•  

The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States operated a secret jail in Poland, once again throwing America’s worldwide al Qaeda detention program into the spotlight. The ruling reached on Thursday has triggered fresh calls for US officials to come clean about its activities with regard to the detaining and interrogating of suspected al Qaeda agents.

Official confirmed some time ago that a scheme by the name of “extraordinary rendition” incorporated an international detention policy, though has so far failed to reveal any information as to where its facilities for holding suspects were located in overseas territories. However, the US is facing greater pressure than ever before to remove the cloak from the project, which is likely to slip considerably when a U.S. Senate committee finally lifts the lid on a previously classified extraordinary rendition report.

Speaking on behalf of the Open Society Justice Initiative, Amrit Singh insisted that the ruling of the European Courts proves categorically that there was a US-run detention facility in operation within Polish territory.

“It’s an historic ruling,” she said in an interview with Reuters.

“It’s time for them to own up to the truth.”

Two men brought the case before the European Court of Human Rights, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri and Abu Zubaydah who are both of Saudi origin. They claimed that they had been taken by the CIA to a secret jail in Poland, where they were treated in a manner that could only be described as torturous. They spoke of a secret facility deep in the Polish forests and uniquely isolated from the outside world.

Both men are now in Guantanamo Bay, though decided to bring the case before the European Court of Human Rights to accuse Poland of failing to protection them, failing to prevent torture being carried out and failing to bring those responsible to justice. The ruling by the courts related to the way in which the European Convention on Human Rights outlaws torture and guarantees to right to both freedom and justice – all of which were apparently violated by Poland.

Zubaydah was awarded 130,000 Euros in damages and al-Nashiri will be paid 100,000 Euros by the Polish government.

The court’s ruling has thrown Poland into the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. The government had long denied any knowledge of a secret CIA prison in the country and could see its close ties with US security services frayed as a result of the case. Speaking on behalf of the Polish foreign ministry, Marcin Wojciechowski insisted that the ruling was being carefully analyzed by the government and no official response or comment will be released until the process is complete.

A number of other European nations are suspected to have housed secret CIA holding and interrogation facilities over recent years, including Lithuania and Romania. It’s now possible that the landmark ruling will be influential in similar cases brought before the European courts.

•  

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, more formally known as ISIS, continued its assault on Iraq’s government and the Shi’ite population this week, inching ever closer to Baghdad. The extremist group of Jihadist Sunni fighters seek to establish a caliphate — a unified Islamic government led by an established caliph who would be a successor to Muhammad’s political authority — across most of Syria and Iraq. The borders between Iraq and Syria have already been captured and are under ISIS control along with large parts of the two countries.

“For the insurgents, capturing the frontier is a dramatic step towards the goal of erasing the modern border altogether and building a caliphate across swathes of Syria and Iraq” said a recent Reuters report after the border and other territories were captured by ISIS.

After the group of around 800 Sunni rebel fighters launched from Syria, capturing Mosul and other parts of Northern Iraq earlier in June, insurgents from surrounding areas and captured territories joined forces with ISIS, increasing its size to a now reported over 6000. This poses a threat to the national security of Iraq as well as the regional security of all Middle Eastern nations as the group primarily targets pro-government factions.

“What happened is a disaster by any standard. The presence of these terrorist groups in this vast province … threatens not just the security and unity of Iraq, but the whole Middle East” said Parliament Speaker Osama al-Nujaifi when questioned about the significance of the current situation.

While the UN and has officially expressed its condemnation of the group’s actions and accused the Islamic State of human rights violations, ISIS does not consider itself to be a terrorist organization or group at all; instead it considers itself to be a legitimate state at war with surrounding nations. It also takes advantage of the large scale lack of military resistance in Northern Iraq.

“Recent assessments by Western officials and military experts indicate that about a quarter of Iraq’s military forces are ‘combat ineffective,’ its airforce is miniscule, morale among troops is low and its leadership suffers from widespread corruption.”

– New York Times

When 800 ISIS fighters moved in on Mosul, which was occupied by over 30,000 armed Iraqi militants, the Iraq military fled. They fled so fast that they left behind a ton of military equipment, including US funded weapons and humvees. The US has spent over 20 billion dollars training and equipping the military of Iraq in preparation for our departure, but it appears that has been ineffective. And with The Islamic State rapidly expanding its ranks and heading towards Baghdad, Iraq prepares for a possible all out civil war.

