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  • 9
    Aug
    2012
    5:38am, EDT

    Report: Guantanamo Bay detainees pick 'Fresh Prince' over Harry Potter

    NBCU Photo Bank

    Starring Will Smith (pictured here in a red jacket), "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" ran for six seasons on NBC.

    By Daniel Strieff, NBC News

    "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air," the popular 1990s sitcom starring Will Smith, has supplanted Harry Potter books as a popular way for detainees at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay to pass the time, according to a newspaper report.

    The Miami Herald reported demand among the 168 prisoners for J.K. Rowling's popular literary series about a boy wizard had fallen. But interest has surged in the TV series about Smith's street-savvy, wise-cracking character from West Philadelphia who tries to adjust to life with his affluent cousins in Southern California.


    "I just ordered all six seasons," the Herald quoted a librarian named only as Milton as saying.

    "They're over that (Harry Potter); it's been more than a year," the librarian, who the paper said was a civilian contractor for the Defense Department, told the Herald.

    Slideshow: Life goes on in Guantanamo

    John Moore / Getty Images

    President Obama's one-year deadline to close the facility has long passed as shutting it down has proven complicated and controversial.

    Launch slideshow

    The newspaper said the detention center had a multilingual collection of about 28,000 books and videos in Arabic, Pashto, English, French and other languages.

    How I see America, from a former Gitmo prisoner

    Many detainees apparently use the library's collection to help improve their English, the Herald said. The inmates appeared to favor reading novels that feature side-by-side translation, the newspaper said, and at least 10 copies of the Oxford English Dictionary had been ordered for the prisoners.

    Rewards and incentives
    The books and videos are used as incentives and rewards for good behavior, and to give detainees a way to pass the time.

    Soccer, cable TV at Gitmo? US lockup in Cuba quietly being upgraded

    "The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air" first aired on NBC on Sept. 10, 1990, and ran for six seasons.

    According to the Herald, cooperative prisoners, who make up the majority of the detainees, can watch the show communally on flat-screen televisions bolted to the walls inside a plexiglass box almost around-the-clock.

    UK cops to probe 'allegations of complicity to torture' prisoner at Gitmo

    Detainees who are classified as maximum-security captives -- about 15 percent of the population -- are allowed to watch the show alone for up to an hour or two a day, the newspaper reported. A maximum-security detainee is given a solo cell and a recliner, from where he can view the show with one ankle shackled to a bolt in the floor, the Herald said.

    Despite President Obama's vow to shut down Guantanamo Bay, the nation's most expensive prison is undergoing some costly new updates that would allow the facility to remain open for years. NBC's Michael Isikoff reports.


    Follow @NBCNewsWorld

    The prisoners held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay are from various countries around the world. Many of them were captured more than a decade ago after U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan in an effort to break up the al-Qaida terrorist network and its Taliban protectors following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

    The United States accuses the detainees of links to terrorism.

    According to the Herald, past librarians at Guantanamo Bay have reported prisoner interest in President Barack Obama's political memoir, "The Audacity of Hope," and one attorney suggested to a convict that he read former President George W. Bush's "Decision Points."

    Jan. 18, 2011: It has been two years since Saad Iqbal Madni left Guantanamo Bay, but the Islamic scholar has not recovered from the experience. "Muslim people not ready to forgive that ... I'm not going to forget that," he tells NBC News.

    Point of friction
    The prison facility has been a major point of friction between the United States and the Muslim world.

    Allegations of torture have been common. A documentary by Doha-based broadcaster Al-Jazeera earlier this year said that children’s songs from the "Sesame Street" TV series had been used to "torture" detainees.

    'I wake up screaming': A Guantanamo nightmare

    Books by former Guantanamo interrogators, including ex-FBI agent Ali Soufan's "Black Banners" and former CIA agent Jose Rodriguez's "Hard Measures," have yet to be included in the library's collection, the Herald said.

    Several former detainees at Guantanamo Bay, including Briton Moazzam Begg and Australian David Hicks, have written books about their experiences there, but it was unclear whether their books were available at the site's library.

    Defense lawyers say Guantanamo court rigged to deliver death sentence

    Obama campaigned for president in 2008 partly on a pledge that he would close the Guantanamo prison facility, but his failure so far to do so has earned the enmity of human-rights activists.

    Nearly 800 detainees have been held at Guantanamo since the prison opened a decade ago, according to reports.

    More world stories from NBC News:

    • Notorious Colombian druglord arrested, headed to US for trial
    • Who'll win the gold medal for partying? Olympians let hair down
    • 'Situation is desperate' for ill Syrian refugees in Turkey
    • One year after London riots, a family still grapples with fallout
    • Are these German protesters the world's oldest squatters?
    • Interpol drops 'red notice' for dissident
    • Londoners embrace coffee culture
    • Journalist: British militants took me hostage in Syria
    • Canada lobster fishermen lash out at cheaper US exports
    • Race to London's Olympic Park: Fastest way is ...?

