International Glance
The treaty is the "supreme law of the land" under the US Constitution, article 6, clause 2. Every nation that signed the treaty (one hundred seventy-seven) was charged with giving a national report on such basic areas of discrimination as health care, education and prison terms. According to the Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute and the National Lawyers Guild, the United States on Friday presented a report to the United Nations Committee, never mentioning Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo or the behavior of US corporations working under US military contracts.
TVNL Comment: The term "quietly" can be directly translated into an accusation of media complicity to not report. In other words when the government does something in full view of the world and it is not reported you can say they did it quietly, without the media reporting it. It is one thing when the government does things out of sight. But when they do things for all to see, and the media does not report it, there is no other way to describe it other than to call it a conspiracy among the media to not report. This in essence makes them complicit.
Brussels officials are already considering controversial anti-terror plans that would collect up to 19 pieces of information on every air passenger entering or leaving the EU. Under a controversial agreement reached last summer with the US department of homeland security, the EU already supplies the same information [19 pieces] to Washington for all passengers flying between Europe and the US.
The document reveals how the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) successfully fought to keep secret any mention of Israel contained on the first draft of the controversial, now discredited Iraq weapons dossier. At the heart of it was nervousness at the top of government about any mention of Israel's nuclear arsenal in an official paper accusing Iraq of flouting the UN's authority on weapons of mass destruction.
Scotland Yard allowed a suspected war criminal to escape Britain because officers feared an attempt to stop him would lead to a gun battle at Heathrow airport, police documents seen by the Guardian reveal.
