be just

The truth about Guantánamo | Moazzam Begg | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk : "I have always believed that the secret detention sites – where prisoners were waterboarded – and military prisons, such as Bagram, were far worse than Guantánamo. Now I'm not so sure. They once called it 'asymmetrical warfare' and a 'good PR move' but the US administration may soon have to call the alleged suicides of prisoners in Guantánamo something they were trying to hide all along: murder. The latest revelations in the US magazine Harper's suggests a major cover-up occurred after the 2006 deaths of three Guantánamo prisoners: Manei al-Otaibi and Yasser al-Zahrani from Saudi Arabia and Ali al-Salami from Yemen. Four Camp Delta Military Intelligence guards, including a decorated sergeant, have furnished an account dramatically at odds with the official US version of what happened on the night of the deaths. I remember at the time how none of the former prisoners believed the ...

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - 'Chemical Ali' executed in Iraq : "Ali Hassan al-Majid, the cousin of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, has been executed in Iraq for crimes against humanity, a government spokesman said. Al-Majid, nicknamed 'Chemical Ali', received his fourth death sentence last week, for ordering the gassing of Kurds in the Iraqi village of Halabja. 'The condemned Ali Hassan al-Majid has been executed by hanging until death today,' spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said on Monday."

Al Jazeera English - Americas - Exodus as Haiti toll passes 150,000 : "Guido Bertolaso, Italy's civil protection chief, called the Haiti operation a 'pathetic' failure. What was needed, he said, was a single international civilian co-ordinator to take charge, and for individual countries and aid agencies to stop flying their flags and posing for TV cameras and get to work. 'Unfortunately there's this need to make a 'bella figura' before the TV cameras rather than focus on what's under the debris,'' said Bertolaso, who won praise for his handling of Italy's 2009 quake in Abruzzo."

Al Jazeera English - Africa - Probe sought into Nigeria killings : "A US-based rights group has urged Nigeria's vice-president to order an immediate criminal investigation into 'a massacre of at least 150 Muslim residents' of a town in central Nigeria. In a statement, Corinne Dufka, Human Rights Watch's (HRW) senior West Africa researcher, said the killings in Kuru Karama, 30km south of the city of Jos, required 'the authorities to act now'."

Al Jazeera English - Americas - Haiti quake toll tops 110,000 : "Haitian officials have confirmed that the death toll from the January 12 earthquake now stands at over 110,000, with 193,000 more people wounded and another 609,000 forced into temporary shelters."

OLF leaders are not under house arrest: OLF sources : "LONDON - Oromo Liberation Front (OLF) Chairman General Kemal Galchu and OLF Army Commander, General Hailu Gonfa, can move about where ever they want in Eritrea and are not under house arrest as reported, OLF insiders told Ethiomedia late Friday. Earlier an OLF source said Eritrea has rejeced OLF requests to launch military operations in Ethiopia, a report which was not denied by the second OLF source either."

Repressive governments attack human rights defenders: HRW : "Washington, DC - Governments responsible for serious human rights violations have over the past year intensified attacks against human rights defenders and organizations that document abuse, Human Rights Watch said today in issuing its World Report 2010. The 612-page report, the organization's 20th annual review of human rights practices around the globe, summarizes major human rights trends in more than 90 nations and territories worldwide, reflecting the extensive investigative work carried out in 2009 by Human Rights Watch staff. The volume's introductory essay by Executive Director Kenneth Roth argues that the ability of the human rights movement to exert pressure on behalf of victims has grown enormously in recent years, and that this development has spawned a reaction from abusive governments that grew particularly intense in 2009."