US sued over 'ghost prisoners'

Six human rights groups are suing the US government seeking more details of 39 people they claim were detained in anti-terror operations, and have since gone 'missing'.

Amnesty International and the others said they have compiled evidence to show the "ghost detainees" were either in or have been in US custody, Al Jazeera's John Terrett reports.

The move comes after a US civil rights group last month filed a suit against a subsidiary of aircraft manufacturer Boeing for aiding the CIA in flying the suspects to detention facilities.

Most of those arrested in the months following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York are held at Guantanamo Bay, the US naval base in Cuba.

Detainee list

The groups on Thursday published the list of 39 detainees based on information gleaned from interviews with former prisoners and officials in the US, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Yemen.

Amnesty says it is not sure if the missing prisoners are in any US detention facility, claiming their report offers evidence that Washington has been lying.

"For its part, the CIA has always maintained that it operates in strict accord with American law," Sean Casey, a US State Department spokesman, said.

George Bush, the US president, had late last year acknowledged the existence of secret detention centres but did not specify any locations.

The rights groups say the men were among those captured in highly controversial "renditions" in which suspects were detained outside the US and flown to top secret American jails around the world.

European probe

In Europe, a Swiss senator heading an investigation into alleged CIA secret prisons and flights in Europe is expected to present on Friday new findings on what he calls a "spider's web" of human rights abuses.

Dick Marty, who is leading an inquiry on behalf of the Council of Europe, had spoken to former CIA agents to corroborate his earlier accusations that CIA planes landed in Poland and Romania to drop off detainees, a source familiar with the investigation said.

The European Parliament came to the same conclusion after completing its own investigation in February.

Both the Polish and Romanian governments have vehemently denied Marty's allegations.

Last year, he accused 14 European nations of colluding to help the CIA spirit terror suspects to illegal detention facilities, and said European governments "did not seem particularly eager to establish" the facts.

While details of most of the detainees remained sketchy, information for at least 21 of the detainees had been confirmed by two or more independent sources, Anne Fitzgerald, a senior adviser for Amnesty International, said.

Right restored

Meanwhile in Washington on Thursday, the US Senate Judiciary Committee endorsed a bill that will restore basic legal rights to inmates of Guantanamo Bay detainees, allowing the accused to challenge their detention in a US court.

The move came days after the US administration suffered a severe legal setback in its 'war on terror' after a military tribunal dismissed charges against two Guantanamo inmates.

"Habeas corpus was recklessly undermined in last year's legislation," Senator Patrick Leahy, the Judiciary Committee chairman, said. "I hope that the new Senate will reconsider this historic error in judgment and set the matter right."

Judges who heard both cases on Monday ruled they had no jurisdiction to proceed with military commission trials as neither inmate was classified as an "unlawful enemy combatant".

HEILIGENDAMM, Germany - Russian President Vladimir Putin called for a joint Russian-US base to detect missile attacks in a startling proposal to overcome a crisis between the two countries.

Putin offered President George W. Bush the joint use of a Russian radar base in Azerbaijan as an alternative to plans for a US missile shield in central Europe.

Russia has angrily opposed the planned US shield in Poland and the Czech Republic and Putin had threatened to return to the Cold War policy of aiming Russian missiles at European targets, if it was deployed.

Putin said a joint base would "remove the need, would allow us to not change our policy on non-targeting of our missiles."

Putin and Bush met Thursday on the sidelines of the Group of Eight summit in Heiligendamm, Germany in a bid to rescue relations which were at a post-Cold War low amid their missile defence wrangling.

Bush found the Russian offer "interesting" and proposed experts from the two countries examine it, his national security advisor, Stephen Hadley, said later.

Bush himself told journalists that the two leaders would pursue their "strategic dialogue" at talks at the Bush family home in the United States in early July.

Putin said he had spoken on Wednesday to the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, who had agreed that the Gabalin base rented by Russia could also be jointly used by the United States.

Russia says it is the target of the proposed US shield in Europe while the United States insists its system is to guard against an attack by Iran or North Korea.

"We have an understanding of common threats but there are differences over the means for overcoming these threats," Putin said after the talks, with Bush at his side.

The Russian leader insisted that the US and Russian military could detect any long-range missile test by Iran and would then have up to five years to set up a joint base before there was any major threat.

Putin argued that the Azerbaijan-based system would cover all of Europe rather than just parts of it and that any missile debris would fall in the ocean rather than on land in Europe.

He said locating the base in Azerbaijan would ease Russian concerns about a missile shield on its frontier in Europe.

But he insisted that the new system had to be "transparently" shared and that the strategic concerns of both sides had to be taken into account.

Putin warned the United States not to start building the system in Europe while negotiations with Moscow take place. "We hope these consultations will not serve as cover for some unilateral action," Putin said.

