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Summary: U.S. Key senators say Congress has outlawed waterboarding, but the White House disagrees, the Washington Post reports. The Post notes that in 1947, the US charged a Japanese officer with war crimes for carrying out waterboarding on a U.S. civilian during World War II. The officer was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor.
Friday is the 30th anniversary of the bombing of a plane which killed 73 people, the Washington Post reports. Attorneys for the Justice Department must respond by Thursday to a recommendation that Luis Posada Carriles, a main suspect in the bombing, be freed because he has not been designated a terrorist in the US and cannot be held indefinitely on immigration charges. The case tests President Bush's statement that nations that harbor terrorists are guilty of terrorism.
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are going badly, but if the winds change, Congress is ready to celebrate with a $20 million victory party, AP reported yesterday. The money is contained in the military spending bill that passed last week.
EU legislators lashed out Wednesday at a banking consortium and one of its key supervisors, the European Central Bank, which acknowledged that it had known for years that the consortium was giving confidential banking records to US authorities.
A Navy corpsman accused of kidnapping and murdering an Iraqi man will give testimony about other Marines' role in the incident in return for having charges against him dropped. Some of the troops are accused of placing a rifle and shovel next to the victim's body to make it look like he was planting a bomb.
The US Army and Marines are finishing work on a new counterinsurgency doctrine that draws on lessons from Iraq and makes the welfare and protection of civilians a bedrock element of military strategy, the New York Times reports.
The international community must try to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict to stop the Middle East from sliding further into turmoil, the International Crisis Group said Thursday.
Iran A letter in which Ayatollah Khomeini cited a need for nuclear weapons has stoked debate over whether to negotiate with the West. In the letter, Khomeini outlined the reasons Iran had to accept a cease-fire in its war with Iraq. The letter has been used by moderates to bolster the case for nuclear talks with the West.
AP reported signs of an emerging consensus that the time had come to consider Security Council sanctions against Iran, but Reuters reports that Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov reiterated Thursday that his country still opposed sanctions and wanted a diplomatic solution.
Iraq Iraq's school and university system is in danger of collapse in large areas of the country as pupils and teachers take flight in the face of threats of violence, the Guardian reports.
Palestine The US is proposing to expand the presidential guard for the Palestinian Authority president in a plan to strengthen him and reduce security chaos in the Authority, the New York Times reports. US officials are working to reopen the Karni crossing between Gaza and Israel by early November so Palestinian produce can be exported to Europe. Because of Congressional funding restrictions, US officials are seeking donations for the project.
Palestinian Authority president Abbas said talks with Hamas on a unity government had collapsed and warned that Palestinians faced the danger of civil war.
Mexico Amnesty International called on the Mexican federal government to take over an inquiry into accusations that police sexually abused women arrested after a clash between police and residents of a town north of Mexico City.
Nigeria Militants in Nigeria's oil region said Thursday they had called off attacks on troops and would fight only in response to actions by the military. A fifth of Nigeria's oil production capacity remains blocked.
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-------- Robert Naiman Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org
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