Campaigners seek arrest of former CIA legal chief over Pakistan drone attacks | World news | The Guardian

Should people killing civilians be brought to justice, the answer is yes.

Campaigners seek arrest of former CIA legal chief over Pakistan drone attacks | World news | The Guardian

McGill scholar’s computer seized by US authorities

A doctoral student whose research focuses on the Shiites of Lebanon had his computer confiscated by the US authorities as he travelled in May 2010 from Montreal to his home in Brooklyn, New York.

Under the new rules, the US authorities are permitted to seize computer and other digital equipment of visitors at any port of entry.

Listen to his story in his own words where he explains how he was detained as he travelled to the US with his mother on the Mothers’ Day.

Note that as of July 2011, more than a year after the event in May 2010, McGill University has no reports listed on its website of the ill-treatment of its student by the US government.

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Bloomberg News, sent from my iPhone.

Laptop Seizure, Search at Border Challenged by Student’s Suit

July 9 (Bloomberg) -- A U.S. judge is weighing whether to halt a lawsuit filed by a graduate student whose laptop was seized by customs agents as he crossed the border from Canada and found to contain pictures of rallies by Hamas and Hezbollah.

U.S. District Judge Robert Korman in Brooklyn, New York, yesterday put off ruling on whether to allow the case to go forward. Pascal Abidor, a 27-year-old U.S.-French dual citizen, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, seeks to force border guards to show a “reasonable suspicion” before searching laptop computers and other devices.

Abidor brought the case against the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and its secretary, Janet Napolitano, in September, saying such seizures violated the constitutional rights to free speech and to protection against improper searches.

“There are lots of burdens people are subject to in order to protect their own security and the security of others,” Korman said at a hearing yesterday. He said people can choose to travel without sensitive information if they fear it will fall into the wrong hands, just as they did 20 years ago before personal computers became commonplace.

“Not everyone has the choice to leave behind confidential information,” said Catherine Crump, a lawyer for the ACLU, citing attorneys and journalists.

More than 6,500 people, around half of them U.S. citizens, had electronic devices searched in a 20-month period starting in October 2008, according to Abidor’s complaint. In an eight-month period, 220 electronic devices were held, lawyers for Abidor said.

Broad Policies

Broad policies grant border guards access to information even if it enjoys medical, legal or journalistic privilege, and those policies don’t set limits on how long authorities can keep electronic devices, the lawyers said.

The U.S. said only one in 90,000 people coming into the country is searched, a necessary practice to detect drugs, child pornography and money laundering. The Supreme Court in 2004 found that the belongings of people entering the U.S. can be searched without “reasonable suspicion, probable cause or warrant,” lawyers for the U.S. wrote in court filings. Electronics such as laptop computers and mobile phones fall under that rule, the U.S. said.

Abidor, an Islamic studies graduate student at McGill University in Montreal, was taken aside by U.S. officials on a train on his way home to Brooklyn in May 2010. Customs agents searching his laptop found images of rallies by Hamas and Hezbollah, both designated as foreign terrorist organizations by the U.S State Department.

Doctoral Thesis

The pictures were downloaded from the Internet as part of his research into Shiites in Lebanon, the topic of his doctoral thesis, Abidor said he told the agents. He said he was patted down, handcuffed, taken off the train and held in a cell for three hours before being released without charge.

Abidor said he didn’t get his laptop, with the sole copy of his graduate work, for 11 days. When he did, there was evidence that his files, including research, personal photos and chats with his girlfriend, had been searched, he said.

The lawsuit was also brought on behalf of the National Press Photographers Association, some of whose 7,000 members have been subject to searches and seizures, according to court papers.

The case is Abidor v. Napolitano, 10-cv-04059, U.S. District Court, Eastern District of New York (Brooklyn).

Democracy in action in Afghanistan

Two female MPs in the Afghan Parliament embellished their freedom to debate by throwing water bottles, shoes, and hurling punches. Democracy is in safe hands in Afghanistan.

Related articles

• Female MPs Brawl In Afghan Parliament, Throw Shoe, Bottle (Video) (thedaleygator.wordpress.com)
• Women MPs Brawl During Karzai Impeachment Talks (newser.com)
• CAT FIGHT! Slug fest breaks out in Afghan Parliament as women MPs hurl shoes and punches at each other (barenakedislam.wordpress.com)

Osama Bin Laden's 'intriguing handwritten notes'

BBC has reproduced an image of handwritten notes recovered from the building in Abbotabad, Pakistan, which reportedly housed Mr. Bin Laden for years. There is debate about the authenticity of the document.

