Tanzanian Ahmed Ghailani, 36, was found guilty of conspiracy to damage or destroy US property with explosives. But he was cleared of many other counts including murder and murder conspiracy. Ghailani faces a minimum of 20 years in prison. The verdict comes as the US weighs other civilian terror trials. The BBC’s Iain Mackenzie, in Washington, says the verdict in the Ghailani case will be seen as a huge blow to the Obama administration. It hopes to try other Guantanamo detainees in civilian courts – including alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Officials will now be considering how to proceed, but it could mean the controversial prison remains open for some time to come, our correspondent adds.

Mr Ghailani was detained in Pakistan in 2004, taken to a secret CIA facility and then to Guantanamo Bay in 2006. He was subject to what the government refers to as “enhanced interrogation” by the CIA. His lawyers say he was tortured. Despite losing its key witness, the government was given broad latitude to refer to al-Qaeda and Osama bin Laden throughout the trial. Defence lawyer Peter Quijano welcomed the acquittals. He said the one conviction would be appealed, adding: “We still truly believe he is innocent of all these charges.”

Guantanamo Bay – USA  Video

Pentagon officials say they cannot explain reports of a missile launch off the coast of California on Monday. A CBS News helicopter captured what looked like the vapour trail of a missile rising from the water about 35 miles (56 km) offshore. “Right now all indications are that it was not [defence department] involvement in this launch” Pentagon spokesman Col David Lapan said.  The Pentagon does not consider the missile a threat. “So far we’ve come up empty with any explanation,” Col Lapan said. “We’re doing everything we can to try to figure out if anybody has any knowledge of what this event may have been.” Under normal circumstances, the launch of a US missile would require several different authorisations and notifications, but none are evident. It is unclear if the suspected missile was launched from land or sea.

Sat Oct 2, 10:37 PM
By Maria Babbage, The Canadian Press

TORONTO – A defiant George Galloway says he may take another run at legal action against Immigration Minister Jason Kenney for branding him a terrorist and trying to muzzle his anti-war views. The outspoken former British MP, who landed in Toronto Saturday, came out swinging against his political nemesis.

He said he wants “redress” from Kenney, accusing the cabinet minister of putting his life at risk. “I’m not being melodramatic,” Galloway said. “There are crazy people in the world who — if I really was, really were the person Jason Kenney painted me as — might have thought themselves fully justified in putting a bullet in me.” Galloway said he’ll go into more details about the “searing” and “surreal” turn his life took after Kenney deemed him a security risk when he speaks Sunday in Toronto.

The speech will also focus on how the Canadian government is using anti-terrorism as an excuse to suppress legitimate political debate, he said. By trying to keep him out of Canada, Kenney has only managed to attract more attention to his anti-war views, Galloway said.

“He’s damaged Canada’s reputation,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s because he’s a fool or a knave. I’m not sure which would be worse, but I am sure that Canada deserves better than that.”

Galloway, who cleared customs over an hour after his plane landed, was greeted by dozens of chanting, sign-waving supporters at the airport. He said he was quizzed at length by three immigration officials, but found them to be professional and polite. Galloway was scheduled to speak in Canada in March 2009 about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but aborted the tour after Ottawa said he would likely be denied entry. The government cited his dealing with Gaza’s elected Hamas government, which Canada considers a terrorist organization. Earlier this week, a Federal Court judge found the Conservative government had acted politically to suppress his opinions. Galloway said Kenney’s terrorist allegation cost him his long-held seat in the U.K. House of Commons in May, hampered his ability to travel and created anxiety and stress for him and his family. He abandoned a libel suit against Kenney on the grounds that it was proving too expensive to fight, but said Saturday he will consult his Canadian lawyers and examine his legal options.

“I’m very happy to be in Canada, and my presence proves that Canada remains a country governed by laws, not by ‘here today, gone tomorrow’ politicians and their whims,” he said.

