US army forced to release WikiLeaks case documents

FORT MEADE, Maryland: The US Army published dozens of documents online Wednesday in the case of WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning, after media outlets and other groups had criticized a lack of transparency.

The move came in response to multiple Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests related to the case against Manning, who stands accused of passing a trove of secret files to Julian Assange's anti-secrecy WikiLeaks website.

Among the organizations that demanded access to the pre-trial documents were The Washington Post, CNN and the Center for Constitutional Rights, which all said they had been prevented from informing the public about the case.

Such documents have been sealed based on requests either by the prosecution or defense lawyers in the case against Manning, which is being heard in a military court at Fort Meade, Maryland, north of the US capital Washington.

In federal civilian court, similar types of documents are nearly always made public.

Even in the military commissions at the Guantanamo detention facility, where pre-trial hearings in the case against the 9/11 plotters are being heard, military lawyers have made such documents available.

On Wednesday, 84 court orders and rulings were released in the Manning case, including a partial transcription of a deposition made by Manning.

The 25-year-old Army private faces a slew of charges, including "aiding the enemy," for allegedly leaking hundreds of thousands of sensitive US military and diplomatic documents to WikiLeaks.

He was arrested in May 2010 while serving as an intelligence analyst near Baghdad and subsequently charged over the largest leak of restricted documents in American history. The trial is expected to begin in June.

"Due to the voluminous nature of these documents, it will take additional time to review, redact, and release all of the responsive documents," the Army said in a statement, adding that 500 documents have been released thus far.

During Wednesday's hearing at Fort Meade, Judge Denise Lind dealt the defense a blow when she rejected their claim that the documents allegedly leaked by Manning were incorrectly marked top-secret.

"Evidence of overclassification is not relevant," she said.

The proceedings at Fort Meade are shown to reporters via closed circuit television with a slight delay, so the transmission can be cut if sensitive matters are discussed.

Prosecutors had asked that hearings be closed when classified information is to be discussed.

Prosecutor Ashden Fein said that of 141 possible witnesses, "some form of classification" should be used for testimony from 73 of them, though "not necessarily all their testimony."

Manning is expected to offer a revised plea proposal Thursday.

The most serious of the 22 charges against him, "aiding the enemy," carries a maximum sentence of life imprisonment, but Manning's team is trying to have that charge dropped.

-AFP/ac

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No difference in Cong, NDA regimes: Pawar

NEW DELHI: NCP chief and Union agriculture minister Sharad Pawar said he did not find much difference in the policies of the Congress governments and the Vajpayee-led NDA regime, in what can set off speculation of political realignment.

Speaking at a book launch function on Wednesday, the NCP chief said while many governments had been formed by the opposition parties, most of them were supported by the Congress. Stating that the Atal Bihari Vajpayee-led NDA regime was the truly non-Congress government, Pawar stressed that its policies in key areas, foreign or domestic, did not diverge from those followed by the Congress.

The comment is seen as significant since NCP is seen by many as potential swing players to be ready to side with the winner post-2014. Pawar had moved closer to the NDA during Vajpayee's prime ministership, and had come close to allying with BJP for 2004 polls. However, resistance from BJP's leaders from Maharashtra scuppered the move: something that Vajpayee would regret later.

Pawar's comment suggesting that the BJP was not radically different from the Congress can set off speculation of a political realignment before or after the next Lok Sabha polls, especially in view of the perception of a political tie between UPA and NDA.

Interestingly, the Maratha strongman refused to comment on Sonia Gandhi or Congress, saying he was an UPA ally and a comment on contemporary issues would only create mistrust in UPA. He said he wanted the government to serve its term.

Sharing the dais with home minister Sushilkumar Shinde, Pawar said he was expelled from Congress for six years but he never felt like returning to the party.

The senior leader added there was no running away from coalition era and, Congress and BJP cannot think of coming to power on their own in the near future. For good effect, he said differences were bound to be there on issues like secularism but differences should not turn into political hatred.

Pawar left the Congress to launch NCP in 1999 following rebellion against Sonia Gandhi on "foreign origin" issue. The expulsion on the bitter note raised signs of a permanent divorce but strangely, the two soon came together to form the government in Maharashtra.

