GUANTÃNAMO BAY, Cuba — A military judge here dismissed the war crimes charges against a Canadian detainee today, saying there was a flaw in the procedure the military has used to file such charges against Guantánamo detainees. The ruling in the case of the Canadian, Omar Khadr, is likely to stall the military’s war crimes prosecutions here. Critics of the prosecutions immediately called for Congress to reexamine the system it set up last year for military commissions to try detainees. The military judge, Col. Peter E. Brownback III of the Army, said that Congress authorized the tribunals to try only those detainees who had been determined to be unlawful enemy combatants. But the military authorities here, he said, have determined only that Mr. Khadr was an enemy combatant, without making the added determination that his participation was ‘unlawful.’ Military lawyers here said the same flaw would affect every other potential war crimes case here. The ruling, the latest in a history of legal setbacks for the government’s effort to bring war-crimes charges against detainees, appeared to raise far-reaching questions, because it involved central principles of detention procedures. Under directives from President Bush and senior Defense Department […]
Armed units from the private security firm Blackwater USA opened fire in Baghdad streets twice in two days last week. It triggered a standoff between the security contractors and Iraqi forces, a reminder that the war in Iraq may be remembered mostly in our history books for empowering and building America’s first modern mercenary army. There are an estimated 20,000 to 30,000 armed security contractors working in Iraq, although there are no official figures and some estimates run much higher. Security contractors are not counted as part of the coalition forces. When the number of private mercenary fighters is added to other civilian military ‘contractors’ who carry out logistical support activities such as food preparation, the number rises to about 126,000. ‘We got 126,000 contractors over there, some of them making more than the secretary of defense,’ said House defense appropriations subcommittee Chairman John Murtha (D., Pa.). ‘How in the hell do you justify that?’ The privatization of war hands an incentive to American corporations, many with tremendous political clout, to keep us mired down in Iraq. But even more disturbing is the steady rise of this modern Praetorian Guard. The Praetorian Guard in ancient Rome was […]
WASHINGTON — Maybe walking upright on two legs isn’t such a defining human feature after all. Scientists who spent a year photographing orangutans in the rain forest say the trait probably evolved in ancient apes navigating the treetops long before ancestors of humans climbed to the ground — a hypothesis that contradicts science museum displays the world over. But it’s more in tune with fossil evidence, contends Robin Crompton of the University of Liverpool, who co-authored the report in today’s edition of the journal Science. ‘An increasing number of people have been questioning this old ‘up from the apes’ idea’ of how bipedalism evolved, Crompton said. The popular explanation: Some chimpanzee-like creature that dragged its knuckles on the ground descended from trees into grasslands, and gradually straightened up to walk like modern humans. Yet climate data and fossils of such creatures as the famed Lucy suggest that early ancestors of humans lived in forests for far longer, and could move on two or four legs. Think orangutans just swing around? Maybe in zoos. Actually, it is orangutans — not the chimps who genetically are humans’ closest relatives — that can walk most like people, […]
It has long been said that women value personality in a man over penis size – and research published today suggests this is true. But blokes can still go nuts over the issue of quantity versus quality, it seems. While men agonise over the length and girth of their member, women are more interested in a man’s looks and outlook on life, it found. A review of existing studies concluded that worries over penis size do not go away even for men of average length. Dr Kevan Wylie, from the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield, England, found that men often have a better body image and increased sexual confidence if they have a large penis. He and Ian Eardley, from St James’s Hospital in Leeds, studied more than 50 lots of international research into penile size and ‘small penis syndrome’ carried out since 1942. They brought together the results of 12 studies that measured the penises of 11,531 men, and noted the average erect penis ranged from 14 to 16cms (5.5 to 6.2in) in length and 12 to 13cm (4.7 to 5.1in) in girth. Their review, published in the journal BJU International, also found […]
NEW YORK — In the first scientific study of its kind, shark cartilage extract, AE-941 or neovastat, has shown no benefit as a therapeutic agent when combined with chemotherapy and radiation for patients with advanced non-small cell lung cancer, researchers say. The study was presented by associate professor in the University of Texas M D Anderson Cancer Center Charles Lu on Saturday at the 43rd annual meeting of the American clinical oncology. The international Phase III study enrolled 384 newly-diagnosed untreated Stage III non-small cell lung cancer patients at 53 sites in the United Sates and in Canada from June 2000 to February 2006. M D Anderson enrolled 60 patients in the trial. The study was initiated at the request of, and was supported by, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) who sought proposals from pharmaceutical companies regarding their shark cartilage agents. All study participants received the standard treatment of induction chemotherapy and chemo-radiation. Patients were randomised to receive either shark cartilage or placebo, both in the form of a liquid. Patients drank four ounces of the extract twice daily, and continued on the shark cartilage/placebo as maintenance after completing standard therapy.
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