Bush said that his Russian counterpart had made "some interesting suggestions" during the talks.

"As a result of our discussions, we both agreed to have a strategic dialogue, an opportunity to share ideas and concerns between our State Department, Defence Department and military people."

The US president said there would have to be "a serious set of strategic discussions."

The Czech prime minister, Mirek Topolanek, whose country is at the centre of the political storm, said Putin had finally recognised that the concept of anti-missile defence is "useful."

"The most important thing is his (Putin's) will to seek agreement," Topolanek said in a statement.

Putin's foreign policy advisor, Sergei Prikhodko, said Moscow now hoped for "a positive response to our very far-reaching offer."

According to Prikhodko, "it seemed to me this initiative was met with very great interest from President Bush."

The US national security advisor said it was too early to predict where the talks with Russia would lead.

Referring to the reaction in Poland and the Czech Republic, he told reporters: "There are a lot of questions that they are going to have and a lot of questions that we are going to have."

Hadley said Putin's proposal had been a sign that both sides "wanted to de-escalate the tension on these issues."

Immigration bill fails key test, is withdrawn

WASHINGTON - A broad immigration bill to legalize millions of people unlawfully in the United States failed a crucial test vote in the Senate Thursday, a stunning setback that could spell its defeat for the year.

The vote was 45-50 against limiting debate on the bill, 15 short of the 60 that the bill's supporters needed to prevail. Most Republicans voted to block Democrats' efforts to bring the bill to a final vote.

The legislation, which had been endorsed by President Bush, would tighten borders, institute a new system to prevent employers from hiring undocumented workers and give as many as 12 million illegal immigrants a pathway to legal status.

Senate Majority Harry Reid, D-Nevada, who had made no secret of his distaste for parts of the bill, said he would withdraw it but keep working toward eventual passage.

"I, even though disappointed, look forward to passing this bill," Reid said. But he said he needs help from the White House.

"This is the president's bill," Reid said. "... We can't do it alone over here. We need some help."

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, urged Reid not to give up on the legislation, but allow debate on amendments to continue in order to resolve the objections of conservative senators.

"This is a complicated bill, but the key to passage is not complicated," McConnell said.

McConnell said all that's needed is a "reasonable number of additional roll-call votes" on amendments.

"We're not that far away from being able to get cloture on the bill," he said.

Conceived by an improbable coalition that nicknamed the deal a "grand bargain," the measure exposed deep rifts within both parties and is loathed by most GOP conservatives.

Most Republicans voted against ending debate, saying they needed more time to make the bill tougher with tighter border security measures and a more arduous legalization process for unlawful immigrants.

All but a handful of Democrats supported the move, but they, too, were holding their noses at provisions of the bill. Many of them argued it makes second-class citizens of a new crop of temporary workers and rips apart families by prioritizing employability over blood ties in future immigration.

Still, they had argued that the measure, on balance, was worth advancing.

"We can all find different aspects of this legislation that we differ with," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, the leading Democratic architect of the bill.
Amendments bandied about all day

Proponents in both parties had scrambled to find a way of reversing a blow their compromise sustained earlier Thursday, when the Senate voted to phase out the bill's temporary worker program after five years.

The 49-48 vote came two weeks after the Senate, also by a one-vote margin, rejected the same amendment by Sen. Byron Dorgan. The North Dakota Democrat says immigrants take many jobs Americans could fill.

Business interests and their congressional allies were already angry that the temporary worker program had been cut in half from its original 400,000-person-a-year target.

A five-year sunset, they said, could knock the legs from the precarious bipartisan coalition aligned with the White House. The Dorgan amendment "is a tremendous problem, but it's correctable," said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pennsylvania.

Until the Dorgan vote was tallied, Specter and other proponents had enjoyed a fairly good day.

They had turned back a bid to reduce the number of illegal immigrants who could gain lawful status. They also defeated an effort to postpone the bill's shift to an emphasis on education and skills among visa applicants as opposed to family connections.

And they fended off an amendment, by Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, that would have ended a new point system for those seeking permanent resident "green cards" after five years rather than 14 years.

All three amendments were seen as potentially fatal blows to the bill, which would tighten borders, hike penalties for those who hire illegals and give many of the country's estimated 12 million illegal immigrants a pathway to legal status.

The Senate voted 51-46 to reject a proposal by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, to bar criminals -- including those ordered by judges to be deported -- from gaining legal status. Democrats siphoned support from Cornyn's proposal by winning adoption, 66-32, of a rival version that would bar a more limited set of criminals, including certain gang members and sex offenders, from gaining legalization.

Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, alone among his party's presidential aspirants in backing the immigration measure, opposed Cornyn's bid and backed the Democratic alternative offered by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Massachusetts.