Ever since, the Congress and NCP have been together in Maharashtra while the coalition came alive at the Centre when Congress trounced BJP in 2004. Pawar has been a senior minister with agriculture portfolio in the UPA regimes led by Manmohan Singh.

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Vt. lye victim gets new face at Boston hospital

BOSTON (AP) — The 2007 chemical attack left the Vermont nurse unrecognizable to anyone who knew her.

But now Carmen Blandin Tarleton's face has changed again following a facial transplant this month.

Doctors at Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston said Wednesday that the 44-year-old's surgery included transplanting a female donor's facial skin to Tarleton's neck, nose and lips, along with facial muscles, arteries and nerves.

"I know how truly blessed I am, and will have such a nice reflection in the mirror to remind myself what selfless really is," Tarleton wrote on her blog Wednesday.

The Thetford, Vt., woman suffered burns on more than 80 percent of her body and was blinded after her estranged husband attacked her with a baseball bat and doused her with lye in 2007.

Tarleton, who once worked as a transplant nurse, has undergone more than 50 surgeries since the attack, including work to restore some of her vision.

The latest surgery took 15 hours and included a team of more than 30 medical professionals. The lead surgeon, Bohdan Pomahac, called her injuries among the worst he's seen in his career.

"Carmen is a fighter," the doctor said Wednesday. "And fight she did."

Pomahac's team has performed five facial transplants at the hospital. He said the patient is recovering very well and is in great spirits as she works to get stronger.

He said she was very pleased when she saw her face for the first time, and that her appearance will not match that of the late donor's face.

"I think she looks amazing, but I'm biased," he said with a smile.

The donor's family wants to remain anonymous, but released a statement through a regional donor bank saying that her spirit would live on through Tarleton and three other organ recipients.

The estranged husband, Herbert Rodgers, pleaded guilty in 2009 in exchange for a prison sentence of at least 30 years.

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Bring on the Cuts: Some Want the Sequester

Mark Lucas wouldn't mind seeing America's defense budget cut by billions.

"There's quite a bit of waste within the military," Lucas, who serves as Iowa state director for the conservative group Americans for Prosperity (AFP), told ABC News. "Being in there for 10 years, I've seen quite a bit of it."

With the budget sequester set to kick in on Friday, the former Army ranger is among a small chorus of conservatives saying bring on the cuts.

Read more: Bernanke on Sequester Cuts: Too Much, Too Soon

Lucas cited duplicative equipment purchases, military-run golf courses and lavish food on larger bases -- unlike the chow he endured at a combat operations post in Afghanistan with about 120 other soldiers.

"These guys would have very good food, and I'm talking almost like a buffet style, shrimp and steak once a week, ice cream, all this stuff," Lucas said. "They had Burger Kings and Pizza Huts and McDonald's. And I said to myself, 'Do we really need this?'"

Lucas and AFP would like to see the sequester modified, with federal agencies granted more authority to target the cuts and avoid the more dire consequences. But the group wants the cuts to happen.

"We're very supportive of the sequestration cuts but would prefer to see more targeted cuts at the same level," said the group's spokesman, Levi Russell.

As President Obama and his Cabinet members are sounding the sequester alarm bells, AFP's willingness shows that not everyone is running for the hills.

Charles Dharapak/Pool/AP Photo

Speaker Boehner Hopes Senate 'Gets Off Their Ass' Watch Video

Sequester Showdown: Automatic Spending Cuts Loom Watch Video

President Obama Details Consequences of Sequester Cuts Watch Video

Read more: 57 Terrible Consequences of the Sequester

Obama traveled to Norfolk, Va., on Tuesday to speak at a shipyard about cuts and layoffs to defense contractors. In his most recent weekly radio address, he told Americans that the Navy has already kept an aircraft carrier home instead of deploying it to the Persian Gulf. And last week, he spoke before national TV cameras at the White House, warning that first responders would be laid off.

Homeland Security Secretary Jane Napolitano has warned that the sequester will "leave critical infrastructure vulnerable to attacks." Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has warned that air travel will back up after the Federal Aviation Administration furloughs air traffic controllers. And the heads of 18 other federal agencies told Congress that terrible things will happen unless the sequester is pushed off.

