Archive - Jan 2013

• Secretary of Defense nominee Chuck Hagel faces questions on nuclear proliferation at Senate hearing
• Senate suspends debt ceiling as activists warn of risk to social programs
• Nigerian troops set to enter Mali as French forces advance north through rebel territory
• Federal court overturns Guantanamo conviction, casting doubt on future of military commissions
• Advocates call for alternatives to incarceration as California faces deadline to reduce prison population

• Suspected Israeli airstrike in Syria draws ire regionally
• UN says Israeli settlement activities constitute war crimes
• Israeli court to decide fate of Palestinian village in West Bank
• China convicts two for inciting self-immolation protests
• Activists call for more transparency in New York fracking health study

President Obama’s nominee to lead the Pentagon, Chuck Hagel answered questions from Senators today about his support for Israel, his position on Iran’s nuclear energy program, and his opposition to the escalation of the Iraq war. Hagel, a former Republican Senator from Nebraska, would be the first enlisted combat veteran to be Secretary of Defense. During the hearing, Oklahoma’s James Inhofe and other Republican senators challenged Hagel on his involvement with Global Zero, a group of world leaders who call for “the elimination of all nuclear weapons.”

The US Senate approved a bill today to temporarily suspend the debt ceiling, pushing the so-called fiscal cliff until mid-May. The measure already passed the House and President Obama has said he will sign it. But progressive lawmakers and activists warn the move puts crucial social programs at risk when the bill expires, and others are attempting to avoid this scenario with legislation to abolish the debt ceiling altogether. On Capitol Hill, FSRN’s Alice Ollstein has more.

The French government says it has reached “a turning point” in its military intervention in Mali, after advancing to the northern city of Kidal, the last stronghold of Islamist militants. The French military said it will continue to target sites near the border with Algeria, according to AFP, but plans to transfer the military campaign to African-led forces soon.

Today, the military judge at Guantanamo Bay overseeing the hearing of five detainees accused in the September 11 terrorist attacks directly addressed a blackout of the proceedings earlier this week and ordered the government to “discontinue any ability” of third parties to suspend broadcast of the commission. On Monday, audio and video of the proceedings were cut for three minutes when a defense attorney began talking about the secret CIA black sites where defendants were held and allegedly tortured.

The state of California is fighting a court-imposed deadline to reduce overcrowding in its prisons, which the US Supreme Court said amounted to “cruel and unusual punishment.” Nearly 133,000 adults are currently incarcerated in 33 state prisons - down from 160,000 seven years ago. But some prisons remain overcrowded, and experts say that it will take changes at the sentencing level and dedicated funding for alternatives to incarceration to break the state’s longstanding reliance on imprisonment. From Oakland, FSRN’s Puck Lo reports.