I WATCHED "Zero Dark Thirty" not as a former F.B.I. special agent who spent a decade chasing, interrogating and prosecuting top members of Al Qaeda but as someone who enjoys Hollywood movies. As a movie, I enjoyed it. As history, it's bunk. The film opens with the words "Based on Firsthand Accounts of Actual Events." But the filmmakers immediately pass fiction off as history, when a character named Ammar is tortured and afterward, it's implied, gives up information that leads to Osama bin Laden.

When we shifted to New Delhi in the early 1980s, what struck us was the utter callousness of the male dominated society there compared to Bombay's. We would reach nowhere without being aggressive, whether using bus transport or shopping. Ladies used to be shoved away at bus stops by unruly men wanting priority boarding. The high footboards of Delhi vehicles were in marked contrast with Bombay buses with lower steps for easy boarding by ladies. Bus drivers were rash.

The battered credibility of the Guantanamo trials has been further dented by revelations of hidden microphones, intelligence service interference with court proceedings and protests from lawyers who say the US military is preventing a proper defence of the alleged organisers of the 9/11 attacks.

Ahead of the Academy Awards next Sunday, the ads and mailers for "Lincoln," "Argo" and "Silver Linings Playbook" resemble a political campaign. Then there's "Zero Dark Thirty." Nominated for best picture and in four other categories, the account of the manhunt for Osama bin Laden is caught in a real-life political storm.

John Kerry's declaration that he intends to renew the push for peace between Israel and the Palestinians received a predictable roll of the eyes from diplomats around the world. Many talented secretary of state predecessors failed at this mission. Nor could the timing seemingly be worse: Hamas rules Gaza, while Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government is in office in Jerusalem. Nor does the old incentive for pushing peace exist anymore. Some used to claim that solving the conflict was central to dealing with other problems in the region. But the Arab Spring challenged that view: People revolted against and overthrew their corrupt rulers with no mention of the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

Ever wonder what books terrorists like to read? Probably not, but it seems some like to read about themselves or alleged close pals. Ramzi Binalshibh, a Yemeni who is accused of having helped and wanting to join the 9/11 terrorists - but was denied a visa four times - isn?t into snuggling up with what the others ensconced in Guantanamo Bay favored.

The use of waterboarding and other forms of torture in the decade-long hunt for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, as depicted by Academy-award runner film Zero Dark Thirty, is mere Hollywood fiction, according to Ali Soufan, former FBI agent.

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - A pretrial hearing in the Sept. 11 war crimes case started Thursday with an angry outburst from one of the defendants complaining about searches of his cell by guards at the Guantanamo Bay prison.

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba - While the 9/11 accused were in court, prison camp guards seized from their cells a banned copy of a former FBI agent's memoirs, toilet paper with English words scrawled on it and a pen refill hidden inside the binding of a book belonging to alleged mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed, a prison camps lawyer testified Thursday.

Defense lawyers for three of the accused in the military commission hearings for 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four co-defendants claimed that their clients' legal materials had been "ransacked" while they were in the courtroom yesterday, and that some confidential legal materials were missing.