Some Republicans have accused the president of scaremongering to gin up popular support for tax hikes. Obama has warned of calamity and demanded compromise in the next breath, and a few Republicans have rejected this as a false choice.

Read more: Boehner Hopes Senate 'Gets Off Their Ass'

"I don't think the president's focused on trying to find a solution to the sequester," House Speaker John Boehner told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday. "For 16 months, the president's been traveling all over the country holding rallies, instead of sitting down with Senate leaders in order to try to forge an agreement over there in order to move the bill."

After Obama spoke to governors at the this week, Republican Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal told ABC News' Jonathan Karl outside the White House that the president is exaggerating the sequester's consequences.

"He's trying to scare the American people," Jindal said. "He's trying to distort the impact."

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Oscars host says "no way" doing it again

LOS ANGELES: Oscars host Seth MacFarlane said Tuesday there is "no way" he will do the show again, after his performance was widely criticized as offensive and dull.

The "Family Guy" creator insisted it was fun to have hosted the 85th Academy Awards on Sunday, despite media and online critics panning the show, notably for jokes about actresses' breasts and Jews in Hollywood.

The choice of MacFarlane as Oscars host was seen as the latest attempt to attract younger viewers by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the august industry body which organizes Tinseltown's biggest awards show.

Viewing figures suggested that may have worked -- the US domestic audience was up 11 percent, to just over 40 million, according to the Nielsen media analysis and polling company.

But MacFarlane posted a Twitter exchange with a fan saying he won't do it again. "RT @CrusePhoto: @SethMacFarlane Would you host the #Oscars again if asked? // No way. Lotta fun to have done it, though," he tweeted.

The comic, who also created foul-mouthed movie bear Ted, had said before the show that he would probably not do it again, telling an interviewer last week: "Even if it goes great, I just don't think that I could do this again.

"It's just too much with everything else that I have to do. I'm happy to be doing it and I will be thrilled to have done it, assuming I get out of there in one piece, but I really think this is a one-time thing for me."

Critics slammed MacFarlane's opening segment as over-long -- and in particular blasted a song called "We Saw Your Boobs," which listed the actresses who had appeared topless on-screen.

A sketch featuring Ted provoked some of the harshest attacks, notably for jokes about Jewish control of Hollywood. The Anti-Defamation League, an anti-Semitism watchdog, blasted them as "offensive and not remotely funny."

On his Twitter feed Tuesday, MacFarlane also posted a link to an "interesting press article about the press anger over the Boobs song," and in another tweet noted: "My cat said the show went well."

-AFP/ac

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PDP’s Mufti joins chorus of demand for Afzal body

SRINAGAR: Former Union minister and Jammu and Kashmir's main Opposition PDP's patriarch Mufti Mohammad Sayeed has expressed solidarity with the crowded corner that is asking for the dead body of Afzal Guru. The ruling National Conference, a coalition government between the NC and the Congress, has already pressed for the return of the mortal remains of Guru, hanged inside Tihar jail on February 9.

In a letter to PM Manmohan Singh, the former CM of J&K said, "I request you to take necessary measures to accommodate the wishes of the people of the state and a majority of them in the country to have Afzal Guru's remains returned to his family for the last rites and try to retrieve whatever little can be of the trust of the people in Kashmir."

Mufti added: "I am writing this letter after an agonising fortnight that, in my opinion, witnessed all the effort at rebuilding a relationship of trust between Kashmir and the rest of the country almost evaporate into thin air. The manner in which Mohammad Afzal Guru was executed in secrecy and very obvious unholy haste is not just another hugely negative reference point in our painful history, but it could have the potential to redefine the very nature of how the people here would view their status within the Union. And I am deeply anxious about its possible fallout on our younger generations who had been struggling to come out of a nightmarish experience of life marked by blood and tragedy."

"Never in a democracy of our size and quality is a convict culled out of a queue from serial number 28 and sent to the gallows. Never is a dying convict denied a last meeting with his family. Never is a condemned man denied what is now established as a last chance to seek judicial intervention after spending 12 years in jail. The people of Kashmir felt he was hanged because the noose fitted only the neck of a man of Afzal's description, and given the sad history of the state's association with the Union, they easily relate themselves with his fate," the letter said.

