U.S. Election Speeded Move to Codify Policy on Drones
By SCOTT SHANE
Published: November 24, 2012Facing the possibility that President Obama might not win a second term, his administration accelerated work in the weeks before the election to develop explicit rules for the targeted killing of terrorists by unmanned drones, so that a new president would inherit clear standards and procedures, according to two administration officials.
The matter may have lost some urgency after Nov. 6. But with more than 300 drone strikes and some 2,500 people killed by the Central Intelligence Agency and the military since Mr. Obama first took office, the administration is still pushing to make the rules formal and resolve internal uncertainty and disagreement about exactly when lethal action is justified.
Israel’s shame: Children, the true victims
In Gaza, one-in-three of those killed or injured is under 18
KIM SENGUPTA SUNDAY 25 NOVEMBER 2012
The rockets slammed in, two in succession, just after 11.30 at night. When Huda Tawfil had shaken herself awake through the confusion and terror, her first thoughts were for her baby. Seeing what she did through the smoke and flames, she burst into tears.
The 20-year-old started digging through the rubble with her hands as other members of the family ran into the room and joined in. She then cradled her little girl on the way to hospital in her husband’s car. There was an emergency operation, but the injuries from the shrapnel proved to be too severe.
Lure of jobs and money threatens one of Spain’s last wild beaches with destruction
Valdevaqueros is a surfers’ paradise and a haven for rare wildlife, but the council has approved a huge new tourist complex in an attempt to bring jobs to the crisis-hit area
Martin Roberts in Tarifa
The Observer, Sunday 25 November 2012Valdevaqueros is one of the last remaining unspoiled beaches in southern Spain, where kites hauling surfers along the waves dot the sky over golden sands buttressed by one of the country’s few shifting sand dunes.
Currently the beach has little more than an access road lined with camper vans from Germany, France, Italy and Britain, which disgorge windsurfers and kitesurfers lured by the area’s strong winds.
For decades it has been a world apart from the concrete-lined beaches of Torremolinos and Marbella along the coast, yet on 29 May the local council in Tarifa approved plans to build a tourist complex right next to the beach, with 1,400 hotel rooms and 350 flats.
Egyptian judges condemn Morsi ‘attack’
Egypt’s top judicial body has accused President Mohammed Morsi of “an unprecedented attack” on the courts, with a constitutional decree to limit their powers. In Cairo, police clashed with protesters.
DW.DE
The Supreme Judicial Council on Saturday condemned the new constitutional declaration and demanded that powers of constitutional oversight be restored to the courts.
After an emergency meeting, the body expressed concern over Morsi’s decision to replace the country’s chief prosecutor and make presidential decrees immune to judicial review.
“The new declaration is an unprecedented attack on the judiciary’s rulings and independence,” a statement from the assembly said.
The council, responsible for the administration of the court system and the appointment of judges, urged Morsi to remove “anything that touches the judiciary” from the declaration.
M23 rebels steal show at DRC summit
M23 rebels announced they had opened talks with DRC President Joseph Kabila, hours after a regional summit called on them to end their offensive.
25 NOV 2012 07:05 – AFP
Stealing a march on the region’s leaders, the political leader of the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo rebel group, Jean-Marie Runiga Lugerero, said he had had an initial meeting with Kabila after the summit in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, had ended.
While he was not invited to the summit itself, Runiga Lugerero told Agence France-Presse he had been able to meet Kabila thanks to the mediation of Uganda President Yoweri Museveni, with whom he had been due to hold talks.
Colombian evangelical Christians convert to Judaism, embracing hidden past
By Juan Forero, Published: November 24
BELLO, Colombia – They were committed evangelicals, devoted to Jesus Christ.
But what some here called a spark, an inescapable pull of their ancestors, led them in a different direction, to Judaism. There were the grandparents who wouldn’t eat pork, the fragments of a Jewish tongue from medieval Spain that spiced up the language, and puzzling family rituals such as the lighting of candles on Friday nights.
So, after a spiritual journey that began a decade ago, dozens of families that had once belonged to a fire-and-brimstone church became Jews, converting with the help of rabbis from Miami and Jerusalem. Though unusual in one of the most Catholic of nations, the small community in Bello joined a worldwide movement in which the descendants of Jews forced from Spain more than 500 years ago are discovering and embracing their Jewish heritage.