 |  | | Preventing the Next 9/11 |
 AS we approach the 10th anniversary
of the murder of thousands
of citizens from more than 90
countries, I keep asking myself
whether we are finally safe from
the global terror threat.
Since those shocking attacks of 9/11,
the death of Osama bin Laden, the elimination
of terrorist training camps in
Afghanistan and the concentrated international
pressure on Al Qaeda have
reshaped the nature of the threat confronting
us.
We´ve seen terror attempts foiled by a
combination of heightened security and
awareness, improved intelligence gathering,
robust enforcement by police and
prosecutors, quick actions by an observant
public and sheer luck: the... |
|
| |  | | ISRAEL ATTEMPTS
SELF-ISOLATION ! |
| HERE´S what the United
Nations report on Israel´s
raid last year on the
Turkish-flagged Mavi
Marmara had to say about
the killing of a 19-year-old US citizen
on board:
"At least one of those killed,
Furkan Dogan, was shot at
extremely close range. Mr Dogan
sustained wounds to the face, back
of the skull, back and left leg. That
suggests he may already have been
lying wounded when the fatal shot
was delivered, as suggested by witness
accounts to that effect."
The four-member panel, led by
Sir Geoffrey Palmer, a former
prime minister of New Zealand,
appears with these words to raise
the possibility of an execution or
something close.
Dogan, born in upstate New
York, was an aspiring doctor. Little
interested in politics, he´d won a
lottery to travel... |
|
| | |
|
|
|
|
Afghan govt rejects UN torture allegations
AP
KABUL THE Afghan government on Wednesday strongly rejected allegations that its security agencies tortured detainees — charges that were apparently raised in an unpublished UN report.
The allegations prompted NATO to temporarily suspend some transfers of detainees from international to Afghan-run detention centers. They also threatened to further erode the already shaky relationship between President Hamid Karzai’s government and the international community.
Interior Minister Besmillah Mohammadi and Rahmatullah Nabil, head of the Afghan intelligence service, described the NATO decision to suspend detainee transfers as politically motivated and aimed at slowing down the transition of security responsibilities to the Afghan government.
Afghanistan is gradually taking over responsibility for the country’s security from the US-led military coalition as foreign forces aim to withdraw all their combat troops by the end of 2014.
The Afghan government “believes that any move to halt the transfer of prisoners under any false excuses is a serious blow to the transition process,” Mohammadi and Nabil said in a joint statement.
The two officials said that in the past, the United Nations in Afghanistan had assured the authorities that their detention facilities complied with international human rights standards.
They also complained the UN had not given a copy of the report to the government, Some of the details of the report have leaked out ahead of its publication, prompting the responses.
The UN has said it is still working on finalizing the report and will publish it once it has been completed.
Mohammadi said the government had found out about the allegations in the media. The report apparently included “claims of torture such as electric shocks, threats of sexual assault and physical torture such as the ripping out of nails in Afghan detention facilities.” “The Afghan security agencies strongly reject the allegations,” Mohammadi said, adding that international agencies, including the United Nations, had regularly visited Afghan detention facilities.
Following such visits, they assured authorities of “their satisfactory findings as to the situation in the prisons and compliance with human rights standards,” he said.
The UN has refused to release the report but a spokesman for the mission in Kabul said late Tuesday that the UN had presented the core of the report’s findings to Afghan authorities.
UN spokesman Dan McNorton said the findings did not suggest an institutional or government policy of mistreatment.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
