The US Senate overwhelmingly demanded that the administration of President George W. Bush give Congress details on allegations that the CIA flew terrorism suspects around the world to a secret network of clandestine prisons.
The Senate voted 82-9 on Thursday to require National Intelligence Director John Negroponte to provide the Senate and House intelligence committees with details of any such activities.
That was a reaction to a Washington Post story from Nov. 2 that said the CIA has had secret prisons for terror detainees in eight countries, including democracies in Eastern Europe. The Bush administration has refused to confirm whether the prisons exist.
Senators also moved to deny detainees at the US Guantanamo Bay prison the right to challenge their detentions with habeas corpus petitions in federal court, a step critics said could undermine efforts to secure their humane treatment.
Separately, the Senate hopes to complete work next week on an overall defense spending bill. It already includes provisions barring abusive treatment of foreign prisoners and standardizing interrogation techniques. Those provisions are also in the separate US$445 billion military spending bill the Senate passed last month.
The White House has threatened to veto any bill with the restrictions on handling detainees, saying that it would limit the president's ability to protect US citizens and prevent a terrorist attack. Vice President Dick Cheney has vigorously lobbied Congress to drop or modify the detainee provisions sponsored by Republican Senator John McCain.
That has set up a rare challenge of the president's wartime authority by members of his own party. The confrontation comes as Bush is under fire for detention policies at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and other facilities.
Democrats and a number of Republicans have rejected Cheney's plan, saying it would be seen as a license for the CIA to engage in torture.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A retired US colonel behind a privately financed rocket launch site in the Dominican Republic sees the project as a response to China’s dominance of the space race in Latin America. Florida-based Launch on Demand is slated to begin building a US$600 million facility in a remote region near the border with Haiti late this year. The project is designed to meet surging demand for the heavy-lift rockets needed to put clusters of satellites into orbit. It is also an answer to China’s growing presence in the region, said CEO Burton Catledge, a former commander of the US Air Force’s 45th Operations
Germany is considering Australia’s Ghost Bat robot fighter as it looks to select a combat drone to modernize its air force, German Minister of Defense Boris Pistorius said yesterday. Germany has said it wants to field hundreds of uncrewed fighter jets by 2029, and would make a decision soon as it considers a range of German, European and US projects developing so-called “collaborative combat aircraft.” Australia has said it will integrate the Ghost Bat, jointly developed by Boeing Australia and the Royal Australian Air Force, into its military after a successful weapons test last year. After inspecting the Ghost Bat in Queensland yesterday,
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
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