The Shi’ite dominated government and military made little effort to hold territory in Northern Iraq when the Sunni extremists came because Shi’ites simply aren’t willing to die for that land. Baghdad and Southern Iraq is heavily populated by Shi’ites though, and if ISIS continues on their current path and reaches Baghdad, the Shi’ites will fight to defend their people and land.

•  

Rising public interest in issues concerning lobbying and the rights of corporations to finance political campaigns in the U.S. has recently been putting pressure on legislators of all political affiliation to take action. Democratic and Republican legislators alike in California yielded to public demand and approved resolution AJR1 on Monday, which asks congress to call for a constitutional convention that would draft an amendment imposing limits on corporate spending in politics.

The only way the constitution has been amended in the past is through the Congress-initiated process in which two-thirds of the House and Senate pass a proposed amendment, and then three-fourths of state legislatures approve it. However, if two-thirds of all states call for a constitutional convention, Congress is obligated to convene one; this is the course of action being pursued by advocates of the policy.

California is the second state to propose such a convention after Vermont, who, back in early May of this year, made the same proposal. Two states is a good start, but the movement will need at least 34 states to get behind it in order to be successful. Wolf PAC, the political group leading the charge on this issue, is confident that those numbers can be achieved through hard work and consistency.

“And now California, the largest state in the union, is on the board. You think we can’t get the other states? Please keep thinking that- I’m begging you to keep thinking that; because we’re coming for you, okay? We’re not going to stop until we get this done” said Cenk Uygur, founder of Wolf PAC, on his online news show The Young Turks after the decision was announced.

Another goal outlined by the resolution is to overturn the Citizen’s United case of January 2010, in which a 5-4 Supreme Court ruling claimed that the restriction of independent political spending by corporations or labor unions would violate freedom of speech.

“I doubt our founding fathers had the free-speech rights of multinational and foreign corporations in mind when they drafted the First Amendment,” said Assemblyman Mike Gatto, D-Los Angeles, author of the resolution.

“In every state there are people upset about money in politics,” including some Republicans, Gatto went on to say, suggesting that this is only the beginning of a much larger battle which he and other concerned legislators and political groups intend to win.

It would appear the numbers are on their side as well. When Wolf PAC began in 2011, there was already a rising dissatisfaction amongst the population with the state of the GOP-controlled House of Representatives.

A Gallup Poll released in 2011 stated that “67% of Americans are dissatisfied with the size and influence of major corporations in the country today, the highest level since Gallup first asked this question in 2001.”

At times in the past, Gatto said, when a growing number of states passed resolutions calling for constitutional changes – most recently, the repeal of Prohibition – Congress responded by approving an amendment and submitting it to the states.

This keeps advocates hopeful, thinking back to the amendments of past generations, and the fight for free and fair elections is expected to continue.

•  

A bomb blast at a shopping plaza in Nigeria killed 21 people and injured 17 on Wednesday, June 14 2014.  Witnesses and other local shop owners reported seeing rescue workers picking through the burned body parts of the most recent victims of the Islamic militant group Boko Haram. The blast was at the entrance of the marketplace, and was powerful enough to shatter windows across the street.  According to National Emergency Management Agency spokesman Manzo Ezekiel, “The explosion struck at peak business time,” which was an hour before the country’s World Cup match against Argentina.  One suspect was arrested and the other was fatally shot while trying to escape.

This bombing was the latest in a series of torment being inflicted on the Nigerian people by the Boko Haram.  The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay has warned that what was an internal conflict has now grown into a regional crisis, evidenced by the conflict growing past the border into neighboring west African countries.  In 2013, President Jonathan Goodluck declared a state of emergency in the three most dangerous states in the north where they are found to have their strongest hold: Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa. Despite the emergency rule in these states the crisis has continued to expand.

The aim of the Boko Haram is to impose a strict enforcement of Sharia law across Nigeria.  The group’s initial focus was the opposition of Western education, their name meaning “Western education is forbidden.”  They believe that Western education corrupts the moral values of Muslims, especially the girls.  This reasoning has led them to also target schools across the country.

