Donald Trump’s CIA pick Gina Haspel is career spymaster, oversaw secret prison

Agencies
March 14, 2018

Washington, Mar 14: President Donald Trump’s pick to be the next director of the CIA is a career spymaster who oversaw torture at a secret prison during one of the darkest chapters in the agency’s history. If confirmed, 61-year-old Gina Haspel would become the first female head of the CIA. She’s described by colleagues as a seasoned veteran with 30-plus years of intelligence experience who would lead the agency with integrity. But it’s the few years she spent supervising a secret black site that will be closely scrutinized at her confirmation hearing.

Trump announced on Tuesday that he had chosen Haspel to succeed Mike Pompeo, who is replacing ousted Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. She joined the CIA in 1985 and has been deputy director of the agency since February 2017.

Between 2003 and 2005, Haspel oversaw a secret CIA prison in Thailand where terror suspects Abu Zubayadah and Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri were waterboarded, current and former U.S. intelligence officials said. Waterboarding is a process that simulates drowning and is widely considered to be a form of torture. Haspel also helped carry out an order to destroy waterboarding videos, which prompted a lengthy Justice Department investigation that ended without charges.

Trump has said that he would reintroduce waterboarding and “a lot worse,” but there’s no indication that his decision to pick Haspel signals a desire to restart the harsh interrogation and detention program. He would face steep legal and legislative hurdles if he tried.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Haspel must explain the nature and extent of her involvement in the CIA’s interrogation program. “Current U.S. law is clear in banning enhanced interrogation techniques,” said McCain, who was beaten as a prisoner during the Vietnam War. “Any nominee for director of the CIA must pledge without reservation to uphold this prohibition.”

Former CIA Director John Brennan declined to say what Haspel’s exact role was in the interrogation program, but he told NBC that she has a “lot of integrity” and has tried to carry out her agency duties “when asked to do difficult things in challenging times.”

Brennan predicted she would be confirmed. “Gina is a very competent professional who I think deserves the chance to take the seat,” he said. Senator Richard Burr, R-N.C., the chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, which will vote whether to confirm Haspel, said she has the “right skill set, experience and judgment” to lead the CIA.

Human rights advocates said they opposed Haspel’s promotion to the helm of the CIA. “No one who had a hand in torturing individuals deserves to ever hold public office again, let alone lead an agency,” Human Rights First’s Raha Wala said Tuesday. “To allow someone who had a direct hand in this illegal, immoral and counterproductive program is to willingly forget our nation’s dark history with torture.”

After Haspel was named deputy CIA director, the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights asked German prosecutors to issue a warrant for her arrest over her role in the interrogations. Federal prosecutors never issued the warrant because the case lacked a connection to Germany. But the rights group’s allegations against Haspel remain part of a preliminary investigation that German authorities could revive if they receive evidence that any of the parties have links to Germany.

Last year, Haspel’s name came up during a civil lawsuit in Spokane, Washington, filed by three men who said they suffered waterboarding, beatings and sleep deprivation in the CIA interrogation program developed by former Spokane psychologists James E. Mitchell and Bruce Jessen.

Lawyers for the psychologists wanted to interview Haspel and another CIA official involved in the program, but government lawyers told the federal judge in the case that the officials and documents were protected under the state secrets privilege and making them public would threaten national security.

Haspel has been chief of station at CIA outposts abroad. In Washington, she has held several senior leadership positions, including deputy director of the National Clandestine Service.

In her current post, she worked with Pompeo to manage intelligence collection, analysis, covert action, counterintelligence and cooperation with the CIA’s foreign counterparts. In a brief statement, the former undercover officer said she was “humbled” by Trump’s confidence in her to lead the agency.

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Linda Peters
 - 
Wednesday, 14 Mar 2018

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News Network
June 1,2020

New Delhi, Jun 1: Actor Kendrick Sampson, who stars in HBO series Insecure, was struck by rubber bullets as Los Angeles police officers tried to disperse a crowd protesting George Floyd”s death in Minneapolis.

Floyd, a black man, died last Monday in Minneapolis, Minnesota after a white police officer pressed his knee on his neck for more than eight minutes. The officer was arrested on Friday and charged with third-degree murder.

The actor went live via Instagram on Saturday to show his view of events, but he could be also be seen on a CNN broadcast simultaneously, with viewers watching him get hit by a police baton on TV.

Sampson posted several videos on his page of a large demonstration at Pan Pacific Park near the city”s Fairfax District, where violent clashes took place throughout the day outside the Grove shopping center.

