Monthly Archives: May 2012
Egypt’s 31-year emergency detention and arrest law ends – Democratic Underground
Since former President Anwar Sadat’s 1981 assassination, the security forces were empowered to detain and arrest people without charge, keep them locked up despite court releases and extract confessions under torture. Abuses almost always went unpunished. And at one point under the ousted regime of Hosni Mubarak, human rights groups said there were more than […]
Your Hand Will Replace Your Wallet, and Paper Currency | IdeaFeed | Big Think
Responding to a request from the Japanese government to cut rates of ATM fraud, two of the country’s major electronics firms, Hitachi and Fujitsu, are working on a new biometrics system which reads the pattern of veins in your hand as a unique identifier. The technology is not showy and experts consider that a plus. […]
Security | ThinkProgress
Rice told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that the U.S. has less knowledge about the Syrian rebels fighting against Bashar al-Assad than it did about Libyan rebels during that country’s uprising against the dictator Muammar Qaddafi. In the Libyan case, the U.S., through NATO, provided air support but didn’t directly arm the opposition. Reacting to a statement […]
Open Letter to the Australian People from Christine Assange
There have been many public statements made about WikiLeaks and its editor-in-chief Julian Assange that are factually inaccurate. For example, Prime Minister Julia Gillard: It s illegal. Attorney General Nicola Roxon: He fled Sweden and the media generally: Assange is charged/facing charges in relation to Swedish sex allegations . Some of these inaccurate statements are […]
Australian protests erupt over Wikileaks’ Assange | Delimiter | APNS Int.
Overnight in the UK, the country’s Supreme Court ruled that Assange could be extradited to Sweden to face accusations of sex offences. Assange’s supporters have regularly highlighted the danger of the Wikileaks founder being extradited from Sweden to the United States, where the leaked emails from US private intelligence firm Stratfor have suggested a grand […]
Defense Industry Campaign Contributions Create Incentive For ‘Pentagon Pork’ | ThinkProgress
Earlier this month, House lawmakers passed a $643 billion defense budget draft, $4 billion more than the president’s defense budget request and $8 billion more than the cap set on defense spending Congress last year. The bill’s passage brought criticisms from House Democrats and Pentagon officials — including Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Martin […]
Sesame Street composer: U.S. ‘perverted’ my music to torture prisoners | The Raw Story
In a documentary aired Wednesday, Al Jazeera World captures Cerf on camera as he learns for the first time that his music was used by U.S. interrogators.“[The] idea that my music had a role in that is kind of outrageous,” he’s quoted as saying. “This is fascinating to me both because of the horror of […]
ANG | FARC releases French journalist – Colombia news | Colombia Reports
FARC rebels in Colombia released French journalist Romeo Langlois to negotiators on Wednesday, after a month-long international effort to free the kidnapped reporter. “I have never been tied up. I was treated like a guest,” Langlois said upon liberation. “Hopefully the army will continue to take journalists to conflict areas.” via ANG | Internacia Indigeno […]
Defence of artistic freedom ignores Palestinian plight – The Irish Times – Thu, May 31, 2012
N MID-MAY, the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign presented a tour of Ireland featuring, among others, the Palestinian-Canadian performance poet Rafeef Ziadah and the Palestinian-Israeli singer Terez Sliman.These artists are also articulate advocates of the Palestinian cause and of the cultural boycott of Israel. They were made available for interview to the media, including The Irish Times, […]
Indiana prosecuting Chinese woman for suicide attempt that killed her foetus – Democratic Underground
Bei Bei Shuai is at the sharp end of the creeping criminalisation of pregnancy across America. Women who lose their unborn babies – whether in cases of maternal drug addiction or in Shuai’s case a failed suicide attempt – are increasingly finding themselves accused of murder.Speaking publicly for the first time, Shuai told the Guardian […]
Isn’t this a story line on ‘Sons of Anarchy’? Allen West admits he was in ‘white supremacist biker gang’ | Saint Petersblog
Scott Hennen: Is it an attack on a black conservative because he’s a black conservative? Congressman West: ”Oh come on, I mean you know I was the only black member of a white supremacist motorcycle gang, so liberals and there are certain others I would say even within our party that are not comfortable with […]
Prensa Latina News Agency – New Publishing House in Greece to Spread Cuban Five Cause
Athens, May 30 Prensa Latina The Athens-based publishing house Diethnes Vima will put into sale next week the book “Los cinco luchadores cubanos en las carceles de EE.UU.” The Five Cuban Antiterrorist Fighters in U.S. Prisons, author Natasha Terlexi told Prensa Latina on Wednesday. The complete and updated volume pretends to reach an extensive Greek […]
ICC urged to probe Colombia killings – World News | IOL News | IOL.co.za
The Hague -Rights organisations on Tuesday called on the International Criminal Court to probe extra-judicial killings in Colombia, saying citizens were killed by the army and then passed-off as rebels.The International Federation of Human Rights as well as the Colombia, Europe US Coordination “call on the ICC to open an investigation into crimes against humanity […]
North American game plans and the Convention on Genocide
Both the U.S. and Canada have strong laws against the crime of genocide, as required by the U.N. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, of 1948. Despite ongoing threats to surviving Indigenous peoples and a genocide against the peoples of Iraq, the Convention is not invoked, and in North America […]
Chen Guangcheng, now in U.S., poised to play role in yet another abortion debate – Democratic Underground
Source: Washington PostConservatives are seizing on the high-profile story of Chen Guangcheng, the blind Chinese activist who recently arrived in the United States, hoping that the spotlight on his human rights work will bolster their efforts to curb abortions domestically and in China.Antiabortion groups, including National Right to Life and the Susan B. Anthony List, […]
2 Israeli policemen found guilty of homicide | Occupied Palestine | فلسطين
An Israeli court has convicted two police officers of negligent homicide in the death of a Palestinian man who was left to die on the side of a road.On Monday, the al-Quds Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court convicted Assaf Yekutieli and Baruch Peretz of causing the death of Omar abu-Jribran by dumping him on the side of […]
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