Nearly 500,000 people in northern Nigeria have been forced to flee their homes in response to the “increasingly monstrous insurgency that threatens food security in many parts of the country,” according to the UN. The Human Rights Watch lists 2014 as the worst year thus far of the six year insurgency.  So far this year alone, over 700 people have been killed in attacks on 40 different villages with hundreds of  thousands being misplaced.  The group has been burning down houses, churches, clinics, and schools in their wake.  They have claimed responsibility for murdering children in their beds.  Some members are responsible for the mass abduction and rape of women and girls across the country.

In 2013, they were declared a terrorist group by the U.S.  Since then their attacks have gotten more heinous, and focus more and more on civilians that are already living in fear.  In February of 2014 the group killed at least 29 students at a federal college, and then killed dozens of residents in two separate attacks.  One such attack killed over 106 people in a Christian farming village.  On April 14 they orchestrated a car bombing at a bus terminal outside the capital killing 75 people, and a similar bombing two weeks later killing another 19 people.  In May, the group abducted over 200 school girls to be sold into marriage, gaining them international notoriety.  On last week, the group kidnapped another 60 women and children for six days and killed 30 men, then pillaged the village for all food and burned it to the ground as they left.  Yan St-Pierre, CEO of Modern Security Consulting Group, has even expressed concern that the group is benefiting from the increase in piracy along the west coast of Africa.

Nigerian security forces claim to be winning the battle against the Boko Haram, but the influx of their attacks on civilians seem to tell a different story.  The U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has stated, “The government has acknowledged that there have been some problems….they’re trying to control it.”  The influx of attacks seem to show the insurgency may well be beyond their control.

•  

Speaking to a top South Sudan official, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said that the Juba government has to put an end to the fighting in the country, with the State Department sternly warning against sanctions should fighting continue.

“We will not stand by while the hopes of a nation are held hostage to short-sighted and destructive actors,” Kerry was quoted as saying in his meeting with Awan Riak, South Sudan minister of the office of president.  The State Department prepared a statement on Kerry’s meeting, saying that President Barack Obama recently authorized potential sanctions against anyone who would commit human rights abuses or pose a threat to peace and democracy in South Sudan.  The country, which was declared as independent from Sudan three years ago, has been in the throes of a civil war since December 2013, with thousands of individuals having been killed and over a million others having been displaced.    The civil war was triggered in mid-December following a power struggle between President Salva Kiir’s government and a rebel faction led by Riek Machar, the country’s former Vice President.

In the four months or so since the war started, attempts at peace talks have been unsuccessful thus far, and have served as a pain point for South Sudan’s Western supporters, who have persistently tried to convince both the government and the rebels to come to a ceasefire.  Relief agencies, in addition, have made certain concerns clear, saying that both parties have expressed suspicion of relief efforts from organizations such as the U.N.  Furthermore, the civil war has been harmful to the country’s oil production, which serves as one of South Sudan’s biggest revenue sources.

Prior to his meeting with South Sudan officials, Kerry was scored by lawmakers who believed that he has been sticking his finger into too many figurative pies, but not getting results commensurate to his efforts.  But in his defense, Kerry said that his efforts have indeed been ambitious, and were, at the end of the day, better than him not doing anything.  “Sure, we may fail. And you want to dump it on me? I may fail. I don’t care. It’s worth doing. It’s worth the effort,” said Kerry in an appearance Tuesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, as he enumerated his efforts in South Sudan and other African locations. “We’ve helped negotiate a truce in South Sudan and helped pull that country back from the brink of civil war. We’ve helped to create a framework for the disarming of M23 in the Great Lakes region of Africa. We are engaged in helping the French to quell the Boko Haram and other people in the region of Mali and elsewhere.”

•  

A ranking U.S. government official said yesterday that it is possible NSA leaker Edward Snowden may have had some assistance from Russia when he leaked out secret government information.

