News and Articles 7-8-06

Tensions Grow Over Mexico Vote as Opposition Plans Rally Saturday

Mexico hung in limbo on Friday, as tensions rose between those seeking a recount in the presidential race and those seeking to accept Felipe Calderón as the winner and move on.

After a tally showed that the two top candidates were separated by 243,000 votes, the election has exposed deep divides in society, along class and regional lines. The voting has put the strength of the young democracy to its toughest test.

A day after election officials said Mr. Calderón, an advocate of free trade, had won the narrowest of victories, the country seemed more on edge than on a high. Supporters of Mr. Calderón's leftist rival, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, girded for fights in court and on the streets, beginning with a rally scheduled for Saturday. Mr. Calderón's supporters and allies called on Mr. López Obrador to concede defeat for the good of the country.

The uncertainty caused consternation among citizens of all political persuasions


Filmmaker Sues Rumsfeld Over Iraq Detention

A Los Angeles filmmaker today sued Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and other high-ranking military officials, alleging they violated his civil rights, international law and the Geneva Convention by imprisoning him for 55 days in Iraq last year.

Kar, a U.S. citizen and Navy veteran, went to Iraq 14 months ago to make a documentary film about Cyrus the Great, the Persian king who issued the world's first human rights charter.

While in confinement, the suit states, Kar was at various times hooded, restrained "in painful flexi-cuffs," and "repeatedly threatened, taunted and insulted" by U.S. soldiers.At one point, according to the suit, a soldier at Abu Ghraib slammed Kar's head into a concrete wall.

What happened to him in Iraq was "a life altering experience," Kar said. He emphasized, "I am not a left wing liberal. I agree with many of George Bush's policies."But he added, "I don't think the Constitution has to be gutted to achieve our objectives" in the war on terrorism. "I felt it was my duty as an American to take a stand for the constitutional rights guaranteed to all Americans."


Justices Tacitly Backed Use of Guantánamo, Bush Says

In his most detailed comments to date on the Supreme Court's rejection of his decision to put detainees on trial before military commissions, President Bush said Friday that the court had tacitly approved his use of the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

"It didn't say we couldn't have done — couldn't have made that decision, see?" Mr. Bush said at a news conference in Chicago. "They were silent on whether or not Guantánamo — whether or not we should have used Guantánamo. In other words, they accepted the use of Guantánamo, the decision I made.

"Mr. Bush's remarks put a favorable spin on a ruling that has been widely interpreted as a rebuke of the administration's policies in the war on terror. The court, ruled broadly last week in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld that military commissions were unauthorized by statute and violated international law.

The question of whether Mr. Bush had properly used Guantánamo Bay to house detainees was not at issue in the case."


George W. Bush Is Dead To Me

Nation cringes as the worst president ever continues long, painful slog to the end

Everyone I know has had enough. Everyone I know is just about done. There is this threshold of happy deadened disgust, this point where the body simply resigns itself to the pain, a point where the disease, the poison has seeped so deeply into the bones that you just have to laugh and shrug it all off and go for a drink. Or 10.


Lay's death could set Skilling free

Lawyers likely to argue that entire case has effectively been voided

Kenneth Lay's sudden death could prove to be an unexpected legal bequest to Jeffrey Skilling, his co-defendant in the landmark Enron Corp. fraud case.

Mr. Skilling's legal team will almost certainly invoke Mr. Lay's demise to try to reverse his own fraud and conspiracy conviction or demand a retrial, legal experts said yesterday.

That's because Mr. Lay's death Wednesday of an apparent heart attack effectively voids the entire case against the Enron founder, including the guilty verdict. Mr. Skilling, the former Enron chief executive officer who is appealing his own conviction, could now argue that much of the evidence against him stems from a case that no longer exists, argued lawyer Jacob Frenkel, a former federal prosecutor and white collar crime specialist.

"This is the first time this has happened in such a high profile case," Mr. Frenkel said. "Everybody is scrambling to see what the law says on this."



FBI plans new Net-tapping push

The FBI has drafted sweeping legislation that would require Internet service providers to create wiretapping hubs for police surveillance and force makers of networking gear to build in backdoors for eavesdropping, CNET News.com has learned.

FBI Agent Barry Smith distributed the proposal at a private meeting last Friday with industry representatives and indicated it would be introduced by Sen. Mike DeWine, an Ohio Republican, according to two sources familiar with the meeting.

The draft bill would place the FBI's Net-surveillance push on solid legal footing. At the moment, it's ensnared in a legal challenge from universities and some technology companies that claim the Federal Communications Commission's broadband surveillance directives exceed what Congress has authorized.


CIA attacked by agent who led Bin Laden hunt

The man who led America's hunt for Osama bin Laden says the CIA was wrong to disband the only unit devoted entirely to the Islamist leader's pursuit - just at a time when al-Qaida is reasserting its influence over the global jihad.Shutting down the Bin Laden unit squandered 10 years of expertise in the war on terror, said Michael Scheuer, who founded the unit in 1995 and arguably knows more about Bin Laden than any other western intelligence official. He believes the unit was dismantled because of bureaucratic jealousies within the CIA, and that the closure delivers a further setback to a pursuit that has been squeezed for resources for the past two years.


Profiting from the Occupation

Despite the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding, and the international attention it receives, names familiar on high streets across Europe and the US are actively supporting Israel's Occupation of Palestine through their business practices--threatening to prolong the misery of the Palestinian people for many years to come.


New Slovak govt confirms Iraq troop withdrawal

Slovakia’s new government on Wednesday confirmed it would pull its troops out of Iraq but pledged to undertake a smooth transition to protect stabilization efforts there.


Thousands of troops say they won’t fight

Less than two years later, Magaoay became one of thousands of military deserters who have chosen a lifetime of exile or possible court-martial rather than fight in Iraq or Afghanistan.

“It wasn’t something I did on the spur of the moment,” said Magaoay, a native of Maui, Hawaii. “It took me a long time to realize what was going on. The war is illegal.”


Gallup: calls for troop withdrawal “increase significantly as educational level increases"

Newport writes: "Suggestions that the United States engage in some type of gradual withdrawal increase significantly as educational level increases."


"Well now we know why they've eviscerated the public school system eh?" - Nobody


California Man Revealed as al Qaeda Leader

Adam Gadahn, who disappeared from California seven years ago, appeared unmasked on an al Qaeda tape made public on the internet today.

Adam Gadahn's real name is Adam Pearlman. Adam is the grandson of the late Carl K. Pearlman; a prominent Jewish urologist in Orange County. Carl was also a member of the board of directors of the Anti-Defamation League, which was caught spying on Americans for Israel in 1993, much as AIPAC has been caught up in the more recent spy scandal.


Zarqawi's so-called “successor” in jail for past 7yrs


Holland Tunnel LEAK?

Indeed, it seems, as in the case of the deadly Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan leak, that these “disclosures” occur whenever the Bushling’s approval rating significantly drops in the public opinion polls.


Sources say no serious plot for NYC, just hate chatter

One former intelligence field officer says, and two other CIA officials confirm, that the alleged plot by Muslim extremists to bomb the Holland Tunnel in New York City was nothing more than chatter by unaffiliated individuals with no financing or training in an open forum already monitored extensively by the United States Government.