Geneva Conventions ‘still relevant but better compliance needed’

As the defenders of a besieged Bosnian town prepared to retreat, the prisoners of war held captive in the local jail feared the worst. “The prisoners were saying, ‘If the town falls they will shoot us before they leave,'” recalls Charlotte Lindsey, a Red Cross field worker in the Balkans during the break-up of the former Yugoslavia.

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Shooter planned ‘to go out in grand style,’ investigator says

The man who killed 10 people, then himself, in a shooting rampage in southern Alabama had failed in his dreams both to become a U.S. Marine and a police officer, and was depressed and unhappy with his life, investigators said Thursday. Michael McLendon, 28, fatally shot his mother in his hometown of Kinston on Tuesday before driving to nearby Samson and Geneva, killing nine more, then fatally shooting himself after a shootout with police.

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Alabama man’s 10 victims include family, strangers

An Alabama man went on a shooting spree Tuesday, killing 10 people — family members and apparent strangers — before turning the gun on himself, officials said. By the time Michael McLendon ended his rampage, he had fatally shot his mother and set fire to her house, killed his grandparents, his aunt and uncle, the wife and child of a sheriff’s deputy, and three other people, according to the coroners of the two counties that the shooting spanned. “He was shooting at just ordinary people going about their business,” said Alabama state Sen

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Guantanamo detainees treated humanely, Pentagon report says

A new Defense Department review of detainee operations at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, concludes that the operation does not torture detainees but rather treats them humanely and in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. The report, released to the public Monday, was prepared for President Obama, who has ordered the closing of the facility within a year.

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Rights groups: Pentagon sought Geneva Convention loopholes

The Bush Pentagon tried to find loopholes in the Geneva Conventions for its "ghost detainee" program in Iraq and to delay the release of Guantanamo Bay prisoners to avoid bad press, three human rights groups contend. Pentagon documents discuss CIA and Pentagon detention activities earlier this decade and indicate coordination between agencies in hiding internees from the Red Cross.

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