From Kevin Flower
CNN
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(CNN) -- The United Nations Human Rights Council will hold a special session Thursday to reopen discussion of Israel's three-week offensive against the Islamic militant group Hamas in Gaza.
In his speech Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the report an "absurd claim."

In his speech Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the report an "absurd claim."

According to a statement from the council, the meeting request came from the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and is co-sponsored by 18 members of the 47-member body based in Geneva, Switzerland.

The council commissioned South African Judge Richard Goldstone to lead a fact-finding mission into the hostilities in Gaza that lasted from December 27, 2008, to January 18, 2009.

Goldstone's group issued a report last month which concluded that both Israel and Hamas had committed "actions amounting to war crimes, possibly crimes against humanity."

The council received the report September 29, but took no action, after a request by the Palestinian Authority to defer discussion for six months.

The Palestinian Authority government of Mahmoud Abbas came under withering criticism by Gaza Palestinians for the move.

Abbas defended his request in a televised speech Sunday and vowed to work "to punish everyone who was responsible for the hideous crimes committed against our children, our men and women -- especially in our dear Gaza."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in a speech Monday at the opening session of the Knesset, called the war crimes charge "an absurd claim."
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"We will not agree to a situation where the [Israel Defense Forces] commanders and soldiers will be treated as war criminals after valorously defending the citizens of Israel against a loathsome enemy," he said.

Netanyahu said that if the report ultimately is referred to the U.N. Security Council or the International Criminal Court, it would deliver "a mortal blow" to the peace process.

There is an ongoing dispute about the number of people killed in the three-week military offensive that Israel called Operation Cast Lead.

The Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights put the death toll at 1,419 and said 1,167 of those were "non-combatants."

The Israeli military released its own figures earlier this year, claiming 1,166 people were killed, and 60 percent of those were "terror operatives."

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sen. John Kerry said Tuesday he will offer a new explanation and clarification of a $7.5-billion Pakistan aid bill that has prompted a firestorm of anti-American sentiment inside Pakistan.
A member of an Islamic fundamentalist party protests the aid bill October 2 in Pakistan.

A member of an Islamic fundamentalist party protests the aid bill October 2 in Pakistan.

Opponents say the United States is meddling in Pakistani affairs.

Kerry, D-Massachusetts and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, stood beside Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi at the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday afternoon to announce that he and other congressional leaders would release what Kerry called "report language with the force of law" to clear up questions about the nonmilitary aid bill.

The explanation would accompany the bill, which was passed unanimously by the House and Senate, when it is formally sent to President Obama to sign into law, something that could happen in coming days.

"If there are misrepresentations, we're going to clarify this," Kerry told reporters after he and Qureshi met in private.

The United States says the aid bill makes no new demands on Pakistan, but some Pakistani politicians say it will result in American micromanagement of Pakistan civil and military affairs.

Kerry said the multibillion-dollar aid package would provide "deeper, broader, long-term engagement with the people of Pakistan." He said the aid is a sign of friendship and was never intended to interfere with Pakistan's government.
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Kerry and the Pakistani foreign minister are set to meet again Wednesday. The statement of clarification will probably be submitted jointly by Kerry; Indiana Sen. Richard Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Foreign Relations Committee; and Rep. Howard Berman, D-California and the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

So now what?

The Senate Finance Committee had barely voted on the big health care legislation when the infinitesimally short attention span of Capitol Hill shifted to the next step. And it sounds like the debut of a 1950’s doo-wop band: ladies and gentlemen, give it up for Harry Reid and the Bill Blenders.

That would be the majority leader, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, and the team of senators, aides and White House officials who will meld the Finance Committee bill with an alternate version of the health-care legislation that was approved back in July by the Senate Health Education Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee.

Mr. Reid will gather the group in his office on the second floor of the Capitol for its first official meeting on Wednesday. The group includes Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana and the Finance Committee chairman; Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut, who was acting chairman of the HELP committee when it passed its health care bill; and representatives of the White House.

Jim Manley, a spokesman for Mr. Reid, said that Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, the lone Republican on the Finance Committee to vote in favor of the bill, would be invited to future sessions. And Mr. Manley said the Democratic leader was prepared to go to substantial lengths to keep Ms. Snowe’s support.

