TV News LIES

President Barack Obama is pushing to overcome obstacles to closing the Guantanamo Bay prison, an elusive goal which has frustrated him since he took office. That is setting the White House on a collision course with Congress in its bid to loosen restrictions for moving out detainees.

Administration officials say a Senate defense policy bill, coming up for debate within days, would allow them to move out prisoners who have long been cleared for transfer overseas but are still held, in part because of a complicated Pentagon certification process. The bill would ease those restrictions and lift a ban on bringing suspected terrorist prisoners from Guantanamo to the United States for detention, trial or emergency medical treatment.

Amnesty International's new report on labor conditions in Qatar is not the first time the emirate has been accused of failure to protect workers' rights. But the report released Sunday offers a more detailed account of conditions that some have called abusive.

Amnesty International said that many of the approximately 1.4 million migrant workers helping to build infrastructure in Qatar’s booming economy are being denied such basic rights as adequate pay, comfortable sleeping quarters and the ability to change employers or even leave the country. Qatari authorities had promised, after allegations over labor conditions were published last month, to assign more inspectors to ensure that international standards are observed. Qatar also appointed an international law firm to investigate allegations of forced labor.

But critics say little has changed despite these undertakings.

At least 3,728 prisoners in the United States will spend the rest of their lives in prison for non-violent offenses according to an American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) study published on Wednesday.

The study found that 79 percent of these prisoners were convicted of nonviolent, drug-related crimes and 20 percent of nonviolent property crimes like shoplifting. Most of these cases were sentenced under mandatory minimum guidelines, for which judges had no choice but to dole out a life without parole sentence.

“Fairness has departed from the system,” said one judge as he sentenced a nonviolent offender to life in prison without parole.

The military judge in the Sept. 11 trial ordered the U.S. government Wednesday to turn over all correspondence from the International Committee of the Red Cross about the treatment of the alleged 9/11 conspirators in Guantánamo detention, a blow to Pentagon arguments that the contacts are confidential.

Defense lawyers hailed the decision by the judge, Army Col. James Pohl, who will review years of reports between the Geneva-based aid agency and the United States dating to the Bush administration to decide if the material is relevant to the defense of accused Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators.

An independent panel of military, ethics, medical, public health, and legal experts today charged that U.S. military and intelligence agencies directed doctors and psychologists working in U.S. military detention centers to violate standard ethical principles and medical standards to avoid infliction of harm.

The Task Force on Preserving Medical Professionalism in National Security Detention Centers (see attached) concludes that since September 11, 2001, the Department of Defense (DoD) and CIA improperly demanded that U.S. military and intelligence agency health professionals collaborate in intelligence gathering and security practices in a way that inflicted severe harm on detainees in U.S. custody.

Jordan has forcibly returned hundreds of Syrian refugees to their home country in violation of international law, according to a new report by Amnesty International.

The international human rights watchdog said that hundreds of refugees were deported in 2012 following a protest at the Zaatari refugee camp, close to the country’s border with Syria. Hundreds more Syrians have been forcibly returned this year, including Syrians of Palestinian origin and those working in the Kingdom without official documentation, according to the human rights group.