    124 comments

    Fresh Prince Rocks!

    Show more
    Explore related topics: bush, afghanistan, cuba, harry-potter, al-qaida, guantanamo-bay, obama, will-smith, featured, fresh-prince
  • 27
    Apr
    2012
    4:24am, EDT

    Sources: Scant evidence 'torture' helped war on terror, Senate probe finds

    By Reuters

    WASHINGTON - A nearly three-year-long investigation by Senate Intelligence Committee Democrats is expected to find there is little evidence the harsh "enhanced interrogation techniques" the CIA used on high-value prisoners produced counter-terrorism breakthroughs.

    People familiar with the inquiry said committee investigators, who have been poring over records from the administration of President George W. Bush, believe they do not substantiate claims by some Bush supporters that the harsh interrogations led to counter-terrorism coups.


    The backers of such techniques, which include "water-boarding," sleep deprivation and other practices critics call torture, maintain they have led to the disruption of major terror plots and the capture of al-Qaida leaders.

    One official said investigators found "no evidence" such enhanced interrogations played "any significant role" in the years-long intelligence operations which led to the discovery and killing of Osama bin Laden last May by U.S. Navy SEALs.

    'Tortured' Gitmo prisoner seeks release of secret videos

    The debate over the effectiveness of enhanced interrogations, which human rights advocates condemn as torture, is resurfacing in part because of a new book by a former top CIA official.

    In the book, "Hard Measures," due to be published on Monday, the former chief of CIA clandestine operations Jose Rodriguez defends the use of interrogation practices including water-boarding, which involves pouring water on a subject's face, which is covered with a cloth, to simulate drowning.

    Slideshow: Life goes on in Guantanamo

    John Moore / Getty Images

    President Obama's one-year deadline to close the facility has long passed as shutting it down has proven complicated and controversial.

    Launch slideshow

    "We made some al-Qaida terrorists with American blood on their hands uncomfortable for a few days," Rodriguez says in an interview with CBS News' "60 Minutes" that will air on Sunday. "I am very secure in what we did and am very confident that what we did saved American lives."

    Expert: War on terror at 'critical' point as al-Qaida looks to regroup in Africa

    For nearly three years, the Senate intelligence committee's majority Democrats have been conducting what is described as the first systematic investigation of the effectiveness of such extreme interrogation techniques.

    The CIA gave the committee access to millions of pages of written records charting daily operations of the interrogation program, including graphic descriptions of how and when controversial techniques were employed.

    The wives and children of Osama bin Laden are taken to a chartered flight out of Islamabad after being deported to Saudi Arabia.

    Sources agreed to discuss the matter on condition of anonymity because the report has not been finalized.

    The committee members' objective is to conduct a methodical assessment of whether enhanced interrogation techniques led to genuine intelligence breakthroughs or whether they produced more false leads than good ones.

    Report: Bin Laden told followers to kill Obama, Petraeus

    U.S. intelligence officials have acknowledged that while the harshest elements of the interrogation program, including water-boarding and other tactics which cause severe physical stress, were in use, the CIA never carried out a scientific assessment of the program's effectiveness.

    The Bush Administration only used water-boarding on three captured suspects. One of them was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks.

    Slideshow: After the raid: Inside bin Laden's compound

    Farooq Naeem / AFP - Getty Images

    U.S. forces found and killed the al-Qaida leader in the affluent Pakistani town of Abbottabad, where he had been living in a large compound.

    Launch slideshow

    Other coercive techniques included sleep deprivation, making people crouch or stretch in stressful positions and slamming detainees against a flexible wall.

    The CIA started backing away from such techniques in 2004. Obama banned them shortly after taking office.

    One source cautioned there could still be lengthy delays before any information or conclusions from the Senate committee's report are made public.

    Hidden in plain sight: Inside a secret CIA prison

    One reason the inquiry has taken so long is that in 2009, committee Republicans withdrew their participation, saying the panel would be unable to interview witnesses to ensure documentary material was reported in appropriate context due to ongoing criminal investigations.

    Current and former U.S. officials have said one key source for information about the existence of the al-Qaida "courier" who ultimately led U.S. intelligence to bin Laden was Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

    KSM, as he was known to U.S. officials, was subjected to water-boarding 183 times, the U.S. government has acknowledged.

    Officials said, however, that it was not until some time after he was water-boarded that KSM told interrogators about the courier's existence. Therefore a direct link between the physically coercive techniques and critical information is unproven, Bush administration critics say.

    Supporters of the CIA program, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, have portrayed it as a necessary, if distasteful, step that may have stopped extremist plots and saved lives. 

    Former Vice President Dick Cheney discusses his new memoir, "In My Time," with TODAY's Matt Lauer. In the exclusive interview, Cheney defends the Iraq war, says waterboarding "worked" and tells Lauer the greatest achievement of the Bush administration was preventing further attacks on U.S. soil after 9/11.

