OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada has halted the transfer of people detained by its troops in Afghanistan to Afghan authorities because of torture fears, but it is still fighting human rights groups who want to ban the practice, Amnesty International complained on Thursday.

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Canada's minority Conservative government, which ran into serious trouble early last year when allegations of torture first appeared, signed a deal with Kabul in May allowing Canadian officials unlimited access to prisoners.

Since then Ottawa has regularly denied allegations of widespread detainee abuse inside Afghan jails.

But a document released by Amnesty late on Wednesday showed the government stopped the transfers on November 5 last year after receiving evidence that a prisoner had been mistreated.

A Canadian court is due to consider on Thursday an injunction from Amnesty and another rights group that would temporarily stop the transfer of prisoners.

Amnesty said although that Ottawa had frozen the transfers, it was still contesting the injunction.

"They want to continue to be free to resume transfers at any stage and in any way they want to," said Alex Neve, secretary-general of Amnesty International Canada.

"So we will be in court today with the government maintaining ... the absurd position that 'Yes, we have stopped transferring prisoners because of concerns about torture.' But they'll be saying to the judge 'Please don't order us to stop transfers because of concerns about torture'," Neve told CTV television.

Amnesty and the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association have also launched a lawsuit to force a permanent halt to the transfers. That will be heard later this year.

Government officials did not immediately respond to queries as to why Ottawa was contesting the injunction.

Neve said he was pleased to learn of Ottawa's decision on freezing transfers but questioned why the government had not made it public. Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier made no mention of it when addressing Parliament about detainees on November 14.

The official opposition Liberals accused the government of misleading Parliament and said ministers had repeatedly insulted those who asked questions about abuses.

"Now we learn that the allegations of torture were so credible that the decision had been reached to halt the transfers. That is partisanship of the worst caliber," said Denis Coderre, the party's defense spokesman.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's chief spokeswoman did not directly respond to questions as to why the government had kept the move quiet and what Canadian soldiers were doing with any suspects they had detained since November 5.

"These are operational matters, which are the responsibility of the military ... Our policy and agreement (with the Afghan authorities on monitoring prisoners) remain in place," said Sandra Buckler.

The left-leaning New Democrats said the government's secrecy made a mockery of frequent pledges made by Harper to increase accountability in politics

$5 Million Reward Sparks Backlash


By MATTHEW LEE,AP
Posted: 2008-01-25 14:03:40
Filed Under: Nation News
MINNEAPOLIS (Jan. 25) - An instructor at the flight school Zacarias Moussaoui attended before the Sept. 11 attacks is $5 million richer for his efforts to alert authorities - but colleagues say he wasn't the only one sounding an alarm.


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Dana Verkouteren, File / AP Moussaoui Reward
Raises Questions1 of 4 Flight instructor Clarence Prevost, center, was a key witness in the trial of confessed terrorist conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui. He's shown in an artist rendering on March 9, 2006.

Clarence Prevost, 69, got the payout Thursday as part of the State Department's "Rewards for Justice" program, which mainly seeks information about perpetrators or planners of terrorist acts against U.S. interests and citizens abroad.

The ceremony was closed and the State Department wouldn't identify the recipient, in keeping with the policy of the program. But two Bush administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to talk publicly about the matter, said the reward went to Prevost.

Prevost, a former Navy pilot who goes by the nickname "Clancy," became a key witness at Moussaoui's trial and eventual conviction as a Sept. 11 conspirator, testifying that he urged his bosses at the Pan Am International Flight Academy outside Minneapolis to call the FBI in August 2001 because he was suspicious of Moussaoui, an inexperienced pilot seeking commercial jetliner training.

Prevost said during the trial that he urged flight school officials to call the FBI and one day an agent showed up to ask him questions about Moussaoui.

News of the reward came as a surprise to two other Pan Am flight instructors, Tim Nelson and Hugh Sims, who also have been credited with tipping the FBI to Moussaoui and were honored by the Senate in 2005 with a resolution that commended their "bravery" and "heroism."

Nelson, 47, of St. Paul, Minn., said he planned to contact Minnesota's senators to ask for an explanation of the reward.

"It was never done for the reward, but when you give $5 million to a person who didn't call the FBI and didn't put his job on the line, are they rewarding someone for calling the FBI or for testifying? And the only reason he was testifying was because he was the instructor," Nelson said of Prevost.

Sims, in a phone interview from Fort Myers, Fla., said he didn't want to comment "till we get a few things straightened out." Sims recounted meeting Moussaoui at Pan Am on a Monday, and said that two days later he and Nelson each called the FBI separately.

