The White House said a virtual summit between President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping is being planned for later this year. The move comes as tension between the countries increases. White House Bureau Chief Patsy Widakuswara has the latest.
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Victims of sexual abuse by priests in France are calling for historic reform of the Catholic Church after an independent commission found that hundreds of thousands of children had suffered systematic abuse over the past seven decades. Henry Ridgwell reports.
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U.S. Supreme Court justices Wednesday questioned why the U.S. government will not let a suspected high-ranking al-Qaida figure held at the American naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba testify about his torture at the hands of the CIA.
Three of the nine justices pressed U.S. Acting Solicitor General Brian Fletcher on the subject as the court heard oral arguments in the government’s bid to prevent two former CIA contractors from being questioned in a criminal investigation in Poland examining the treatment of detainee Abu Zubaydah.
Zubaydah, a Palestinian man captured in 2002 in Pakistan and held by the United States since then without charges, repeatedly underwent waterboarding, a form of simulated drowning widely considered torture.
While the justices in general seemed skeptical that Zubaydah’s lawyers could overcome the government’s national security arguments, some raised the option of Zubaydah testifying himself as an alternative.
‘Off-ramp’
“Why not make the witness available?” asked Justice Neil Gorsuch, referring to Zubaydah. “What is the government’s objection to the witness testifying to his own treatment and not requiring any admission from the government of any kind?”
Zubaydah’s testimony, Gorsuch said, would provide an “off-ramp … that would obviate the need for any of this.” Justices Stephen Breyer and Sonia Sotomayor seemed to agree, with Breyer questioning why Zubaydah remains at Guantanamo.
“I don’t understand why he is still there,” Breyer said. “We want a clear answer,” Sotomayor added.
Fletcher would not commit on whether Zubaydah could testify but said he could report back to the justices. Zubaydah’s lawyers have said he is not permitted to testify under the conditions of his Guantanamo confinement.
The government is appealing a lower-court ruling that Central Intelligence Agency contractors James Elmer Mitchell and John Bruce Jessen could be subpoenaed under a U.S. law that lets federal courts enforce a request for testimony or other evidence for a foreign legal proceeding.
Poland is believed to be the location of a “black site” where the CIA used harsh interrogation techniques against Zubaydah.
Zubaydah, now 50, has spent 15 years at Guantanamo and is one of 39 detainees still held there. He lost an eye and underwent waterboarding 83 times in a single month while held by the CIA, U.S. government documents showed.
He was “an associate and longtime terrorist ally of Osama bin Laden,” the leader of the al-Qaida Islamist militant group killed by U.S. forces in Pakistan in 2011, a Justice Department filing said.
The justices have turned away multiple cases brought by Guantanamo detainees challenging their confinement. Zubaydah’s own case has been pending in lower courts for 14 years.
Zubaydah’s lawyers want Mitchell and Jessen to testify and provide documents in the criminal investigation in Poland. The U.S. government has asserted what is known as the “state-secrets privilege” to prevent them from being questioned, saying it would jeopardize national security.
Not a secret
Zubaydah lawyer David Klein said the fact that there was a “black site” in Poland is widely known, not a state secret. Mitchell and Jessen could testify about what they saw and heard without mentioning the location, according to Zubaydah’s lawyers. The government disputes that assertion.
Chief Justice John Roberts appeared sympathetic to the government’s position, noting that if the United States confirms facts that implicate Poland’s government, “that would be a breach of faith with our allies.”
Justice Samuel Alito said the entire point of Zubaydah’s request is to confirm that the torture occurred in Poland. “That’s what this all boils down to,” he said.
The U.S. government has disclosed that Zubaydah was held overseas and interrogated using “enhanced interrogation techniques” but has not revealed locations. The European Court of Human Rights determined that Zubaydah was held in Poland in 2002 and 2003.
The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2019 that Mitchell and Jessen could be subpoenaed. The Supreme Court’s ruling is due by the end of June.
Details of CIA activities were confirmed in a 2014 U.S. Senate report that concluded that the interrogation techniques were more brutal than originally disclosed and that the agency misled the White House and public about its torture of detainees captured overseas after al-Qaida’s September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.
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Russia’s Federal Security Service has issued an arrest warrant for investigative journalist Roman Dobrokhotov, editor of the Insider news website. He’s being accused of illegally crossing the border into Ukraine in August and could face up to two years in prison. Anna Rice has the story.
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NATO said Wednesday it expelled eight members of Russia’s mission to the military alliance for allegedly working in secret as intelligence officers.
“We can confirm that we have withdrawn the accreditation of eight members of the Russian Mission to NATO, who were undeclared Russian intelligence officers,” an unnamed NATO official said.
NATO also said it would cut the number of positions that Russia could accredit to NATO from 20 to 10 at the end of October. The alliance did not immediately explain why the decision was made.
The official said, “NATO’s policy towards Russia remains consistent. We have strengthened our deterrence and defense in response to Russia’s aggressive actions, while at the same time we remain open for a meaningful dialogue.”
Senior Russian lawmaker Leonid Slutsky, head of the Russian lower house of parliament’s international affairs committee, said Moscow would retaliate but did not provide specifics, according to Interfax.
NATO-Russian relations have steadily deteriorated since Moscow annexed Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula in 2014. NATO and Russia also disagree over issues such as Russia’s nuclear missile development and aerial intrusions into NATO airspace.
Some information for this report came from the Associated Press and Reuters.
