THE OTHER SHOE DROPS: Updates To Previous Posts
† We Fight Them Over There So We Don’t Have To Fight Them Over Here?: U.S. District Judge Richard Berman sentenced Pakistani immigrant Javed Iqbal (AKA "Hezbollah's man in New York City") to five years and nine months in prison for airing programming from Al Manar, the militant group's television station, using satellite dishes on his Staten Island home, reports The Associated Press:
Assistant U.S. Attorney Eric Snyder said Iqbal recruited Al Manar, even traveling to "the belly of the beast, South Beirut," to meet with its general manager. …
Snyder said Iqbal bought special satellite equipment to allow Al Manar to provide 24-hour programming from November 2005 through May 2006 so Hezbollah could use it to recruit followers and suicide bombers. Prosecutors said Iqbal's business was paid $28,000 monthly for at least five months for airing the station to its North American customers. …
Iqbal, who has lived in the U.S. for more than 20 years, will most likely be deported once he has completed his prison sentence, Dratel said. Iqbal, a former car mechanic, is married with five children and a sixth child due in July.
† Brad’s A Pip: U.S. District Judge Lance Africk sentenced New Orleans movie producer Malcolm Petal, 39, to five years in prison after he pleaded guilty to conspiring to bribe former LA film commissioner Mark Smith for tax breaks, reports The Associated Press. Petal was also ordered to pay more than $1M in restitution to the state, plus a $15,000 fine. In 2007 Smith pleaded guilty to taking $65K in bribes, and is awaiting sentencing.
† Updates To Previous Posts (Why We Need Gitmo): The Obama administration’s effort to return 97 Yemeni Guantánamo Bay detainees is at “a complete impasse” and there seems to be no “viable Plan B,” an official speaking on condition of anonymity tells The New York Times:
[T]he Obama administration is increasingly skeptical of Yemen’s ability to provide adequate rehabilitation and security to supervise returned prisoners. In addition, American officials are wary of sending detainees to Yemen because of growing indications of activity by Al Qaeda there. …
The question of what to do with them “is integral to the process of closing Guantánamo,” said Ken Gude, an associate director at the Center for American Progress who has written about closing the prison camp.
The standoff over the Yemeni detainees comes on top of other difficulties that have emerged since President Obama announced his intention to close the prison that has drawn international criticism for years.
Some Republicans in Congress have mounted stiff resistance to closing Guantánamo, and officials in some American communities, fearing that terrorism suspects could be tried or held in their courts or prisons, said they would fight any such plans. Also, while some European governments have promised to resettle detainees, specific agreements have been slow in coming. …
But with just nine months remaining before Mr. Obama’s January 2010 deadline for closing the prison, some lawyers for the men say they are becoming convinced that there may be no viable strategy to relocate them.
† Updates To Previous Posts (fourth item, Depends Whose Ox Is Gored): Using chemical programming with proteins instead of genetic manipulation, scientists successfully dialed mature skin cells known as fibroblasts back into a primitive embryonic-like state. The new technique avoids both the ethical issue raised by killing embryos to harvest their stem cells, and the safety issue created by using a potentially cancer-causing retrovirus as a vector to deliver genes into the cells.
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