"He was certainly there but he didn't call the FBI. I have no idea why he received the reward," Sims said.

Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., said in a statement Friday that he had asked the State Department to explain why Sims and Nelson weren't included in the reward.

"I believe that any honor bestowed by the State Department on people who assisted in the arrest and capture of Zacarias Moussaoui should include both of these gentlemen," Coleman said, describing the men as "American heroes."

Phone calls to a listing for Prevost in Coral Gables, Fla., an upscale Miami suburb, were not answered Friday.

After his arrest, Moussaoui sat in jail for 3 1/2 weeks on an immigration violation, saying little to investigators before hijacked planes slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon or crashed in a Pennsylvania field on Sept. 11.

The Minneapolis FBI agents who responded to the tips were unable to persuade their superiors in Washington to seek a national security warrant to search Moussaoui's belongings and laptop computer.

Moussaoui later confessed to being the "20th hijacker" and was sentenced to life in prison without parole in 2006 after a trial marked by numerous outbursts, conflicts with his lawyers and questions about his status, if any, within Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida network.

He told jurors he was to have piloted a fifth plane on Sept. 11 and fly it into the White House.

But after the jury decided against sentencing him to death, Moussaoui recanted his testimony and denied any role in 9/11, saying he lied on the stand because he assumed he had no chance of getting a fair trial.

Rewards for Justice, which was created in 1984, has paid about $77 million in rewards to more than 50 people. The State Department says its policy is to withhold the names of the people who receive rewards, though it sometimes announces payments in high-profile cases. The largest payment the program has made was $30 million to a person whose information led to Saddam Hussein's sons, Uday and Qusay Hussein, according to its Web site.

The award to Prevost is the first to a U.S. citizen related to the Sept. 11 attacks, the administration officials said.

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/5-million-reward-sparks-ba...20080124220809990001


Well this is just the most ridiculous!!! $5mil for what? Just think how this money could have been put to better use. even worse, look how much money has been paid out ...probably like this. I am sure ugh never mind it just makes me sick! unbelievable bad government

MORE BORDER CLOSINGS CONTROVERSY



Egypt Takes Steps to Close Gaza Border
By OMAR SINAN,Associated Press
Posted: 2008-01-25 12:19:26
RAFAH, Egypt (AP) - Thousands of Palestinians pushed their way into Egypt past human chains of guards with riot shields after a bulldozer wrecked another section of fence along the Egypt-Gaza border.

Men in black clothing, some of them masked, stood atop the bulldozer as it knocked down a concrete slab under the watchful eyes of Egyptian forces on the other side who shot in the air in an attempt to hinder the flow of Gazans into Egypt.

Palestinians, many of them carrying empty fuel canisters, managed to push through several openings despite the presence of the Egyptians deployed nine rows deep in some places. At one point, guards aimed a water cannon above the heads of people, not at them, to keep them back.

Cranes were positioned next to the border, lifting crates of supplies and even livestock over into Gaza.

The border was first breached Wednesday, when Palestinian militants blew down large sections of the border wall. Since then, Egypt has allowed tens of thousands of Palestinians to go back and forth, but has rejected any suggestion of assuming responsibility for the crowded, impoverished territory.

Earlier Friday, Egyptian forces took up positions a few steps into Palestinian territory, using shields to protect themselves from some Gazans who climbed atop car roofs and threw stones at them. Witnesses said a photographer was lightly injured in the clash.

The visitors included a gaggle of Palestinian women in finely embroidered dresses and fresh makeup, heading to relatives' weddings in Egypt they said had been hastily moved up to allow Gazan family members to attend.

Yousef Mohammed, 17, from Gaza, said he waited until Friday to make the trip because he was trying to get together enough money first to shop in Egypt. "They don't want us to go in," he said, pointing at the riot police.

Travelers returning from Egypt said they heard loudspeaker announcements there that Gazans had to return home by 7 p.m. Friday.

By mid-afternoon Friday, Egyptians eased up on the attempts to restrict the cross-border movement. Hundreds of riot police suddenly left a border crossing at Rafah, to march back into the Egyptian side of the divided town, and Gazans again streamed by the hundreds through the regular crossing.

An Egyptian soldier was reported slightly wounded to the leg earlier in the day, likely from gunshots fired by Hamas militiamen sporadically from the Gazan side, said an Egyptian officer, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not allowed to talk to the media. Five policemen also were injured by stones hurled by Gazans protesting the attempts to restrict their movement into Egypt.

The border issue became a verbal spat between Egypt and Israel when Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai said Israel gradually wants to relinquish responsibility for Gaza, now that its border with Egypt was blown open.

