November 18, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Despite urging from the Russian prosecutors and the potential national-security implications of a case involving at least one former FSB (successor to KGB) agent, the trial of those accused of conspiring in the killing of journalist Anna Politkovskaya will be held in open court. The first trial hearings began “behind closed doors”, and Karina Moskalenko —a human rights lawyer working with Politkovskaya’s family— was allegedly poisoned while in France.
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November 18, 2008 :: Evelyn Winston Perez :: No Comment Yet
A federal judge in Miami has ordered the Curação Drydock Company to pay $80 million in damages and fines for enslaving workers shipped to Curação from Cuba. The workers were reportedly forced to work up to 112 hours per week at just 3 cents (US$0.03) per hour. As CSM reports: “Their passports were seized at the airport and they were rarely allowed to leave the shipyard complex…”
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November 17, 2008 :: Evelyn Winston Perez :: No Comment Yet
Socio-economic issues linked to the disparate treatment of racial groups still plagues much of Brazil’s population and impedes the modernization of its economy. Though the Amazon nation is booming, and has become a world leader among developing market economies, the current president, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, took office promising to finally rid the dense, remote rainforest of de facto slavery.
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November 17, 2008 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
The Iraqi cabinet has approved a security deal with the US, governing the role of US forces in the country. According to the deal, the US will withdraw its soldiers from Iraqi streets sometime in 2009 and will withdraw entirely from Iraq by the end of 2011. The Associated Press has circulated a photo of Iraqi police dancing with a US soldier in apparent celebration of the withdrawal agreement.
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November 16, 2008 :: Denver Lessing :: One Comment
Since California voted to ban same-sex marriage —legal there since a state supreme court ruling finding in favor of gay marriage rights on constitutional grounds— on 4 November, there have been daily demonstrations against the ban. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has expressed his hope that the ban will be overturned or repealed. On Saturday, 11 days after the ban was voted in by referendum, a nationwide rally for same-sex marriage rights achieved unprecedented numbers, with a presence in all 50 states.
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November 14, 2008 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
The United States Army today made Ann E. Dunwoody, a Lieutenant General, the first woman to reach the rank of four-star general in the history of the United States military. She is said to have thus broken the “brass ceiling”, which has prevented women reaching the highest ranks, in part owing to their being legally barred from serving in “front-line” combat.
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November 10, 2008 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
A new report —drawing from “More than a half-dozen officials, including current and former military and intelligence officials as well as senior Bush administration policy makers, [who] described details of the 2004 military order on the condition of anonymity because of its politically delicate nature”— says the United States has conducted more than a dozen secret special forces raids, across borders around the globe to target Al Qaeda or other terrorist-linked sites, since 2004.
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October 31, 2008 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
Now, Therefore THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY proclaims THIS UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS as a common standard of achievement for all peoples and all nations, to the end that every individual and every organ of society, keeping this Declaration constantly in mind, shall strive by teaching and education to promote respect for these rights and freedoms and by progressive measures, national and international, to secure their universal and effective recognition and observance, both among the peoples of Member States themselves and among the peoples of territories under their jurisdiction.
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October 31, 2008 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
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October 24, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
According to a new report from Reporters sans Frontiers, the United States is tied for 36th in the world for press freedom, with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cape Verde, South Africa, Spain and Taiwan. Of the nations that rank above the US, the report lists Mali, Ghana, Namibia, Jamaica, Surinam, as well as states formerly controlled by the Soviet Union such as the three Baltic states —Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania—, and Slovakia. France ranked 35th, just ahead of the US.
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October 10, 2008 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
The Supreme Court of the state of Connecticut has ruled a lower-court ruling forbidding same-sex marriage violates the constitutional rights of homosexual citizens. The ruling makes Connecticut the third state to provide for legalization of same-sex marriage, after Massachusetts and California. This November, California voters will decide on whether the state’s constitution can be amended to ban same-sex marriages.
