The US military has been accused of abuse and torture at its notorious detention center in Afghanistan. Investigators say most detainees at Bagram prison are being held without charge or firm evidence of guilt.

Inmates of the US-run prison outside Bagram Air Base north of Kabul complained of freezing cold, humiliating strip searches and being deprived of light, according to Gul Rahman Qazi, who led an investigation ordered by President Hamid Karzai.

President Karzai ordered the investigative commission to be set up on January 5, after demanding that the US transfer full control over its military prisons to local authorities within a month. "Foreign troops are not allowed to run prisons in Afghanistan, which is sovereign and has its own constitution," Karzai said on Thursday. According to President Karzai, the Bagram prisoners are subject to Guantanamo-like conditions with ''many cases of violations of the Afghan constitution and other applicable laws of the conventions on human rights.” Officially, the detention facility is run by the US and Afghanistan jointly, but local authorities currently control only a small portion of the prison.

Tehran’s leadership has decided to order a blockade of the strategic Strait of Hormuz if the country’s oil exports are blocked, a senior Revolutionary Guard Commander said as reported by Iranian press. - The strategic decision was made by Iran's top authorities, Ali Ashraf Nouri said, as cited by the Iranian Khorasan daily. "The supreme authorities … have insisted that if enemies block the export of our oil, we won't allow a drop of oil to pass through the Strait of Hormuz. This is the strategy of the Islamic Republic in countering such threats," Nouri said. Until now, there had been no official confirmation of Iran’s military having direct orders to block the Strait. However, Tehran has been threatening to block the strategic waterway – one of the world's most important oil routes – if the West slapped more sanctions on its oil exports or risked hostile military act of any kind. Meanwhile, Iran is planning a new round of “massive” naval drills codenamed The Great Prophet, which will be carried out by the country’s elite Revolutionary Guard with its own air, naval and ground forces, separate from those of the regular military.

An Iranian court on Monday convicted an American man of working for the CIA and sentenced him to death, state media reported. - Iranian authorities allege that Amir Mirzaei Hekmati, a former U.S. Marine, received special training at U.S. bases in Iraq and Afghanistan before being dispatched on a spy mission in Iran. Mirzaei, 28, was born in Arizona but holds dual citizenship. Mirzaei has 20 days to appeal the court’s decision, which comes at a time of increasing tensions between Tehran and Washington. The U.S. is pursuing tough sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program, and a series of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists and mysterious explosions at military and industrial sites have prompted Iran to keep closer tabs on dual nationals visiting the country.

PressTV: Iran sentences CIA operative to death
Fars News Agency: Judicial Decree for Execution of CIA Spy in Iran Issued
Al Jazeera: Iran sentences 'CIA agent' to death
Russia Today: Iran sentences American ex-Marine to death for spying

The end of the US military occupation does not mean Iraqis have full control of their oil. - While the US military has formally ended its occupation of Iraq, some of the largest western oil companies, ExxonMobil, BP and Shell, remain. On November 27, 38 months after Royal Dutch Shell announced its pursuit of a massive gas deal in southern Iraq, the oil giant had its contract signed for a $17bn flared gas deal. Three days later, the US-based energy firm Emerson submitted a bid for a contract to operate at Iraq's giant Zubair oil field, which reportedly holds some eight million barrels of oil.

After a disappointing fifth place finish in the Iowa Caucuses, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas is looking to build some momentum to salvage his campaign and, as is so often the case with candidates, is looking to do so with hawkish policy statements. - But while other candidates have focused on starting new wars, usually in Iran, Gov. Perry promised to re-start an old war, saying that not only did he believe withdrawing from Iraq was a “huge error” but that if elected he would reinvade. Predicting that Iran would enter Iran “literally at the speed of light,” Perry insisted it was vital to send troops back into the country, though at such a speed Iran would be able to travel from its own border to the Jordanian border on the other side of Iraq within 1.6 microseconds, so the opportunity to response would be extremely limited. Perry’s strategist sought to redefine the governor’s comments, saying that sending massive amounts of troops back into Iraq is “not an invasion, that’s common sense.” It isn’t clear however what makes it “not an invasion.”

Justin Raimondo: The Return of the Chickenhawks - What a joy to see Ron Paul take down Newt “Chickenhawk” Gingrich in front of millions of Americans. Slogging through fifteen Republican presidential debates was totally worth it just to witness this defining moment. Dianne Sawyer, who sounded like she was on Quaaludes, raised her eyebrows quizzically as she asked him if he stood by his previous characterization of Newt as a “chickenhawk.”

PressTV: Romney the liar tells tall tales on Iran

Allies of Newt Gingrich have launched their fiercest attack yet on Republican front-runner Mitt Romney, with a half-hour film designed to destroy his claims to be a job-creating entrepreneur. - The 28-minute video, which will likely show up on TV in the coming weeks, by the Gingrich-leaning Winning Our Future Super PAC assails Mr Romney for "reaping massive awards" while head of Bain Capital, a private equity firm. "King Of Bain: When Mitt Romney came to town" features "regular Americans" saying they lost their jobs and homes due to their firms being dismantled by Bain. A three-minute trailer for the film has been released, along with a preamble which calls Romney a "predatory corporate raider".

New York Times: Pro-Gingrich PAC Details Ads Against Romney as Predatory Capitalist
Richard Silverstein: Sheldon Adelson Funds $5-Million TV Ad Campaign on Gingrich’s Behalf

[He who pays the piper calls the tune:]

Haaretz: Sheldon Adelson: Gingrich is right to call Palestinians 'invented people'
AWIP: Gingrich calls Palestinians 'invented' people
AWIP: Gingrich Condemned for Calling Palestinians 'Terrorists'

Training excercise startles locals - It may have looked like they were ready for war or some deranged person looking for his late Social Security benefits.

