CIA Director Confirms Use of Waterboarding

05Feb08

The CIA has confirmed, in testimony to Congress, the use of waterboarding and other ‘enhanced interrogation techniques.’  According to director Michael Hayden, the CIA has used such techniques on “less than a third” of its detainees.
“Hayden said the technique, the use of which has drawn harsh criticism, has not been used in almost five years [...]

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A Tense Parliament, and a Fresh Attempt at Talks

15Jan08

As Kenya’s parliament convened, supporters for both sides exchanged heated remarks and fought over the legitimacy of the votes they cast for parliamentary seats. Supporters of opposition candidate Raila Odinga, whom many believe to have been robbed of the presidential election, challenged the use of the secret ballot and claimed that results were easier [...]

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Protest Ends as Kenya’s Violence Ripples through the Economy

03Jan08

10.05 am EST
Odinga’s opposition protest went on as planned in Nairobi earlier today, but without the level of bloodshed expected by journalists and observers. This, combined with a relative slowdown of deaths over the past 24 hours, may be good news for an overall decrease in the violence. A major police buildup [...]

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Normalizing Justice

21Sep07

Several news agencies have reported that former Peruvian head of state Alberto Fujimori now faces extradition to Peru on human rights abuse charges. Based on evidence of a direct link between Fujimori and death squads that murdered and disappeared Peruvian students and other citizens during the early 1990s, Chile’s Supreme Court has ruled to [...]

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Senior officials appointed for Iraqi refugees

20Sep07

After months of calls for increasing the number of refugee admissions to the U.S. from Iraq, the Bush administration responded several months ago by agreeing to allow 7000 refugees into the country. The figure, illustrated in comparison to the graphic above, was considered a paltry response by human rights organizations and other Middle Eastern [...]

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FGM Banned in Egypt

19Sep07

The BBC & New York Times reported today that Egypt has banned the practice of female genital mutilation (or female circumcision, as supporters call it) universally. One of the interesting things noted in the Times’ coverage was the shift in social taboos surrounding the topic in Egypt. Unlike years past, the media [...]

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