Citing the “Prevention of Terrorism” act, British Police have arrested and interrogated three of the stars of the award-winning film “The Road to Guantanamo”, together with the three ex-Guantanomo detainees on whose story the film is based.

Acclaimed director Michael Winterbottom (“A Cock and Bull Story”, “24 Hour Party People”, “Welcome to Sarajevo”) had been showing the film at the Berlin Film Festival, where it has won a number of top awards.

“The Road to Guantanamo” traces the true story of Shafiq Rasul, Asif Iqbal and Ruhal Ahmed, three Muslim friends from Birmingham who were picked up as aliens in Afghanistan by US forces and ended up in Guantanamo for three years, where they suffered brutal and humiliating treatment.

Extensive interrogation established that they had no connection with al-Qaida, and despite their plight being ignored by British authorities, eventually they were returned home. The UK media covered live the return of these “Suspected terrorists” and the massive police convoy that brought them in to Ventral London for questioning. Their release after the UK police also found they had no connection with terrorism was, naturally, hardly mentioned.
craigmurray.co.uk

‘The Road to Guantanamo’ Film Releasing Soon
…Winterbottom’s film tells the true life “horror story” of four young men of Pakistan origin — one of them now presumed dead — who travel to Karachi, then on to a village near Faisalabad in Punjab, where one of them, Asif Iqbal, is to marry a bride chosen for him by his mother.

The group gathers shortly before the wedding. Then on the spur of the moment they embark on a well-intentioned but unwise escapade into Afghanistan to help victims of the war — just days before American bombardments start in September 2001.

The three young men from Tipton, near Birmingham in England, soon recognise the folly of the venture but turning back proves impossible. Almost certainly betrayed by locals they are swept up by Coalition allies, and shunted into a container which ends up being machine-gunned by Northern Alliance troops led by General Dostum’s forces, killing many inside.

Taken into American custody, the three young men — Rhuhel Ahmed, Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul — get beaten up and abused before being dispatched to Guantanamo Bay for two years and finally being released without charge and flown home to Britain.

Winterbottom’s film, much of it skillfully shot at locations in Iran, weaves commentary from the three lads between credible re-enactments of their nightmare, and offers an astonishing indictment of Guantanamo, and the ruthless way it operates.

…Up until now, they only had to worry about DHS and the FBI, who fight like parents in front of the kids. (Can anybody forget that morning in 2004 when John Ashcroft was proclaiming a dire new al Qaeda threat and going Orange while Tom Ridge was on the Today Show pooh-poohing it?)

Now there’s a new Assistant Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Homeland Security and Law Enforcement to add to their speed dialers. Who gets top billing now between the DHS, DNI and FBI?

Let’s leave out the CIA, the National Counterterrorism Center, the 87 regional Joint Terrorism Task Forces, the new regional intelligence fusion centers, the Pentagon’s Northern Command and myriad military intelligence agencies, for now.

It’s a “three-way battle,” says an intelligence expert with intimate knowledge of the federal intelligence agencies involved, as well as with the thinking of state and local police.

“I detect a new tension,” says this person, whose views are shared by multiple congressional sources, “between the information sharing office at DNI, which has the responsibility for policy development and implementation, and . . . the intelligence shop of DHS.”

“So once again we have these new offices, new bureaus and new legislation, but also new layers. And they’re still kind of wondering, out in the homeland, who the hell’s in charge of what and who’s telling us what and when and are we speaking with one voice?”
cq.com

ST. LOUIS — David Baltimore, the Nobel Prize-winning biologist and president of the California Institute of Technology, is used to the Bush administration misrepresenting scientific findings to support its policy aims, he told an audience of fellow researchers Saturday. Each time it happens, he said, “I shrug and say, ‘What do you expect?’ “

But then, Dr. Baltimore went on, he began to read about the administration’s embrace of the theory of the unitary executive, the idea that the executive branch has the power or even the obligation to act without restraint from Congress. And he began to see in a new light widely reported episodes of government scientists being restricted in what they could say in public.

“It’s no accident that we are seeing such an extensive suppression of scientific freedom,” he said. “It’s part of the theory of government now, and it’s a theory we need to vociferously oppose.” Far from twisting science to suit its own goals, he said, the government should be “the guardian of intellectual freedom.”