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Americans are being warned to beware of potentially deadly fake prescription pills that are laced with the powerful opioid fentanyl and the highly addictive stimulant methamphetamine. The counterfeit tablets are linked to a wave of drug overdoses killing unsuspecting users.
In its first warning in six years, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) said international and domestic criminal networks were mass-producing fake pills and falsely marketing them as legitimate prescription medication.
“Counterfeit pills that contain these dangerous and extremely addictive drugs are more lethal and more accessible than ever before,” said DEA Administrator Anne Milgram at a news conference in Washington.
The notification was issued last week after the DEA announced it had seized more than 1.8 million fake pills during a two-month undercover operation and had arrested more than 810 people. In a statement, the agency said it had confiscated more than 9.5 million potentially lethal pills in the last year.
“Illicit fentanyl was responsible for nearly three-quarters of the more than 93,000 fatal drug overdoses in the United States in 2020,” said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. Health officials report fentanyl was responsible for nearly 70,000 of the overdose deaths.
Powerful pills
U.S. law enforcement investigators say the majority of counterfeit medication found in America is being made in labs in Mexico using chemicals imported from China. The DEA believes Chinese traffickers have switched from primarily manufacturing finished fentanyl to exporting precursors of the synthetic opioid to Mexican cartels, which then manufacture illicit fentanyl. U.S. officials are now seeking greater cooperation from Mexican law enforcement agencies to disrupt trafficking in the country.
DEA laboratory testing revealed that two out of five fentanyl-laced fake pills seized contained a potentially deadly dose of just 2 milligrams. Fentanyl can be 100 times more powerful than morphine. Drug researchers say a deadly dose of fentanyl is small enough to fit on the tip of a pencil.
“The fake pills seized were capable of killing more than 700,000 people,” Milgram noted, adding that law enforcement agencies have sought to shut down criminal distribution networks selling tablets that look exactly like name-brand prescription medications. “We are alerting the public to this danger so that people have the information they need to protect themselves and their children.”
The DEA alert said medications prescribed by doctors and dispensed by licensed pharmacists were safe, but pills acquired by other avenues were potentially deadly.
Decades of death
Since 1999, more than 500,000 Americans have died of opioid overdoses, both prescription and nonprescription. Deaths rose in nearly all states, with the highest increases in California, Kentucky, Vermont, South Carolina and West Virginia, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The more than 9.5 million fake tablets seized this year represented 430% more than the number seized in 2019. The DEA also confiscated ingredients used to make tens of millions of pills, including more than 4,000 kilograms of methamphetamine.
“The pervasiveness of these illicit drugs, and the fatal overdoses that too often result, is a problem that cuts across America from small towns to big cities and everything in between,” said Monaco.
The most common counterfeit pills are being made to look identical to prescription medications such as Oxycontin, Xanax, Vicodin or stimulants like amphetamines. Investigators say the fake medications are widely available and sold on social media platforms as well as on the streets.
“The illicit drug supply introduces even greater uncertainty about what people are taking, and that contributes to overdoses.” Dr. Caleb Alexander, a professor of epidemiology and medicine at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, told VOA. “If someone combines fentanyl with heroin or methamphetamine or another illicit product, it can be deadly.”
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The state parole board in the southeastern U.S. state of Texas has recommended that Governor Greg Abbott grant a posthumous pardon to George Floyd, whose death while in the custody of Minneapolis police sparked global protests against racial injustice and police brutality.
Floyd was arrested in his hometown of Houston in February 2004 and charged with selling $10 of crack cocaine, for which he served 10 months in jail after reaching a plea deal with prosecutors.
But Floyd’s conviction came under renewed scrutiny after the narcotics officer who arrested him was indicted on two counts of felony murder in a botched 2019 drug raid that ended in the deaths of a Houston couple. The deadly raid sparked allegations that the officer, Gerald Goines, fabricated evidence to justify the warrants that led to hundreds of drug raids and arrests. He is also facing federal civil rights charges in the case.
At least 150 convictions from Goines’s cases have been dismissed by prosecutors, while several officers with his unit have been indicted. Goines is no longer with the Houston police force.
The seven-member parole board voted unanimously on Monday to recommend Floyd’s pardon to Governor Abbott. There has been no response from the governor’s office.
Floyd died in May 2020 after then-Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin kneeled on his neck for several minutes while Floyd was being arrested on suspicion of passing a counterfeit $20 bill at a convenience store.
The incident was captured on cellphone video, triggering outrage over the treatment of Blacks at the hands of police. Chauvin was convicted of Floyd’s murder earlier this year and is serving a 22-and-½ year prison sentence.
Some information for this report came from the Associated Press.
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Police in the U.S. state of Texas say four people have been injured after an 18-year-old student allegedly opened fire at a high school.
Assistant Police Chief Kevin Kolbye told reporters Wednesday they received a call about 9:15 a.m. local time at Timberview High School in Arlington, a suburb east of Fort Worth and west of Dallas.
Kolbye said three of the four people injured in the incident were taken to a local hospital, while a fourth had only minor wounds and refused treatment.
The assistant chief said preliminary information indicates the incident stemmed from a fight between two students in a class, and a gun was produced. He identified a student at the school, 18-year-old Timothy George Simpkins, as a suspect in the shooting.
Kolbye said the suspect fled the scene in a car and is still at large. He said multiple state and federal agencies are looking for Simpkins, who they say is armed and dangerous.
Kolbye said the school was locked down and officers from multiple law enforcement agencies conducted a methodical search of the school, after which students were transported via school bus to a nearby performing arts center to be reunited with their families.
Some information for this report was provided by the Associated Press.
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