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Steven Howards Can Sue Secret Service, Judge Rules
By The Huffington Post News Editors
DENVER — A Colorado man can sue two Secret Service agents who arrested him after he touched former Vice President Dick Cheney on the arm in 2006 and told him his Iraq War policies were "disgusting," a federal appeals court ruled Monday.
The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
By The Huffington Post News Editors
DENVER — A Colorado man can sue two Secret Service agents who arrested him after he touched former Vice President Dick Cheney on the arm in 2006 and told him his Iraq War policies were "disgusting," a federal appeals court ruled Monday.
The Full Feed from HuffingtonPost.com - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/
The Hindu began publishing reports on the cables Tuesday, outlining the negotiations between the United States and India about how much intelligence to share with Pakistani officials about investigations into the November 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Those attacks, which killed 166 people, were blamed on 10 Pakistan-based militants, one of whom was captured, convicted and sentenced to death. Pakistan said it would help with the investigation, but India remained wary of its intentions.
The cables published Tuesday reveal the United States’ behind-the-scenes efforts to broker an exchange of information about the attacks between India and Pakistan.
In a January 3, 2009 cable, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s office said it was sending intelligence provided by Pakistan to be shared with India and it requested ”immediate permission” from India to share information with Islamabad in return.
Two days later, the embassy sent a cable back saying the government ”appears to have withheld consent to share the results of FBI investigations with Pakistan in order to control precisely what information reaches Islamabad.”
Yet in a cable the next day, the embassy gave a very different interpretation, saying that an Indian agreement to share some restricted information with Pakistan, ”should be read broadly” by US investigators.
Following the attacks, and Pakistan’s refusal to satisfy India’s demand for a crackdown on the militant groups, India called off peace talks with its neighbor that had been aimed at resolving their six-decade-old conflict.
In August 2009, the embassy reported that then-National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan said Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh remained a ”great believer” in talks with Pakistan, but was isolated in his own government in this view.
India and Pakistan agreed last month to renew wide-ranging peace talks.
Last year, WikiLeaks gave access to some of the 250,000 US diplomatic cables it had in its possession to five newspapers: the Guardian, the New York Times, Spain’s El Pais, France’s Le Monde and Germany’s Der Spiegel.
But with much of the trove still unexamined, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in January he was hoping to enlist as many as 60 news organizations from around the world to sift through the documents.
N. Ram, editor of The Hindu, said Tuesday in a front-page story that the newspaper began serious discussions with WikiLeaks last month over access to the more than 5,000 cables relating to India and the organization quickly agreed.
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As violence escalated, close ally the United States warned that there was “no military solution” to political upheaval in Bahrain and that any violence against peacefully expressed political demands “should be stopped”. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Bahrainis must “take steps now” towards a political resolution of the crisis.
“More than 200 people we received today had been shot with buckshot,” a hospital medic in the village of Sitra, south of the capital, told AFP by telephone.
The medic, who asked not to be identified, said the hospital was under siege by armed gangs and security forces targeting Shias – the backbone of anti-regime protests that have raged for a month.
The medic said villagers “confronted the gangs when they arrived in the village”, only to discover that they were carrying guns.
Helicopters were hovering over the area, the medic said, adding that the total number of injured people rises to more than 400 when those admitted for inhaling tear gas are included.
Iran condemned Monday’s intervention by Saudi-led Gulf troops to help put down the protests, prompting Manama to recall its ambassador.
Thousands of protesters marched to the Saudi embassy, chanting slogans against the king and vowing to defend the country from the “occupation” forces, as unrest in the tiny country became a regional diplomatic crisis.
The financial district of Manama – a regional banking hub – was deserted for a third day except for anti-government protesters.
Sunni and Shia vigilantes were on the streets in various parts of the capital and in rural villages.
A Shia protester and a member of the security forces were killed in separate incidents in the south, amid unconfirmed reports of bloody clashes outside the capital.
In Manama, the protesters brandished banners against the king.
They also called for unity between Sunnis and Shias in the mainly Shia country, which has been ruled by a Sunni dynasty for more than 200 years.
Police and foreign forces were nowhere to be seen there, witnesses said.
State television interrupted normal programming to announce a three-month state of emergency in the strategic Gulf state, which is home to the US Fifth Fleet and hosts major international banks and financial institutions.
“The Commander in Chief of the Bahrain Defense Force has been mandated to take the measures and procedures necessary to preserve the safety of the nation and its people,” it said, adding that “other forces” could also be used if necessary.
Armored troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates had earlier rolled across the causeway from Saudi’s Eastern Province to help Manama tackle pro-democracy protests shaking the kingdom.
The Saudi Arabia’s government said it had responded to a call for help from its neighbor under a mutual defense pact of the six-country Gulf Cooperation Council.
But Iran said the military intervention in a Shia-majority country to which it has historic claims was unacceptable.
“The people of Bahrain have demands, which are legitimate and are being expressed peacefully,” foreign ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said in Tehran.—AFP
14 Mar 2011: Cable Sent: 27/10/2008
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