RIGHTS-US: Decision on 9/11 Trials Sparks Praise, Anger

The U.S. government's decision to bring five high-profile terror suspects to the United States to face trials in a civilian court has drawn reactions ranging from praise to condemnation to confusion.

RIGHTS-US: Rendition Redux?

On the heels of a federal appeals court ruling that only the U.S. Congress and the executive branch of government - not the courts - can interfere with government-sponsored "extraordinary rendition", a U.S. citizen from New Jersey is asking another court to tell the government it wasn't okay to secretly imprison and abuse him in three different African countries over a period of four months.

RIGHTS-US: Obama’s Terrorism Courts Still “Fatally Flawed”

Human rights advocates and legal scholars are voicing sharp criticism of President Barack Obama's revisions to the George W. Bush administration's Military Commissions Act of 2006, characterising them as unnecessary and saying the new law will lead to further delays and create a system of "second-class justice".

MIDEAST: Lessons from the Karine A -Deja Vu All Over Again

As Israeli Defence Forces munitions experts sorted through 300 tonnes of weapons found on a German-owned, Cypriot-operated cargo ship flying the Antiguan flag, Israeli politicians were sifting through the various talking points that could be offloaded from the vessel.

POLITICS: U.S. Seeks to Limit Warlords in Karzai Cabinet

The Barack Obama administration is talking tough to Afghan President Hamid Karzai about the need for decisive action on corruption and governance reform, but its main objective is to prevent particularly corrupt and incompetent warlords from getting plum ministries as rewards for helping clinch his fraudulent reelection, IPS has learned.

POLITICS-US: No Sunset for Sweeping Patriot Act Powers?

The USA Patriot Act, rushed into law by a panicky U.S. Congress in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of Sep. 11, 2001, gave the government broad surveillance powers to spy on innocent citizens. But it also stipulated that three of its more controversial provisions should expire next month unless reapproved by lawmakers.

Q&A: ‘This Calm Will Not Last’

Leila Khaled became an instant icon of the Palestinian struggle in 1969, when at 24 she was an operative in the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacking of a Boeing 707, the first in a series of high-profile actions intended to put the Palestinians on the political map.

RIGHTS-US: Another Legal Setback for Arar Torture Case

A federal appeals court on Monday dismissed a lawsuit brought against a former U.S. attorney general by a Canadian citizen who sought damages for being unlawfully detained by U.S. authorities in New York and then secretly shipped to Syria, where he was imprisoned for a year and claims he was tortured.

U.S.: Obama’s Outreach to Muslim World Teetering

U.S. President Barack Obama's extraordinary efforts since his first days in office to reassure Muslims in the Greater Middle East about U.S. intentions in the region have suffered a series of setbacks that threaten to reverse whatever gains he has made over the past 10 months in restoring Washington's badly battered image and influence there.

RIGHTS-US: Govt Lawyers Seek to Quash Rendition Lawsuit

The long road to the proverbial day in court just got longer for five men who claim they were "disappeared" and tortured by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency.

RIGHTS-US: Lawsuit Probes Role of Psychologists in Terror War

The state board responsible for licensing - and disciplining - psychologists in Louisiana is accused of turning a blind eye to serious allegations of abuse against one of its members, including complicity in beatings, religious and sexual humiliation, rape threats and painful body positions during his service as a senior advisor on interrogations for the U.S. military in Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib.

POLITICS: U.S. in Pakistan’s Mind: Nothing But Aversion

To the west of Peshawar on the Jamrud Road that leads to the historic Khyber Pass sits the Karkhano Market, a series of shopping plazas whose usual offering of contraband is now supplemented by standard issue U.S. military equipment, including combat fatigues, night vision goggles, body armour and army knives.

AFGHANISTAN: U.S., NATO Forces Rely on Warlords for Security

The revelation by the New York Times Wednesday that Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, has long been on the payroll of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency is only the tip of a much bigger iceberg of heavy dependence by U.S. and NATO counterinsurgency forces on Afghan warlords for security, according to a recently published report and investigations by Australian and Canadian journalists.

US-AFGHANISTAN: Kerry Argues for Counterinsurgency Lite

Amid growing speculation and partisan bickering over what President Barack Obama will do about the deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, an influential Democratic senator Monday warned against deploying tens of thousands more U.S. troops there.

RIGHTS: Obama Urged to Fully Comply with Anti-Torture Treaty

The fifteenth 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.

RIGHTS: ‘Too Innocent to Try, too Guilty to Fly’

Getting blacklisted as belonging to a terrorist organisation is a punitive sanction, even though governments may say it is only an administrative measure, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR).

CANADA: Govt Threatens Tar Sands Activists with Anti-Terror Laws

The provincial government in Alberta, Canada is threatening to unleash its counterterrorism plan if activists continue using civil disobedience to protest the tar sands, Canada's fastest source of greenhouse gas emissions.

US-PAKISTAN: Obama Signs Controversial Aid Bill

After 10 days of raging controversy centred in Islamabad, U.S. President Barack Obama Thursday signed a major aid bill for Pakistan authorising some 7.5 billion dollars in non-military assistance for the increasingly beleaguered country over the next five years.

U.S.: Veteran Army Officer Urges Afghan Troop Drawdown

A veteran Army officer who has served in both the Afghanistan and Iraq wars warns in an analysis now circulating in Washington that the counterinsurgency strategy urged by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal is likely to strengthen the Afghan insurgency, and calls for withdrawal of the bulk of U.S. combat forces from the country over 18 months.

U.S.: Foreign Policy Hawks Launch New Campaign Against Obama

Just days after the Nobel Committee in Oslo awarded Barack Obama its coveted peace prize, two of Washington's most prominent foreign policy hawks launched a new group and ad campaign designed to depict the president as weak and defend the more aggressive policies of his predecessor, George W. Bush.

U.S.: Pro-War Officials Play Up Taliban-al Qaeda Ties

U.S. national security officials, concerned that President Barack Obama might be abandoning the strategy of full-fledged counterinsurgency war in Afghanistan, are claiming new intelligence assessments suggesting that al Qaeda would be allowed to return to Afghanistan in the event of a Taliban victory.