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Did you know:


Spending for the cure for baldness is significantly higher compared to the cure for malaria - the number 3 killer for children.

Think about it.

The post are coming in fast and furious....
Here's another one, closer to home...

I will reply to your post kelv in due time...

Hugs.


Here is the link to the report

Tell me what you think.

This was extracted from Daily Mail

A Briton was capture, on impending suspicions that he was part of a terrorist network.
(Allegations were false) but he suffered crazy torture methods that just speaks against human rights.

Now the UK and the Americans know about it. But they refuse to let it out to the public because it may undermine the safety (national protection). Sigh

Read the article and let me hear your thoughts.


____________________________________________________________

Miliband 'rolls over' in torture storm as cover-up claims on secret U.S. papers about treatment of Guantanamo Bay 'Briton' surface

By James Chapman
Last updated at 10:58 PM on 05th February 2009


David Miliband was accused last night of rolling over in the face of U.S. demands for a cover-up of the alleged torture of a British 'resident' held at Guantanamo Bay.

The Foreign Secretary was at the centre of a mounting furore after rejecting calls to press Barack Obama to publish documents detailing of the treatment of Binyam Mohamed.

Conservatives and Liberal Democrats insisted he should tell President Obama that blocking the papers' release risked tarnishing the reputation of Britain and the U.S.
Controversy: British resident Binyam Mohamed claims he was tortured in Guantanamo Bay

Controversy: British resident Binyam Mohamed, left, claims he was tortured in Guantanamo Bay. Today Foreign Secretary David Miliband, right, is facing a grilling in the Commons over his detention

In stormy Commons exchanges, Mr Miliband faced claims that he asked the High Court to keep the material secret as part of a cover-up aimed at sparing Britain and the U.S. political embarrassment.

Labour MP Andrew Dismore accused him of a 'see no evil, hear no evil' approach over allegations of torture.

Mohamed, 30, an Ethiopian who lived in Britain, claims he was mistreated while being questioned in Pakistan, Morocco and Afghanistan and that British agents were complicit in the way he was handled.


More...

Mohamed has been held without charge for four years in Guantanamo Bay.

U.S. authorities claim he fought against anti-Taliban Northern Alliances forces and, because of his UK residency, was selected by Al Qaeda and trained to construct and detonate a radioactive 'dirty bomb'.

Mohamed says he only confessed to the charges because he was tortured and says the release of 42 secret documents will prove his claims.

On Wednesday, two senior High Court judges agreed that the U.S. intelligence papers detailing Mohamed's treatment should be suppressed. But Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones protested they had no choice because the Government had informed them of a 'threat' by the U.S. to withdraw all intelligence cooperation with Britain if they were published by the court.

Yesterday the Foreign Secretary denied the U.S. had 'threatened' to break off cooperation if the papers had been made public.

But he admitted the U.S. had warned their disclosure would be 'likely to result in serious damage to U.S. national security and could harm existing intelligence information-sharing between our two governments'.

Mr Miliband said that was not a threat, but a 'simple affirmation of Last night Mohamed's lawyers asked the High Court to reopen his case on the basis that the Government provided ' misleading evidence' about the potential consequences of releasing the papers.

Shadow Foreign Secretary William Hague said the court ruling made clear that the material was not 'highly-sensitive, classified United States intelligence'.
Controversial: The Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba where Mohamed claims he was tortured by the U.S. authorities. They deny the allegations

Controversial: The Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba where Mohamed claims he was tortured by the U.S. authorities. They deny the allegations

'Given the change of administration in the U.S. two weeks ago, the changes in policy that have resulted and the changes in personnel in the CIA, would it not be right to put it to the U.S. administration that it could change its approach to this case?' he said.

Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman Ed Davey said that the decision was about the cover-up of torture.

'The point at question is not a threat to our security coming from terrorists, but a threat to our security coming from our closest ally,' he said.

'The Foreign Secretary should have made it clear to our American friends that this country's opposition to torture meant that we would have nothing to do with intelligence gathered that way.

'But instead, the British Government just rolled over in the face of a scarcely credible threat from a friend.'

Mr Dismore, chairman of Parliament's joint committee on human rights, said it had heard this week 'very worrying' evidence of British complicity in torture of terror suspects in Pakistan.

'We're not talking about MI5 having the pliers to pill people's fingernails out,' he said. 'But the suggestion is there were aware of what's going on, supplying questions and interviewing people immediately after torture.'

Attorney General Baroness Scotland is already consulting prosecutors about unprecedented charges against British officials alleged to have colluded with torture.

Asked about the row, Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: 'Our policy is not to support torture, not to condone any form of torture anywhere.

Robust: Foreign Office lawyers had been told the threat still applied under new President Barack Obama, according to the two High Court judges

Robust: Foreign Office lawyers had been told the threat still applied under new President Barack Obama, according to the two High Court judges
The inmate

Emaciated by a hunger strike, Binyam Mohamed's lawyers describe him as close to death.

His legal team has been told the 30-year-old's release from Guantanamo Bay is 'imminent' and arrangements are under way to fly him to Britain.

'The real worry is that he comes out in a coffin,' said Lt Col Yvonne Bradley, a U.S. military lawyer who saw him last week.

Ethiopian-born Mohamed, pictured left, came to London in 1994 as a 16-year-old seeking asylum. He was refused refugee status but granted exceptional leave to remain in 2000.

He studied electronic engineering and got a job as a caretaker in Kensington. He also converted to Islam and attended a mosque frequented by radical Muslims.

In 2001 he went to Afghanistan and it is his presence there that is the crux of his legal battle to have the U.S. papers released.