Brandishing signs condemning Kenney the “Minister for Censorship and Deportation,” Galloway supporters said they’re outraged by the government’s attempts to suppress free speech. “All he is doing is delivering aid — ambulances, incubators, hospital supplies, wheelchairs, that kind of thing — to the people of Gaza who have been under siege and are living in deplorable conditions,” said 29-year-old student Fava Zaharuk, who volunteers with the Toronto Coalition to Stop the War. “And it’s for this that we’re banning him from speaking in Canada? I don’t want that kind of government.”

The Prime Minister and the French president signed agreements for greater military co-operation including aircraft carriers, submarines, nuclear technology and ground forces. As part of the agreement, the two countries will share aircraft carrier capability. When France’s single carrier is out of service, Britain’s one vessel could conduct missions for both nations, and vice versa. Mr Cameron said the British Prime Minister said citizens of both countries would be “better protected” as a result of the two treaties.

Mr Sarkozy said the “unprecedented” agreement marked “a level of trust and confidence between the two countries never equalled in history.” Mr Sarkozy was asked whether he would be prepared to deploy French forces to deal with a crisis over the Falkland Islands. He replied that he would only deploy French forces where French interests were at stake, but insisted that any “major” British security crisis would almost certainly affect France too.

Mr Sarkozy said it would be unlikely that Britain could face the kind of crisis which required the deployment of an aircraft carrier without it affecting France. “We are not identical, there are many things on which we don’t agree and I know that there is the Channel between our two countries,” he said. “However, our values are the same, we share the same values, our interests are fair. All my political life I have argued in favour of rapprochement between London and Paris.” He added: “If you, my British friends, have to face a major crisis, could you imagine France simply sitting there, its arms crossed, saying that it’s none of our business?” Mr Cameron said of the defence agreement: “We have been able to do something really quite big, bold and radical.

US federal deficit: who owns America’s debt?

China has defended its investment in US Treasury bonds, amid concern that its position as the biggest investor in US debt may become political as well as economic. Treasury bonds are how the US – and all governments for that matter – borrow money: they issue government securities, which other countries and institutions buy. So, the US national debt is owned predominantly by Asian economies. The US Treasury releases the figures on this – here they are in a more useable form.

Last year, China expressed concern over the security of its vast United States treasury holdings and premier Wen Jiabao has urged Washington to safeguard their value. Take a look, download the spreadsheet and let us know what you can do with the data.

“Alcohol is more harmful than heroin or crack, according to a study published in medical journal the Lancet. The report is co-authored by Professor David Nutt, the former UK chief drugs adviser who was sacked by the government in October 2009. It ranks 20 drugs on 16 measures of harm to users and to wider society. Tobacco and cocaine are judged to be equally harmful, while ecstasy and LSD are among the least damaging.”

“The findings run contrary to the government’s long-established drug classification system, but the paper’s authors argue that their system – based on the consensus of experts – provides an accurate assessment of harm for policy makers. “Our findings lend support to previous work in the UK and the Netherlands, confirming that the present drug classification systems have little relation to the evidence of harm,” the paper says. “They also accord with the conclusions of previous expert reports that aggressively targeting alcohol harms is a valid and necessary public health strategy.” In 2007, Prof Nutt and colleagues undertook a limited attempt to create a harm ranking system, sparking controversy over the criteria and the findings.”

“The adviser, Dr. David Nutt, said in a lecture that alcohol is more hazardous than many outlawed substances, and that the United Kingdom might be making a mistake in throwing marijuana smokers in jail. His comments were published in a press release in October, and the next day he was dismissed. The buzz over his sacking has yet to subside: Nutt has become the talk of pubs and Parliament, as well as the subject of tabloid headlines like: “Drug advisor on wacky baccy?” But behind Nutt’s words lay something perhaps more surprising, and harder to grapple with. His comments weren’t the idle musings of a reality-insulated professor in a policy job. They were based on a list – a scientifically compiled ranking of drugs, assembled by specialists in chemistry, health, and enforcement, published in a prestigious medical journal two years earlier.

