WASHINGTON — After five years of often bitter internal debate, the Justice Department concluded in a report released Friday that the lawyers who gave legal justification to the Bush administration’s brutal interrogation tactics for terrorism suspects used flawed legal reasoning but were not guilty of professional misconduct.
The report, rejecting harsher sanctions recommended by Justice Department ethics lawyers, brings to a close a pivotal chapter in the debate over the legal limits of the Bush administration’s fight against terrorism and whether its treatment of Qaeda prisoners amounted to torture.
Read more at the New York Times
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Accused War Criminals Make Home in U.S
For many, mention of Somalia conjures images of a smoldering Blackhawk helicopter and AK-47-wielding pirates loaded onto an antique skiff.
What may not come to mind as quickly is the idea that the tipping point for Somalia's downward spiral into an international no-go zone may have come decades before U.S. troops landed on a Somali beachfront in the mid 1990s. It may have come during the regime of military dictator Siad Barre.
Read more at ABC
What may not come to mind as quickly is the idea that the tipping point for Somalia's downward spiral into an international no-go zone may have come decades before U.S. troops landed on a Somali beachfront in the mid 1990s. It may have come during the regime of military dictator Siad Barre.
Read more at ABC
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Central Europe gets a new tool to measure refugee integration
BUDAPEST, Hungary, February 18 (UNHCR) – The UN refugee agency has unveiled an online tool that will allow governments in Central Europe to more effectively measure how refugees are integrating with host societies.
The Integration Evaluation Tool, developed for UNHCR by the Brussels-based Migration Policy Group, was recently presented in Budapest to representatives of Central European governments and non-governmental organizations interested in the new software. It is expected to be introduced throughout the region over the coming months.
Read more at the UNHCR
Darfuri refugees exposed to increased attacks if UN withdraws from Chad
Amnesty International Press release
11 February 2010
Amnesty International today called on the Chadian government to allow UN peacekeepers to continue protecting 250,000 refugees from Darfur and 170,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) in the east of the country.
The government has insisted that the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT) must leave Chad when its mandate expires on 15 March 2010, arguing that the force has failed its mandate.
Read more at Hrea.Org
11 February 2010
Amnesty International today called on the Chadian government to allow UN peacekeepers to continue protecting 250,000 refugees from Darfur and 170,000 internally displaced people (IDPs) in the east of the country.
The government has insisted that the United Nations Mission in the Central African Republic and Chad (MINURCAT) must leave Chad when its mandate expires on 15 March 2010, arguing that the force has failed its mandate.
Read more at Hrea.Org
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
A California Reckoning in a Case of Abuses Abroad
The three refugees from Somalia came to the Bay Area several years ago to escape the violence of their homeland, to put the terror behind them. But they were shocked to learn in 2002 that a former Somali official they believed responsible for brutality against their family was living freely in the United States.
To Bashe and Omar Yousuf, who are brothers, and their cousin Amina Jireh, that did not seem right.
“I was really mad,” said Omar, a Caltrans engineer who now lives in Hercules. “The person who destroyed the country and killed thousands and thousands of people was in the United States, and we couldn’t do anything about it.”
Read more at the New York Times
To Bashe and Omar Yousuf, who are brothers, and their cousin Amina Jireh, that did not seem right.
“I was really mad,” said Omar, a Caltrans engineer who now lives in Hercules. “The person who destroyed the country and killed thousands and thousands of people was in the United States, and we couldn’t do anything about it.”
Read more at the New York Times
Iraq Mends a System to Treat Trauma
BASRA, Iraq — During quiet moments, Fadel Khadum Adel, a former soldier, often hears someone speaking his name into his right ear. The voice is a welcome one, usually that of his mother or father, but when he looks there is no one there.
Read more at the New York Times
High Court To Hear Torture Case
WASHINGTON - When the question of whether former officials of foreign countries can be sued in American courts for acts of torture goes before the U.S. Supreme Court next month, it will be a landmark moment for a nonprofit legal group in San Francisco.
Although the case comes out of Virginia, the legal brains behind the fight are from the Center for Justice and Accountability, based on Market Street. In its 12-year history, the group has never had a case reach the Supreme Court, a milestone that executive director Pamela Merchant has mixed feelings about.
Read more from the "How Appealing" Blog (article from The Daily Journal)
Although the case comes out of Virginia, the legal brains behind the fight are from the Center for Justice and Accountability, based on Market Street. In its 12-year history, the group has never had a case reach the Supreme Court, a milestone that executive director Pamela Merchant has mixed feelings about.
Read more from the "How Appealing" Blog (article from The Daily Journal)
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