Agencies, meanwhile, reported that Guru had in a letter to the editor of a local Urdu weekly over four years ago written that there was no need to be ashamed of the December 13 attack on Parliament, but had stopped short of owning any responsibility for it. Guru had addressed Hizbul Mujahideen chief Syed Salahuddin and said "I request Salahuddin to not call the attack of December 13 as a conspiracy. It pains my heart. The attacks are related to the Kashmir issue. If the attack was a conspiracy, then the whole struggle is a conspiracy. We should not be ashamed of December 13."

Editor Shabnum Qayoom was quoted as saying: "I used to receive his (Guru's) letters and articles, so this was nothing new. The handwriting is the same as the previous letters. I do not care if people believe it to be authentic or not." Asked why he did not publish the letter for four years, he said he did not deem it appropriate. "I believe he was swept by emotions. He was not involved but he thought that as there was no way for escape, why not accept and achieve martyrdom. I did not think it was appropriate to publish the letter at that time as it might have been taken as evidence against him, but now that he is no more, I went ahead with it," he said.

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FDA halts Amgen study after teen patient death

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal health regulators say they have halted Amgen's studies of its thyroid drug Sensipar after the death of a 14-year-old patient in a company trial.

The Food and Drug Administration says it is gathering information about the death, but has shut down all studies of the drug in children.

Sensipar is approved for adults to treat over-activity of the parathyroid gland. Amgen Inc. had been studying the drug to see whether it works in children.

The FDA says in a statement it is unclear whether Amgen's drug had a role in the patient's death, but it is reminding doctors to prescribe it carefully.

The agency says doctors should monitor patients' calcium levels to make sure they don't fall to dangerous levels.

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Boehner Pressures Dems to Get 'Off Their...'

Feb 26, 2013 12:48pm

House Speaker John Boehner used some choice words to pressure Senate Democrats to avert the looming sequester — $85 billion of arbitrary across-the-board cuts — insisting that “the House has done its job” and the burden to offer an alternative before the cuts strike Friday is on the president’s party.

“We have moved the bill in the House twice,” Boehner, R-Ohio, said. “We should not have to move a third bill before the Senate gets off their ass and begins to do something.”

House Republicans voted twice during the 112^th Congress to narrowly pass legislation to offset sequestration with alternative savings, but those measures languished in the Senate and expired with the end of the session.

Read More About Sequestration

Boehner also criticized President Obama for taking a Virginia road trip “to use our military men and women as a prop in yet another campaign rally to support his tax hikes.”

J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo

“I don’t think the president’s focused on trying to find a solution to the sequester,” he said. “For 16 months, the president’s been traveling all over the country holding rallies, instead of sitting down with Senate leaders in order to try to forge an agreement over there in order to move the bill.”

Considering Republicans have not acted in the current session of Congress on any legislation to replace the sequester, House Democrats question whether there is sufficient support to pass the old GOP proposal.

“I don’t think I need to give the Speaker a lesson in legislating or how government runs, but whatever was done last year that didn’t get signed into law has evaporated. It is gone. It does not exist,” California Democratic Rep. Xavier Becerra, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, said today. “This is a new year, a new session of Congress and it’s time for everyone to get to work.”

Boehner deflected a question whether he believes his weakened majority could pass the Republican bill again, and returned his attention to pushing for a vote in the Senate.

“It’s time for the Senate to act. It’s not about the House,” he responded. “We’ve acted.”

Related: Sequester Timeline – When Will Cuts Kick In?

“Where’s the president’s plan to avoid the sequester? Have you seen one? I haven’t seen one. All I’ve heard is that he wants to raise taxes again. Where’s the president’s plan? Where’s the Senate Democrat plan? I want to see it.”

Senate leaders are expected to introduce and vote on their respective plans later this week, perhaps by Thursday.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid accused Congressional Republicans of being “part of the problem” in finding a solution to the upcoming cuts, pressing for new tax increases to help offset the sequester.

“We want to work with Republicans to come to a balanced responsible way to reduce this sequester, the impact of it.  My republican colleagues are standing in the way,” Reid, D-Nev., said on the Senate floor. “They only want cuts and more cuts.”