Senators also rejected a proposal by Robert Menendez, D-New Jersey, that would have delayed the bill's shift in favor of attracting foreign workers with needed skills as opposed to keeping families together. Menendez won 53 votes, seven short of the 60 needed under a Senate procedural rule invoked by his opponents.

Menendez's proposal would have allowed more than 800,000 people who had applied for permanent legal status by the beginning of 2007 to obtain green cards based purely on their family connections -- a preference the bill ends for most relatives who got in line after May 2005.

Meanwhile, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-New York, fell short in her bid to remove limits on visas for the spouses and minor children of immigrants with permanent resident status.

While several Cornyn amendments failed, he prevailed on one matter opposed by the grand bargainers. That amendment, adopted 57 to 39, would make it easier to locate and deport illegal immigrants whose visa applications are rejected.

The bill would have barred law enforcement agencies from seeing applications for so-called Z visas, which can lead to citizenship if granted. Cornyn said legal authorities should know if applicants have criminal records that would warrant their deportation.

Opponents said eligible applicants might be afraid to file applications if they believe they are connected to deportation actions. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, said in an interview that Cornyn's amendment was "not a deal-killer" but would have to be changed in House-Senate negotiations.

PM's Marriage Solemnisation Ceremony At Noon Saturday

PUTRAJAYA, June 8 - The akad nikah between (marriage solemnisation ceremony)Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Jeanne Abdullah at Seri Perdana here will be held at noon Saturday.

The matter came to light when Abdullah corrected Internal Security Ministry Secretary-General Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Yusof's remarks on the time of the wedding at the ministry's excellent service awards presentation here Friday.

"It's at noon," Abdullah said upon hearing Abdul Aziz mentioning in his speech that the ceremony would take place in the morning.

The Prime Minister's Office had only announced the date of the wedding without specifying the time.

To be attended by close relatives, the wedding will be a modest affair.

Wedding Turns Tragic, 5 Killed, 9 Injured When Man Fires At Crowd

SONG (Sarawak), June 7 - Five people were killed and nine others injured when an enraged man fired at the crowd attending a wedding reception in a longhouse here Wednesday night.

Song Police Chief ASP Entusa Iman said a 36-year-old Indonesian man married to the longhouse chief's daughter suddenly opened fired at the crowd over a misunderstanding.

Preliminary investigations revealed the man fired four shots from a shotgun from outside the longhouse at "Ruai" or public gallery where the guests had gathered for the reception.

He then went into the "Ruai" to fire another shot in the 9pm incident at the "Rh.Enchan", a longhouse in Ulu Engkabau, Katibas, a 10-minute ride upriver by longboat from here and another one hour on foot, he said.

Of the nine injured, two sustained serious injuries, Entusa said. All of them have been admitted to the Kapit Hospital.

The bodies of the dead have also been sent to the same hospital for post-mortem but their identities have not been released.

The Indonesian surrendered to the police at about 1.20am Thursday.

On the probable reason for the carnage, Entusa said he was told that some youths had persistently teased the Indonesian over his statelessness during the Gawai dayak celebrations at the longhouse over the past four days.

"Probably he could not take it anymore," he said of the Indonesian who does not have an identity card. He has three daughters.

Entusa could not tell if any of the youths were among those killed or injured in the incident.

"The bride and the bridegroom are safe," he added.

Langkawi Declared A Geopark By Unesco

KULIM, June 7 - Langkawi, a cluster of 99 islands covering an area of 10,000 hectares, has been declared a geopark by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) effective Friday.

Kedah Menteri Besar Datuk Seri Mahdzir Khalid said that with the recognition, Langkawi joined the Global Geoparks network of 52 geoparks worldwide.

"This official recognition by Unesco will enhance Langkawi's image as a world class tourist destination," he told reporters after opening Fuji Electric (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd's second factory at the Kulim High Technology Park here today.

Mahdzir said Langkawi had applied to join the Unesco's Geopark network in May last year and it was the first geopark in Malaysia and South East Asia to gain such a recognition.

He thanked Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), the Mineral and Geoscience Department, Forestry Department, Environment Department and the Langkawi District Office and all other parties that had contributed to the island getting the recognition.

OIC Health Ministers Meet To Focus On Immunization, Vaccine Production

KUALA LUMPUR, June 7 - The inaugural 2007 OIC Health Ministers Conference Malaysia will be hosting next week will focus on immunization to combat preventable diseases and vaccine production among Organisation of Islamic Conference (OIC) member states.

The conference secretariat's head Datuk Dr Nor Shahidah Khairullah said in statement here today that it would also discuss measures to be taken to reduce infant mortality rates in OIC countries.

The four-day conference, beginning June 12, will be held at the and Spa in Hotel Sunway Lagoon Resort, Bandar Sunway near here.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, who is the current chairman of the OIC, is scheduled to open it on June 14.