Without knowing much about the content in the text below and also pleading ignorance of OBL's handwriting from the past, I can certainly say one thing: there are too many harakaat listed in the document that gives the impression that the document was produced by or for a non-native Arabic speaker who would need the harakaat to know how to pronounce the words in Arabic correctly.

BBC News - Osama Bin Laden's 'intriguing handwritten notes'

Millions of Afghans to go hungry

Image via WikipediaAs the NATO starts to wind down its operations in Afghanistan, the humanitarian organizations also start planning their exist. An unfortunate development in Afghanistan involves the World Food Programme (WFP) who announced recently that owing to insufficient funds, it will be unable to feed millions of Afghans.

This is a repeat performance from the last US exit from Afghanistan. As the Americans deserted Pakistan and Afghanistan in the mid eighties, the aid agencies followed the suit. WFP is perhaps offering a repeat performance.

International Development - WFP Downsizes Afghan Food Aid Operations

A billion without water and sanitation by 2015

Image by Image Editor via FlickrThe U.N. Millennium Development Goal on expanding access to water and sanitation services by 2015 is likely to be missed as donors increasingly shrink away from funding water projects and are instead focusing more on health and education-related initiatives, according to new research by the World Bank and Water Aid.

“We are way off track, and 1 billion people will be let down. The aid flows are very small compared with what is needed,” the Guardian quotes John Garret, a senior policy analyst at Water Aid, a U.K.-based non-governmental organization focused on providing water and sanitation services to people in developing countries.

Among those who will be hardest hit by this projected failure to meet the MDG on water and sanitation are women and girls, the World Bank said in a report it released in May, the Guardian notes.

Water Aid is due to publish a new report next month that is based on data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. The Guardian says the NGO’s analysis has shown that water and sanitation programs shrank in number as compared to the total projects funded by donors in the last 20 years.

“In the mid-1990s, water and sanitation made up about 8 percent of global financial aid, putting it ahead of issues such as reproductive health and population growth,” the Guardian says. “But between 2007 and 2009 – the last year for which comprehensive figures are available – it was just over 5 percent.”

Julia Bucknall, the World Bank’s water chief, said this decline maybe due to donors’ and the public perception of water and sanitation as an unglamorous policy area.

“It just does not attract donor funding,” Bucknall told the Guardian. “It seems to be easier for people to talk about disease, and ignore sanitation.”

International Development - Water, Sanitation MDG Off Track – World Bank, Water Aid

Uzbek couple bombs Pakistani police station

Image via WikipediaFor years it was known that the militants from the Soviet Caucasus were active in Pakistan, getting trained to target Russian interests. It is becoming increasingly evident now that the Uzbeks and other militants are in fact being used as beachheads in Pakistan by the local Pushtun-based militants.

Earlier, an Uzbek husband and wife team blew themselves up in a coordinated attack on a police station in Kolachi that involved six other militants. This should be sufficient evidence for defence strategists in who have also spoken about Pakistan's strategic depth and have justified rearing militants from Pakistan and abroad.

No one is more vulnerable to such attacks than the Pakistani themselves. The misguided policies followed by the so-called defence experts in Pakistan have turned the country into a tinderbox. This is certainly not a sustainable state for Pakistan who is now becoming the biggest victim of the militants it has reared over the past three decades.


Pakistani Taliban threaten husband-and-wife bombings | Pakistan | DAWN.COM

U.S. Image in Pakistan Falls No Further Following bin Laden Killing | Pew Global Attitudes Project

U.S. Image in Pakistan Falls No Further Following bin Laden Killing | Pew Global Attitudes Project

"Most Pakistanis disapprove of the U.S. military operation that killed Osama bin Laden, and although the al Qaeda leader has not been well-liked in recent years, a majority of Pakistanis describe his death as a bad thing. Only 14% say it is a good thing.

Moreover, many Pakistanis believe the U.S. raid on bin Laden’s compound – which was located about 35 miles from Islamabad – will have a negative impact on the already strained relations between the U.S. and their country."

I was ignorant about tax procedure: Rahat Fateh Ali Khan – The Express Tribune

Member FBR Khwar Khurshid Butt should have known that ignorance of law is no excuse. Rahat Fateh Ali Khan's plead ignorance of the tax laws as his reasons for not filing taxes. Rahat should have been fined heavily for his ignorance and should have forced to pay unfiled taxes with penalty. The FBR official instead let a tax cheat go scott-free!

I was ignorant about tax procedure: Rahat Fateh Ali Khan – The Express Tribune

BBC News - Oxfam to probe Pakistan flood funds 'irregularities'

BBC News - Oxfam to probe Pakistan flood funds 'irregularities'
Oxfam's audit by PWC suggests that 2% of its disbursements in the province of Sindh did not follow the procedures.