Amnesty International released its annual review of death sentences and executions around the world. The review found the five biggest executors in 2012 were China, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the USA. It also found that the number of countries that abolished the death penalty rose to 97 and progress toward abolition of the death [...]

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai ordered United States special forces to leave the Maidan Wardak province after reports of units engaging in the torture and disappearing of Afghan civilians.The order came on February 24 and was immediately followed by the US military rejecting the allegations. Leaders in the province issued the order in response to Afghans [...]

“The world is a battlefield,” is the tagline for Dirty Wars, a documentary that premiered days ago at the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. The film produced by Nation national security correspondent Jeremy Scahill and Big Noise Films director Rick Rowley attempts to bring the US global war on terrorism out of the shadows by spotlighting [...]

(update below) President Barack Obama delivered his inaugural address for his second term. It was a veritable stew of historical quotes from American history laced with several nods to progressive positions and achievements. It acknowledged past struggles launched by US citizens for equality and justice but mostly lacked a vision for what Obama hoped to [...]

Members of militant groups in Pakistan may not be able to do much to prevent the United States from launching drone strikes in Pakistan, but, as the New York Times‘ Declan Walsh reports, militants conduct witch hunts against people they suspect of being informers and often torture them before shooting, hanging or beheading them. From Walsh’s [...]

A landmark ruling was issued by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) holding the European Union responsible for its role in the CIA’s detention and rendition of German national Khaled El-Masri. The ECHR unanimously found Macedonia had been responsible for his “unlawful detention, enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment, and for his transfer out [...]

A congressional subcommittee heard statements from investigators and members of the US military who had observed shocking conditions at the Dawood military hospital in Afghanistan. One colonel, Mark Fassl, described how he had observed “open vats of blood draining out of wounds,” along with “many family members” taking care of their loved ones instead of [...]

Triple drone attacks in Pakistan reportedly killed more than twelve people who were suspected of being “militants” or terror suspects. Nine were killed in an initial attack on a “militant compound” in Miranshah in North Waziristan. Three more were killed in a second attack while people were trying to “recover dead bodies.” A third strike [...]

A report on the tens of thousands of primarily poor or working class people from developing countries, who are hired through US government contracts to work for United States military or diplomatic missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, has been published by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). The report calls attention to a system of [...]

(update below) Killing by remote control, the escalated use of drone warfare in countries, depends on people believing drones do not kill a large number of innocent civilians. It depends on people believing the program is indeed “precise” and rarely kills anybody other than members of al Qaeda and its affiliates or the Taliban. So, there [...]