Senate Report Says Torture Program Was More Gruesome, Widespread Than CIA Claimed

WASHINGTON -- The Senate Intelligence Committee on Tuesday released the highly anticipated 500-page summary of its report on the CIA’s post-9/11 torture program, providing a sobering glimpse into one of the darkest chapters in the U.S. government's history.

In the report, a product of a 5-year investigation, Senate investigators reveal sordid details of the systemic and individual failures by the agency personnel who ran the "enhanced interrogation program" -- the government's euphemism for systematic torture -- during the George W. Bush administration. The program involved capturing terrorism suspects and shipping them to secret overseas prisons, where they were subjected to techniques such as waterboarding.

Senate Report: CIA Torture Was Brutal and Ineffective

The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence finally released its extensive report on torture methods employed by the Central Intelligence Agency following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The full report paints a damning picture of an out-of-control program that was much less effective and far more brutal than previously known.

Harper disowns veterans charter as Opposition demands Fantino resign

OTTAWA - The new veterans charter, a marquee deal defended and championed by Stephen Harper's Conservatives since 2006, suddenly became a "Liberal policy" Tuesday as the government weathered more demands for Julian Fantino's resignation.

The veterans affairs minister, who was on his feet constantly during the previous day's question period, rose infrequently on Tuesday in the face of an unrelenting barrage of NDP and Liberal attacks.

Instead, he was defended by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, who tried to put some political distance between his government and a class-action lawsuit in B.C. that argues the charter is unconstitutional and discriminatory against modern veterans.

Auditor General: Ontarians Paying Billions Extra For Electricity

TORONTO - People in Ontario are paying billions of dollars extra for electricity thanks to a flawed smart meter program and the above-market rates the province pays most power generators, Ontario's auditor general reported Tuesday.

Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli disputed the auditor's conclusions, suggesting her numbers were inaccurate because she didn't understand the "complex" electricity system.

Ratepayers will pay $50 billion between 2006 and 2015 because of an extra charge on their electricity bills that covers the gap between guaranteed prices paid to contracted power generators and the market price, auditor general Bonnie Lysyk wrote in her annual report.

Harper calls oil and gas regs ‘crazy economic policy’ in times of cheap oil

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has definitively slammed the door on regulating Canada’s oil and gas sector, calling it a “crazy, crazy” economic policy under current global oil prices.

His comments in the House of Commons come as international talks are underway in Lima, Peru, in an effort to reach a new post-2020 global agreement on curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

Harper was emphatic that Canada will not move unilaterally to curb fast-rising emissions from Alberta’s oilsands.

Original Article
Source: nationalnewswatch.com/
Author:  Bruce Cheadle

Election law changes could boost Conservative MPs' campaign tools

A little-noticed provision in the Conservative government's controversial bid to rewrite Canada's election laws could boost usage of a mobile campaign application developed by two backbench Conservative MPs.

Under the old law, candidate representatives or scrutineers were prohibited from using any communications device at a voting station during polling hours.

But under changes brought in by Democratic Reform Minister Pierre Poilievre last spring, scrutineers will be free to use smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices while monitoring turnout, provided they don't take photos, record audio or video, prevent an elector from casting a ballot or "violate the secrecy of the vote."

CIBC Closes Concordia Student's Bank Account Because He's Iranian

Arash Khodadadi, a Montreal university student, has been forced by CIBC to close his chequing and savings accounts because he is from Iran.

The Canadian government has extensive economic sanctions against Iran, which are meant to pressure the country to halt its suspected nuclear weapons program.

However, some banks are applying those sanctions to ordinary people who come to Canada to work or study.

The Gargoyle: Staff numbers in ministerial offices ballooned under Harper

The Conservative government’s enthusiasm for cutting costs and reducing the size of the public service appears to end at the elevator to the minister’s office.

Data tabled in the House of Commons on Monday shows the number of political staffers working for cabinet ministers has ballooned under the Tories, up 21 per cent per cent from the last year of Liberal rule.

Paul Martin’s government employed 452 people as “exempt” ministerial aides, advisors and other staff in 2005. This year, that number has swollen to 549 bodies on the public payroll.

Israel's destruction of multistorey buildings: extensive, wanton and unjustified

Air strikes on landmark buildings at the tail end of the Israeli military’s Operation Protective Edge in Gaza in August 2014 were a deliberate and direct attack on civilian buildings and amount to war crimes, says Amnesty International today. 

“Nothing is immune”: Israel’s destruction of landmark buildings in Gaza provides evidence that attacks on four multistorey buildings during the last four days of the conflict were in contravention of international humanitarian law and calls for them to be independently and impartially investigated. 

17 Disgraceful Facts Buried In The Senate’s 600 Page Torture Report

The Senate Intelligence Committee’s report on the CIA’s extensive use of torture reveals that the agency regularly misled the White House and Congress about the information it had obtained from detainees and used techniques that are far more brutal than it — or former Bush administration officials — had previously acknowledged.

For instance, President George W. Bush insisted that “[t]his government does not torture people” and claimed that the intelligence it produced was instrumental to preventing terrorism on American soil and capturing high-value targets, including Osama bin Laden. But the Committee’s five year investigation — and examination of more than six million CIA documents — reveals all of those assertions to be false.