Since it invaded Iraq in 2003, the U.S. has detained thousands of juveniles---some of whom were tortured and sexually abused, according to published reports. Figures of the number of children behind bars vary. Some estimates put the number as high as 6,000. While the criminal abuse of male prisoners at Abu Ghraib is well known, child and women prisoners held there have also been tortured and raped, according to Neil Mackay of Glasgow's "Sunday Herald." Abu Ghraib prison is located about 20 miles west of Baghdad. Iraqi lawyer Sahar Yasiri, representing the Federation of Prisoners and Political Prisoners, said in a published interview there are more than 400,000 detainees in Iraq being held in 36 prisons and camps and that 95 percent of the 10,000 women among them have been raped. Children, he said, "suffer from torture, rape, (and) starvation" and do not know why they have been arrested. He added the children have been victims of "random" arrests "not based on any legal text." Former prisoner Thaar Salman Dawod in a witness statement said, "(I saw) two boys naked and they were cuffed together face to face and (a US soldier) was beating them and a group of guards were watching and taking pictures and there was three female soldiers laughing at the prisoners."
Since it invaded Iraq in 2003, the U.S. has detained thousands of juveniles---some of whom were tortured and sexually abused, according to published reports. Figures of the number of children behind bars vary. Some estimates put the number as high as 6,000.
While the criminal abuse of male prisoners at Abu Ghraib is well known, child and women prisoners held there have also been tortured and raped, according to Neil Mackay of Glasgow's "Sunday Herald." Abu Ghraib prison is located about 20 miles west of Baghdad.
Iraqi lawyer Sahar Yasiri, representing the Federation of Prisoners and Political Prisoners, said in a published interview there are more than 400,000 detainees in Iraq being held in 36 prisons and camps and that 95 percent of the 10,000 women among them have been raped. Children, he said, "suffer from torture, rape, (and) starvation" and do not know why they have been arrested. He added the children have been victims of "random" arrests "not based on any legal text."
Former prisoner Thaar Salman Dawod in a witness statement said, "(I saw) two boys naked and they were cuffed together face to face and (a US soldier) was beating them and a group of guards were watching and taking pictures and there was three female soldiers laughing at the prisoners."
Somali Social Affairs Minister Mohammad Ali Ibrahim told FRANCE 24 that two kidnapped French agents are now both being held by the al Shabaab militant group. He said their abduction was in retaliation for their pirate relatives imprisoned in France. Two French security consultants being held hostage in Somalia are now both in the custody of the al Qaeda-inspired al Shabaab militant group and their kidnapping might be linked to France's detention of Somali pirates earlier this year, a senior Somali official told FRANCE 24 on Friday.
Two French security consultants being held hostage in Somalia are now both in the custody of the al Qaeda-inspired al Shabaab militant group and their kidnapping might be linked to France's detention of Somali pirates earlier this year, a senior Somali official told FRANCE 24 on Friday.
At least nine people have been killed and scores of others injured in near simultaneous bomb blasts at two luxury hotels in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta. The blasts tore through the Ritz-Carlton and the nearby JW Marriott hotels within minutes of each other on Friday morning, as many guests were having breakfast. Indonesia's president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has called the bombings a terrorist act and vowed that the attackers would be hunted down and punished. "Those who carried out this attack and those who planned it will be arrested and tried according to the law," he said in a televised address to the nation.
At least nine people have been killed and scores of others injured in near simultaneous bomb blasts at two luxury hotels in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.
The blasts tore through the Ritz-Carlton and the nearby JW Marriott hotels within minutes of each other on Friday morning, as many guests were having breakfast.
Indonesia's president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, has called the bombings a terrorist act and vowed that the attackers would be hunted down and punished.
"Those who carried out this attack and those who planned it will be arrested and tried according to the law," he said in a televised address to the nation.