Related: States Prepare for Sequester

Although Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has said he is not interested in a last-minute deal, Boehner said “If the Senate acts, I’m sure the House will act quickly.”

The House is meeting for legislation business today, although no action to avert the sequester is expected. The House also meets Wednesday and Thursday, but is currently not expected to be in session on Friday.

ABC News’ Arlette Saenz contributed to this report

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Italy election forecasts point to political gridlock

ROME (Reuters) - Conflicting early forecasts of the result of Italy's election on Monday raised the specter of deadlock in parliament that could paralyze a new government and re-ignite the euro zone crisis.

Officials from both center and left warned that such gridlock could make Italy ungovernable and force new elections.

Opinion polls have long pointed to the center-left of Pier Luigi Bersani winning the lower house, but projections from RAI state television showed Silvio Berlusconi's center right in front in the Senate - which has equal lawmaking power - but unable to form a majority.

RAI showed the center-left well short of a majority in the Senate even in coalition with Monti, who was seen slumping to only 19 out of 315 elected Senators against a massive 65 for the anti-establishment 5-Star Movement of comedian Beppe Grillo.

Senate votes are counted before the lower house.

The latest projections ran counter to earlier telephone polls that showed the center left taking a strong lead in the Senate as well as the lower house.

Italian financial markets took fright after rising earlier on hopes for a stable and strong center-left led government, probably backed by outgoing technocrat premier Mario Monti.

Such government is seen by investors as the best guarantee of measures to combat a deep recession and stagnant growth in the euro zone's third largest economy, which is pivotal to stability in the currency union.

Berlusconi's declared aim is to win enough power in the Senate to paralyze a center-left administration.

The benchmark spread between Italian 10-year bonds and their German equivalent widened from below 260 basis points to above 280 and the Italian share index lost all its previous gains.

"These projections suggest that we are heading for an ungovernable situation", said Mario Secchi, a candidate for Monti's centrist movement.

Stefano Fassina, chief economic official for Bersani's center-left, said: "The scenario from the projections we have seen so far suggest there will be no stable government and we would need to return to the polls."

The earlier telephone polls on Sky and Rai television after voting ended at 3 p.m. (1400 GMT/9 a.m. ET) had shown the center left 5-6 points ahead of the center right in both Senate and lower house, with Grillo taking third place.

Adding to the confusion, official results from more than 50 percent of polling stations showed the center-left ahead with 32.7 percent against 29.5 for the center-right in the Senate race. The partial official count is often not representative because of the order in which votes are counted regionally.

Italy's electoral laws guarantee a strong majority in the lower house to the party or coalition that wins the biggest share of the national vote.

However the Senate, elected on a region-by-region basis, is more complicated and the result will turn on four key battleground regions. Projections from LA 7 showed Berlusconi winning in three of them: Lombardy, Sicily and Campania.

A Sky television projection showed him strongly ahead in the rich northern region Lombardy, which returns the largest number of Senators, with 38.8 percent against 27.6 for the center left.

BITTER CAMPAIGN

A bitter campaign, fought largely over economic issues, has made some investors fear a return of the kind of debt crisis that took the euro zone close to disaster and brought the technocrat Monti to office, replacing the scandal-plagued Berlusconi, in 2011.

Monti helped save Italy from a debt crisis when Rome's borrowing costs were spiraling out of control, but the polls and projections suggested few Italians now see him as the savior of the country, in its longest recession for 20 years.

A surge in protest votes for Grillo's 5-Star Movement had raised uncertainty about the chances of a stable government that could fend off the danger of a renewed euro zone crisis.

Grillo's movement rode a huge wave of voter anger about both the pain of Monti's austerity program and a string of political and corporate scandals. It had particular appeal for a frustrated younger generation shut out of full-time jobs.

"I'm sick of the scandals and the stealing," said Paolo Gentile, a 49-year-old Rome lawyer who voted for 5-Star.

"We need some young, new people in parliament, not the old parties that are totally discredited."

Bad weather, including heavy snow in some areas, was thought to have hampered the turnout in Italy's first post-war election to be held in winter. This could have favored the center left, whose voters tend to be more committed than those on the right, which has strong support among older people.