    More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

    • Report: Osama bin Laden's widows, kids headed to Saudi Arabia
    • Israel grapples with insecurity as it celebrates independence
    • At least four killed as two bombs hit Nigeria newspaper offices
    • Aiding terrorists? Syrian women risk all to help dissidents
    • Murdoch: Hacking scandal cost 'hundreds of millions'
    • Analysts say North Korea's new missiles are fakes
    • Israeli military chief: I doubt Iran's 'rational' leadership will make nuclear bomb

    Follow us on Twitter: @msnbc_world

     

    395 comments

    Possible war crimes committed?

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    Explore related topics: us, bush, cheney, human-rights, washington, cia, terror, war, torture, featured
  • 22
    Mar
    2012
    6:10am, EDT

    Australia's most-wanted man caught after seven years hiding in bushland

    NSW Police via Reuters

    New South Wales state police officers escort Malcolm Naden after he was captured near Gloucester, about 137 miles north of Sydney. The photo was blurred by police before it was released to the media.

    By Alastair Jamieson, msnbc.com

    Australia's most-wanted fugitive, Malcolm Naden, has been captured after spending seven years surviving in rugged bushland by killing and eating animals such as kangaroos.

    The 38-year-old outlaw, whose evasion of a massive police dragnet has made him a figure of legend, was finally snared in a raid in the early hours of Friday local time, the BBC reported.


    The former slaughterhouse worker was wanted for the murder of 24-year-old Kristy Scholes, who was found strangled in his locked bedroom in the New South Wales town of Dubbo in 2005. He also faced two counts of sexual assault against a 15-year-old-girl and the shooting of a police officer who closed in on one of his makeshift camps in December 2011.

    Photographs of his capture - near the town of Gloucester in the vast Barrington Tops national park several hours' drive north of Sydney - showed him with a long beard, handcuffed and covered in mud.

    He later appeared in a local court with a shaved head, beard and no shoes, where he was refused bail, according to a report in the Newcastle Herald.

    The $260,000 (AUS$ 250,000) bounty on Naden's head was reported to be the largest since the hunt for outlawed bushman Ned Kelly in the late 19th century.

    Naden broke into isolated homes to gain supplies before returning to almost inaccessible bushland, playing a game of cat and mouse with frustrated police.

    NSW Police - AFP - Getty Images

    A police file photo showing Malcolm Naden.

    He was first spotted on the run in December 2006, when police found evidence he had been living in the animal enclosures in Western Plains Zoo, Dubbo, stealing meat and fruit left out for the animals. Police also found carefully butchered kangaroo carcasses, according to a report in the Herald Sun newspaper.

    Naden spent so long in the bush that it became difficult for police dogs to pick up his scent.

    Fingerprints from house thefts led police to concentrate an area near the 5,000-strong town of Gloucester, but in December he used a stolen semi-automatic weapon to shoot an officer who came close.

    New South Wales (NSW) Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione described Naden in December 2011 as "a master bushman" and the local conditions "atrocious" with terrain "second to none when it comes to difficulty".

    But despite Naden's wildlife skills, it was a police dog named Chuck that eventually brought him down, dragging him to the ground by his leg and biting him in several places.

    Simone De Peak / Pool via Getty Images

    Chuck the police dog, who assisted in the capture of Malcolm Naden.

    "Today Australia's most wanted man was behind bars," Scipione told reporters in Sydney on Friday, according to Reuters.

    'Game of patience'
    Mick Peet, whose daughter Lateesha Nolan is misssing in a case also linked to Naden, told the Sydney Morning Herald the news of the capture left him in shock.

    "I immediately nearly dropped to the floor. I just sort of went all limp," Mr Peet said. "I had so many thoughts in my mind. I didn't know which one to bring out first."

    "To get the positive truth about what has happened to my daughter and where she may be, that will relieve a lot of pain that we've got inside us."

    He added: "It started getting that way where they started looking at him as a Ned Kelly folk hero ... which made you pretty wild. You just feel for all the families that have been involved in this and I'm just glad that it's come to this day."

    "The kids and everyone here [are] jumping around and joyous. It's like we've sort of won lotto or something like that."

    Police Assistant Commissioner Carlene York told Australia's ABC News: "This was a game of patience and I am very proud of everyone involved."

    The capture also brought relief to local residents who lived in fear of his break-ins.

    However, Naden's haunting presence in the region might be missed by some. Gary Daley, a publican at the town's Avon Valley Inn, said the outlaw had "put Gloucester on the map" and beer sales had been increased by up to 20 percent because of police officers in the area and interest in the case.

    "We get people in here - from everywhere - coming up to see the town," he told the Sydney Morning Herald.

    Msnbc.com's Alastair Jamieson and Reuters contributed to this report.

    193 comments

    Murder of a24 year old and 2 counts of sexual assault of a 15 year old girl? Death sounds like a reasonable punishment!

    Show more
    Explore related topics: bush, australia, wanted, outback, featured, survival, malcolm-naden

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