Law after Ground Zero


Book Description

Following the events of September 11, a new legal order is emerging in which the 'terrorist threat' has been used as justification to marginalise human rights. This collection of themed essays offers an emphatic defence to the threats confronting our human rights culture. In analysing the role of the United Nations, the conduct of the Afghan war, domestic anti-terrorist legislation and the new debate about Islamic law, Law after Ground Zero demonstrates the future challenges that law will face within our global society. It also offers accounts of how events have impacted on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Iraq and Afghanistan itself, as well as debates about international law, human rights and women's rights. This unique work will interest those studying or researching in the areas of international law, human rights and humanitarian law, international relations, politics, critical legal studies, Islamic law, culture and socio-legal studies.




12-Sep


Book Description

9/12 is the saga of the epic nine-year legal battle waged by William H. Groner against the City of New York and its contractors on behalf of the more than ten thousand first responders who became ill as a result of working on the Ground Zero cleanup. These first responders--like AT&T Disaster Relief head Gary Acker and New York Police Department detectives Candiace Baker, Thomas Ryan, and Mindy Hersh--rushed to Ground Zero and remained to work on the rescue and recovery mission, which lasted for the next nine months. Their selfless bravery and humanity were rewarded with horrible health issues resulting from the toxic stew of chemicals present in the dust and debris that government officials such as Mayor Rudy Giuliani and EPA chief Christine Todd Whitman had assured them was safe. Groner, a lead attorney in the mass tort litigation, fought for their illnesses to be acknowledged and for them to receive validation and closure, as well as for compensation--an eventual aggregate award of more than $800 million. As detailed in 9/12, the battle for the Ground Zero responders was waged not only in the courtroom but also in the press, in medical and scientific research centers, and among politicians at the local, state, and federal levels, as well as in the halls of Congress to pass the Zadroga Health and Compensation Act. 9/12 weaves together Groner's firsthand account with glimpses into the first responders' lives as they try to understand and overcome their illnesses. The result is an intimate look into their battles--physical, mental, and legal--that will leave you cheering for these heroes who, in spite of everything, would do it all again. Told by Groner and journalist Tom Teicholz, 9/12 is the story of the brave public servants who showed up when their country needed them most, of their fight for redress, and of their victory in the face of the seemingly insurmountable.




Report from Ground Zero


Book Description

The tragic events of September 11, 2001, forever altered the American landscape, both figuratively and literally. Immediately after the jets struck the twin towers of the World Trade Center, Dennis Smith, a former firefighter, reported to Manhattan’s Ladder Co. 16 to volunteer in the rescue efforts. In the weeks that followed, Smith was present on the front lines, attending to the wounded, sifting through the wreckage, and mourning with New York’s devastated fire and police departments. This is Smith’s vivid account of the rescue efforts by the fire and police departments and emergency medical teams as they rushed to face a disaster that would claim thousands of lives. Smith takes readers inside the minds and lives of the rescuers at Ground Zero as he shares stories about these heroic individuals and the effect their loss had on their families and their companies. “It is,” says Smith, “the real and living history of the worst day in America since Pearl Harbor.” Written with drama and urgency, Report from Ground Zero honors the men and women who—in America’s darkest hours—redefined our understanding of courage.




Ground Zero


Book Description

Jack finds the secret behind 9/11 in this dark thriller in the bestselling Repairman Jack series




Closure


Book Description

The first book to chronicle the cleanup of the World Trade Center site from 9/11 through its closing ceremony, told by Lieutenant William Keegan of the Port Authority Police Department—one of the four operations commanders at the site—as he comes to his own closure with the tragedy. On the morning of 9/11, the Port Authority Police Department was the first uniformed service to respond to the attack on the World Trade Center. When the towers collapsed, thirty-seven of its officers were killed—the largest loss of law enforcement officers in U.S. history. That afternoon, Lieutenant William Keegan began the work of recovery. The FDNY and NYPD had the territory, but Keegan had the map. PAPD cops could stand on top of six stories of debris and point to where a stairwell had been; they used PATH tunnels to enter "the pile" from underneath. Closure shares many never-before-told stories, including how Keegan and his officers recovered one-thousand tons of gold and silver from a secret vault to keep the Commodities Exchange from crashing; discovered what appeared to be one of the plane's black boxes; and helped raise the inspirational steel beam cross that has become the site's icon. For nine brutal months, the men at Ground Zero wrestled with 1.8 million tons of shattered concrete, twisted steel, body parts, political pressure, and their own grief. Closure tells the unforgettable story of their sacrifice and valor, and how Keegan led the smallest of all the uniformed services at the site to become the most valuable.




September 11 in History


Book Description

Table of contents




The Ground Zero of the Arts


Book Description

The publication proposes to investigate the arts from the inside, namely, their common foundations: the rules for artistic creation, the processes that involve artists in their activities, the forms that they can achieve. An inquiry about art-making and artistic practices.




Pakistan


Book Description

As made abundantly clear in the classified documents recently made public by WikiLeaks, Pakistan is the keystone in the international fight against terrorism today. After the US-led coalition targeted terrorist groups operating in Afghanistan, these groups, including al Qaeda and the Taliban, relocated to the Federally Administered Tribal Area of Pakistan. From its base in this remote, inhospitable region of Pakistan, al Qaeda and its associated cells have planned, prepared, and executed numerous terrorist attacks around the world, in addition to supporting and waging insurgencies in Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and elsewhere. This book is the first detailed analysis of the myriad insurgent groups working in Pakistan. Written by well-known expert on global terrorism Rohan Gunaratna and Khuram Iqbal, a leading scholar in Pakistan, the book examines and reviews the nature, structure, and agendas of the groups, their links to activists in other countries, such as India and Iran, and the difficulties of defeating terrorism in this part of the world. Drawing on extensive field research and interviews with government officials and former terrorists, the authors argue that Pakistan faces grave and continuing pressures from within, and that without steadfast international goodwill and support, the threats of extremism, terrorism, and insurgency will continue to grow. This timely and necessary book argues that if the international community is to win the battle against ideological extremism and operational terrorism around the world, then Pakistan should be in the vanguard of the fight.




Who Owns the Dead?


Book Description

After September 11, with New Yorkers reeling from the World Trade Center attack, Chief Medical Examiner Charles Hirsch proclaimed that his staff would do more than confirm the identity of the individuals who were killed. They would attempt to identify and return to families every human body part recovered from the site that was larger than a thumbnail. As Jay D. Aronson shows, delivering on that promise proved to be a monumentally difficult task. Only 293 bodies were found intact. The rest would be painstakingly collected in 21,900 bits and pieces scattered throughout the skyscrapers’ debris. This massive effort—the most costly forensic investigation in U.S. history—was intended to provide families conclusive knowledge about the deaths of loved ones. But it was also undertaken to demonstrate that Americans were dramatically different from the terrorists who so callously disregarded the value of human life. Bringing a new perspective to the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history, Who Owns the Dead? tells the story of the recovery, identification, and memorialization of the 2,753 people killed in Manhattan on 9/11. For a host of cultural and political reasons that Aronson unpacks, this process has generated endless debate, from contestation of the commercial redevelopment of the site to lingering controversies over the storage of unclaimed remains at the National 9/11 Memorial and Museum. The memory of the victims has also been used to justify military activities in the Middle East that have led to the deaths of an untold number of innocent civilians.




American Ground


Book Description

Within days after 9/11, Langewiesche had secured unique, unrestricted, round-the-clock access to the World Trade Center site. "American Ground" is a tour of this intense, ephemeral world and the story of those who improvised the recovery effort day by day.