It was a position echoed by other Israeli officials, who said the border breach could pave the way for increasingly disconnecting from the territory.

However, Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, speaking on Thursday to The Associated Press on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, said he did not want to "go too far in my interpretation of this."

Egypt angrily rejected the Israeli ideas and said it would not change border arrangements.

In an interview published Friday in the weekly Al-Osboa, President Hosni Mubarak called the situation in Gaza "unacceptable" and called on Israel to "lift its siege" and "solve the problem."

State Department spokesman Tom Casey told reporters Friday that "Egypt understands that it needs to act to control its border. It's a sovereign state, and it needs to have control over its sovereign border."

The opening of the border, even if temporary, provided a significant popularity boost to Gaza's Hamas rulers, who can claim they successfully broke through the internationally supported Israeli closure that has deprived the coastal strip of normal trade and commerce for nearly two years.

Both Egypt and Israel restricted the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza after Hamas won parliament elections in 2006, and further tightened the closure after Hamas seized control of the area by force last June.

Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said Palestinians had to keep breaches open in the barrier "until the crossings are reopened." "The gaps shouldn't be closed because they provide urgent assistance to the Palestinians," he said.

A handful of black-clad Hamas gunmen fanned out along the Gaza side of the border Friday, attempting to create order amid waves of Gaza residents approaching the area. It was the first time since the border fence was torn down that Hamas deployed uniformed men to deal with the chaos. The militant group has been using plainclothes agents to regulate the crowd.

Warning that militants were among the Palestinians who entered Egypt, the Israeli military raised its level of alert Thursday, fearing an attack on Israel, and closed the highway along the Israel-Egypt border.

Overnight, Israeli air strikes killed four Hamas militants around Rafah, Palestinian and Israeli officials said Friday.

Two Hamas militiamen were killed as they drove near the shattered border fence with Egypt and two more died while driving in Rafah town, Palestinian security officials said.

Israeli police on Friday limited Palestinians' access to Jerusalem's al-Aqsa mosque complex - Islam's third-holiest shrine - fearing violent protest there against Israel's blockade of the Gaza Strip

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/egypt-takes-steps-to-close...20080125121909990030



This is going to get ugly real soon I fear

By KATHLEEN HENNESSEY, Associated Press Writer
36 minutes ago



LAS VEGAS - Gamblers fled the casino floor as firefighters rushed up flights of stairs, but remarkably no one was seriously injured in a blaze that blackened the top floors of the 32-story Monte Carlo hotel-casino.


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The 3,000-room resort was at near capacity Friday when the fire broke out midmorning, sending guests and employees onto the Las Vegas Strip where ashes and embers rained.

The blaze was contained within an hour.

An ambulance company spokeswoman said 17 people were taken to area hospitals with minor injuries, mostly from inhaling smoke or from fleeing the building. None of the 120 firefighters who fought the blaze was hurt.

The spectacle brought to mind the state's deadliest fire. In 1980, 87 people were killed in a fire at the old MGM Grand just down the street from the Monte Carlo.

Strict fire codes, including mandatory fire sprinklers, have since been adopted for the casinos on the Las Vegas Strip.

Fire Chief Steve Smith credited firefighters, not the sprinkler system for quickly containing Friday's fire.

He called it an exterior fire that consumed a foam-like building material. He said it was best fought from the interior. Firefighters entered top-floor rooms, broke windows and leaned out with hoses to aim water at the flames.

"It's very precarious up there," Smith said. "They did expose themselves to some extreme danger. They could have fallen out."

Smith said it was too early to assess damage or say what caused the fire, which began just before 11 a.m. There was no immediate indication of criminal activity or arson, but "nothing is ruled out at this time," he said.

Officials were told welders were working on the roof of the building before the fire, Clark County spokesman Erik Pappa said.

Ron Lynn, chief of the county Building Department, said five floors were affected by the fire, mostly from water damage, but only a few rooms had significant damage from fire and water.

Officials went door-to-door evacuating the hotel, said Gordon Absher, a spokesman for the resort's owner, MGM Mirage Inc.

Larry Wappel, 25, said he and his brother were in a room on the 30th floor when they heard housekeeping staff banging on doors and yelling "Fire, get out!" He said it took about 10 minutes to walk single-file down the stairs.

"There were a couple of ladies crying, but it was pretty calm," he said.

Another guest, Renza Badilla, 45, said she exited through the hotel kitchen to find burning debris and embers falling from the roof.

"I think people were shocked when they saw the smoke," she said.

