Headlines:

• 'Muslims are evil. Let's kill them all': Writes US TV Commentator Erik Rush
• US Torture of Muslim Prisoners is 'Indisputable', Independent Report finds
• U.S. to Assess Afghan Troops Level after Summer
• India: School Refuses to Relax Dress Code for Muslim Girl in Assam
• China Lays Bare its Military Might with an Attack on US Ambition

Details:

'Muslims are evil. Let's kill them all': Writes US TV Commentator Erik Rush:

While public officials were urging caution in the immediate aftermath of the bomb attack on the Boston Marathon, some were quick to apportion blame. One of those was conservative commentator Erik Rush, who provoked a furious reaction after seemingly advocating the killing of Muslims in response to the attack.  Rush is a columnist for Worldnutdaily and has previously been a guest on Fox News and CNN.  With no information about the attackers yet made public, Mr Rush appeared to imply in a tweet that the culprit was from Saudi Arabia. "@erikrush Everybody do the National Security Ankle Grab! Let's bring more Saudis in without screening them! C'mon! #bostonmarathon." Then when he was asked by another Twitter user whether he was blaming Muslims for the attack, Mr Rush responded: "Yes, they're evil. Let's kill them all." Mr Rush later claimed he was being sarcastic went he sent the response. His comments nevertheless provoked a fierce reaction. One user wrote: "Hope people don't go on the ‘Muslims did it' bandwagon. Don't be an idiot and know the facts first."

Another commented: "Apparently someone at Fox News tweeted ‘Kill All Muslims' after the explosions. As a Boston resident, and as a human being, I'm disgusted. "He has also written articles critical of Islam. Last year, Mr Rush wrote a comment piece titled ‘Yes, Islam is an enemy'. In it he argued that Islam was incompatible with American society. "Islam has never played well with others, and this is because it is a worldview with a creed, dogma and religious aspects, rather than a religion per se. All of these militate against its tolerance of divergent societies and cultures," he wrote. He went on: "This is truth: Both the political left and Islamists in America have been exploiting the First Amendment and Americans' generous nature in order to conquer us."

US Torture of Muslim Prisoners is 'Indisputable', Independent Report finds:

An independent examination of the US rendition programme after 9/11 has concluded that it is "indisputable" that America tortured Muslim prisoners, and that the country's highest officials were responsible. A 580-page report published on Tuesday by the Constitution Project, a non-partisan Washington-based think tank, concludes that the programme was unjustified and counterproductive, damaging to the country's reputation, and has placed US military personnel at risk of mistreatment if they are themselves taken prisoner. In findings similar to those of a report published two months ago by the New York NGO Open Society Justice Initiative, the study concludes that the US rendition programme enjoyed widespread international co-operation, with the UK, Canada, Italy, Germany and Sweden identified as prominent supporters alongside Egypt, Syria, Morocco and Jordan. In one of their most damning conclusions, the panel says: "In the course of the nation's many previous conflicts, there is little doubt that some US personnel committed brutal acts against captives, as have armies and governments throughout history. But there is no evidence there had ever before been the kind of considered and detailed discussions that occurred after 11 September, directly involving a president and his top advisers on the wisdom, propriety and legality of inflicting pain and torment on some detainees in our custody." The report calls for the revision of the US army's field manual on interrogation, to prohibit interrogation lasting 40 hours, and to introduce unambiguous bans of the use of stress positions and sleep deprivation. In an appendix, the authors dismiss arguments - which have frequently followed party lines in the US - that the mistreatment of detainees after 9/11 fell short of torture, citing cases in which comparable treatment was prosecuted as torture by the US in the past.

U.S. to Assess Afghan Troops Level after Summer:

The U.S. commander of international forces in Afghanistan said on Tuesday he will make a recommendation of how many American troops should remain in Afghanistan after he sees how well Afghan security handles the summer fighting. "We need to see how the Afghans do in their first summer in the lead, and make an assessment in November 2013," Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing. He said other variables such as "the state of the enemy and Afghanistan's political transition" would also inform his decision. General James Mattis, who leads the U.S. military's Central Command, said last month that he has recommended keeping 13,600 American troops in Afghanistan after 2013.

India: School Refuses to Relax Dress Code for Muslim Girl in Assam:

The mother of a four-year-old Muslim girl has moved the Gauhati High Court after the authorities of a Catholic Mission-run school, Kristo Jyoti School, near Bokakhat in upper Assam's Golaghat district refused to allow her daughter Fathima Beevi to wear a ‘hijab' (headscarf) along with the school uniform. Ms. Ahmed stressed that Fathima, being a follower of Islam, had a religious right to wear the ‘hijab.'  Father Varghese told The Hindu that the school's managing committee had discussed the petition from Fathima's parents and decided not to allow any relaxation in rules. Father Varghese, however, said it was not right for the parents of any student to seek relaxation after agreeing to abide by the school's rules and regulations at the time of admission. "Enforcing rules and regulations, including rules on uniform of students, is vital to maintenance of discipline and smooth running of a school."

China Lays Bare its Military Might with an Attack on US Ambition

China has laid bare the scale of its rapidly expanding military might for the first time in a white paper arguing the American "pivot to Asia" was destabilising the region. The People's Liberation Army, or PLA, boasts some 850,000 officers spread across seven regional commands, according to the defence report which was issued on Tuesday.  Meanwhile the navy and air force have 235,000 and 398,000 officers respectively. The PLA contingent is split between command centres in Beijing, Nanjing, Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shenyang, Lanzhou, and Jinan, the report says. The white paper also alludes to China's powerful "Second Artillery Force". Described as "the country's core force for strategic deterrence", the force oversees China's nuclear arsenal and is tasked with "deterring other countries from using nuclear weapons against China". The total number of service members listed was 1.48 million. In 2006, China said the military had a total of 2.3 million members. It was not clear if the new count represented a real reduction in numbers, or if the shortfall was made up by other ground force units that appeared to have been omitted from the count, including the Second Artillery Force. Tuesday's report, which contained few specific details of China's military structure, was emphatic in describing what it said was the country's commitment to a doctrine of "peaceful development". "China will never seek hegemony or behave in a hegemonic manner, nor will it engage in military expansion," it argued. The report also attacked US President Barack Obama's so-called "pivot" towards the Asia-Pacific region, suggesting that his policy of boosting the American military footprint there was causing frictions. "The US is adjusting its Asia-Pacific security strategy and the regional landscape is undergoing profound changes," China's white paper said. "Frequently [this policy] makes the situation there more tense." Beijing views the "pivot" - under which 60 percent of the US Navy Forces are set to be deployed to the region by 2020 - as an attempt to contain China's rise and block the country's development.

Abu Hashim