by Kim Sengupta, TheIndependent

A US cruise missile armed with cluster ammunition was used in an attack in Yemen in December which resulted in the deaths of 52 people, more than half of them women and children, according to a human rights watchdog.

The Yemeni government insisted their forces alone carried out the strike on an al-Qa’ida training camp in the Abyan region. US authorities backed the claim that insurgents had been attacked but officially denied direct involvement in the attack.

However, Amnesty International has now released photographs of missile parts from the attack which appear to show that it was a BGM-109D Tomahawk cruise missile designed to be launched from a warship or submarine. Further images reveal BLU 97 A/B cluster munitions which spray steel fragments for 150 meters along with burning zirconium for igniting buildings. The Yemeni government does not possess cruise missiles, which are part of the arsenal of US Navy vessels patrolling off the Horn of Africa and in the Arabian Sea.

The Convention on Cluster Munitions has been signed by 106 states and ratified by 35. However, neither the US or Yemen are signatories. Weapons analysts point out that bomblets have maimed and killed civilians who have found them.

Yemen has become a battleground between the international jihad and the West. Special forces and intelligence officials from several Nato countries, including the UK and US, have beent in the country. The Americans are hunting, in particular, Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical cleric who is said to have been a mentor to the “underpants bomber”, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who tried to blow up a transatlantic airliner and Major Nidal Malik Hasan, of the US Army who shot dead 13 people at Fort Hood in Texas.

A Yemeni parliamentary committee investigating the raid at al-Ma’jalah concluded that 41 of the dead were civilians, 21 of them children and 14 women. Survivors denied any links with insurgents. The parliamentary committee asked the Yemeni government to open a judicial inquiry into the killings. Six months on, there is no sign of that happening although the authorities in Sanaa declared that at least 14 of the dead were members of al-Qa’ida plotting to carry out terrorist attacks.

Read the rest at this link.

by John Byrne, RawStory

A new report by the watchdog group Physicians for Human Rights alleges Monday that the Bush Administration experimented on terrorism suspects during their enhanced interrogation program put in force starting in 2002.

The group’s review, which examined Bush-era documentation, asserts that the administration violated laws set up in the wake of the Holocaust to prevent medical testing on prisoners of war. (Nazi doctors sometimes experimented on their prisoners.)

The report states that, “Medical personnel were required to monitor all waterboarding practices and collect detailed medical information that was used to design, develop and deploy subsequent waterboarding procedures.” Notes the Associated Press:

For example, the report said, doctors recommended adding salt to the water used for waterboarding, so the patient wouldn’t experience hyponatremia, “a condition of low sodium levels in the blood caused by free water intoxication.”

The report interpreted that doctor-recommended practice of using saline solution as “Waterboarding 2.0.”

It also said information was gathered on the pain inflicted when various techniques were used in combination. Raymond said the purpose was to see if the pain caused violated Bush administration definitions of torture, rather than as a safeguard of the detainees’ health.

Medical personnel, the report said, also monitored sleep deprivation, with sleepless stints from 48 hours to 180 hours — again to make sure it did not cause prolonged physical and mental suffering, as per those Bush administration definitions, rather than to watch out for harm to the detainee.

“We’re not writing the indictment here,” author Nathaniel Raymond told the Associated Pres. “We’re seeing there needs to be a search warrant. If the White House does not act on this, it’s turning its back on something that could be perceived as a war crime.”

The CIA vehemently denied the allegations in the report.

Read the rest at this link.

from Huffington Post

If you lose your job these days, it’s worth scrambling to find a new one .. fast. After six months of unemployment, your chances of landing work dwindle.

The proportion of people jobless for six months or more has accelerated in the past year and now makes up 46 percent of the unemployed. That’s the highest percentage on records dating to 1948. By late summer or early fall, they are expected to make up half of all jobless Americans.

Economists say those out of work for six months or more risk becoming less and less employable. Their skills can erode, their confidence falter, their contacts dry up. Their growing ranks also will keep pressure on Congress to keep extending jobless benefits, which now run for up to 99 weeks.

Overall, the economy has created a net 982,000 jobs this year. But for Jeff Martinez and the record 6.76 million others who have struck out for six months or more, their struggles are getting worse, not better.

Martinez, 40, a salesman in Washington, D.C., says he’s logged more than 200 interviews in the past three years. Decked out in a dark navy suit and Burberry tie, Martinez projects drive and a zest for deal-making. And yet the most urgent deal of his career – finding a job – eludes him.

“You have days where you feel motivated and hopeful and optimistic,” he says. “Then there are other days, you really lose the faith and think, `I’m never going to get another job. Ever.’”

What’s causing the rising ranks of the long-term jobless to exceed the pace of other recessions?

Mainly, it’s the depth and duration of the job-slashing this time. Since the recession began in December 2007 through May this year, a net 7.4 million jobs have vanished. The unemployment rate has surged nearly 5 percentage points: From 5 percent in December 2007 to 9.7 percent in May.

By contrast, in the last severe recession, the rate rose less sharply over a shorter period: From 7.2 percent in July 1981 to 10.8 percent at the end of 1982.

Read Full Article Here…

Hat Tip: Black Listed News

by Noel Brinkerhoff, AllGov

Willing to secure local domains and fight alongside Western forces, many of Afghanistan’s warlords are paid by U.S. and NATO commanders as “private security” businesses—even though these arrangements are threatening to undermine the West’s mission of establishing democracy in the country.

from TruthJihad

How long can they get away with it?