Dr. Baltimore spoke at a session here at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Though it was organized too late for inclusion in the overall meeting catalogue, the session drew hundreds of scientists who crowded a large meeting room and applauded enthusiastically as speakers denounced administration policies they said threatened not just sound science but also the nation’s research pre-eminence.
commondreams.org

There is an ongoing national emergency that demands our immediate attention.

In the absence of decisive Executive action, an under-funded FEMA made its own executive decision to shelter hundreds of thousands of survivors in hotels, paying in some cases rates in excess of $400 per night, resulting in a windfall for hotel chains during their slow season, but depleting FEMA’s budget. Now, with summer business coming, the hotels want the survivors out and FEMA is evicting tens of thousands of families from temporary housing.

As a result of the President’s failure to act, Secretary Chertoff’s failure to act, and the failure of Congress to act, it appears we are about to see a new underclass of “Katrina Homeless” in America, even as Halliburton and other contractors take fifty per cent off the top of their sweetheart, no-bid Katrina contracts before subcontracting the work out at rock bottom rates.

Given the vast amounts of money that has gone “missing”-billions of dollars-from this Administration’s Iraq misadventure, it is scandalous that we won’t provide housing to the survivors.

What Katrina survivors facing homelessness need is enough assistance to rebuild their lives. Why did we offer a Victims Compensation Fund to 9/11 families but not to Katrina survivors? And why hasn’t the Congress moved swiftly to pass or at least held hearings on HR 4197, the Hurricane Katrina Recovery, Reclamation, Restoration, Reconstruction and Reunion Act of 2005?
counterpunch.org

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti –Opponents of Haiti’s president-elect could use the country’s disputed election result to try and weaken his government “if he doesn’t perform,” the top American diplomat in Haiti said.

Rene Preval was declared the winner Thursday after electoral authorities decided to divide 85,000 blank votes among the candidates to avoid a runoff.

The move gave Preval the 51 percent of the vote he needed for outright victory, drawing angry complaints from his two nearest rivals, neither of who polled close to Preval’s numbers in the Feb. 7 vote.

Tim Carney, the acting U.S. ambassador in Haiti, said Preval clearly would have won the election but acknowledged the disputed outcome could hurt his government if he fails in office.

“If he doesn’t perform, yes it could weaken him,” Carney said during an interview with The Associated Press at his residence. “If he does perform, nobody will remember it.”
boston.com

This is a threat. Read “If he doesn’t perform”…to our satisfaction. And rest assured, this newest attempt to undermine Haiti will be remembered. The people of Haiti have a prodigious memory.

MONTERREY, Mexico (Reuters) – The front-runner in Mexico’s election race pitched his message of leftist reform to roaring crowds in the conservative north on Saturday, an area where he needs to win support if he is to become president.

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador told followers in the industrial city of Monterrey he would transform Mexico after two decades of free-market reforms that moved it closer to the United States but widened the gap between rich and poor.

“This state is an example of hard work and development … and is the industrial center of our country,” the popular former mayor of Mexico City said to cheers from a crowd of about 10,000 mainly working-class supporters packed into a city square.

“Together we can transform Mexico,” he said to chants of “Long live Mexico.”

Monterrey is Mexico’s third-largest city and an economic powerhouse just a three-hour drive south of Texas. It is home to companies that include the world’s No. 3 cement maker, Cemex, and brewer and bottling giant Femsa.

While Lopez Obrador has won over many in central and southern Mexico with promises that include more social benefits for the poor, cash handouts to the elderly and an anti-corruption campaign, analysts say that convincing pragmatic, prosperous northerners will prove key to victory in the July 2 election.

“Monterrey is one place in Mexico where the U.S.-style free-market model has worked well for people, so it’s going to be a tough sell,” political consultant Pedro Gonzalez told Reuters.

“But while he’s not likely to win in the north, the votes he garners there could prove decisive in the election,” he added.

A poll this week showed Lopez Obrador had a lead of 4.6 points over his nearest rival, Felipe Calderon, of the ruling National Action Party. Roberto Madrazo of the once-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party was 10 points off the lead.
boston.com

BUENOS AIRES — South American leaders from Venezuela to Argentina are proposing to build the world’s largest fuel pipeline across Latin America, and they hope it will deliver much more than natural gas: They portray the plan as the first blueprint for a new era of regional cooperation, greater independence from international markets and a more prominent voice on the world stage.