Berlusconi, a 76-year-old media tycoon, pledged sweeping tax cuts and accused Monti of being a puppet of German Chancellor Angela Merkel in a media blitz that halved the lead of the center left in opinion polls since the start of the year.

Whatever government emerges will inherit an economy that has been stagnant for much of the past two decades and problems ranging from record youth unemployment to a dysfunctional justice system and a bloated public sector.

(Additional reporting by Stefano Bernabei, Steve Scherer, Gavin Jones and Giuseppe Fonte in Rome and Lisa Jucca in Milan; Writing by Barry Moody; Editing by Robin Pomeroy and Philippa Fletcher)

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US special forces told to leave key Afghan province

KABUL: Afghanistan's president has ordered US special forces to leave a strategic province as he seeks tighter control over Afghan militia, exacerbating tensions before the 2014 withdrawal of NATO troops.

Hamid Karzai on Sunday gave American special forces two weeks to pull out of Wardak, a hotbed of Taliban activity on the doorstep of Kabul, accusing Afghans they work with of torture and murder that has incited local hatred.

It remained unclear what led Karzai to issue the order, two US officials said. "We're not aware of any incident that would have generated this kind of response," one official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told AFP.

At a news conference, spokesman for the US-led NATO mission Brigadier General Gunter Katz said: "We're looking at those allegations, we didn't find any evidence and we will talk to our colleagues and Afghan partners to find a solution."

The Pentagon confirmed that a special panel of Afghan officials and officers from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) were looking into Karzai's allegations.

"We're trying to seek clarity from the government of Afghanistan," spokesman George Little told reporters.

Asked if the United States would pull out its elite special operations units from the province, Little said: "It's premature to speculate on what the outcome of our discussions would be."

Wardak is a deeply troubled flashpoint where a Chinook helicopter was shot down by the Taliban in August 2011, killing eight Afghans and 30 Americans, in the deadliest single incident for American troops in the entire war.

Analysts said the order underscored Kabul's growing distrust of international troops and their desire to control local militia, who are trained by the Americans but operate without government control in the war against the Taliban.

Relations between Karzai and Washington have long been troubled, and with the bulk of NATO's 100,000 combat soldiers due to leave and the Afghan president to step down next year, there is huge uncertainty about the future.

"It appears to be an on-the-spot, emotional decision, based on a long-standing frustration that there are forces... Afghan and international, that are uncontrollable," said Martine van Bijlert of the Afghanistan Analysts Network.

The New York Times quoted Afghan officials as saying the order was taken as a last resort after they had tried and failed to get the coalition to cooperate with an investigation into claims of murder, abduction and torture.

The presidency accused armed individuals working with US special forces of "harassing, annoying, torturing and even murdering innocent people".

It cited, for example, a student who was taken away at night from his home and two days later was found dead with torture wounds and his throat cut.

Kabul did not specify which groups were responsible, but the United States is understood to have trained a variety of local militias, a number of which reportedly operate beyond the control of the Afghan government.

Karzai's order was issued amid sensitive discussions over the size and role of a residual force that could remain in Afghanistan after 2014 to focus on training and counter-terrorism operations.

Kabul and Washington are still negotiating an agreement on the legal status that could allow an estimated 8,000 to 12,000 American troops to remain.

On February 16, Karzai also restricted Afghan forces from calling in NATO air strikes -- an important weapon in the fight against insurgents -- amid concern over civilian casualties.

Some say the latest order exemplifies a conflict that many Afghans feel towards foreign troops -- that they are needed to counter the Taliban, but that civilian casualties and detentions can also make them part of the problem.

A spokesman for Wardak's governor said local residents have complained for two and a half months about US special forces and "their illegal Afghan armed forces arresting, torturing and even killing villagers".

"We want our Afghan security forces to take control of this province and replace these US special forces," the spokesman, Ataullah Khogyani, told AFP.

In the neighbouring province of Ghazni, dozens of protesters shut down the Kabul-Kandahar highway for around three hours, accusing the US-trained Afghan Local Police (ALP) of harassment and beatings, officials and witnesses said.

The ALP is often accused of thuggery and operating outside the law, and its reputation was further damaged on December 24 when an officer shot dead five of his colleagues.

-AFP/ac

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