Pope Francis's Secretary of State met with John Kerry today. He relayed the Pope's offer to use his international contacts to find alternative placement for Guantanamo detainees.

The pope made clear his feelings on the kind of abuses associated with Guantanamo in October, when he railed against the "penal populism" that led to countries facilitating torture, using the death penalty and incarcerating people without trial.

"These abuses will only stop if the international community firmly commits to recognising... the principle of placing human dignity above all else," he said.

Pope Francis is also a harsh critic of life sentences, which he says are a "hidden death penalty," and solitary confinement, calling it "physical and psychological torture". [More...]

The hostage situation at the chocolate shop and cafe in Sydney did not end well. The store manager and a woman lawyer with three children were killed, along with the lone gunman, who was not a member of any extremist group. He had no ties to any terror organization.

Police stormed the cafe this morning. The gunman was Man Haron Monis, who was well known to authorities for his extremism and mental instability.

[He is] an Iranian refugee and self-styled sheikh known for sending hate mail to the families of Australian troops killed in Afghanistan. He was charged last year with being an accessory to the murder of his ex-wife, but had been free on bail.

He was facing more than 40 sexual assault charges.[More...]

The Miami Herald has 26 great photos of several of the six recently released Guantanamo detainees in Uruguay. The AP has this article on their new lives.

These men were held for 12 years and cleared for release in 2009. No charges were ever brought against them. I was glad to see some of them smiling in the photos. They are learning Spanish, taking hikes, walking along the beach, shopping for food, and cooking at barbecues.

Thank you Uruguay. [More...]

Looks like an supporter of an Islamic militant group has taken between 13 and 50 people hostage at a chocolate shop in Sydney. He's making the hostages stand at the window with a black Islamic flag (that does not appear to match ISIS's flag. The news says it's an Islamic Shahada flag.) Here's a picture of the guy. Police say he may have an IED.

Update on Khalid el-Masri, the German shoe salesman who was mistaken for an al Qaeda operative and kidnapped by the CIA and tortured. I wrote about a few days ago. (I've been writing about him since 2005, the posts are collected here.) His lawyer says his life is destroyed.

Here is the latest on the Shami Witness investigation. He faces more questioning in Bengaluru where he is being held, but the investigation will primarily take place in New Delhi. [More...]

Turkey conducted mass raids of journalists and a media organizations today. The targets of the raids were those who support Fethullah Gulea, a U.S. cleric and opponent of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. More from The Guardian here.

Among the 31 people arrested: Ekrem Dumanli, the editor-in-chief of the Zaman daily newspaper. The paper is known for its exposure of government corruption.

Those held include an executive of Samanyolu television, also seen as close to Gulen, as well as a TV director, producers, scriptwriters and some police officers. Arrest warrants were issued for a total of 31 people, the official Anatolia news agency reported.

Among the offenses charged: "Using intimidation and threats" to "form a gang to try and seize state sovereignty", "forgery" and "slander."

I was watching this develop on the newspaper's Twitter feed last night. The raids were expected and 2,000 people gathered outside the Zaman's headquarters in support of the media and particularly the editor. Check out this short video. [More...]

Former President GW Bush was interviewed on CNN about the Torture Report. He said:

Whatever the report says, if it diminishes their contributions to our country, it's way off base..... The CIA are patriots and ...."really good people and we're lucky as a nation to have them.

We're luckier not to have GW Bush in charge anymore.

Update: Memo to GW Bush: It's not cool to defend those who commit rape and forced sodomy. "Good people" don't threaten to rape or cut the throat of another person's mother. These "good" CIA officers have also put our military at risk to have the same done to them. As Afghan President Ashrafn Ghani correctly observed, "When a person is tortured in an inhumane way, the reaction will be inhumane."

Indian police have put Shami Witness' Twitter Account back online so they can investigate his tweets and all the people who followed him. All of his tweets are here. (You can read them without following him.)

You can also read what his supporters are saying about his arrest at the hashtag #FreeShamiWitness. [More...]

"Shami Witness", the prolific tweeter about ISIS who was outed Friday by a British news channel, has been arrested in India. He's being investigated for a violation of the Information Technology Act.

Mehdi Masroor Biswas, the person behind Twitter handle "@shamiwitness", is a 24-year-old engineer who worked for a multinational in Bengaluru, police said. He moved to the city in 2011 and stays in Bengaluru's upscale southeast suburb. Police said he is an alumnus of West Bengal Institute of Technology.

Sources say Mehdi did not have any direct link with Al Qaida or Islamic State group and nothing as yet suggests he was in direct touch with any jihadi element....So far, no anti-India activity or tweets posted by Mehdi have been found. Nothing has been found to infer Mehdi suggested any attacks in India, say sources.

[More...]

Here's a new open thread. All topics welcome.

Give it away, Give it away now. [Red Hot Chile Peppers]

While most of the Congressional news today is about the $1 trillion spending bill and the potential government shutdown (which won't happen), I'm more concerned about the $600 billion Defense Authorization bill that passed the Senate today and now goes to Obama to sign.

War-spending is a bottomless pit. The bill provides $521.3 billion for the military and $63.7 billion for overseas operations in Afghanistan and Iraq. [More....]

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee has approved Sen. Melendez' draft of an Authorization for the Use of Force against ISIS. It has a three year sunset provision, unless reauthorized. It also provides that the 2001 Authorization for Use of Force will sunset 3 years after this one takes effect.

The authorization excludes the use of ground forces with exceptions (see below.) The White House has said so long as 5 conditions were met, it would support the authorization. (See below for the State Department's reaction to the committee's approval.)

The full text of the bill is here. [More....]

Time for a new open thread. All topics welcome.