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| Gay March Sparks Clashes in Belgrade Several dozen people were injured as Serbia's riot police fought running battles with far-right activists who tried to disrupt a gay-pride march in central Belgrade. online.wsj.com |
Q&A: India's Climate Chief on Making India Greener India's environment minister and chief climate change negotiator Jairam Ramesh on the challenges he faces to chart out a green path for India feedproxy.google.com |
Dubai Says Suspect Detained in Canada Dubai's police chief says a suspect in the killing of a Hamas operative in this city-state has been arrested in Canada but that the arrest is being covered up. online.wsj.com |
Iraq war logs: live reaction and WikiLeaks address Massive leak of secret files reveals US authorities failed to investigate torture and abuse by Iraqi authorities and 15,000 unknown civilian deaths. Follow live updates9.53am: A massive cache of secret US military files passed to the Guardian via the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks has revealed the devastating scale of the human rights abuses committed in the wake of the invasion of Iraq.WikiLeaks has passed almost 400,000 secret US army field reports to the Guardian and a range of other media outlets. The files are believed to have come from the same dissident US army intelligence analyst who earlier this year is alleged to have leaked 90,000 logs chronicling civilian killings and human rights abuses in the Afghan war.Read the Guardian's special report on the Iraq war logs here.The main revelations are:• US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct appears to go unpunished.• A US helicopter gunship involved in a notorious Baghdad incident had previously killed Iraqi insurgents after they tried to surrender.• More than 15,000 civilians died in previously unknown incidents. US and UK officials have insisted that no official record of civilian casualties exists but the logs record 66,081 non-combatant deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities.The Pentagon has condemned the new leaks, once again calling on WikiLeaks to delete the files. Spokesman Marine Corps Colonel Dave Lapan said: "We deplore WikiLeaks for inducing individuals to break the law, leak classified documents and then cavalierly share that secret information with the world, including our enemies."We know terrorist organisations have been mining the leaked Afghan documents for information to use against us, and this Iraq leak is more than four times as large."The only responsible course of action for WikiLeaks at this point is to return the stolen material and expunge it from their websites as soon as possible." US secretary of state Hilary Clinton' has also condemned the leak in a TV address.But the United Nations special rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, said there was now a duty on the US to investigate whether its officials were involved in or complicit in torture.Speaking on the BBC's Today programme, Novak, who has spent years investigating allegations of US participation in extraordinary rendition and the abuse of detainees held by coalition forces, said the Obama administation came to power promising change. "President Obama came to power with a moral agenda, saying "we don't want to be seen to be a nation responsible for major human rights violations"," Novak said. A failure to investigate credible claims of US forces' complicity in torture, Novak suggested, would be a failure of the Obama government to recognise the US's obligations under international law.WikiLeaks is holding a press conference about the Iraq war logs this morning in conjuntion with the Iraq Body Count group, which is trying to compile a full list of civilian deaths since the 2003 invasion. Follow us here at the live blog for updates throughout the day.10.13am: The New York Times' special report on the Iraq war logs can be found here. It also details the previously unreported civilian deaths and the abuse of detainees, but it gives greater prominence than the Guardian to Iran's role in the ongoing conflict, particularly how the Islamic republic has aided Iraqi Shia militias.10.18am: Der Spiegel's special report on the Iraq war logs can be found here. The Iraq war logs have been passed on to a wider range of media organisations than the Afghan war logs. Among the other news organisations involved are the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Channel 4 News, Swedish SVT, BBC News, Al Jazeera English and Le Monde.10.48am: Channel 4's Dispatches on Monday is devoted to the Iraq war logs. Among its findings are more than 300 reports alleging abuse by US forces on Iraqi prisoners after April 2004; evidence of more than 1,300 individual cases of the torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners by Iraqis in police stations and army bases; and how the US authorities were aware of horrific violence by Iraqi militias, including 32,500 murders - of which 160 victims were children.In the meantime, the Guardian has a special video report on the war logs which details how the US military ordered its forces to turn a blind eye to the torture and abuse of detainees by the Iraqi forces and the police.10.54am: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been speaking at a news conference in London about the release of the Iraq war logs."This disclosure is about the truth. We hope to correct some of that attack on the truth that occurred before the war, during the war, and which has continued on since the