Sami al-Haj - freed in May 2008 after more than six years - to launch legal action against former US president
By Gwladys Fouché, guardian.co.uk
An al-Jazeera journalist who was imprisoned in Guantánamo Bay plans to launch a joint legal action with other detainees against former US president George Bush and other administration officials, for the illegal detention and torture he and others suffered at the hands of US authorities. The case will be initiated by the Guantánamo Justice Centre, a new organisation open to former prisoners at the US base, which will set up its international headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, later this month. "The purpose of our organisation is to open a case against the Bush administration," said co-founder Sami al-Haj, an al-Jazeera reporter from Sudan who was illegally detained by US authorities for over six years after being captured while he was working as a cameraman. He was freed in May 2008. "We need to start our organisation first and then we will prepare a whole case. We don't want to do this case by case," said the 40-year-old journalist during a recent visit to Oslo.
The case will be initiated by the Guantánamo Justice Centre, a new organisation open to former prisoners at the US base, which will set up its international headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, later this month.
"The purpose of our organisation is to open a case against the Bush administration," said co-founder Sami al-Haj, an al-Jazeera reporter from Sudan who was illegally detained by US authorities for over six years after being captured while he was working as a cameraman. He was freed in May 2008.
"We need to start our organisation first and then we will prepare a whole case. We don't want to do this case by case," said the 40-year-old journalist during a recent visit to Oslo.
For half a century, a dark tunnel of crumbling concrete encased more than three miles of a placid stream bisecting this bustling city. The waterway had been a centerpiece of Seoul since a king of the Choson Dynasty selected the new capital 600 years ago, enticed by the graceful meandering of the stream and its 23 tributaries. But in the industrial era after the Korean War, the stream, by then a rank open sewer, was entombed by pavement and forgotten beneath a lacework of elevated expressways as the city's population swelled toward 10 million. Today, after a $384 million recovery project, the stream, called Cheonggyecheon, is liberated from its dank sheath and burbles between reedy banks. Picnickers cool their bare feet in its filtered water, and carp swim in its tranquil pools. The restoration of the Cheonggyecheon is part of an expanding environmental effort in cities around the world to "daylight" rivers and streams by peeling back pavement that was built to bolster commerce and serve automobile traffic decades ago... Some political opponents have derided Seoul's remade stream as a costly folly, given that nearly all of the water flowing between its banks on a typical day is pumped there artificially from the Han River through seven miles of pipe.
The waterway had been a centerpiece of Seoul since a king of the Choson Dynasty selected the new capital 600 years ago, enticed by the graceful meandering of the stream and its 23 tributaries. But in the industrial era after the Korean War, the stream, by then a rank open sewer, was entombed by pavement and forgotten beneath a lacework of elevated expressways as the city's population swelled toward 10 million.
Today, after a $384 million recovery project, the stream, called Cheonggyecheon, is liberated from its dank sheath and burbles between reedy banks. Picnickers cool their bare feet in its filtered water, and carp swim in its tranquil pools.
The restoration of the Cheonggyecheon is part of an expanding environmental effort in cities around the world to "daylight" rivers and streams by peeling back pavement that was built to bolster commerce and serve automobile traffic decades ago...
Some political opponents have derided Seoul's remade stream as a costly folly, given that nearly all of the water flowing between its banks on a typical day is pumped there artificially from the Han River through seven miles of pipe.
Charles Robert Jenkins is running late. He hurries into work at the souvenir shop to a chorus of approving calls that has become the foreign-language soundtrack to his life. "Jenkins-san!" shout two dozen tourists lined up to meet this diminutive man with jug-handle ears, a 69-year-old American who speaks only a few words of their native tongue... In 1965, Jenkins was a U.S. Army sergeant assigned to the demilitarized zone that divides the Korean peninsula, a skinny 24-year-old who was terrified of being sent to what he considered a sure death in Vietnam. One night, after guzzling 10 beers for courage, he abandoned his sense of duty and freedom as he knew it to stumble across the border into North Korea, a desperate midnight maneuver that led to four lost decades in communist captivity. Jenkins quickly became the Pyongyang government's most prized Cold War pawn. He starred in propaganda movies and memorized the inflated political tracts of "Great Leader" Kim Il Sung, enduring a life so dreary and deprived that "most days you wished you were dead." Eventually, he married Hitomi Soga, a Japanese woman abducted in 1978 as a teenager by the North Koreans. They raised two daughters, eking out an existence on government-issued rice and the undersized vegetables they grew in their garden.
