TV News LIES

A groundbreaking research project has mapped the US government's global kidnap and secret detention programme, shedding unprecedented light on one of the most controversial secret operations of recent years.

The interactive online project – by two British universities and a legal charity – has uncovered new details of the way in which the so-called extraordinary rendition programme operated for years in the wake of the September 11 attacks, and the techniques used by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to avoid detection in the face of growing public concern.

Military lawyers for former CIA captives held at Guantánamo are appealing to Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel to intervene in what they describe as deteriorating conditions and leadership failures on a scale similar to the Vietnam War’s My Lai Massacre. Hagel is a Vietnam combat veteran.

Army Capt. Jason Wright, defense counsel for the alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, said Tuesday he delivered the 13-page letter to the Pentagon Monday afternoon in a bid to get Hagel to intervene in what’s going on at the remote prison camps on the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.

The government of Yemen is pressuring the Obama administration to repatriate its nationals from the Guantanamo detention camp, officials say.

More than half of the 166 detainees are Yemeni, the Los Angeles Times reports. They include 88 Yemeni nationals and a few Saudi nationals whose families came from Yemen.

The U.N. General Assembly “strongly” condemned the Syrian government Wednesday for its “indiscriminate” shelling and bombing of civilians and “widespread and systematic” human rights violations in a conflict that has dragged on for more than two years and left more than 70,000 people dead.

The resolution, co-sponsored by most Arab and Western governments, was adopted by a vote of 107 to 12, with 59 abstentions. The United States backed the resolution and Russia opposed it, putting them on opposite sides as they struggle to start talks between the Syrian government and opposition on a political transition.

The prosecutor of the International Criminal Court — the permanent war crimes court in The Hague, Netherlands — says she has received a complaint about Israel's 2010 raid on a humanitarian aid flotilla bound for Gaza, and she will open a preliminary investigation.

The complaint comes from the tiny African state of Comoros, a member of the court, though Israel is not. Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda said she met Tuesday with lawyers from a Turkish law firm that is representing Comoros.

Waleed Hammad dressed conservatively for his secret mission into the world of sexual harassment and abuse on the streets of Cairo, donning a long tan skirt and sleeved shirt, and at times covering his head like many Egyptian women.

The 24-year-old actor walked the sidewalks, hidden cameras in tow, for an investigative television report, hoping the broadcast would enlighten national debate about how to combat deep-rooted day-to-day sexual harassment and abuse in this patriarchal society.