mitty14u2
mitty14u2's JournalLast three Uighurs freed from Guantanamo: US
The three last Uighurs who had languished in the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay for over a decade despite facing no charges have been freed and sent to Slovakia, the Pentagon said Tuesday.
"This transfer and resettlement constitutes a significant milestone in our effort to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay," Pentagon press secretary John Kirby said in a statement, thanking Slovakia for taking the three men in.
Yusef Abbas, 38, Saidullah Khalik, 36 and Hajiakbar Abdul Ghuper, 39, who were transferred from the US military base in Guantanamo Bay, southeastern Cuba, were the last of a group of 22 ethnic Chinese Muslims captured in a mountain camp in Afghanistan in 2001.
http://www.france24.com/en/20131231-last-three-uighurs-freed-guantanamo-us/#./?&_suid=1388515244772021419466709962903
Revelers already ringing in 2014 with fireworks
Source: Delcotimes
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CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — New Zealand rang in the New Year with multicolored fireworks erupting from Auckland’s Sky Tower at midnight Tuesday as thousands of cheering revelers danced in the streets of the South Pacific island nation’s largest city.
Early pyrotechnic shows erupted over Sydney Harbor, dazzling hundreds of thousands viewers ahead of the main event in Australia and Dubai will later try to create the world’s largest fireworks show to ring in 2014.
Sydney officials promised that the Australian city’s renowned pyrotechnics show would be more extravagant than ever, with more than 1.6 million revelers expected to line the harbor for a view.
Read more: http://www.delcotimes.com/general-news/20131231/revelers-already-ringing-in-2014-with-fireworks
Saudi Arabia to give Lebanese army $3 billion in aid
Saudi Arabia is giving the Lebanese army $3 billion in aid, Lebanon's President Michel Suleiman said on Sunday, calling it the largest grant ever given to the country's armed forces.
Incidentally, this is the same figure the United States gives Israel annually, though not all of it is pegged for military use.
In a televised address, Suleiman said that "the king of the brotherly Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is offering this generous and appreciated aid of $3 billion to the Lebanese army to strengthen its capabilities."
http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.566051
train wreck Cassleton, North Dakota
Source: Youtube
Read more:
*NO INJURIES REPORTED FROM BNSF TRAIN FIRE IN NORTH DAKOTA
Wind is taking toxic smoke towards areas southeast of Casselton, ND, after train derailment. Residents urged to stay indoors
A train has derailed west of Casselton, North Dakota just before 2:20 p.m. Monday. As Valley News Live reports, several area emergency teams are on scene and are setting up an incident command center. Emergency crews are urging people to stay inside and a code red alert has been sent out to residents in a two mile radius of the accident. The Casselton Fire Department says a Burlington Northern Santa Fe train is involved. An unknown number of cars derailed, but Valley News Live reports is told one bulk oil car is on fire and toxic black smoke is being released.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-12-30/massive-fireball-north-dakota-oil-train-derailment-caught-tape
Researchers find 7,300-mile ring of mercury around tar sands in Canada
Scientists have found a nearly 7,500-square-mile ring of land and water contaminated by mercury surrounding the tar sands in Alberta, where energy companies are producing and shipping oil throughout Canada and the U.S.
Government scientists are preparing to publish a report that found levels of mercury are up to 16 times higher around the tar sand operations, principally due to the excavation and transportation of the bitumen in the sands by oil and gas companies, according to Postmedia-owned Canadian newspapers like the Vancouver Sun.
Environment Canada researcher Jane Kirk recently presented the findings at a toxicology conference in Nashville.
The revelations add to a growing concern over the environmental impacts of the tar sands. Many environmentalists charge that the exploitation of the sands for oil will lead to an increase in carbon emissions, the destruction and contamination of land and water and health problems for Canadians. The debate over the tar sands crossed over into the United States when energy company TransCanada proposed building the Keystone XL pipeline to transport the crude oil to the southeastern U.S. for refining and distribution.
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/12/29/7-500-mile-ring-ofmercuryfoundaroundcanadastarsands.html
Global Corruption Report published 1 October 2013
Global Corruption Report published 1 October 2013
Corruption and poor governance are acknowledged as major impediments to realising the right to education and to reaching global development goals. Corruption not only distorts access to education, but affects the quality of education and the reliability of research findings.
From corruption in the procurement of school resources and nepotism in the hiring of teachers, to the buying and selling of academic titles and the skewing of research results, major corruption risks can be identified at every level of the education and research systems. At the same time, education serves as a means to strengthen personal integrity and is a critical tool to address corruption effectively.
The Global Corruption Report is Transparency International’s flagship publication, bringing the expertise of the anti-corruption movement to bear on a specific corruption issue or sector. The Global Corruption Report: Education consists of more than 70 articles commissioned from experts in the field of corruption and education, from universities, think tanks, business, civil society and international organisations. View our interactive presentation of the Report.
