Every year, the State Department issues reports on individual rights in other countries, monitoring the passage of restrictive laws and regulations around the world. Iran, for example, has been criticized for denying fair public trials and limiting privacy, while Russia has been taken to task for undermining due process. Other countries have been condemned for the use of secret evidence and torture. - Even as we pass judgment on countries we consider unfree, Americans remain confident that any definition of a free nation must include their own — the land of free. Yet, the laws and practices of the land should shake that confidence. In the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, this country has comprehensively reduced civil liberties in the name of an expanded security state. The most recent example of this was the National Defense Authorization Act, signed Dec. 31, which allows for the indefinite detention of citizens. At what point does the reduction of individual rights in our country change how we define ourselves? [...] The list of powers acquired by the U.S. government since 9/11 puts us in rather troubling company.

A top military advisor to the Supreme Leader of Islamic Revolution stressed Iran's ability to guarantee security of global energy supplies in the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormoz and the Sea of Oman, but at the same time cautioned that the country will use all means to defend its interests in time of threat. - Speaking to reporters here in Tehran on Monday, Supreme Leader's Advisor for Military Affairs Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi pointed to a letter sent to Iran on the Strait of Hormoz, and noted that the strait is a strategic waterway both for global trade and global energy. Safavi further said Iran's coastal line is stretched from Iraqi Southeastern Al-Faw peninsula to Guatr in the Sea of Oman and for this very reason Iran can control and guarantee security of global energy in this region. An estimated 40 percent of the world's oil supply passes through the waterway. The United States has said it would not allow Iran to block the Strait, calling it a "red line" for the US military. In response, Lieutenant Commander of the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) Brigadier General Hossein Salami dismissed the US warning over the closure of the strategic strait, and stressed that powerful Iran acts on its own and never asks for anyone's permission to carry out what it desires. In relevant remarks earlier this month, a senior Iranian legislator stressed that Iran will use all its capabilities and possibilities to defend the country against foreign threats and the country will use the Strait of Hormoz as a defensive tool and will close the waterway if it comes under threat.

Israeli Officials Say Drill Will Take Place in Summer - With growing concern about the prospect of a US or Israeli attack on Iran, reports coming out of the Israeli media today say that a massive “defense drill” which was seen by many as part of the groundwork for such a war has been postponed. Unnamed Israeli officials quoted on Israel’s Channel 2 say that the drill has been postponed because the US wants to “avoid causing further tensions in the region” and that it will now be held in the summer. The deployment of thousands of US troops to Israel for the drill had raised red flags across the region, with many fearing that an attack was in the offing. The last time a drill anywhere near this size was held was in 2009, and that only involved about 1,000 US troops – this time reports had about 9,000 in Israel. There was no indication from the reports what that US troops sent to Israel for the drill will do now that it has been postponed, as leaving them inside Israel for the next 6-7 months in anticipation of the drill would likely be provocative in and of itself.

PressTV: Iran confirms receiving US Hormuz letter
PressTV: 'Obama ready to give Iran strike order'

Jason Ditz: Top Israeli Official Slams Obama For Not Being More Hostile to Iran - One of the top officials in the Israeli cabinet, Vice Premier Moshe Yaalon has condemned President Obama today, saying that he is not being nearly hostile enough toward the Iranian government and needs to impose harsher sanctions. Yaalon, who also holds the position of Strategic Affairs Minister (a cabinet position created explicitly for moving against Iran), insisted that Obama was trying to avoid an embargo on Iran’s oil exports “for fear of oil prices rising this year, out of election-year considerations.”

A Spanish judge on Friday re-launched an investigation into the alleged torture of detainees held at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, one day after a British authorities launched a probe into CIA renditions to Libya. - The twin developments demonstrated that while the Obama administration has stuck to its promise not to investigate whether Bush administration officials acted illegally by authorizing the use of harsh interrogation techniques, other countries are still interested in determining whether Bush-era anti-terror practices violated international law. In Madrid, Judge Pablo Rafael Ruz Gutierrez handed down a 19-page decision Friday in which he said he would seek additional information — medical data, a translation of a Human Rights Watch report, elaboration on material made public by WikiLeaks, and testimony from three senior U.S. military officers who served at Guantanamo — in the case of four released Guantanamo captives who allege they were humiliated and subjected to torture while in U.S. custody.

The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, demanded on Sunday the removal of the Israeli Occupation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, considering that the continuing of the Israeli Occupation blocks the establishing of an Independent Palestinian state, the Maan News Agency reported Sunday afternoon. - Ki-Moon statement came on Sunday in the Lebanese capital of Beirut as he delivered a speech before the International Conference on Reform and Transition to Democracy, according to the Hebrew “Richet Beit” broadcast website. He stated that the Israeli Occupation is an obstacle towards establishing a Palestinian state, calling for halting all Israeli settlement construction in the Occupied West Bank, considering that both “old & new” Israeli settlements are illegal. He also added that it is a real obstacle towards establishing a Palestinian state. The UN chief further said that the two-State Solution is long-awaited and the status quo would inevitably lead to another Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the course due. “It is our duty getting out of this current impasse and bringing in last peace,” he pointed out. The UN Chief is paying a visit to the Lebanese capital of Beirut, attending the UN International Conference on Reform and Transitions to Democracy. The 3-day meeting is discussing how to transition Arab countries to democracy or reform regarding the ongoing Arab Spring.

