that plaintiffs’ lawyers accused of fraud against the oil company must reveal the contents of documents that had been confidential and could hold new information about wrongdoing.
The appellate ruling constitutes the latest victory for Chevron (CVX) as the company seeks to nullify a $19 billion judgment imposed against the company in 2011 by a trial court in Ecuador. The Andean nation’s supreme court has affirmed Chevron’s liability while halving the damages to a still-substantial $9.5 billion.
Kansas City, Mo. is crossroads for crude by rail, documents show
Missouri’s largest city has become a crossroads for trains carrying a type of crude oil that has ignited in multiple derailments, according to state documents that the railroads carrying the cargo didn’t want made public.
Each week, as many as 10 trains pass through Kansas City, each carrying at least 1 million gallons of Bakken crude from North Dakota, reports released this month by the Missouri State Emergency Management Agency show.
The railroads initially required states to sign agreements that they wouldn’t make the information public.
Three New York firefighters die of 9/11-related illnesses, FDNY says
Three retired New York firefighters who worked at Ground Zero in the days after the World Trade Center attack died on the same day this week of illnesses possibly connected to toxic dust released on 9/11, fire officials said.
Lieutenant Howard Bischoff and firefighters Robert Leaver and Daniel Heglund died on Monday.
“Losing three firefighters on the same day to WTC-related illnesses is a painful reminder that, 13 years later, we continue to pay a terrible price for the Department’s heroic efforts,” FDNY commissioner Daniel Nigro said in a statement.
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