war officially concluded. While I am not sure we have achieved the maximum possible [political impact] I think we are getting pretty close."Assange highlighted how the reports documented 109,000 deaths - including 66,000 civilians, of which 15,000 were previously undocumented."That tremendous scale should not make us blind to the small human scale in this material. It is the deaths of one and two people per event that killed the overwhelming number of people in Iraq."10.58am: Solicitor Phil Shiner of Public Interest Lawyers told the press conference that some of the deaths documented in the reports could have involved British forces and would now be the subject of legal action through the UK courts."Some of these deaths will be in circumstances where the UK have a very clear legal responsibility," he said."This may be because the Iraqis died while under the effective control of UK forces - under arrest, in vehicles, helicopters or detention facilities."11.42am: The main Iraqi political group opposed to prime minister Nouri al-Maliki says the details of torture by Iraqi soldiers and police revealed in the Iraq war logs show what can happen when too much power is given to a single leader."Putting all the security powers in the hands of one person who is the general commander of the armed forces have led to these abuses and torture practices in Iraqi prisons," said Maysoun al-Damlouji, a spokeswoman for the Iraqiya bloc.The comments are a veiled slap at al-Maliki, who is fighting to hold onto his job.Most of the victims of abuse at the hands of Iraqi security were believed to be Sunnis, many of whom supported Iraqiya in the election in March against al-Maliki's Shia-dominated bloc.A government spokesman declined to comment, saying he had not seen the documents.11.48am: Kristinn Hrafnsson of WikiLeaks said it would publish 15,000 more documents about the war in Afghanistan, in addition to those released in July.She said the files, which had been held back because of their sensitive content, were fully vetted for release. They had been edited to conceal people's names and "contain no information that could be harmful to individuals".11.52am: Shiner of Public Interest Lawyers told the press conference that there should be a public inquiry into allegations that British troops were responsible for civilian deaths during the Iraq war.He cited one case in which he claimed a British rifleman had shot dead an eight-year-old girl who was playing in the street in Basra."For some reason the tank stopped at the end of the street, she's there in her yellow dress, a rifleman pops up and blows her away."He said tank units were in the habit of stopping while on patrol so soldiers could hand out sweets to youngsters as part of the battle for "hearts and minds".Shiner added that it would be wrong to assume that the US military files "had nothing to do with the UK".He said he was acting for many Iraqi civilians who were killed or tortured by UK forces."Some have been killed by indiscriminate attacks on civilians or the unjustified use of lethal force. Others have been killed in custody by UK forces and no-one knows how many Iraqis lost their lives while held in British detention facilities."If unjustified or unlawful force has been used, prosecutions for those responsible must follow, so we are bringing forward a new case seeking accountability for all unlawful deaths and we argue that there must be a judicial inquiry to fully investigate UK responsibility for civilian deaths in Iraq."1.06pm: Shiner told the press conference there was a huge and growing body of evidence about the killing, ill treatment and torture of Iraqis whilst in UK custody.He said: "There appear to be many cases other than that of Baha Mousa, where Iraqis died in UK custody and were then certified as dying from natural causes."None of these deaths have been investigated, many of these Iraqis were hooded and abused and my law firm does not accept the Ministry of Defence's explanation that each and every one of these deaths has a innocent explanation."If you look at what the British did in Iraq, it's savagery, these Iraqi men simply did not exist, they had been completely dehumanised."1.08pm: John Sloboda, of Iraq Body Count, told the press conference that the war logs revealed an unprecedented level of detail about the many civilian casualties of the conflict, including many names.He said: "The [15,000] new deaths [detailed in the new logs] are concentrated in small incidents, killing one or two people at a time, scattered all over Iraq, and occurring almost every day for the whole period."These are the small but relentless tragedies of this war that these logs reveal in unprecedented detail."1.23pm: We're wrapping up our coverage of the Wikileaks' press conference now. We'll continue to bring you updates on the news site - with all coverage collated in our special report.Among the highlights of our analysis of the files is an interactive detailing - log by log, minute by minute - the hundreds of violent incidents on 17 October 2006. It was a typical day in one of the bloodiest years of the Iraq conflict, with 136 Iraqis and 10 Americans killed.The Observer will have further analysis of the war logs tomorrow.Iraq: The war logsWikiLeaksIraqUS militaryUS foreign policyDavid Battyguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Afghan Radio War: U.S. Combats the Taliban Message Machine To combat the increasingly sophisticated Taliban message machine, the U.S. is employing its own band of hardy radio DJs feedproxy.google.com |