Six In The Morning

Report: Secret US program releases Afghan insurgents in exchange for peace pledges

　

By Reuters
WASHINGTON -- The United States has been secretly releasing detainees from a military prison in Afghanistan as part of negotiations with insurgent groups, the Washington Post reported in its Monday editions. The "strategic release" program has allowed American officials over the past several years to use prisoners as bargaining chips to reduce violence in restive provinces, it said, citing U.S. officials who it said spoke on condition of anonymity. The freed detainees are often fighters who would not be released under the legal system for military prisoners in Afghanistan. They must promise to give up violence, the report said.

Robert Fisk: Arab Spring has washed the region's appalling racism out of the news
The Long View: Migrant workers from the subcontinent often live eight to a room in slums – even in oil-rich Kuwait

Monday 07 May 2012
How many tracts, books, documentaries, speeches and doctoral theses have been written and produced about Islamophobia? How many denunciations have been made against the Sarkozys and the Le Pens and the Wilders for their anti-immigration (for which, read largely anti-Muslim) policies or – let us go down far darker paths – against the plague of Breivik-style racism? The problem with all this is that Muslim societies – or shall we whittle this down to Middle Eastern societies? – are allowed to appear squeaky-clean in the face of such trash, and innocent of any racism themselves.

French and Greek results throw EU debt crisis plans into doubt
The Irish Times - Monday, May 7, 2012

RUADHÁN Mac CORMAIC in Paris, DAMIAN Mac CON ULADH in Athens and ARTHUR BEESLEY in Brussels
A SURGE in support for Greek anti-bailout parties threw Europe’s response to the debt crisis into renewed doubt, as French socialist François Hollande ousted president Nicolas Sarkozy in a convincing election win. Mr Hollande’s victory will add political momentum to the push for economic growth in Europe, but his demand for changes to the fiscal treaty carries the potential for conflict with Germany. German chancellor Angela Merkel, who opposes revising the treaty, spoke by phone to the incoming president last night. Before the call, a spokesman for Mr Hollande said he would be raising the treaty question.

After the Arab Spring: The winter of Africa's discontent
While the last 18 months have been marked by popular risings across Africa, Jean-Jacques Cornish reminds us that this isn't all that new.

Jean-Jacques Cornish: ANALYSIS
The year 2011 began with the Arab Spring that changed the face of North Africa and possibly beyond. The question asked further down the continent — by both the people and their leaders — was when, if at all, the popular uprisings fuelled by social networks would spread southwards. Midyear, the normally tranquil and grindingly poor Malawi saw at least 18 people die in protests against Bingu wa Mutharika’s autocratic rule and economic mismanagement. Eventually it was a heart attack and not the people that brought him down, but more about that later. By Easter, unconstitutional changes in power, reminiscent of West Africa’s past, had ruled out two of the two dozen elections scheduled for continent in 2012.

Israel stokes the 'Iran threat'
Middle East

By Kaveh L Afrasiabi
Germany's highly public delivery last week to Israel of its fourth nuclear-armed capable submarine has been accompanied by Israeli spin regarding its significance as a warning signal to Iran, thus raising the question of timing: why is Israel tacitly presenting the specter of a nuclear attack on Iran when Tehran is showing signs of compromise in the ongoing talks on Tehran's nuclear program?

9/11 defense team says Guantanamo tribunal is unjust
Civilian lawyers argue that the military system is rigged to put Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and his four codefendants to death. A prosecutor defends the process.

By Richard A. Serrano, Washington Bureau
U.S. NAVAL BASE GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba — The defense team for Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, now formally charged with capital murder in connection with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, on Sunday angrily called the military commission legal process a political "regime" set up to put him and his four accused collaborators to death. David Nevin, Mohammed's civilian attorney, said new rules imposed under the Obama administration barred the lawyers from discussing with their clients whether they were mistreated by U.S. authorities and, in the case of Mohammed, tortured after their arrests eight years ago.