WASHINGTON
Responding to growing criticism by human rights groups and foreign governments, U.S. President Barack Obama Thursday announced potentially significant shifts in what his predecessor called the “global war on terror”.
While U.S. politicians Friday debated whether Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, a son-in-law of Osama bin Laden and former Al-Qaeda spokesman, should be tried in New York City, foreign policy analysts were speculating about the circumstances under which he was apprehended by U.S. authorities.
Though President Barack Obama has been reticent to involve his administration too deeply in the Syrian uprising, revelations over the past week have shown near-unanimous agreement among the president’s top national security advisors for greater military intervention.
Despite growing western concerns about the continuing reign in northern Mali by an Al Qaeda-linked group, analysts here say it will take months before conditions could be ripe to oust it from the region, by military force if necessary.
“It does not matter if we ever find out who killed Saleem; whoever it was has destroyed my family,” says Anita Shahzad, Saleem Shahzad’s 36-year-old widow and mother of three. “It won’t bring him back,” she tells IPS.
Al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing in the centre of the Yemeni capital that has left nearly 100 people dead.
Grasshoppers and other insects might become the next generation of drones, if researchers with the Israeli research centre Technion who are studying the movements of these insects succeed. Ultimately, they hope to be able to remotely control where the insects fly.
With an international meeting aimed at resolving the political crisis in Somalia set to take place Thursday, the local media in this East African nation is awash with scepticism, referring to the efforts as a new system of re-colonising the country.
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