“He is prepared to do what he can to keep her on board while putting together a bill that can get the 60 votes necessary to overcome a Republican filibuster,” Mr. Manley said.

Senate Democrats have already held some preliminary discussions about blending the two bills, and the White House lobbying team is already fully deployed across the Capitol.

The more liberal HELP bill was approved on a strict party-line vote,
with Republicans unanimously opposed. And in many ways, it was only half of a bill, because the Finance Committee has jurisdiction over
the tax provisions needed to finance the legislation, as well as
spending on Medicare and Medicaid.

The HELP bill, for instance, anticipated a major expansion of
Medicaid, the state-federal insurance program for the poor, but it is the
Finance Committee bill that includes the expansion, which extends
eligibility to all Americans earning less than 133 percent of the federal
poverty level, including childless adults currently excluded.

Speaking of the other side of the Capitol, the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, continues to work on her own blending project, pulling together the bills reported out by three different committees into a single legislative proposal for full floor debate.

The House bill will include a government-run insurance plan, or public option, to compete with private insurers. But Mr. Reid, and perhaps President Obama himself, may have to mediate that issue in the Senate.

Liberal senators want the public option. But Ms. Snowe is firmly opposed. She has expressed openness to a compromise that would allow a government-run health plan to be “triggered” in states where the legislation otherwise does not succeed in providing affordable insurance.