Download the report | View online Translations: FR AR
http://www.transparency.org/whatwedo/pub/global_corruption_report_education
What Did Congress Really Know About NSA Tracking?
What Did Congress Really Know About NSA Tracking?
Rockefeller, who is on the Senate Intelligence Committee, says he never feels adequately briefed. He remembers his days on the committee during the previous administration.
"I would go up there to the White House and get briefed, and come back knowing nothing," he says.
Rockefeller says in this case, he had been told about the two surveillance programs in question, but another member of the Senate Intelligence Committee — Republican Susan Collins from Maine — says she was never briefed. And don't even tell her she could have just asked more questions.
"Well, how can you ask when you don't know the program exists?" Collins says.
Collins just joined the Intelligence Committee this year, so maybe she would have gotten the lowdown eventually. But during the last Congress, she was the ranking member on the Homeland Security Committee, and she still never heard about either the email monitoring or phone records collection.
"I had, along with Joe Lieberman, a monthly threat briefing, but I did not have access to this highly compartmentalized information," Collins says.
So what's a member of Congress to do? If you're not on a committee privy to this kind of national security information, how do you get informed?
http://www.npr.org/blogs/itsallpolitics/2013/06/11/190742087/what-did-congress-really-know-about-nsa-tracking
Stop and Frisk: Dispelling the Myth of NYPD Victory
The myth is that Commissioner Kelly and Mayor Bloomberg “won,” and the trial is overturned.
This did not happen. The Second Circuit merely put a hold on the judge’s orders until the appeal is heard in the appellate court. The Second Circuit also chastised the trial judge for speaking in the media regarding the case. This may signal a key technicality for the City of New York to pursue on appeal, because the statistics and substance don’t lie. As the plaintiffs’ attorneys (Center for Constitutional Rights) amply proved in the trial: it is unconstitutional to basically stop everyone of a certain age and ethnicity figuring that, mathematically, the police are bound to catch someone doing something illegal.
Ironically, as it turns out: the White people who were stopped had a higher rate of illegal behavior. What supporters of the policy don’t seem to realize is that it would not matter which ethnicity had a statistically higher probability of, for example, having a bag of cocaine in their pocket- this sort of ‘catch-and-release’ fishing expedition is a violation of the Fourth Amendment right to be free of illegal search and seizures, along with the Fourteenth Amendment right to equal protection under the law.
http://unprison.com/2013/11/03/stop-and-frisk-dispelling-the-myth-of-nypd-victory/
Ironically, as it turns out: the White people who were stopped had a higher rate of illegal behavior.
Nuremberg Set a Valid Precedent for Iraq War Trials
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/27/nuremberg-set-a-valid-precedent-for-iraq-war-trials/
Weekend Edition
December 27-29, 2013
As the number of deaths continues unabated in Iraq –the worst since 2008- so do calls for the prosecution of those that led both the United States and Great Britain into war, George W. Bush and Tony Blair. In December alone there were 44 deaths in just one day, over 766 for the whole month and over 9,200 civilian deaths in the whole year. If Nuremberg Principles were applied, both Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair would have probably been condemned for their role in the Iraq war.
The Nuremberg Principles, a set of guidelines established after World War II to try Nazi Party members, were developed to determine what constitutes a war crime. The principles can also be applied today when considering the conditions that led to the Iraq war and, in the process, to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, many of them children, and to the devastation of a country’s infrastructure.
In January 2003, a group of American law professors warned President George W. Bush that he and senior officials of his government could be prosecuted for war crimes if their military tactics violated international humanitarian law. The group, led by the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, sent similar warnings to British Prime Minister Tony Blair and to Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/12/27/nuremberg-set-a-valid-precedent-for-iraq-war-trials/
Potty-mouthed cockatoo swears at the neighbors; owner in trouble
The Associated Press says the next-door neighbors are Kathleen Melker and Craig Fontaine -- who is Taylor's ex-husband. The new love birds say that the real bird cusses up a storm at them, with some rants going on as long as 15 minutes at a time, according to the news service. Curses include calling Melker a "whore."
Now, why would the pet cockatoo call her that, and where did it learn such salty language?
The newspaper reports that the dispute over the potty-mouthed bird is the latest in a spate of reported problems between the neighbors. Melker says that Taylor has thrown rocks over the fence and threatened to seize Melker's cat and "drown it." Those allegations, the paper notes, have not resulted in any charges.
For now, Taylor and Willy are facing only allegations that they're violating the city's animal-noise ordinance, according to the newspaper. Taylor's lawyer has tried to have the case dismissed, arguing that it's overly vague and unconstitutional. A judge has denied that request, the paper said.
http://articles.latimes.com/2012/sep/07/nation/la-na-nn-cussing-cockatoo-20120907
Free Speech alive and well, For Cockatoo's anyway!
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