President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela has labeled the proposal a 5,000-mile symbol of diminishing U.S. influence in Latin America. Enthusiastic support for the project from regional heavyweights, including Brazil and Argentina, has prompted others to describe the project as the first true joint venture of a political coalition determined to forge a new South American identity.

“This is the end of the Washington consensus,” Chavez told reporters in Caracas last month, using the term for the market-driven economic policies that many Latin American countries adopted in the 1990s with U.S. encouragement. “It’s the beginning of a South American consensus.”
washingtonpost.com

WARRI, Nigeria — Militants launched a wave of attacks across Nigeria’s troubled delta region today, blowing up oil installations and seizing nine foreigners, including three Americans. The violence cut the West African nation’s crude oil exports by at least 16 percent.

A fire was quickly put out on a Royal Dutch Shell platform that loads the company’s tankers in the western delta, but the Forcados terminal’s normal operations could not continue, halting the flow of 400,000 barrels a day.

“We can’t load because there is some damage to the loading platform,” Shell official Donald Boham said.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

Nigeria is Africa’s leading oil exporter and the United States’ fifth-largest supplier, normally producing 2.5 million barrels a day.

On Friday, Shell shut down a facility pumping 37,800 barrels of crude daily after an unexplained blaze at a nearby oil well. And the firm has yet to restore 106,000 daily barrels lost when a major pipeline supplying the Forcados terminal was hit in a similar wave of attacks and hostage takings last month.

Oil prices jumped more than $1 and settled near $60 a barrel Friday on supply concerns sparked by a militant threat to wage war on foreign oil interests.

In an e-mail to The Associated Press today, the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta claimed responsibility for the attacks, including the raid in which militants abducted three Americans, two Egyptians, two Thais, one Briton and one Filipino.

The group, which claims to be fighting for a greater local share of the country’s oil wealth, said the attacks were carried out in retaliation for assaults this week by military helicopters. The militants threatened more violence would follow on “a grander scale.”
latimes.com

US demands release of abducted Nigeria oil workers
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States called for the unconditional release of three American oil workers abducted in Nigeria on Saturday and said it was working with Nigeria’s government to try to secure their freedom.

Militants seeking more local control over the vast oil wealth of the Niger Delta region stormed an offshore barge operated by U.S. oil services company Willbros Group Inc. in predawn attacks and abducted nine workers — three Americans, one Briton, two Thais, two Egyptians and a Filipino.

“We can now confirm reports that three American oil workers have been taken hostage in Nigeria. We call for their unconditional release and are working with the Nigerian government on this,” said State Department official Noel Clay.

Michael Collier, vice president of investor relations for Willbros, said he could not release the identities of the employees involved until they were confirmed and their families notified.

“We have a crisis management team already in action,” he said by telephone from Houston. The company was gathering information and could not discuss details, he said.

Willbros said later it had no plans to move any of its 3,000 employees out of the country. Royal Dutch/Shell Group said it withdrew its staff from its EA oilfield in Nigeria.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has joined in the growing chorus of condemnation of America’s Guantanamo Bay prison camp.
He said the detention camp was a stain on the character of the United States as a superpower and a democracy.

He also attacked Britain’s 28-day detention period for terror suspects, calling it excessive and untenable.

His comments follow a UN report calling for the closure of the camp where some 500 “enemy combatants” have been held without trial for up to four years.

Speaking on the BBC’s Today programme, Archbishop Tutu said he was alarmed that arguments used by the South African apartheid regime are now being used to justify anti-terror measures.

“It is disgraceful and one cannot find strong enough words to condemn what Britain and the United States and some of their allies have accepted,” he said.

The respected clergyman said the rule of law had been “subverted horrendously” and he described the muted public outcry – particularly in America – as “saddening”.
bbc.co.uk

Democracy Now! interview

A new expose gives an account of the CIA’s secret efforts to develop new forms of torture spanning fifty years. It reveals how the CIA perfected its methods, distributing them across the world from Vietnam to Iran to Central America, uncovering the roots of the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo torture scandals. The book is titled “A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, From the Cold War to the War on Terror.”

Alfred McCoy, professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Author of “A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, From the Cold War to the War on Terror” and also “The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade.”
democracynow.org