Attorneys Carl J. Mayer and Bruce I. Afran filed a complaint in the Southern U.S. District Court in New York City on my behalf as a plaintiff against Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to challenge the legality of the Authorization for Use of Military Force as embedded in the latest version of the National Defense Authorization Act, signed by the president Dec. 31.

Hassan Diab, a Canadian citizen and former University of Ottawa professor, faces the possibility of life imprisonment in France for his alleged role in a 1980 Paris bombing that killed four people. Diab's finger and palm prints do not match those of the suspect, nor does his handwriting. The suspect's physical description is unlike what Diab looked like in 1980, and Diab denies being in France and emphatically condemns the bombing. He's being sought based on secret intelligence, the source of which even French officials are unaware, that may have been extracted under torture. Nevertheless, Canada's draconian Extradition Act may provide legal grounds for Canada to send Diab to France to stand trial.

Last week marked the 10th anniversary of the creation of the infamous Guantánamo Bay. This place created by G. W. Bush but still in existence today under the presidency of Barack Obama is a symbol of of blatant human rights injustice and human rights violations.

The first flashbacks that come to our minds when we speak of Guantánamo Bay are of chained and shackled detainees, wearing orange jumpsuits, their heads bent down, transported in cages like ferocious animals.

Jon Elmer's talk, "Ghetto Palestine," is based on 10 years of reporting from the West Bank and Gaza. Jon has covered the ghettoization of the West Bank as growing settlements and the construction of the separation wall continually isolate and segregate Palestinian communities.