In one video, LAPD officers can be seen firing rubber bullets to try and regain control at the park.

“They shot me four times already. I already got hurt and I got hit with a baton,” Sampson said in the video on Instagram.

Another clip showed him moving away from the police, as he appeared to be hit by an officer”s baton.

“Y”all ain”t see no police f*****g up white folks when they took guns to the statehouse,” he said, referring to an incident in Michigan over coronavirus restrictions, not in California. “Y”all didn”t see police attacking white folks, beating em up with batons, shooting them with rubber bullets when they brought guns to f*****g state houses. We came up here with no weapons, with masks.… And we”re the ones who are not peaceful,” Sampson alleged.

Protests turned violent over Floyd”s death and other police killings of black people spread Saturday in dozens of US cities, with police cars set ablaze, reports of injuries mounting on all sides, shops and showrooms vandalised amid the lockdown.

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April 9,2020

Washington, Apr 9: At least 11 Indians have died of COVID-19 in the United States with another 16 testing positive for the infection which has claimed more than 14,000 lives and afflicted more than four lakh people in the US.

All Indian citizens who have succumbed to the deadly infection in the US are male, with ten of them from New York and New Jersey area. Four of the victims are said to be taxi drivers in New York City.

New York City has emerged as the US epicentre for COVID-19 spurt, accounting for more than 6,000 deaths and over 1,38,000 cases of infections. New Jersey accounts for 1,500 fatalities and nearly 48,000 infections.

One Indian national reportedly died in Florida because of coronavirus. Authorities are also ascertaining the nationality of some other Indian origin people in the States of California and Texas.

All 16 Indians, including four females, who have tested positive for coronavirus are in self-quarantine. Coming from diverse background, eight of them are from New York, three from New Jersey and rest from other states like Texas and California. They hail from Indian states like Uttarakhand, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh.

Indian Embassy and consulates across the United States are working closely with local authorities and Indian-American organizations to provide necessary assistance to Indian nationals and students affected with COVID-19.

Because of the strict travel restrictions and regulations to prevent the spread of the deadly virus, local city officials have been performing the last rites of the deceased and in many cases are not allowing even their immediate family members to attend their cremations, officials said.

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News Network
May 5,2020

May 5: Global coronavirus deaths reached 250,000 on Monday after recorded infections topped 3.5 million, a news agency tally of official government data showed, although the rate of fatalities has slowed.

North America and European countries accounted for most of the new deaths and cases reported in recent days, but numbers were rising from smaller bases in Latin America, Africa and Russia.

Globally, there were 3,062 new deaths and 61,923 new cases over the past 24 hours, taking total cases to 3.58 million.

That easily exceeds the estimated 140,000 deaths worldwide in 2018 caused by measles, and compares with around 3 million to 5 million cases of severe illness caused annually by seasonal influenza, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

While the current trajectory of COVID-19 falls far short of the 1918 Spanish flu, which infected an estimated 500 million people, killing at least 10% of patients, experts worry the available data is underplaying the true impact of the pandemic.

The concerns come as several countries begin to ease strict lockdowns that have been credited with helping contain the spread of the virus.

"We could easily have a second or a third wave because a lot of places aren't immune," Peter Collignon, an infectious diseases physician and microbiologist at Canberra Hospital, told Reuters. He noted the world was well short of herd immunity, which requires around 60% of the population to have recovered from the disease.

The first death linked to COVID-19 was reported on Jan. 10 in Wuhan, China after the coronavirus first emerged there in December. Global fatalities grew at a rate of 1-2% in recent days, down from 14% on March 21, according to the Reuters data.

DEATH RATE ANOMALIES

Mortality rates from recorded infections vary greatly from country to country.

Collignon said any country with a mortality rate of more than 2% almost certainly had underreported case numbers. Health experts fear those ratios could worsen in regions and countries less prepared to deal with the health crisis.

"If your mortality rate is higher than 2%, you've missed a lot of cases," he said, noting that countries overwhelmed by the outbreak were less likely to conduct testing in the community and record deaths outside of hospitals.

In the United States, around half the country's state governors partially reopened their economies over the weekend, while others, including New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, declared the move was premature.

In Britain, Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who battled COVID-19 last month, has said the country was over the peak but it was still too early to relax lockdown measures.

Even in countries where the suppression of the disease has been considered successful, such as Australia and New Zealand which have recorded low daily rates of new infections for weeks, officials have been cautious.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has predicated a full lifting of curbs on widespread public adoption of a mobile phone tracking app and increased testing levels.

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