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Russia 'is now a criminal state', says Bill Browd

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

BBC News - Nov. 23 (Special Report) - "When Putin first showed up and said he was going to tame the oligarchs, I was the biggest fan of that particular concept. Then I realised that what he meant by taming the oligarchs was sticking law enforcement people in their place," he says.

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Sri Lanka refugees 'to be freed'

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

BBC News - Nov. 21 (News Report) - Sri Lanka says refugees living in camps after the fight against the Tamil Tigers will have freedom of movement from next month.

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Whose Team Is It, Anyway?

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Nation - By Katha Pollitt - Nov. 20 (Opinion) - Pro-choice voters have been taking one for the team for too long now. Enough already.

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Senators Press Holder to Declassify Key Facts about Patriot Act

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Salem-News.com - Nov. 19 (News Report) - We believe that the information we referenced in those paragraphs – specifically about the use of section 215 – is essential to understanding the full scope of the PATRIOT Act, which is about to be debated in Congress. As we said in June, if you have concerns about declassifying the specific language contained in our letter, we ask that you work with us to find language that conveys enough information to allow for an informed public debate on the PATRIOT Act’s reauthorization

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Health Care, Not Assimilation

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

TruthOut - By Frank Joseph Smecker - Nov. 14 (Opinion) - While the health care reform debate continues throughout the country, America's indigenous peoples suffer from some of the worse conditions imaginable.

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Obama China Trip: Human Rights Activists Face Detention, Warnings

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

TruthOut - By Peter Ford - Nov. 13 (News) - While President Obama meets Chinese leaders and converses with handpicked groups of youths on his visit to China next week, another group of citizens expect to be staring at the walls of their apartments.

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Israeli Rabbi's Guide to Killing Causes Firestorm

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

themedialine.org - By Benjamin Joffe-Wait - Nov. 10 (Review) - The book further states that Jews are permitted to kill children "If it is clear they will grow up to harm us." "If hurting an evil leader's children will pressure him to stop acting maliciously," Rabbi Shapira wrote, "you can hurt them."

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Gay-rights support stops at Cascades

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Seattle Times - By Lornet Turnbull - Nov. 05 (News Report) - The lopsided results over expansion of the state's domestic-partnership law, which voters overall were approving, show the challenge supporters of gay rights face in winning over all Washingtonians as they seek full equality.

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Lawrence Wright: What really happened during the Israeli attacks?

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

New Yorker - By Lawrence Wright - Nov. 04 (Special Report) - rom the Israeli perspective, at least, the Gaza problem was supposed to have been solved in August, 2005, when Ariel Sharon, then the Prime Minister, closed down the Jewish settlements on the Strip and withdrew Israeli forces. The international community and the Israeli left wing applauded the move. But, almost immediately, mortar and rocket attacks from the Strip multiplied. Five months later, Hamas won its parliament victory. Ari Shavit, a prominent columnist for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, told me recently in Jerusalem, “We dismantled the settlements, and then we sat back and said, ‘Let’s have a new beginning.’ What we got was rockets and Gilad Shalit. People became very angry, and Shalit becomes an icon of that frustration.”

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Protesters, Police Clash In Tehran On Anniversary Of U.S. Embassy Takeover

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Radio Free Europe - By Golnaz Esfandiari - Nov. 04 (News Report) - As Iran held anti-U.S. rallies to mark the 30th anniversary of the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, security forces clashed in the capital with opposition supporters who renewed their protest against the reelection of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.

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The St. Petersburg Times - News - Gorbachev, Bush, Kohl Remember Cold War

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

sptimes.ru - By Agence France Presse - Nov. 03 (News Report) - Helmut Kohl, George Bush, and Mikhail Gorbachev hailed their excellent relations at a Berlin cabaret on Saturday, 20 years after the Cold War leaders watched over the Wall’s fall.

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UN Panel Criticizes Russia on Human Rights

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

sptimes.ru - Nov. 03 (News Report) - Russia fails to protect journalists, activists, prison inmates and others at odds with authorities from a wide range of abuses, including torture and murder, the UN Human Rights Committee said Friday.

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Cluster bomb trade funded by world's biggest banks

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Guardian - By Nick Mathiason - Oct. 29 (News) - The deadly trade in cluster bombs is funded by the world's biggest banks who have loaned or arranged finance worth $20bn (£12.5bn) to firms producing the controversial weapons, despite growing international efforts to ban them.

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Thirsty Gaza

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

BBC News - By Heather Sharp - Oct. 27 (News Report) - Gaza's aquifer and only natural freshwater source is "in danger of collapse," the UN is warning. Engineers have long been battling to keep the densely populated strip's water and sewage system limping along. But in September the UN Environment Programme warned that damage to the underground aquifer - due to the Israeli and Egyptian blockade, conflict, and years of overuse and underinvestment - could take centuries to reverse if it is not halted now.