Another 100 hundred days and the French presidential campaign will come to a head. Never far away from the political disputes among the top contenders is immigration. And the Roma, along with irregular migrants, are once again centre stage.

On Tuesday (10 January), France's interior minister Claude Gueant boasted to reporters France had surpassed its deportation quota for 2010 by 4,000. Around 32,000 people were forced to leave last year. Among them were a couple thousand Roma, rounded up and shipped primarily to Romania and Bulgaria.

The Roma round-up drew fire from the United Nations and EU justice and fundamental rights commissioner Viviane Reding - "Discrimination on the basis of ethnic origin or race has no place in Europe," she said at the time. France, however, is quietly continuing its deportation policy of the disenfranchised EU citizens. President Sarkozy's hard-line against one of Europe's most maltreated minorities appeals to the sensibilities of the country's far right voters.

The plight of the Roma in Romania
Stop this state persecution of Roma
Roma woman dies following deportation to Kosovo
The persecution of Roma—under the Nazis and today
Conflict erupts between EU and France over Roma expulsions
European leaders disavow criticism of France’s Roma deportations
Roma Ultimatum: France Pledges to Comply With EU Migration Rules
The Roma People: Matt Lutton building upon a legacy of wandering photographers

Critics last night voiced concern after the EU’s attempts to raise their profile spread to classrooms across Britain. - A council staged an EU event encouraging teachers to link up with schools on the Continent. Brightly coloured pencil cases bearing its 12-star logo have also been handed out to pupils across the country. The EU Commission denies such initiatives amount to “propaganda’’ but some fear the aim is to brainwash schoolchildren into backing the EU. Andrew Allison, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, said: “Taxpayers will be shocked to read the cash they pay to Brussels is being spent in this way. If schools want children to know about the EU, there are plenty of unbiased resources. “Teachers don’t need to go to expensive conferences, and schools don’t need to buy books from the EU bookshop.’’ Ukip MEP Paul Nuttall said: “It is utterly wrong that so-called neutral information be provided to our children by an organisation which represents a highly controversial political position.”

Romanian police fired tear gas and clashed with protesters during an anti-government rally Saturday, the third consecutive day of demonstrations against austerity cuts and falling living standards. - The protests were the most serious since President Traian Basescu came to power in 2004 and were the result of pent-up frustration against public wage cuts, slashed benefits, higher taxes and widespread corruption. In 2009, Romania took a two-year €20 billion ($27.5 billion) loan from the International Monetary Fund, the EU and the World Bank, as its economy shrank by 7.1 percent. Romania imposed harsh austerity measures under the agreement, reducing public wages by 25 percent and increasing taxes. The unlikely catalyst for the protests, however, was the resignation of popular health official Raed Arafat, a Palestinian with Romanian citizenship who opposed health reforms proposed by the government. On Friday, Basescu told the government to scrap the reforms, but public anger had already risen against Basescu and the government.

Kenyan airstrikes have claimed the lives of at least seven children in southern Somalia, as violence continues to intensify in the African nation, Press TV reports. - The attack took place on Sunday in the town of Jilib, located south of the strategic port city of Kismayo, killing seven children of former government administrator Abdullahi Maalim. Local witnesses say several others have also been injured in the incident. The Kenyan military claims to have killed hundreds of Somali fighters, but eyewitnesses say civilians are the victims of the airstrikes. In October, Kenya dispatched soldiers over its border into Somalia to pursue al-Shabab fighters, which it accuses of being behind the kidnapping of several foreigners in Kenyan territory. Al-Shabab has denied any such involvement. Somalia has not had a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.

A Palestinian official says Palestinian prisoners are subjected to the most inhumane treatment and are tortured in Israeli prisons, which are even more gruesome than Nazi concentration camps. - In an interview with Iran's Fars News Agency on Sunday, Palestinian Minister for Captives Affairs Ataollah Abu Sabah said of the 44,000 Palestinian inmates currently languishing in Israeli prisons, seven are women and 23 are members of the Palestinian Legislative Council. Abu Sabah described the desert prison of Naqab (Negev), where the detainees are kept in tents, as the Israeli regime's worst prison. Last year, an Israeli TV station released video footage of Palestinian detainees being tortured by Israeli troops in the notorious Naqab prison in 2008, as a result of which one Palestinian died and several others sustained injuries. The Palestinian official further confirmed reports that the relatives of the inmates and sometimes even their lawyers are forced to strip and are interrogated.