"Jenkins-san!" shout two dozen tourists lined up to meet this diminutive man with jug-handle ears, a 69-year-old American who speaks only a few words of their native tongue...
In 1965, Jenkins was a U.S. Army sergeant assigned to the demilitarized zone that divides the Korean peninsula, a skinny 24-year-old who was terrified of being sent to what he considered a sure death in Vietnam.
One night, after guzzling 10 beers for courage, he abandoned his sense of duty and freedom as he knew it to stumble across the border into North Korea, a desperate midnight maneuver that led to four lost decades in communist captivity.
Jenkins quickly became the Pyongyang government's most prized Cold War pawn. He starred in propaganda movies and memorized the inflated political tracts of "Great Leader" Kim Il Sung, enduring a life so dreary and deprived that "most days you wished you were dead."
Eventually, he married Hitomi Soga, a Japanese woman abducted in 1978 as a teenager by the North Koreans. They raised two daughters, eking out an existence on government-issued rice and the undersized vegetables they grew in their garden.
When students gathered in common rooms to watch television in the early 1970s, the seditious insisted on "Star Trek" reruns; the best and brightest would demand to switch to "Cronkite." Back then, "Cronkite" meant the news. It's almost impossible to convey the place Walter Cronkite held in American life for the 19 years he spent as the anchor of "The CBS Evening News." It wasn't just that he narrated the spikes in modern history, from the Kennedy assassination to the civil rights movement to the election of Ronald Reagan. People tuned in to his program even on routine days when his broadcast -- Senate subcommittee hearings, gas prices, détente talks with the Soviet Union -- was as dull as toast. Mr. Cronkite's air of authority, lightly worn and unquestioned, was unusual even then, but nobody comes close to it now.
It's almost impossible to convey the place Walter Cronkite held in American life for the 19 years he spent as the anchor of "The CBS Evening News." It wasn't just that he narrated the spikes in modern history, from the Kennedy assassination to the civil rights movement to the election of Ronald Reagan.
People tuned in to his program even on routine days when his broadcast -- Senate subcommittee hearings, gas prices, détente talks with the Soviet Union -- was as dull as toast. Mr. Cronkite's air of authority, lightly worn and unquestioned, was unusual even then, but nobody comes close to it now.
It was Walter Cronkite who convinced me that TV news was worth regular watching back in the mid 60s. As the Dutch said while fighting the Spanish: "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
The probe will look into a program to kill Al Qaeda leaders, and at Cheney's possible role in hiding the plot from Congress. It marks a new level of scrutiny of Bush-era counter-terror efforts. Washington -- The House Intelligence Committee launched an investigation Friday into a secret CIA effort to assemble paramilitary teams to kill Al Qaeda leaders -- a probe that will focus in part on whether agency officials were instructed by former Vice President Dick Cheney to hide the program from Congress. The program, launched after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was ended by new agency Director Leon E. Panetta last month, shortly after he learned about it and before it became operational. The inquiry is aimed at determining whether officials violated laws that require the executive branch to keep Congress fully informed of "significant" intelligence activities. It opens a new front in the scrutiny of CIA counter-terrorism efforts under the Bush administration.
Washington -- The House Intelligence Committee launched an investigation Friday into a secret CIA effort to assemble paramilitary teams to kill Al Qaeda leaders -- a probe that will focus in part on whether agency officials were instructed by former Vice President Dick Cheney to hide the program from Congress.
The program, launched after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, was ended by new agency Director Leon E. Panetta last month, shortly after he learned about it and before it became operational.
The inquiry is aimed at determining whether officials violated laws that require the executive branch to keep Congress fully informed of "significant" intelligence activities. It opens a new front in the scrutiny of CIA counter-terrorism efforts under the Bush administration.