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Latinos to CNN: Are You With Us or Against Us?

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By Manuel Avendano - Oct. 22 (News) - Dozens of angry demonstrators gathered in Manhattan on Wednesday to demand that the cable news network CNN fire its prime-time anchor Lou Dobbs for his denigration of Hispanic immigrants.

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State won't prosecute officers filmed beating Palestinians

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Haaretz - By Liel Kyzer - Oct. 21 (News) - Deputy State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan rejected an appeal against the decision not to investigate Border Police officers who documented themselves abusing Palestinians.

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Help Israeli Human Rights Activist Ezra Nawi

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

supportezra.net - Oct. 21 (Not sure) - The Palestinians in this small desolate area in the very south of the West Bank have been under Israeli occupation for almost 42 years; they still live without electricity, running water and other basic services, and are continuously harassed by the Jewish settlers who constantly violate both Israeli and International law, and are backed by a variety of Israeli military occupation forces, all of which operate in an effort to cleanse the area from its Palestinian inhabitants and create a new demographic reality in it.

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Rights Watchdog, Lost in the Mideast

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Robert L. Bernstein - Oct. 20 (Opinion) - Human Rights Watch had as its original mission to pry open closed societies, advocate basic freedoms and support dissenters. But recently it has been issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.

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My mission - and motivation

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Jerusalem Post - By Richard Goldstone - Oct. 20 (Opinion) - I begin with my own motivation, as a Jew who has supported Israel and its people all my life, for having agreed to head the Gaza mission. Over the past 20 years, I have investigated serious violations of international law in my own country, South Africa, in the former Yugoslavia, in Rwanda and the alleged fraud and theft by governments and political leaders in a number of countries in connection with the United Nations Iraq Oil for Food program. In all of these, allegations reached the highest political echelons. In every instance, I spoke out strongly in favor of full investigations and, where appropriate, criminal prosecutions. I have spoken out over the years on behalf of the International Bar Association against human rights violations in many countries, including Sri Lanka, China, Russia, Iran, Zimbabwe and Pakistan.

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African Children Denounced As "Witches" By Christian Pastors

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Huffington Post - Oct. 18 (Special Report) - EKET, Nigeria — The nine-year-old boy lay on a bloodstained hospital sheet crawling with ants, staring blindly at the wall. His family pastor had accused him of being a witch, and his father then tried to force acid down his throat as an exorcism. It

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Op-Ed Columnist: Fie, Fatal Flaw!

Sun, 18 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

New York Times - By Maureen Dowd - Oct. 18 (Opinion) - President Obama’s legislative career offers cautionary tales about the toll of constant consensus building.

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Judge Finds Abusive Gitmo Interrogations Yield False Confessions, Bad Info

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

AlterNet - By Christopher Flavelle - Oct. 15 (News Report) - A few weeks ago, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia released a declassified version of a judge’s ruling in the case of Al Rabiah, a Kuwaiti citizen who has been held at Guantanamo for seven years. The judge, Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, found that the government could not credibly support its allegation that Al Rabiah was part of the Taliban or al-Qaida, and that the evidence against him wasn’t sufficient to justify his continued detention. She ordered the government to release Al Rabiah "forthwith."

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Al Jazeera English - Middle East - UN delay on Gaza report condemned

Sun, 04 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Aljazeera - By Aljazeera - Oct. 04 (News Report) - New York Daily News. UN delay on Gaza report condemned. Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip have condemned the decision by the UN to defer voting on the Goldstone report, that highlighted war crimes by Israel and Hamas during the formers' offensive on the territory in December. ...

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Tehran's worst fear is a sustained and well-funded human rights campaign.

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Slate - By Anne Applebaum - Sep. 29 (Opinion) - Very few security experts point out that there is another option. What do Iran's rulers truly fear, after all? I'll wager it's not sanctions, and it might not be a bombing raid. An economic boycott can be circumvented, after all, with the help of Venezuela or maybe the Russian mafia, and an attack on Iranian soil might help the regime once again consolidate power. By contrast, a sustained and well-funded human rights campaign must be a truly terrifying prospect. What if we therefore told the Iranian regime that its insistence on pursuing nuclear weapons leaves us with no choice other than to increase funding for dissident exile groups, to smuggle money into the country, to bombard the airwaves with anti-regime television programming, and above all to publicize widely the myriad crimes of the Islamic Republic of Iran?

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Police Use Painful New Weapon on G20 Protesters

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

TruthOut - By Allison Kilkenny - Sep. 28 (News) - This technology has been deployed in Iraq as an "anti-insurgent weapon" - it could easily be used as a torture tool.

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