World/Nation
CIA chief admits to 'abhorrent' tactics, but defends program
WASHINGTON - CIA Director John Brennan threaded a rhetorical needle in an unprecedented televised news conference at CIA headquarters Thursday, acknowledging that agency officers did "abhorrent" things to detainees but defending the overall post-9/11 interrogation program for stopping attacks and saving lives.
At the heart of Brennan's case is a finely tuned argument: that while today's CIA takes no position on whether the brutal interrogation tactics themselves led detainees to cooperate, there is no doubt that detainees subjected to the treatment offered "useful and valuable" information afterward.
Speaking to reporters and on live television - something no one on the CIA public affairs staff could remember ever happening on the secretive agency's Virginia campus -Brennan said it was "unknown and unknowable" whether the harsh treatment yielded crucial intelligence that could have been gained in any other way.
He declined to define the techniques as torture, as President Barack Obama and the Senate intelligence committee have done, refraining from even using the word in his 40 minutes of remarks and answers. Obama banned torture when he took office.
Infiltration of Cuba's underground hip-hop scene called 'stupid'
HAVANA - A U.S. agency's secret infiltration of Cuba's underground hip-hop scene to spark a youth movement against the government was "reckless" and "stupid," Sen. Patrick Leahy said Thursday after The Associated Press revealed the operation.
On at least six occasions, Cuban authorities detained or interrogated people involved in the program; they also confiscated computer hardware that in some cases contained information that jeopardized Cubans who likely had no idea they were caught up in a clandestine U.S. operation.
"The conduct described suggests an alarming lack of concern for the safety of the Cubans involved, and anyone who knows Cuba could predict it would fail," said Leahy, a Vermont Democrat who is chairman of the State Department and Foreign Operations Appropriations Subcommittee. "USAID never informed Congress about this and should never have been associated with anything so incompetent and reckless. It's just plain stupid."
The plan called for contractors to recruit scores of Cuban musicians for projects disguised as cultural initiatives but really aimed at stoking a movement of fans to challenge the government. They filmed TV shows and set up a social network to connect some 200 musicians and artists on the island, who would be encouraged to start a social movement. Artists were flown to Europe ostensibly for concerts and video workshops but the real aim was to groom them as activists.
Google News to close in Spain, block news reports
MADRID - Google is locking Spanish publishers out of its popular Google News service in response to a new Spanish law that imposes fees for linking to the headlines and news stories on other websites.
The move announced Thursday will reverberate around the globe. Besides closing Google News in Spain, Google Inc. also is blocking reports from Spanish publishers in the more than other 70 other international editions packaged by Google News.
Google News' exile of Spanish publishers begins Dec. 16, a couple weeks before the start of a Spanish intellectual-property law requiring news publishers to be paid for their content, even if they are willing to give it away.
That means people in Latin America, where Spanish news organizations have sought to boost their digital audiences, won't see news from Spain via Google News. Also set to disappear are reports in English from Spanish publishers like Madrid's leading El Pais newspaper.
Obama backs $1.1 trillion spending bill, Pelosi rebukes him
WASHINGTON - Swapping crisis for compromise, the House narrowly approved $1.1 trillion in government-wide spending Thursday night after President Barack Obama and Republicans joined forces to override Democratic complaints that the bill would also ease bank regulations imposed after the economy's near-collapse in 2008.
The 219-206 vote cleared the way for a final showdown in the Senate on the bill - the last major measure of a two-year Congress far better known for gridlock than for bipartisan achievement.
Hours before the vote, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi delivered a rare public rebuke to Obama, saying she was "enormously disappointed" he had decided to embrace legislation that she described as an attempt at blackmail by Republicans.
- The Associated Press