But it was only Federal Protective Service officers with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security who were conducting a random training operation early Tuesday morning when they surprisingly showed up at the Social Security Administration office in downtown Leesburg.

With their blue and white SUVs circled around the Main Street office, at least one official was posted on the door with a semiautomatic rifle, randomly checking identifications. And other officers, some with K-9s, sifted through the building. "I thought someone was upset about not getting there check," said Laura Kelly, who took a friend to the office on Tuesday.

According to one Homeland official in the Washington, D.C. office, Operation Shield. is an effort that uses routine, unannounced visits by FPS inspectors to test the effectiveness of contract guards, or protective security officers -- "detecting the presence of unauthorized persons and potentially disruptive or dangerous activities."

"In a tweet early this morning, cybersecurity researcher Christopher Soghoian pointed to an internal memo of India's Military Intelligence that has been liberated by hackers and posted on the Net. The memo suggests that, "in exchange for the Indian market presence" mobile device manufacturers, including RIM, Nokia, and Apple (collectively defined in the document as "RINOA") have agreed to provide backdoor access on their devices. The Indian government then "utilized backdoors provided by RINOA" to intercept internal emails of the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, a U.S. government body with a mandate to monitor, investigate and report to Congress on 'the national security implications of the bilateral trade and economic relationship' between the U.S. and China. Manan Kakkar, an Indian blogger for ZDNet, has also picked up the story and writes that it may be the fruits of an earlier hack of Symantec. If Apple is providing governments with a backdoor to iOS, can we assume that they have also done so with Mac OS X?"

The six corporations that collectively control U.S. media today are Time Warner, Walt Disney, Viacom, Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., CBS Corporation and NBC Universal. - Back in 1983, approximately 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the United States. Today, ownership of the news media has been concentrated in the hands of just six incredibly powerful media corporations. These corporate behemoths control most of what we watch, hear and read every single day. They own television networks, cable channels, movie studios, newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, music labels and even many of our favorite websites. Sadly, most Americans don't even stop to think about who is feeding them the endless hours of news and entertainment that they constantly ingest. Most Americans don't really seem to care about who owns the media. But they should. The truth is that each of us is deeply influenced by the messages that are constantly being pounded into our heads by the mainstream media. The average American watches 153 hoursof television a month. In fact, most Americans begin to feel physically uncomfortable if they go too long without watching or listening to something. Sadly, most Americans have become absolutely addicted to news and entertainment and the ownership of all that news and entertainment that we crave is being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands each year.

Pakistan's former ambassador to the United States denied any involvement in drafting a memo that accused the army of plotting a coup and suggested on the first day of a Supreme Court commission on Monday he was being framed. - Former envoy Husain Haqqani struck a defiant tone that was sure to do little to quell a scandal that has dominated Pakistani politics for the past three months and destabilized the civilian government amid rumors of a military takeover. "I had no role in creating, drafting and/or delivering the memorandum to the (U.S.) Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Michael Mullen," Haqqani said on Monday. "I have no knowledge of the origin, authenticity or purpose of the said memo." The murky scandal emerged last October when businessman Mansoor Ijaz, writing in a column in the Financial Times, said a senior Pakistani diplomat had asked that the memo, seeking help to rein in the military, be sent to the U.S. Defense Department.

Tired of Israeli 'stinginess'? Neighboring kingdom issues unusual order in bid to get Israeli tourists to spend more money on local meals. - The Israeli tourist is famous all over the world. In the golden era of tourism to Turkey, he was accused of stealing faucets from hotels. Only recently, an Israeli tourist was suspected of starting a wildfire in Chile. And in Jordan, it turns out, he is known for his stinginess.

The picture Israel paints of Gaza for the foreign media is quite different than the actual truth, it never speaks of what is actually happening there. The report that follows is just one example of what the siege is doing to the people, especially the children…The illegal Israeli siege on Gaza continues to take innocent lives daily. Adham Baroud was the latest casualty. A seven month old baby who died on December 26th in a slow and painful death from renal failure when he could be easily treated.

The illegal Israeli siege on Gaza continues to take innocent lives daily. Adham Baroud was the latest casualty. A seven month old baby who died on December 26th in a slow and painful death from renal failure when he could be easily treated. On December 1, Adham was referred to Israel for emergency treatment by his doctors in Gaza after his condition became terminal fallowing a catheter inserted four months earlier in a previous operation in Israel gets infected. Adham never made it.

The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council is investigating after a Quebec mayor called Israel an apartheid regime and a country that doesn’t deserve to exist on his French-language talk show. - Stéphane Gendron, host of Face à Face on V Television Network and mayor of Huntingdon, a small town 75 kilometres southwest of Montreal, made the comments on his show last month. He also said he supports a boycott of a store in Montreal that sells Israeli-made shoes. A Network spokeswoman Diane Patenaude said the point of Gendron's show is to provide strong opinions: "This program is neither a news telecast or a news magazine and its hosts are not journalists." The network will meet with Gendron and the show in the next few days to discuss the situation, she said.

Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was acquitted on Monday in a surprise end to a politically-charged sodomy trial he has called a government bid to cripple his opposition ahead of forthcoming polls. - The ruling by Judge Mohamad Zabidin Diah set off pandemonium in the Kuala Lumpur High Court, with Anwar mobbed by his wife, daughters and opposition politicians in joyous scenes. Thousands of Anwar supporters who gathered outside under heavy security erupted into cheers and raised their fists in the air as news of the verdict filtered out. Shortly afterwards, two small explosions went off in the carpark outside the courthouse, according to a police spokesman. Two people were injured in the blasts. In his brief verdict announcement, Judge Zabidin said he could not rely on controversial DNA evidence submitted by the prosecution.