Guests were taken to the MGM Grand Garden Arena and were being moved to other MGM Mirage hotels in Las Vegas, Absher said. Late Friday, some guests were escorted to their hotel rooms to retrieve their belongings, he said. The top six floors remained closed to guests.

Lynn said it's possible the casino would reopen ahead of the hotel but he said that would not happen immediately.

"We're going to recommission as if it would be a new building," he said.

An estimated 900 hotel workers on duty when the fire began were evacuated to the adjacent New York-New York hotel.

Huge crowds formed to watch the fire, and traffic on the Las Vegas Strip was gridlocked as streets were blocked off around the hotel. Nearby resorts were not evacuated.

The Monte Carlo Resort & Casino has 3,002 guest rooms and 211 suites. The resort, on Las Vegas Boulevard near Tropicana Avenue, opened in June 1996 and is modeled after the Place du Casino in Monte Carlo, Monaco.

TEHRAN, Iran - Iran has received nearly all of the initial nuclear fuel it needs for a power plant in the southern port of Bushehr with the arrival of a seventh shipment from Russia on Saturday, state media reported.

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The 11-ton consignment of enriched uranium arrived at the light-water nuclear power plant Saturday morning. The final shipment of the fuel is expected at a "determined time," the Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

"Of 82 tons of initial fuel needed for the Bushehr nuclear power plant, 77 tons have been shipped to Iran so far," it added.

Iran received the first shipment of nuclear fuel from Russia on Dec. 17 after months of dispute between the two countries, allegedly over delayed construction payments for the reactor.

Iran has said Bushehr, the oil-rich country's first nuclear reactor, will begin operating in the summer of 2008, producing half its 1,000-megawatt capacity of electricity.

Tehran heralded the first shipment as a victory, saying it proved its nuclear program was peaceful and not a cover for weapons development as claimed by the U.S. and some of its allies.

The U.S. initially opposed Russian participation in building the Bushehr reactor and supplying it with fuel, but reversed its position about a year ago to obtain Moscow's support for the first set of U.N. sanctions against Iran.

Washington was also influenced by Iran's agreement to return spent nuclear fuel from the reactor to Russia to ensure it doesn't extract plutonium from it to make atomic bombs.

Russia's decision to ship nuclear fuel to Iran follows a U.S. intelligence report released last month that concluded Tehran had stopped its nuclear weapons program in late 2003 and had not resumed it since. Iran says it never had a weapons program.

It also came after the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Iran had been truthful about its past uranium enrichment activities.

The United States and Russia have said the supply of nuclear fuel means Iran has no need to continue its own uranium enrichment program — a process that can provide fuel for a reactor or fissile material for a bomb.

Iran has insisted it would continue enriching uranium because it needed to provide fuel to a 300-megawatt light-water reactor it was building in the southwestern town of Darkhovin.

Iranian officials have said they plan to generate 20,000 megawatts of electricity through nuclear energy in the next two decades.

The only way for Bin Laden to be stopped is either one very close to him betrays him for a huge sum of cash and fame or he turns himself in. The Tora Bora region si his refuge where local tribal leaders hid and protect him from Pakistani security forces. It is a very difficult and dangerous region which no amount of US firepower will capture him.[/QUOTE]

Hi Hudson,

I am just amazed why Bin L. and his cohorts seem to be winning in this game of hide-and-seek. I just thought that the CIA, with all its mighty powers, would be able to pinpoint where he is by now. (I wonder if the CIA needs the Mossad's help. ) Or I'm probably too much influenced by James Bond movies.

Judge Royce Lamberth of the US District Court for the District of Columbia sentenced Colombian rebel Ricardo Palmera to 60 years in prison Monday for his role in a hostage-taking conspiracy involving three American citizens in Colombia . Palmera, aka Simon Trinidad, is a senior member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) , Colombia’s largest guerrilla group which uses drug profits to finance its mission to overthrow the Colombian government. A federal jury convicted Palmera in July of conspiracy to take hostage three civilian Pentagon contractors who were captured when their counter-drug surveillance plane crashed in Colombia in 2003. They have reportedly been held by FARC forces ever since.

Palmera was originally extradited to the United States in December 2004 to face drug smuggling and kidnapping charges. Colombian President Alvaro Uribe , a staunch supporter of the US, agreed to Palmera's release to US authorities after FARC failed to release any of the more than 60 hostages it was known to be holding.

