More than 700 leaked secret files on the Guantánamo detainees lay bare the inner workings of America's controversial prison camp in Cuba.
The US military dossiers, obtained by the New York Times and the Guardian, reveal how, alongside the so-called "worst of the worst", many prisoners were flown to the Guantánamo cages and held captive for years on the flimsiest grounds, or on the basis of lurid confessions extracted by maltreatment.
The 759 Guantánamo files, classified "secret", cover almost every inmate since the camp was opened in 2002. More than two years after President Obama ordered the closure of the prison, 172 are still held there.
Guantánamo leaks lift lid on world's most controversial prison
Tunnel under prison wall in Afghanistan sees 500 inmates escape
Some 500 inmates made a mass prison break via a hand-dug tunnel from a penitentiary in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar early on Monday, regional deputy police chief Nasrallah Yusufzai said.
Yusufzai told RIA Novosti by phone that the inmates had dug a tunnel under one of the prison walls and reached an ancient underground irrigation network that was built during the time of Alexander the Great. The tunnel the prisoners dug to the underground irrigation network was nearly 400 meters in length, he added.
Sex trafficking in the U.S. called ‘epidemic’
Sex trafficking is so widespread, said Nathan Wilson, founder of the Project Meridian Foundation in Arlington, which helps police identify traffickers and their victims, that “no country, no race, no religion, no class and no child is immune.”
He said 1.6 million children under 18 — native and foreign born — have been caught up in this country’s sex trade. But, he said, the actual number of victims is hard to quantify because of the lengths to which traffickers go to keep their crimes hidden.
Female soldiers say they're up for battle
Pfc. Tasha Conger and Pfc. Tanya Redinbaugh hope their service will seem typical someday. For now, they’re part of a tiny minority of female soldiers living at front-line combat positions.
That could change if a national commission gets its way. The commission told Congress last month that if a woman can show she’s qualified, she ought to be allowed to take any military job.
Why Obama hasn’t fulfilled his promise to close Gitmo
The sputtering end of the Obama administration’s plans to prosecute Khalid Sheik Mohammed in federal court came one day late last month in a conversation between the president and one of his top Cabinet members.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. had called President Obama to inform him that he would be returning the case to the Defense Department, a decision that would mark the effective abandonment of the president’s promise to close the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Israel's wall cements psychological divide between Arab, Jew
Nearly eight years after it was first erected, the controversial wall snaking through verdant fields and dusty hillsides has become a permanent fixture of the landscape. It has also cemented a psychological divide between Israelis and Palestinians, undermining the prospects for lasting peace that could not only end hostilities but boost economic prosperity.
"Since they built it, Israelis don't see the Palestinians and they don't want to see the Palestinians. And there is a new generation growing up in the West Bank, and they don't even know Hebrew," says Gal Berger, who covers Palestinians for Israel Radio. "That's a problem for the long term. There's growing alienation."
Madness: Right-Wingers Are Serious About Trying to Undermine Child Labor Laws
But according to Ian Milhiser, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas has “called for a return to a discredited theory of the Constitution that early twentieth century justices used to declare federal child labor laws unconstitutional” in three separate decisions.
Some Obama birth records made public for years
Lost in the renewed scrutiny into President Barack Obama’s birth records is the fact that anyone can walk into a Hawaii vital records office, wait in line behind couples getting marriage licenses and open a baby-blue government binder containing basic information about his birth.
Highlighted in yellow on page 1,218 of the thick binder is the computer-generated listing for a boy named Barack Hussein Obama II born in Hawaii, surrounded by the alphabetized last names of all other children born in-state between 1960 and 1964. This is the only government birth information, called “index data,” available to the public.
2 US soldiers killed in southern Iraq
The U.S. military says two American soldiers have been killed while conducting operations in southern Iraq. In a statement, released on Saturday, the military says the deaths occurred Friday.
No further details about how they died were released. The names of the deceased are being withheld pending notification of next of kin and release by the Department of Defense.
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