Shorter Question Everything

Yemen

• Yemen’s government is to allow the US to set up a military base on its territory, a political analyst says. The US can no longer rely on Yemen’s government to fight al-Qaeda because it is losing its legitimacy and becoming weaker, Ali Al-Ahmed, a political analyst, told Press TV on Wednesday. Al-Ahmed added that his sources have revealed that the Yemeni government has decided to let the US military establish the air base on an island called Socotra located off the coast of Yemen.
• Taipan Enterprises Ltd. in Virginia has pleaded guilty to trying to sell guns, night vision goggles and other military equipment to people in Yemen and Libya. Court records show the company tried to sell Swiss-made machine pistols to a Yemeni national in 2007 and night vision goggles to Libya and a Chilean military contractor.
• [Yemeni]Foreign Minister Abubakr al-Qirbi told CNN that fighting al Qaeda was “the priority and the responsibility of our security forces and the army.” Asked whether it would accept direct U.S. intervention, he said: “No, I don’t think we will accept that. I think the U.S., as well, has learned from Afghanistan and Iraq and other places that direct intervention can be self-defeating.”

Canada: Vancouver

• Travellers at Vancouver International Airport could find themselves subject to full-body scans that see through clothing as early as next week. The airport is expected to receive one or two of the controversial full-body imaging scanners in the next 10 days, said Don Ehrenholz, vice-president of operations and engineering at YVR. The new technology will primarily target U.S.-bound travellers at first, said Transport Minister John Baird. These passengers must either undergo a scan or submit to a physical patdown, while passengers on domestic and international flights will continue to be randomly selected for the same type of secondary screening done now. However, suspicious domestic or international travellers could be required to pass through the scanning machine, said Baird.
  A total of 44 scanners are designated for Canada at a cost of $11 million.

South Africa

• In a move that will serve as a warning to corporations that aid governments in flagrant abuses of human rights, a federal judge in Manhattan has allowed a lawsuit to go forward against IBM, General Motors, Ford and other corporations over their roles in South Africa’s three-decade-long apartheid policy.

Pakistan

• Pakistani security forces have arrested five US citizens in the province of Balochistan near the country’s border with Iran. Pakistani police said on Thursday that the Americans were carrying out suspicious activities along the border. They were driving in a car with fake license plates, police added. The five Americans were freed after the US consulate in Karachi intervened and demanded their release. The US consulate apparently told police that the Americans enjoyed diplomatic immunity. A number of US citizens, most of them armed, have recently been arrested in several Pakistani cities. But they were freed following interventions by the US embassy.

US: Washington, DC

• The death of a white supremacist accused of opening fire at Washington, D.C.’s Holocaust museum has left some conflicted – not sorry he’s gone, but frustrated that he won’t stand trial. The 89-year-old James von Brunn, who faced charges that could have earned him the death penalty, died Wednesday at a North Carolina federal prison while awaiting trial.

Cuba

• A senior Cuban official accused a detained U.S. government contractor of spying on Wednesday, a month after the man was arrested on suspicion of handing out communications equipment to opposition groups. Parliament leader Ricardo Alarcon said the man is under investigation but has not yet been charged. Neither government has identified the man, who was arrested on Dec. 4.