London—Seven
former Guantanamo Bay detainees were demanding
judges on Tuesday to order the British
government to make public allegations that it
was complicit in their torture. The men are
among 11 people suing Britain over its alleged
collusion in their mistreatment overseas.
Britain denies that it was complicit in torture
overseas. The men’s lawyers, due to address
Britain’s High Court on Tuesday, argue that
previously secret evidence about the detainees
must be heard in public. All seven men were
released from the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo
Bay without charge.
Tokyo—Hopes
are growing in Japan that Barack Obama will
become the first sit-ting U.S. president to
visit Hiroshima or Nagasaki, the only two cities
ever devastated by atomic bombs. An April speech
Obama gave in Prague calling for a world free of
nuclear weapons raised expectations, and winning
the Nobel Peace Prize earlier this month
heightened them further. “Many of the past Nobel
Peace Laureates have visited ground zero,” the
Hi-roshima-based Chugoku newspaper said in an
editorial. “We urge him to go and see the place
himself and renew his commitment to a
nuclear-free world.”
London—All Parties Kashmir International
Coordination Committee (APKICC) an alliance of
British Kashmiri political parties and social
groups, along with the representatives of
political parties from both sides of the Line of
Control Tuesday presented a memorandum to Indian
High Commission. The memorandum addressed to
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called for
immediate withdrawal of Indian troops as a
confidence building measure to create an
atmosphere conducive to resolve Kashmir dispute
through negotiations.
Prague—The Czech
Republic’s top court opened a hearing Tuesday to
assess the compliance of the European Union’s
Lisbon treaty with the country’s consti-tution
following a complaint filed by eurosceptic
senators. In the televised hearing — one of the
last hurdles the treaty must clear to take
effect — the constitutional court will deal with
a complaint motivated by fears that the treaty
will give too much power to Brussels.
THERE’S little good news in the West Bank and
Gaza nowadays. But the long-suffering
Palestinians are used to that. The problem is
there’s an increasing absence of hope, which is
dangerous because without hope people begin to
believe they’ve nothing to lose. This is why
some commentators are predicting the
inevi-tability of a third intifada. And despite
denials from senior Palestinian offi-cials, such
as former Security Chief Mohammed Dahlan, a
spontaneous uprising re-mains a very real
possibility. This is not due to Palestinians
craving a return to armed protest. Indeed, most
have painfully come to terms with Israel’s
existence on what they consider as their
historic homeland and are now ready to create a
peaceful neighboring state.
