A European human rights court hands down the first binding decision against Bush-era rendition techniques

Greece�??s parliament approved an austerity bill, cutting 15,000 government jobs and reducing the minimum wage by 22 percent in exchange for $170 billion in bailout funds from the European Union and the I.M.F. “We must show that Greeks, when they are called on to choose between the bad and the worst, choose the bad to avoid the worst,” said finance minister Evangelos Venizelos. More than 80,000 protesters marched in Athens on Sunday, some of them looting and vandalizing local stores. At least 34 buildings burned, including a Starbucks and an underground movie theater once used as a torture chamber by …

A kinkajou, 1886. As Libyan forces converged on Muammar Qaddafi�??s last redoubts countrywide, documents recovered in Tripoli showed that the CIA and MI6 had helped Qaddafi persecute dissidents, including Abdul Hakim Belhaj, military commander of Libya’s national transitional government, whom the CIA rendered back to the country from Asia in 2004. “I wasn�??t allowed a bath for three years and I didn�??t see the sun for one year,” said Belhaj. “They hung me from the wall and kept me in an isolation cell. I was regularly tortured.” “It can�??t come as a surprise,” said CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood, “that the …

Somali government troops killed at least ten famine refugees at the Badbaado camp in Mogadishu after distribution of dry rations by the World Food Program devolved into looting. “They fired on us as if we were their enemy,” said Abidyo Geddi. “We don�??t get much food, and the rare food they bring causes death and torture.” Thousands of Somalis fled to the United Nations�?? Dadaab complex in Kenya, enduring a weeks-long journey through hyena- and bandit-infested desert. “It is peaceful here,” said Ali Hulbale, who lives with his family at the edge of the camp. “There is no gunfire. But …

The wire master and his puppets, 1875. A 9.0-magnitude earthquake in northeast Japan triggered a massive tsunami, killing at least 10,000 people in what Prime Minister Naoto Kan called the country’s worst crisis since World War II. Hundreds of miles of coastline remained unreachable as hundreds of thousands of survivors struggled to find food and water, and nearly 2 million were without electricity in near-freezing temperatures. In the town of Minamisanrikucho, nearly two thirds of the population of 17,000 were missing and most of the buildings had washed away. Two nuclear power plants experienced partial meltdowns. Workers struggled to cool …

A Christian martyr. Egyptians activists held a “day of departure” in Cairo’s Tahir Square, demanding the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak, who after eleven days of protests claimed to be “fed up” with being president. “We as a people are fed up as well,” said opposition leader Mohamed ElBaradei. “It is not only him.” Mubarak designated intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who is suspected of having been involved in the CIA’s secret extraordinary-rendition program, as his new vice president. The Egyptian army failed to intervene when pro-Mubarak activists, many of whom were later revealed to be plainclothes policemen, attacked protesters, aid …

A Christian martyr. Arizona Governor Jan Brewer passed a bill requiring state law-enforcement officers to demand documentation of any person they suspect may be in the United States illegally. “That means that anyone who drives in the city of Phoenix and gets pulled over,” said Phoenix Vice Mayor Michael Nowakowski, “better have a passport or a visa.” The law, said one elected official, “is literally designed to terrorize undocumented immigrants.” Protestors smeared refried-beans swastikas on the state capitol’s windows. The state’s House of Representatives passed a bill requiring future presidential candidates to present a copy of their birth certificates to …

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, came out in support of allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military. “No matter how I look at this issue,” Mullen testified before Congress, “I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens.” U.S. Department of DefenseThe Reuters news service withdrew a report that President Barack Obama was “backdooring” the American middle class with hidden taxes,Christian Science MonitorWhite House Chief of …

Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D., Mass.) died of brain cancer at age 77 and was buried near his brothers John and Robert at Arlington National Cemetery. He served 46 years in the Senate, where he was an advocate for voting rights for minorities (and 18-year-olds), the rights of the disabled, the abolition of the draft, and–less successfully–health care reform. “The place won’t be the same without him,” said Senator John McCain (R., Ariz.). Rush Limbaugh said that Kennedy was “the lion of the Senate” and that “we were his prey.” “He left a woman to drown,” tweeted Fox News analyst …

CIA director Leon Panetta admitted that the agency, initially under orders from then-Vice President Dick Cheney, kept secret from Congress the existence of a special counterterrorism program for eight years. Panetta also said that the program–intended to deploy small teams to assassinate Al Qaeda leaders–was canceled last month.New York TimesAttorney General Eric Holder was considering the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate CIAtorture (shackling, punching, beating, waterboarding with extra water, and violating the U.N. Convention Against Torture) under the Bush Administration, despite the resistance of the White House, which believes that its legislative agenda would be hindered by a …

Caught in the Web, 1860. The Department of Justice released four Office of Legal Counsel memos, issued in 2002 and 2005, to address CIA concerns that interrogation methods used on some high-level Al Qaeda members in custody were torture. Besides waterboarding, stress positions, slapping, and face-grabbing, the memos permitted “walling,” or repeatedly slamming prisoners into fake, flexible walls specially designed to make a loud noise when people are slammed into them; keeping a prisoner awake and shackled upright for more than a week, if “diapers are checked and changed as needed”; and putting a prisoner who is scared of insects …

Barack Hussein Obama was sworn in as the forty-fourth president of the United States.NY TimesIn his inaugural remarks, President Obama attributed many of the nation’s problems to a “collective failure to make hard choices.” “Starting today,” he said, “we must pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, and begin again the work of remaking America.” NY TimesFormer vice president Dick Cheney attended the inauguration in a wheelchair,NY TimesSenator Edward Kennedy had a seizure,CNNAretha Franklin’s voice cracked,CNNand Itzhak Perlman, Yo-Yo Ma, Gabriela Montero, and Anthony McGill performed with the aid of a backing track.MSNBC.comBoxing promoter Don King said that of all biblical …