Blood, Money and AIDS: Hemophiliacs Are Split;Liability Cases Bogged Down in Disputes

Last December, Corey Dubin, a hemophiliac infected with the virus that causes AIDS, met for lunch at a Carrow’s restaurant in Camarillo, Calif., with John Bacich, the president of a Baxter International Inc. unit that makes blood-clotting products. Mr. Dubin, like an estimated 6,000 to 10,000 hemophiliacs nationwide, became infected with H.I.V. after receiving a tainted clotting substance made by Baxter and three other companies in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. Hundreds of victims had sued. But statutes of limitations prevented thousands more from bringing claims. Mr. Dubin however had not come to lunch to pick a fight. Rather, dissatisfied with the way key plaintiffs’ lawyers were handling the litigation, he was on a stealth mission to negotiate, for all those infected, a settlement with the four companies without the knowledge of key plaintiffs’ lawyers.

But some like Mr. Baldwin contend that the activists may have scuttled earlier deals that could have gotten money quickly to those who desperately needed it. “I’ve had mothers calling me saying that they’d be happy to get $30,000 for their son so they can buy him a new car before he dies,” said Mr. Baldwin, whose brother, also a hemophiliac, died three years ago of AIDS. It is estimated that more than 2,000 H.I.V.- infected hemophiliacs have died.

Bad blood between hemophiliacs, Bayer: Patients sue over tainted transfusions spreading HIV, hep C

A San Francisco attorney filed a class-action lawsuit Monday on behalf of thousands of hemophiliacs who claim that Bayer Corp. and several other companies knowingly sold blood products contaminated with HIV and hepatitis C. The lawsuit, filed in federal court in San Francisco, alleges that the companies conspired to sell blood-clotting products that were manufactured using blood from sick, high-risk donors. The suit also alleges that companies stopped selling the products in the United States because of the known risk of HIV and hepatitis transmission but continued distributing the infected products in Latin America, Asia and Europe in 1984 and 1985.

“Tens of thousands of hemophiliacs globally were infected with HIV or (hepatitis C) after receiving blood products from blood plasma that was originally manufactured in the United States,” said San Francisco attorney Robert J. Nelson. “This is a worldwide tragedy. Thousands of hemophiliacs have unnecessarily died from AIDS and many thousands more are infected with HIV or hepatitis C.” The companies named in the suit include Berkeley-based Cutter Biological, which is a division of Bayer; Baxter Healthcare Corp.’s Hyland Pharmaceutical division; Armour Pharmaceutical Co. and Alpha Therapeutic Corp.

Pataki Signs Bill Letting Hemophiliacs Sue Companies Over Blood-Clotting Products

Under the bill signed by Mr. Pataki, people infected by blood products, or their survivors, will have two years to bring product liability suits against the manufacturers. ”I just looked at my son’s beautiful picture on the wall and said, ‘Yes, C. J., you’ll have your day in court,’ ” said Regina Boccard, 44, of Huntington, N.Y., whose 13-year-old hemophiliac son, Charles John, died of AIDS in 1994. The signing comes after the settlement of a class-action suit brought by hemophiliacs nationwide against the manufacturers of blood products. Under that $620 million settlement, the companies agreed to pay $100,000 to each infected hemophiliac.

Those people would then be barred from filing suits against the companies. More than 5,000 people have accepted the settlement. About 75 of the 600 who rejected it live in New York, and most are expected to file suits. Since the bill passed the Legislature in August, both sides have vigorously lobbied to sway Mr. Pataki. Lobbyists for the blood products industry, which includes Bayer A.G. and Baxter International Inc., asserted that the bill could lead to catastrophic financial losses for the manufacturers.

