Female FBI Officer 'Tortured Mumbai Terror Attacks Suspect with Sex'
A female FBI officer tortured a suspect in the Mumbai terrorist attacks by performing a sex act on him during interrogation, it has been claimed.
By Ben Leach

Fahim Ansari is accused of helping to plan the attacks in which 173 people were killed in November.

His lawyer, Ejaz Naqvi, has filed legal papers with Mumbai magistrate's court, claiming the "white woman" removed all his clothes and showed him pornographic films.

In the papers, he claims that three foreigners, including the woman, sexually abused him, causing him "severe itching and wounds" on his body, including his genitals.

Mr Ansari, a devout Muslim, claims this amounts to torture because it is against his religion, The Sun newspaper has reported.

A court in the Indian city ordered medical checks on "wounds on his private parts and all over his body."
Mr Ansari was arrested with five other suspects last year.

Police have said that he is a trained member of Lashkar-e-Taiba, the terrorist organisation responsible for the Mumbai attacks.

He was detained in February last year in connection with an attack on a police camp in Rampur that left seven paramilitaries and one civilian dead.

Police have said Mr Ansari had hand-drawn maps of key Mumbai landmarks, some of which were hit in the attacks that started on 26 November.

Blackwater Dumps Tarnished Brand Name...New Name, Xe
MIKE BAKER
AP News

Blackwater Worldwide is abandoning its tarnished brand name as it tries to shake a reputation battered by oft-criticized work in Iraq, renaming its family of two dozen businesses under the name Xe.

The parent company's new name is pronounced like the letter "z." Blackwater Lodge & Training Center — the subsidiary that conducts much of the company's overseas operations and domestic training — has been renamed U.S. Training Center Inc., the company said Friday.

The decision comes as part of an ongoing rebranding effort that grew more urgent following a September 2007 shooting in Iraq that left at least a dozen civilians dead. Blackwater president Gary Jackson said in a memo to employees the new name reflects the change in company focus away from the business of providing private security.

"The volume of changes over the past half-year have taken the company to an exciting place and we are now ready for two of the final, and most obvious changes," Jackson said in the note.

In his memo, Jackson indicated the company was not interested in actively pursuing new private security contracts. Jackson and other Blackwater executives told The Associated Press last year it was shifting its focus away from such work to focus on training and providing logistics.

"This company will continue to provide personnel protective services for high-threat environments when needed by the U.S. government, but its primary mission will be operating our training facilities around the world, including the flagship campus in North Carolina," Jackson said.

The company has operated under the Blackwater name since 1997, when chief executive Erik Prince and some of his former Navy SEAL colleagues launched it in northeastern North Carolina, naming their new endeavor for the area swamp streams that run black with murky water. But the name change underscores how badly the Moyock-based company's brand was damaged by its work in Iraq.

Undeterred, Conyers Subpoenas Rove a Third Time
By John Byrne

Rove lawyer out of office until deposition date

House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, Jr. D-MI) has subpoenaed Karl Rove a third time, asking him to appear Monday, Feb. 23 for a deposition to testify about his knowledge about the US Attorney firings and the alleged political prosecution of former Alabama Gov. Don Siegelman.

"Pursuant to my letter to you of Jan. 29, 2009, and your agreement to accept service on behalf of Karl Rove, I am enclosing a subpoena for Mr. Rove to appear and provide testimony by deposition on Feb. 23, 2009, at 10:00am in room 2138 of the Rayburn House Office Building," Conyers wrote Robert Luskin, Rove's D.C. Attorney.

An email message to Luskin from Raw Story was returned with an auto-reply.

"I will be out of the office and unable to check emails or voicemails until February 23, 2009," the reply said. "If you need immediate assistance, please contact my assistant."

An email to Luskin's assistant was also returned, saying she would return on Tuesday.

Luskin recently told Raw Story that he hoped to reach an amicable agreement with the committee, and as recently as this week, negotiations for the terms of Rove's appearance before Congress were still ongoing.

Conyers subpoenaed Rove in January; Rove did not appear. Rove has previously said he will not testify to Congress. He's also refused subpoenas from the Senate Judiciary Committee, which called on him to testify in 2007.

In the letter accompanying the subpoena, Conyers said Luskin had requested a delay.

"I cannot agree to these requests," the Michigan Democrat wrote.

He also refused Luskin's requests for testifying solely about the Alabama governor.

"I do not believe it is acceptable for the Committee to allow witnesses to unilaterally determine what they can and cannot testify concerning," he wrote.

Luskin said in January that Bush advisers had said Rove wasn't required to testify on the US Attorneys matter because he was protected by executive immunity.

"It's generally agreed that former presidents retain executive privilege as to matters occurring during their term," Luskin said. "We'll solicit the views of the new White House counsel and, if there is a disagreement, assume that the matter will be resolved among the courts, the president and the former president."

Conyers doesn't agree.

“I have said many times that I will carry this investigation forward to its conclusion, whether in Congress or in court, and today’s action is an important step along the way,” Conyers said in January. “Change has come to Washington, and I hope Karl Rove is ready for it. After two years of stonewalling, it’s time for him to talk.”

Opinion: Holy Bipartisanship! GOP Governor Hugs Obama
Beth Reinhard | The Miami Herald

MIAMI _ Holy bipartisanship! A Democratic president wearing a blue tie and a Republican governor in a red one locked arms in a man-hug that gave GOP hard-liners a conniption.