Mohamed says he had experimented with drugs and went there to kick the habit, and see if the Taliban had produced a good Muslim country.

Lord Justice Thomas (Hon Sir Roger John Laugharne Thomas)

U.S. authorities claim he joined Al Qaeda and was trained to construct and detonate a radioactive 'dirty bomb'. He was arrested at Karachi airport as he tried to board a London flight in 2002. His photo had been inserted into another man's genuine British passport.

What followed, said Mohamed, was his entry into what he called a 'ghost prison system' involving stays in Pakistan, Morocco, Afghanistan and Cuba.

Five months were spent at the Dark Prison, a name used by Guantanamo Bay inmates for a secret dungeon near Kabul where rap and dance music blast out 24 hours a day.

While in Morocco he said he was subjected to 18 months of torture.

In graphic accounts given to his lawyers, Mohamed described being hung from walls and ceilings, repeatedly beaten and his penis and chest sliced with a scalpel and hot, stinging liquid poured into the open wounds.

'They cut all over my private parts. One of them said it would be better just to cut it off, as I would only breed terrorists,' he wrote in his diary.

David Miliband today refused to press Barack Obama into releasing intelligence material relating to the alleged torture of a former British resident in Guantanamo Bay.

The Foreign Secretary defended his decision to ask the High Court to block the release of information provided by the U.S. relating to the case of Binyam Mohamed.

And he refused to ask the new President to review they approach after two senior judges claimed they had threatened to withdraw co-operation on terrorist intelligence.

'I am not going to join a lobbying campaign against the American government for this decision,' he told the Commons in an emergency statement.

'It is a decision that they have to make given their knowledge of the full facts in respect of the sources that they depend on and the sources that they do not want to compromise.'

Kind of interesting

(Lifted from an Activist Website, very interesting insights from the professionals.)

Today, Barack Obama takes the presidential oath of office, and with him we hope to see a huge change from the dangerous and incompetent years of George W. Bush. And while many people have great faith for this new administration, we must remember that Obama is still a politician, will still face enormous political and economic pressures from right-wingers, and is facing some of the worst national and international crises that the United States has ever faced.

But the answer to this is not to sit back and trust in Barack Obama to save us. The answer is to turn on the pressure from day one.

Optimistic activists believe that Obama is on their side. They believe that he wants to roll back the destruction from the Bush era, he wants to reform the country, and make it more democratic, free, and secure. But even optimists must accept the fact that Obama will face intense pressure from powerful people, organizations and movements that oppose those exact same goals. So optimistic activists should agree that we need to mobilize to make our demands known, so that Barack Obama has a visible, massive, popular mandate to give him the political will to take on these fights.

More cynical activists see Barack Obama as a politician who is both skilled and intelligent, but who does not represent that sweeping change that we all have been hoping for. These activists should agree that this means that we need to put popular pressure on Obama the politician to keep his promises, and force him to do the right thing.

We have already seen one example of people successfully pressuring Obama. On January 11, Obama began to back away from the promise to close the Guantánamo Bay prison camp, claiming that it was “difficult” and would “take some time”. Writers, activists, civil rights groups, and human rights organizations were outraged, and made their outrage known immediately. And on January 13, just two days later, the Obama transition team switched course, and announced that the president-elect would sign an executive order to close Guantánamo on his very first day in office.

Why did Obama change his tune? Because of popular pressure. Whether you believe in the goodness of Barack Obama or not, you have to see the importance of getting loud and staying loud in the name of justice.

If that doesn’t sway you, then please read these two examples, here and here, of similar situations from America’s past. Both are examples of former president Franklin Roosevelt refusing to take action (for better or for worse) until he was faced with enough political pressure to do so. The winning quote:

“In one situation, a group came to [President Roosevelt] urging specific actions in support of a cause in which they deeply believed. He replied: ‘I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it.’”

It should be mentioned, of course, that the world we seek, where justice and freedom rule the land, is not solely a matter for governments and presidents. Many of our battles must be fought on local soil, against local politicians and corporations, against bigots and corruption. And some of goals are not achieved through conflict, but by helping our fellow man and working to build new institutions and more just, sustainable communities. Right now, without petitioning the new US president, you can work to feed hungry people in your hometown. Right now, you could be pushing your city government to spend more money on housing for the homeless. Right now, you could be fighting for livable wages for workers in sweatshops around the world. Right now, you could be pushing for products, practices, and policies that don’t degrade our environment. Right now, you could be standing up against sexism, racism, and homophobia in your family, school, or workplace.

And right now, you could be getting ready to push this president, push this nation, and push this world in new directions that are better for all people.

Activism is not a sprint; it’s a marathon run. We need people with strength, intelligence, passion, and endurance. Slapping an Obama bumper sticker on your car was just the first step of a long, long race, and we hope you’ll join us to the very end.

What else is there beside experience, and wisdom?

If there is such a thing called an experience machine, which you'll plug into and choose the experience that you want to experience for the next 2 years, not knowing at all that you are connected to this machine, would you do it? You get to experience the exact experience of peace, freedom, joy, detachment, and so forth. And after 2 years, you unplug choose again, and then plug again. Interesting question to ponder? Besides seeking the experience in life, what else is there?

Same scenario for wisdom. What else is there if we had all the wisdom there is?

Why do we, obviously, choose to be living a life, than be plugged into a machine that could satisfy all that? What is there to life other than its functionalities? Maybe the living of it is all there is?

Post your comments!

Some food for thought.

Guys,

Your playing small is selling yourself short, and affecting the people around you. Before we talk about world change, and inspiring others, have the courage to look inwards and ponder, how have I sold out on somebody else?

We being nice to each other does not serve us and the others. Have we let the ball slipped?