Aids scandals around the world

China is the latest country to admit that Aids is cutting a swathe through its population, but Aids-related scandals have dogged many other countries since the 1980s and 1990s. One of the most high-profile cases was that of France’s tainted blood scandal, which saw a former health minister convicted for failing adequately to screen blood which led to the deaths from Aids of five people, and the contamination of two others during a key period in 1985. In April of this year, Canada’s Supreme Court found the Canadian Red Cross guilty of negligence for failing to screen blood donors effectively for HIV infection. Three suits were brought against the Red Cross by people who received tainted blood. Two of them subsequently died of Aids and the third is HIV positive. About 2,000 people were infected with HIV and up to 60,000 with Hepatitis C before blood tests began in late 1985.

In Italy, a Rome court ordered the Health Ministry in June of this year to pay damages to 351 people who contracted the HIV virus and hepatitis through blood transfusions. The court said the ministry was too slow to introduce measures to prevent the virus being spread by donated blood, and did not establish proper checks on plasma. About 100 of the victims – all haemophiliacs – have already died, but the court ruled that their families were entitled to the compensation. In March this year, a court in Tokyo cleared a former top Aids expert of professional negligence over a scandal that exposed thousands to the HIV virus through tainted blood products. The high-profile scandal, which grabbed headlines in the mid-1990s, shocked Japan with allegations of a government cover-up and unethical links between big business and bureaucrats. Japan’s Health Ministry did not ban unheated blood products until December 1985, despite knowing they risked being tainted with HIV.

In Iran in the late 1990s, the former head of Iran’s blood transfusion centre also went on trial over allegations that patients contracted the HIV virus after receiving contaminated blood. Dr Farhadi and two other doctors faced several charges including negligence in importing HIV-tainted supplies from France. And in Portugal, a court indicted a former health minister over an Aids scandal dating back to her time in office during the 1980s. The court said the minister, Leonor Beleza, should be tried for propagating a contagious disease. The decision refers back to a case in which more than 100 Portuguese haemophiliacs were infected with the Aids virus after receiving transfusions of contaminated plasma that had been imported and distributed by the public health service.

Cracking Peer to Peer? That’s a new one!

US voices ‘concerns’ over Australia’s internet filter

Washington is worried about the impact of proposal, which would force internet service providers to block offensive material, including child pornography, bestiality and details on how to carry out criminal activity. Opponents of the plan claim the scope of the material that could be filtered out is too wide and that the restrictions could be applied to media organisations reporting details of criminal activity. “Our main message of course is that we remain committed to advancing the free flow of information which we view as vital to economic prosperity and preserving open societies globally,” Michael Tran, a US State Department spokesman, said. “We don’t discuss the details of specific diplomatic exchanges, but I can say that in the context of that ongoing relationship, we have raised our concerns on this matter with Australian officials,” he said. The Australian government has refused to comment on the matter. The proposed filter would make Australia one of the strictest internet regulators among the world’s democracies, with some critics claiming it will put the country in the same league as China.

Internet filter draft legislation delayed

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy had planned for the internet filter to be debated this week, but his office confirmed the drafting of the legislation was still not complete and discussions with ISPs and other stakeholders on outstanding issues were still taking place. With only three Senate sitting days in May during the Budget session, and a growing backlog of Government business, it is unlikely the filter will be presented before June.

“The Government will take the time to ensure that it gets the legislative framework right,” a spokeswoman for Senator Conroy said. “Discussions with ISPs and owners of high traffic sites on the implementation of ISP filtering are ongoing. The Government is also considering the responses to the consultation paper on improved transparency and accountability measures which will feed into the legislative framework.” “The Bill will be introduced when these processes are completed,” the spokeswoman said.

It is not clear whether the internet filtering plan has a chance of getting through the Senate. The Greens are opposed to the scheme, and the opposition says while it supports in principle measures to protect children online, it has deep reservations about mandatory ISP level filtering. Shadow communications spokesman Tony Smith said the coalition will wait until the draft legislation is tabled before it formalises a policy on the issue. The filtering scheme is not the only Communications portfolio legislation being pushed back. The extensions to the Do Not Call register to include businesses was to have been put to the Senate this week, but also looks certain to be pushed back until the June sittings.