"This is about helping our country," Gov. Charlie Crist said, endorsing an economic turnaround plan his party leaders in Washington have denounced as a government boondoggle. "This is not about partisan politics."

Oh yeah? Tell that to Congress, where not a single Republican in the House and only three in the Senate voted for the $800 billion package. Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida went so far as to say: "I don't know that my governor understands all the details."

Details, shmeetails. I'd be surprised if Crist has read the fine print. Even some Democratic members of Congress seem bewildered. What the governor "understands" better than anyone is how to read a poll. And every single survey shows that recession-weary voters want the stimulus package.

Crist is rarely on the wrong side of a poll, even if it conflicts with Republican orthodoxy. He kept quiet while fellow Republicans tried to stop the husband of brain-damaged Terri Schiavo from ending her life. He extended early voting hours in the 2008 election, even though most people in line didn't favor his party's nominee. He's consistently backed a national insurance fund that could help Florida residents in the event of a devastating hurricane.

Farmers Feeling Recession's Squeeze
Marti Maguire | The (Raleigh) News & Observer

Even in hard economic times, it might seem the state's farmers could take refuge in the simple fact that laid-off workers and nervous 401(K) watchers still need to eat.

But the global economic downturn has reached farmers of all stripes in a state where farm-related businesses generate $70 billion a year, more than any other economic sector.

Nurseries have found few new homes ripe for planted flowers and sod. Poultry barns sit empty as struggling national companies cancel contracts. Those who raise livestock – which makes up nearly two-thirds of farm receipts statewide – face prices lowered by reduced demand.

For many North Carolina farmers, consumer belt-tightening is aggravating troubles that began before the recession, when drought ravaged crops and the gas price spike pushed up the cost of petroleum-based fertilizers, animal feed and the diesel fuel that runs tractors and other equipment.

Ricky Britt, who raises chickens and cows near Ahoskie, says his income last year was down $100,000. "That hurts," he said.

He has only four chicken houses, down from six, because of cuts in his contract with eastern poultry giant Perdue. Another national company, Pilgrim's Pride, shut down a Chatham County poultry plant last year.

Britt said he is keeping his beef cattle longer, hoping prices go up, and he's thinking of planting vegetables, too. While he was eyeing farm equipment at the State Fairgrounds last week, he said he won't be invest tens of thousands of dollars in a new tractor or hay baler.

The Republican Bipartisan Myth
By: John Ridley

Shangri-la and Brigadoon and Bipartisan. Three mythical places. One of which few Republicans have seemingly ever heard. Because if there is one thing we can take from the first weeks of the "New" Washington, it's that the (liberal) Democrats are incompetent (old news, really) and the Republicans are disingenuous when it comes to bipartisanship. Oh, sure, they talk up the swellness of President Obama every chance they get. And will continue to do so as long as his approval numbers are above fifty percent. But most GOPers tend to become like children who dance hysterically in a sandbox when it comes time to play with others.

Despite all the sit-downs Obama had with the Republicans -- apparently too many for Speaker Pelosi's tastes -- and despite the fact that the House version of the Stimulus Bill contained specific tax breaks for which the Republicans had asked -- though not to the degree they wished -- not a single GOPer would break ranks, step up and vote for the bill. A surprisingly "my way or the highway" attitude for the minority party whose eight years of good cogitating was a major factor in whipping America into the stellar fiscal shape we find ourselves.

When three Republican Senators voted for the Senate version of the bill -- Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, and Maine Sens. Olympia J. Snowe and Susan M. Collins, who in particular worked tirelessly with moderate Dem Sen. Ben Nelson to try and reach a true bipartisan compromise -- they were immediately put on a "hit" list by the conservative National Republican Trust PAC. The PAC's executive director Scott Wheeler stated: "We just want to send a message that we're going to have a long institutional memory, and we're going to remind your constituents of what you did."

What they did? What'd they do? Vote for a bill that might ultimately not be big enough to get the country out of the worst economic mess most Americans have ever lived through? Wouldn't it be punishment enough to dis-invite them to some soirée held at South Carolina GOP chairman Katon Dawson's whites-only country club? To be fair, Dawson resigned his membership to the Forest Lake Country Club in Columbia, SC last September. That was just a gratuitous dig I had to throw in because... I wouldn't have been allowed into the club to hand it to him personally. But to the point of Trust PAC's tactics; sure, it's not unusual for one political party to target another political party over a vote. But for a party to head hunt their own...?

And then, of course, there's Judd Gregg. Never mind that Gregg himself lobbied for the job of commerce secretary, never mind New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch making a deal to appoint Republican J. Bonnie Newman to Gregg's seat. When it came time to engage in the greater good, Gregg, in his own words, realized he could not be a "team player." Worse, working with the president he "couldn't be Judd Gregg." Political solipsism if ever there was. Gregg being something like the T.O. to the Senate.

Regardless of the Republicans' centrist deceptions, I would hope that Obama continues to rise above and reach out. Hopefully there will be others such as Specter, Snowe and Collins who put the people's work above myopic party ideology. But if nothing else, as the economy improves, President Obama's actions will serve to shame the lip servers of bipartisanship into taking up true residence.