Jailers raped men and women, Iranian opposition leader says

Tehran: Jailers raped men and women involved in anti-government protest with such savagery that they have suffered “serious physical and mental damage.” Opposition leader and presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi made the allegation in a letter to ayatollah Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in which he demanded an investigation..
Karroubi, one of two pro-reform candidates defeated by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the disputed June 12 presidential election, said senior officials had informed him of the “shameful behaviour” that took place in prison.
Noting that both male and female detainees were raped, he called on Mr Rafsanjani to consult the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei about the allegations.
As a result of protests that followed the presidential elections, Iranian authorities arrested more than 200 people, many of whom are still in jail.
“Detained girls have been sexually assaulted with . . . brutality”, Karroubi lamented.
“Young men in detention were also sexually assaulted in such a way that some are now suffering from depression and other physical and psychological problems,” he added.
“Even if one account is true, it would be a tragedy for the Islamic Republic . . . and it would whitewash the sins of many dictatorships, including that of the deposed Shah,” Karroubi said.

Eyebrows being raised on US Bagram base as new

WASHINGTON: President Obama's promise to close down the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in some six months has drawn intense criticism from the right. Now human rights groups are taking aim at another U.S.-operated detention center: Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan. Some activists and legal analysts have begun to ask whether Bagram is "the new Guantanamo." The American Civil Liberties Union on Thursday asked the Obama administration to release some documents about the more than 600 prisoners at Bagram. Melissa Goodman, the lead ACLU attorney on the case, describes the request as "basic information about who they're detaining, how long they've been there, where they were actually captured, and what their nationalities are." That list is almost identical to the information human rights groups demanded from the Bush administration about detainees at Guantanamo seven years ago. In addition, the ACLU's Bagram lawsuit seeks details about the administration's rules for transfers, prisoner treatment and other records. The Supreme Court has recently decided three Guantanamo cases..>>>

Controller was on phone during Hudson River crash

A personal phone call during last week's collision over New York's Hudson River has led to two air traffic controllers being removed from duty, although officials said the conversation probably had no impact on the tragedy.

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The Federal Aviation Administration suspended two air traffic controllers in the wake of Saturday's fatal midair collision over the Hudson River, but the agency said their actions didn't contribute to the accident.
In a statement Thursday, the FAA said the probe revealed the controller handling the Piper propeller plane that collided with a sightseeing helicopter at low altitude was engaged in an "apparently inappropriate" phone conversation at the time of the accident. The FAA didn't provide more specific details of the phone call.
An air-traffic control supervisor wasn't on site as required, according to the agency. The FAA said it has started disciplinary action against the two controllers. Their names weren't released.
The crash resulted in nine fatalities and sparked a debate over possibly restricting small-plane traffic over the river, where pilots using visual flight rules aren't required to be in contact with controllers.
According to the FAA, there is "no reason to believe" that the allegedly improper actions of the controllers "contributed" to the midair crash.
The National Air Traffic Controllers Association, the union representing the FAA's 15,000 controllers, said the FAA should thoroughly examine the matter before taking action. "We support that any such allegation is fully investigated before there is a rush to judgment about the behavior of any controller," the union said in a statement.
Earlier this week, National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Debbie Hersman said controllers from Teterboro, N.J., Airport offered the plane's pilot two trajectories, and said the pilot was indecisive before finally choosing the lower-altitude path down the Hudson River.

US military embraces robot revolution

PATUXENT RIVER NAVAL AIR STATION, Maryland: Robots in the sky and on the ground are transforming warfare, and the US military is rushing to recruit the new warriors that never sleep and never bleed. The latest robotics were on display at an industry show this week at a naval airfield in Maryland, with a pilotless helicopter buzzing overhead and a “Wall-E” look-alike robot on the ground craning its neck to peer into a window. The chopper, the MQ-8B Fire Scout, is no tentative experiment and later this year will be operating from a naval frigate, the USS McInerney, to help track drug traffickers in the eastern Pacific Ocean, Navy officers said. The rugged little robot searching an enemy building is called a Pakbot, which can climb over rocks with tank treads, pick up an explosive with its mechanical arm and dismantle it while a soldier directs the machine from a safe distance. There are already 2,500 of them on the round in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a lighter version weighing six kilograms has arrived that can be carried in a backpack, according to Robot, the same company that sells a robot vaccum to civilians, the Roomba. Monday’s demonstration of robotic wonders was organised by defence contractors and the US Navy, which says it wants to lead the American military into a new age. “I think we’re at the beginning of an unmanned revolution,” Gary Kessler, who oversees unmanned aviation programmes for the US Navy and Marines, told AFP. “We’re spending billions of dollars on unmanned systems.” Kessler and other Pentagon officials compare the robots to the introduction of the aircraft or the tank, a new technology that dramatically changes strategy and tactics. Robots or “unmanned systems” are now deployed by the thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan, spying from the sky for hours to search for booby-traps and firing lethal missiles without putting US soldiers at risk....>>

Paris pool bans Muslim woman in 'burqini' swimsuit

PARIS: A Paris swimming pool has refused entry to a young Muslim woman wearing a "burqini," a swimsuit covering most of the body, officials said Wednesday, adding to tensions over Muslim dress in France.The incident came as French lawmakers conduct hearings on whether to ban the burqa after President Nicolas Sarkozy said the head-to-toe body covering and veil was "not welcome" in France, home to Europe's biggest Muslim minority.Officials in the Paris suburb of Emerainville said they let the woman swim in the pool in July wearing the "burqini," designed for Muslim women who want to swim without revealing their bodies.But when she returned in August, they decided to apply hygiene rules and told her she could not swim if she insisted on wearing the garment, which resembles a wetsuit with built-in hood.Pool staff "reminded her of the rules that apply in all (public) swimming pools which forbid swimming while clothed," said Daniel Guillaume, an official with the pool management.Le Parisien newspaper said the woman, identified by her first name Carole, was a French convert to Islam and that she was determined to go to the courts to challenge the decision."Quite simply, this is segregation," the newspaper quoted her as saying. "I will fight to try to change things. And if I see that the battle is lost, I cannot rule out leaving France."The newspaper ran a photo of the woman sporting her three-piece "burqini" which she said she purchased in Dubai during a recent holiday."I bought it thinking that I could enjoy swimming without having to uncover myself," she said.Local mayor Alain Kelyor said "all this has nothing to do with Islam," adding that the "burqini" was "not an Islamic swimsuit; that type of suit does not exist in the Koran," the Muslim holy book.