Alleged French "rogue trader" Jerome Kerviel was released on bail Monday after French judges filed preliminary charges of "breach of trust," "falsifying and using falsified documents," and "breaching IT access codes" against him relating to $73 billion worth of unauthorized trades he made while working for French bank Societe Generale . The judges refused a request by prosecutors to include a charge of attempted fraud in their formal investigation. Kerviel, who has since been dismissed from Societe Generale, turned himself over voluntarily to French police on Saturday. On Sunday, French authorities extended his detention for an additional 24 hours . In addition to holding Kerviel, authorities seized evidence including computer disks and documents from his home and the offices of Societe Generale. AP has more, as well as a timeline of the events. AFP and Reuters have additional coverage.

The bank, which lost $7 billion when it was forced to unload the fraudulent positions, has filed a criminal complaint against Kerviel, and described the methods he supposedly used to commit the fraud in an explanatory note Sunday. Kerviel has maintained his innocence and says that he is being made a scapegoat by the bank, which he alleges was aware of his activities. Additionally, BusinessWeek reports that the Eurex derivatives exchange warned Societe General in November about Kerviel's unauthorized transactions.

Mike directions to the ILW chat room

click on go tab, click on chat rooms, click on live chat
we are in there

i dont c it? i can only c chat with lawyers,but whenever i click on it ,it takes me back to the home page?

ok got it lol

we are waiting for you to arrive,

Landing should be pretty easy, its very bright in there

it's not loading

log into MSN

Daily Mail, UK.

Revealed: Secret operating theatre of the Indian 'Dr Horror' who sold organs to Westerners
By DAVID WILLIAMS - More by this author » Last updated at 18:13pm on 28th January 2008


'Dr Horror': Amral Kumar
An illegal kidney transplant racket in which poor people were lured to a luxury "underworld" operating theatre so their organs could be sold to wealthy Westerners has been smashed by police in India.

Up to 500 kidneys are said to have been sold at vast profit over the past decade to four doctors operating from a so-called "House of Horrors", a private house in the booming IT city of Gurgaon, on the outside Delhi.

Labourers, who are drawn to the town from surrounding villages looking for work, went to the house with promises of a job but are alleged to have been duped or forced at gunpoint to sell their kidney.

They were paid 50,000 Rupees - about £600 - for their organs, which were then sold for 10 times as much to rich Indians and Westerners.

The scandal - code named "Operation Killer Kidney" by police - has gripped and horrified India with those living near the house claiming they saw streams of blood running from the building into the gutters.

The investigation has also thrown the spotlight once again on "Transplant Tourism" where rich Westerners unable to find suitable organs in their homeland travel aboard to countries where kidneys can be more easily obtained and purchased on the black market for thousands of pounds.

More than 50 medical officials are said to have been involved and last night the surgeon alleged to have headed the racket, Dr Amal Kumar, was on the run after detectives believed he received a tip-off allowing him to escape the police raid.

Dubbed "Dr Horror" and "The Organ Snatcher" in India, police are checking to see whether he has slipped out of the country as he has contacts in Britain and Saudi Arabia.

Detectives are also checking to see whether Dr Kumar is actually called Dr Santosh Raut, who ran a similar operation in the capital Delhi in the early 90s.

The case, one of the largest transplant rackets reported in India in recent years, has sparked calls for the government to tighten regulation of kidney transplants to stop backstreet operations as global demand rises.

The operation was allowed to run successfully and undetected because, in some areas of India, private clinics and hospitals do not have to be registered.

Indeed, from the exterior, House 4373 was just another anonymous two-storey building but its interior was fitted with state-of-the-art operating theatres.

One of the doctors involved is alleged to have confessed to police: "The location was perfect and convenient - it was close to the airport and convenient for international clients."

Clients were drawn from Greece, the US, Russia, Canada and Saudi Arabia - and when last week police moved in following a tip-off, five Westerners, including two Americans, were in private rooms either waiting for kidneys or having just received them.

Such was the organisation of the racketeers that scouts were employed by the doctors to go out into the community and find potential donors - each of the scouts themselves having sold their own kidneys meaning they would not betray the gang.

The scouts were paid for each "volunteer" they took to the doctors and tests for suitability were actually carried out at a state-run hospital by one of the medical officers in their pay.

One of those who sold their kidneys, Mohammed Salim, said today: "I was approached by a stranger for a job. When I accepted, I was taken to a room with gunmen.

"They tested my blood, gave me an injection and I lost consciousness. When I woke up, I had pain in my lower abdomen and I was told that my kidney had been removed."

A key police witness, Pappu Jatav, said that he had agreed to sell his kidney for the equivalent of £300 but, after tests, the organ was found to be unfit for transplant.

He said he was given about £10 and then "thrown out on the street."

Suspicious neighbours said they had noticed blood running out of the house's gutters, as well as blood-soaked bandages and even bits of f