Rights brought home the human rights bill

Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld admitted he 'didn't know who the bad guys' were during the Afghanistan war and said the US was 'woefully deficient' in intelligence, memos obtained by The Washington Post have revealed.  In addition to Rumsfeld's memos, dictated between 2001 and 2006, the Post obtained interviews the government carried out with 400 members of the military top brass between 2014 and 2018.  They have been dubbed the 'Pentagon Papers of Afghanistan', which together with Rumsfeld's memos paint a picture of a confused military without a clear objective. 'I have no visibility into who the bad guys are in Afghanistan or Iraq,' Rumsfeld said in a September 2003 memo. 'I read all the intel from the community, and it sounds as though we know a great deal, but in fact, when you push at it, you find out we haven't got anything that is actionable. We are woefully deficient in human intelligence.' It flies in the face of a public statement made … [Read more...] about Donald Rumsfeld ‘didn’t know who the bad guys were’ during Afghanistan war and US had ‘woefully deficient human intelligence’, reveal documents which exposed fact officials knew conflict was unwinnable

She never fails to turn heads with her unique sense of style. And Georgia Kousoulou ensured all eyes were on her as she donned an extravagant princess-style gown for filming TOWIE's Christmas special in Essex recently. The reality star, 28, wore a light blue sleeveless gown with a sheer ruffled design and a glittering embellishment. Festive: Georgia Kousoulou, 28, ensured all eyes were on her as she donned an extravagant princess-style gown for filming TOWIE's Christmas special in Essex recently  The garment featured a plunging neckline and a beaded embellishment around the waist while Georgia also donned a large white and blue floral crown. Styling her blonde locks into voluminous waves, the TOWIE star posed up a storm as she joined her fellow castmembers for filming of the festive episode.  RELATED ARTICLES Previous 1 Next TOWIE's Chloe Sims puts on a busty display in a plunging... Love Island's Olivia Buckland wraps up in husband Alex's... Pregnant … [Read more...] about TOWIE’s Georgia Kousoulou turns heads in a dramatic ice blue gown and an elaborate crown as she shoots the show’s Christmas special

Houthi rebels who seized full control of the Yemeni capital Sana’a over the past week have detained more than 40 media staff, press watchdogs have said, demanding their immediate release. Among those captured are staff working for Yemen Today – a television channel affiliated with the former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, who was killed by the rebels on Monday as he fled the capital following the collapse of an uneasy three-year alliance. The rebels overran the TV station’s Sana’a offices on Saturday after attacking it with rocket-propelled grenades and wounding three guards, Reporters Without Borders said. “This hostage-taking is typical of the climate of hostility in Yemen towards journalists,” said RSF’s Alexandra El Khazen. A spokesman for the Committee to Protect Journalists called for the immediate release of the journalists, saying the Houthi attack on Yemen Today “shows a profound contempt for press freedom”. Early on … [Read more...] about Houthis detain journalists linked to Saleh as airstrikes intensify over Yemen

Is Banksy the new Charles Dickens? The anonymous street artist’s Christmas creation combines jolly sentiment with genuine compassion in a way that would make the Victorian author of A Christmas Carol tingle all over. What’s more, his latest artwork is both imaginative and thumpingly true – a Christmas cracker with a bang of reality inside. Banksy’s team of reindeer painted on a wall in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter, pulling a bench that homeless people use as a bed, is rightly popular. In a video that underlines his message, Banksy shows a man called Ryan having a drink before positioning a bag as a pillow and lying on the bench – to be, in dreams, lifted in the air by those magic reindeer while the soundtrack plays I’ll Be Home for Christmas. It has so far had nearly three million views on Instagram. Once again Banksy reaches the parts other artists miss. This is a good painting – the reindeer are nicely three-dimensional and solid … [Read more...] about Have a Banksy Christmas: his Birmingham reindeer are an artistic miracle