MEDELLIN, Colombia (CNN) -- This city's drug underworld is littered with "poseurs" -- lowlife triggermen pretending they're the real hard cases. But a longstanding and trusted source, with intimate knowledge of Medellin's violent subculture, assured me the two men I was about to meet were the real deal. My destination: a single-story home in the city's notorious "Commune 13" district where I had set up a meeting with two hit men, who have for years hired their lethal services out to the cocaine cartels. Inside the house, a man called "Red" sat on a couch toying a fully loaded 9mm Ruger pistol. "This will stop somebody nicely," he said, as I glanced at it. His face and arms were covered in burn marks. He said it was a testament of the day a barrel of acid spilled onto him as he was working in a clandestine cocaine processing lab in northern Colombia. Red explained that after the accident, the lab foreman tossed him out, half-dead, into a jungle clearing. What little strength he had left, he said he used to bat away vultures. And, against the odds, he made his way to safety and slowly recovered. When Red left the clinic months later, he said he went straight back to the drug lab and gunned down the foreman and three of his henchmen. That wasn't his first killing though, he told me. When he was just 11 years old, Red recounted, he took a razor to the throat of a neighborhood drug pusher who had been molesting his little sister. The other man, "C", sat quietly as I listened to Red. Like Red, my source told me, "C" was also the so-called "chief" of a number of neighborhoods -- running local drug-peddling operations, extortion rackets and organizing hits for a big cartel boss he simply referred to as "El Cucho," or "The Old Man." Don't Miss * Power vacuum fuels vicious drug war It was a hot morning and he was shirtless. His chest was branded with a tattoo of the Virgin Maria Auxilatrix, known in Colombia as the "Virgin of the Assassins." Hitmen, or "sicarios" as they call them here, revere her and pray to her for protection against arrest or death and for help to carry out their killings. During our time with the hit men they offered a fascinating insight into their violent world -- from how much they get paid to what their mothers think of their lifestyle: Penhaul: Why are Medellin's drug bosses and the street gangs in a war right now? "RED": "These problems come about because they're looking for a good man to run things. We have to find him and, in order to find him, what's happening right now has to run its course." "C": "Medellin has exploded right now because different groups want to control it and earn money and gain territory. The authorities locked up, extradited, or cut cooperation deals with the big guys, the ones who controlled all this. Those were the ones people respected. Now there's no respect and anybody who has a bunch of money is grabbing a few kids from a poor neighborhood and putting them to work." Penhaul: What are the cartel bosses paying for a contract killing now? "C": "If you're talking about a contract hit then right now you can get four or five million pesos (between US$2,000 and $2,500) to kill some idiot slimeball. Then of course there are bigger hits where you can earn 15 (million) or 20 million (between $7,500 and $10,000). Some of those hits pay pretty well. There's a lot of people around here with a lot of money and they're using it for bad things. Sometimes even the politicians will pay for a hit to get somebody out of their way." Penhaul: Why did you get into this lifestyle? "Red": "People need to eat and there's a lot of hunger. We don't just want the crumbs. That's the big problem. There's a lot of idle hands around here and many people think they have a chance if they have a gun in their hand." "C": "I grew up in a slum and every time I stepped outside the door there were guys from the local gang smoking (marijuana) joints. They had guns, the best motorbikes and money so I started running errands for them." Penhaul: Didn't you have any big dreams when you were kids? "Red": "I always said when I grow up I would build a house for my old lady with a cement roof and plaster and paint on the walls. I dreamed I'd be able to give her money to go to the supermarket every week." "C": "I dreamed of being a professional soccer player. I was pretty good. But I never got the chance." Penhaul: Do you think you've made your mothers proud by killing people? "Red": "I once gave my mum a wad of cash after I did a job. She took the wad and slapped me in the face and told me not to bring that cursed money into the house. She begged me to get out of that life. She was afraid they would kill me." "C": "My mum knows nothing about this. I guess she imagines because she tells me to take care otherwise I'll wind up dead. But she doesn't know for sure." Penhaul: What did your first contract hit feel like? "Red": "You kill the first one and you panic for a few days. You're nervous. But then you kill the second one and that's a kind of a medicine. It takes the pain away that you were feeling after the first killing." "C": "The first time is really f***ed up. I nearly went mad. You see a cop and think he's going to arrest you. I was 16 or 17. That was my first time. I hardly even wanted to eat. But then you carry on and kill this one and that one. You earn money. After I killed somebody the first time I bought my first decent pair of sneakers. "It's not so tough now. Sometimes you kill somebody and you know they were going to kill you. It's not a question of conscience. It's a question of kill or be killed." Penhaul: Don't you feel any remorse? "C": You know you messed up when you go to the wake and see people crying and you know it's your fault. But I don't back down from a killing because I know if somebody comes after me they won't back down." "Red": "I've got feelings and sometimes you sit down and think what a shame. But the person who's trying to shoot you isn't going to think the same. You're not killing somebody for the fun of it. If you don't mark your territory then you're a nobody." Penhaul: So, apart from the money, why do you do it? "C": "To gain respect round here you have to be a mother f***er. You've got to be a bastard so people respect you. If you're quiet and respectful everybody takes advantage. But if they know you're a mother f***er who'll bust their ass at the first sign of trouble then they respect you and your family." Penhaul: Are you killing innocent people? "C": "I never kill somebody who doesn't deserve it. Sometimes I'll hunt down a "patient" for a week just so that I don't make any mistakes. You can't go and kill somebody just because you want to. You have to ask for permission from the big guys who control us. You explain to the "old man" and he gives the final word." Penhaul: Are you ever on the receiving end of bullets? "Red": "They once shot me four times at point blank range. I heard them laughing as they walked away and one came back and kicked me in the head for good measure. When I got better he was the first one I killed. I've been shot 17 times. Well let's call it 19 if you count the ones that just graze you. They say some bodies have divine protection. Let's hope mine is one of them." Penhaul: Why don't normal citizens just turn you in? Because they're afraid? "C": "The community collaborates with us. We give them food parcels and we throw parties for them and give toys to the kids. We don't mistreat everybody, just the ones who deserve it. We don't kill innocent people." Penhaul: Do you want to get out of this life? "C": "I know you should pay what you owe. But I don't want to pay for all those deaths. I'll be absolutely f***ed if I have to pay. I want to get out of this but I want a clean slate. If I pay my debt to the law then that means jail and if I pay on the street then that means death. I don't want to go to jail or to die." advertisement Penhaul: Do you see any quick end to the current cartel violence in Medellin? "C": "We've survived one war, then another and now this one. I can't see it all ending. I don't think that will happen. If you kill two or three people there's four or five more behind him who want to kill you."