In an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press, U.S. Representative Mike Rogers said that there may have been a reason Snowden “ended up in the hands – the loving hands” of an FSB agent while in Russia; the FSB is the Russian intelligence agency that had succeeded Soviet-era agency KGB.  “I don’t think that’s a coincidence,” added Rogers, who is the head of the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee.  Last year, Snowden had fled the United States and eventually sought asylum in Russia, where he has remained as U.S. government officials continue to seek his return to his home country for prosecution.  Snowden’s leak, which had covered a good number of top-secret documents, is considered one of the biggest security breaches in U.S. history.

Rogers did not disclose any empirical evidence that backs up his supposition that Russian spies or spy agencies were involved in the major leak, but suggested that some of his findings may point to the possibility that Snowden did not act on his own.  “Some of the things we’re finding we would call clues that certainly would indicate to me that he had some help,” said Rogers.  He also acknowledged that his investigation into Russia’s involvement in Snowden’s activities is “absolutely” ongoing.  His comments were somewhat seconded by Senator Dianne Feinstein, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who told Meet the Press that while it isn’t sure whether Snowden acted with help or not, he “may well have” had been assisted by Russia.

In a separate interview with CBS, Rogers pointed to the nature of the leaked documents as the best hint that Snowden was assisted by Russia.  “When you look at the totality of the information he took, the vast majority of it had to do with military, tactical and operational events happening around the world,” said Rogers, being interviewed by Face the Nation.  On that program, former deputy CIA director Michael Morell said that he does not have any evidence either, but stressed that the leaked documents may have been too “sophisticated” in terms of content and in the timing of their leakage for Snowden to handle on his own.  “It seems to me he might be getting some help,” he said.

Late last year, Snowden told The New York Times that he did not bring any of the leaked NSA documents with him when he fled to Russia in June 2013.  In that interview, he told the Times that there is a “zero percent chance” anyone from Russia or from China had received these documents.  Meanwhile, Snowden was also cleared by President Vladimir Putin to attend the Sochi Winter Olympics in Russia, as he is free to travel within the country.  “Mr. Snowden is subject to the treatment of provisional asylum here in Russia,” said Putin. “He has a right to travel freely across the country. He has no special limitation. He can just buy a ticket and come here.”

•  

Australian spy agencies had tried to tap into Indonesia President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s phone calls, and had also sought to tap into his wife’s and his senior ministers’ phones, according to recent Australian reports that had cited the notorious documents leaked by Edward Snowden.

Quoting information from a secret document dated 2009, the Guardian Australia and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation both reported that President Yudhoyono, his family, and his government’s officials were targeted for electronic surveillance by the Defense Signals Directorate, or DSD. It is believed that this big reveal may lead to more tensions between Australia and Indonesia; earlier, it was reported separately that the Australian embassies in Indonesia and other Asian countries had been used by an American-led spy network to spy on the country. These reports also cited Snowden’s leaked documents as their primary source.  Further, Australia Prime Minister Tony Abbott had recently proposed refusing asylum-seekers coming in through Indonesia via boat, thus making relations between both countries testy well before the revelation of the new documents.

The “new” leaks from the Snowden files included a slide presentation with a list of mobile phone numbers belonging to top Indonesian officials, as well as the brand and type of cell phone each of the individuals own – interestingly, a lot of the names on that particular slide are those of people believed to be in line to replace Yudhoyono in the next presidential elections.  The slide show also showed how Australia’s DSD had tried to spy on a phone call made from an unknown number in Thailand to President Yudhoyono. Also in there were complete call data records from Yudhoyono’s cell phone, covering exactly 15 days in August 2009 in a slide entitled “Indonesian President voice events.”

Officials from both parties declined to comment thus far on the matter, as both sides remained cagey when asked by Reuters about this sensitive topic. “It is the established practice of successive Australian governments not to comment on intelligence matters,” said an Australia Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman in a prepared statement.  This was followed by Abbott himself seemingly dancing around the subject when speaking to Question Time.  “First of all, all governments gather information and all governments know that every other government gathers information,” he said earlier today.  “The Australian government never comments on specific intelligence matters. This has been the long tradition of governments of both political persuasions and I don’t intend to change that today.”  A few days prior to the reveal, Abbott had praised the Indonesian government, saying that he is glad Australia has such a “close, cooperative, and constructive” relationship with Indonesia’s government.