Still operating under Bush-era policies that President Barack Obama last year called "a mess," the Pentagon will resume military commission hearings for accused terrorists Wednesday in a top secret compound originally designed for the trial of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed.
War court critics denounced the decision to go ahead with hearings this week, saying that without new rules that the Obama administration has yet to complete, the commissions are operating with uncertain procedures. "It's really like a lame duck commission," bristled Mike Berrigan, deputy chief defense counsel.
Guantanamo war court resumes hearings amid uncertainty
Despite reports of progress, Afghan women still struggle
The numbers tell an upbeat story about efforts to empower and protect women in Afghanistan: The country now has around 5.7 million children in school, of whom 35 percent are girls. There are 8,000 schools, including several hundred just for girls.
Under the Taliban's rule, there were none. Women now have access to health care and hold a full 25 percent of the nation's parliament. However, the reality for women is much grimmer.
The bulk of the girls' schools actually operate in the capital, Kabul. Women's access to health care, especially reproductive health care, is hampered by untrained midwives and a lack of access to doctors. Although women have representation in parliament, they don't have a real voice in the government.
Giant lizard species discovered in the Philippines
A new species of giant lizard has been discovered in the Philippines. The 2m-long reptile is a monitor lizard, the group to which the world's longest and largest lizards belong.
The monitor, described as spectacular by the scientists who found it, lives in forests covering the Sierra Madre mountains in the north of the country. The striking reptile has bright yellow, blue and green skin, and survives on a diet of just fruit, yet until now it has escaped the eyes of biologists.
"It is an incredible animal," says Dr Rafe Brown, one of the scientists who describe the new lizard in the journal Biology Letters. In the journal, the researchers describe how rare it is to find such a large terrestrial animal new to science.
Judge dismisses scores of Guantanamo habeas cases
A federal judge has dismissed more than 100 habeas corpus lawsuits filed by former Guantanamo captives, ruling that because the Bush and Obama administrations had transferred them elsewhere, the courts need not decide whether the Pentagon imprisoned them illegally.
The ruling dismayed attorneys for some of the detainees who'd hoped any favorable U.S. court findings would help clear their clients of the stigma, travel restrictions and, in some instances, perhaps more jail time that resulted from their stay at Guantanamo.
U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan wrote that he was "not unsympathetic" to the former detainees' plight. "Detention for any length of time can be injurious. And certainly associations with Guantanamo tend to be negative," he wrote.
U.S. attorney or district attorney can prosecute Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld for murder on 9/11
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Former U.S. President George W. Bush, Vice President Richard B. Cheney, and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld can each be prosecuted for murder by a U.S. attorney, by a district attorney or by a non-U.S. state prosecutor whose citizens were killed at the World Trade Center or in any aspect of the false flag operation on September 11, 2001. The prima facie evidence for prosecuting Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney and Mr. Rumsfeld for murder is contained in a Memorandum to the U.S. Congress,
Video shows 'US attack' on Iraqi civilians
One of the internet's biggest sources of classified government information has released video of what it says is a US helicopter firing at civilians in Iraq.
WikiLeaks, a website that publishes anonymously sourced documents,released what it called previously unseen footage on Monday.
It said the footage filmed from a helicopter cockpit shows a missile strike and shooting on a crowded square in a Baghdad neighbourhood in July 2007. The website said 12 civilians were killed in the attack, including two journalists, Namir Nour El Deen and Saeed Chmagh, who worked for the Reuters news agency.
The two men appear to survive the first strike and attempt to get away, but the helicopter returns a second and third time.
Ethics Complaint Alleges New Politicized Probe Involving Siegelman Prosecutor
A U.S. attorney in Alabama whose close ties to local Republicans were at the heart of previous high-profile charges of politicized justice is drawing scrutiny again. Last week, the U.S. Justice Department received a formal complaint alleging that an investigation being run in part by U.S. attorney Leura Canary was intended to influence the vote on an upcoming bill in the statehouse, and asking that Canary be removed from the probe because of her "close political ties" to Governor Bob Riley.
This isn't the first time that Canary's ties to Riley and Alabama Republicans have generated controversy. Numerous observers have charged that the prosecution by Canary's office of former governor Don Siegelman, who in 2006 was convicted on corruption charges, was politically motivated. Canary's husband, Bill Canary, a top Alabama GOP political consultant and associate of Karl Rove, ran Riley's 2002 gubernatorial campaign against Siegelman, a Democrat.
Pakistan army accused of extrajudicial killings, human rights abuses
The Pakistani army has allegedly committed hundreds of retaliatory killings and other ongoing human rights abuses in the Swat Valley since the end of its successful anti-Taliban offensive there in September, threatening billions of dollars in U.S. military and economic aid to a crucial ally in the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
The extrajudicial execution of up to 300 alleged Taliban supporters and sympathizers in the area around Mingora, the Swat capital, has been documented by New York-based Human Rights Watch, which conducted interviews with more than 100 Swat families in February and March. A report on the alleged abuses, including torture, home demolitions and illegal detentions and disappearances, is scheduled for release this month.
Doctors face board specialty 'expiration dates'
The next time you're at the doctor's office, take a peek at those certificates hanging on the wall. Like gallons of milk, some of them are expiring. For the first time since leaving medical school, many doctors are having to take tests to renew board certification in their fields - 147 specialties from dermatology to obstetrics.
Any doctor can deliver a baby, treat cancer, or declare himself a cardiologist. Certification means the doctor had special training in that field and passed an exam to prove knowledge of it. They used to do this once and be certified for life. That changed in the 1990s - doctors certified since then must retest every six to 10 years to prove their skills haven't gone stale.
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