Tag: Evening Edition

In a military tribunal at the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay, the Canada-born Khadr admitted to killing a US soldier with a grenade in 2002 during a firefight in Afghanistan, conspiring with Al-Qaeda and building roadside bombs.

During a one hour hearing, military judge Colonel Patrick Parrish read out the five charges against Khadr, including murder in violation of the laws of war, providing material assistance to a terrorist organization and espionage.

More than 250 people have died and thousands have been infected, but those numbers could soar if cholera reached the camps where hundreds of thousands live in awful conditions after being displaced by January’s earthquake.

Cholera is primarily passed on through contaminated water or food and could spread like wildfire through the unsanitary tent cities, where displaced families bathe outside, do laundry and share meals in close quarters.

Across nearly 400,000 pages of secret military field reports spanning five years, the largest military leak in history, a grisly picture emerges of years of blood and suffering following the 2003 US invasion to oust Saddam Hussein.

Many of the classified documents, which span from January 1 2004 to December 31 2009, chronicle claims of abuse by Iraqi security forces, while others appear to show that American troops did nothing to stop state-sanctioned torture.

It said that the major findings included a US military cover-up of Iraqi state-sanctioned torture and “hundreds” of civilians deaths at manned American checkpoints after the US-led invasion of 2003 that ousted Saddam Hussein.

The Qatar-based satellite broadcaster also said the leaked papers, dating from January 1, 2004 to December 31, 2009, show the United States kept a death count throughout the war, despite US denials.

The call for workers to join two new days of nationwide demonstrations next Thursday and on November 6 came after another day of unrest across France that saw protestors blocking key sites and clashing with police.

“Strengthened by the support of workers, the young and a majority of the population… the labour organisations have decided to continue and to broaden the mobilisation,” the main unions said in a joint statement.

More tear gas was fired and cars burned in Lyon and suburbs of Paris in a third day of minor riots, a day after nationwide protests brought a million people into the street.

With a third of France’s filling stations dry, according to the government, queues again formed at pumps as several fuel depots remained blockaded.

Clashes erupted between youths and riot police in several towns Tuesday and shops in the city of Lyon were looted as workers and students came out in force around the country to protest President Nicolas Sarkozy’s unpopular reform.

Sarkozy refused to back down however and leading unions in some sectors including airports called for stoppages to continue on Wednesday, while oil refineries remained blocked, hit by a week of strikes.

Tuesday’s coordinated protest is the latest in a series of mounting actions against Sarkozy’s plan to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62, and follows days of strikes, skirmishes and full-blown street marches.

On Monday police fired tear gas and rubber bullets at youths who set a car on fire, smashed bus stops and hurled rocks outside a school in Nanterre, near Paris, blocked by students protesting the pensions reform.