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September 2, 2008 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
The Republican party kicked off its nominating convention in St. Paul, Minnesota, last night, with a heavy focus on the plight of those displaced by Hurricane Gustav. Fortunately, the storm did not turn out to be “the storm of the century”, but it did leave over 1 million homes and businesses without electricity along the Gulf coast. So in an effort to avoid anything resembling the perceived indifference with which the catastrophic aftermath of Hurricane Katrina was met, the GOP has devoted significant time to voicing its support for efforts to send aid to the Gulf coast.
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August 29, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Last night, Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) told the Democratic National Convention that “at defining moments like this one, the change we need doesn’t come from Washington. Change comes to Washington.” John McCain has chosen a vice-presidential running mate from as far away from Washington as you can get: first-term Alaska governor Sarah Palin, a strong backer of new drilling and a young female conservative with a reputation for reform. The pick appears in many ways designed to inoculate the McCain campaign against a number of the advantages the Obama-Biden ticket has accumulated.
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August 28, 2008 :: staff :: 2 Comments
Five score years ago, a great American, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This momentous decree came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of Negro slaves who had been seared in the flames of withering injustice. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night of their captivity.
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August 27, 2008 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
On the opening night of the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado, police arrested a man during a traffic stop. Tharin Gartrell was detained on weapons and drugs charges, then linked to a possible plot to assassinate Sen. Obama in Denver. After Gartrell was linked to a local hotel where more arrests ensued, and one suspect said his associates had discussed killing Barack Obama. The group are alleged to be white supremacists, but police say they believe there is now no credible threat from this group to Sen. Obama during his appearance on Thursday.
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August 16, 2008 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
CNN has shown images of Russian tanks advancing to their closest perimeter around the Georgian captial, Tbilisi, since the invasion began, even as US Secretary of State Rice is in the capital, urging a Russian pullout, and persuading the Georgian president to sign a potential peace accord. Rhetoric from the US administration has reached the level of ordering Russia to withdraw or face long-term consequences in its relationship with the US and its standing on the international stage.
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August 13, 2008 :: staff :: One Comment
Separatist rebels on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao are engaged in intensifying clashes with government forces, and reports suggest as many as 130,000 civilians have fled their homes to escape the violence. Now, observers have expressed concern of a mounting humanitarian disaster, with refugees in danger and supplies running short or unable to reach some remote areas. The violence has intensified after a Supreme Court ruling blocked the implementation of an expanded ethnic Muslim territory.
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August 12, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Reports of Russia’s escalation of the invasion of Georgian territory suggest more than 10,000 ground troops are now in South Ossetia, and ballistic missile attacks (at least 15 fired so far) have included targets across the entire Georgian state. Georgian pres. Mikhail Saakashvili has been forced to seek cover, as security forces feared he was in danger of being hit by a Russian airstrike.
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August 11, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
News reports suggest that 7 bomb suspects and at least one security guard were killed after a bombing attack on police and government facilities in China’s far western Xinjiang province. Xinjiang is one of the regions that many believe may attempt to separate from China, if there is any opportunity, political or military to do so. There are active separatist movements there, a large Muslim population that wants independence from Communist China, and they see the example of former Soviet republics of central Asia as evidence that independence is possible.
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August 7, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
The government of US pres. George W. Bush has staked its legacy in the “war on terror” on a series of military tribunals, in which it intends to bring to judgment a number of accused terrorist suspects held at the US naval facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. After a series of setbacks, including rulings against proposed prosecution procedures on Constitutional grounds, and the granting of access for detainees to federal appeals courts, the first “military commissions” judgment was handed down yesterday, showing some of the cracks in the process.
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August 4, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
The new book, The Dark Side, by Jane Mayer, goes to the roots of the Bush administration’s bold modifications to long-standing security policy, including an apparent devotion to the use of extreme interrogation methods, classed by both law and judicial precedent as torture, to extract information from detainees, despite such actions negating the possibility of any established form of prosecution based on such evidence.
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July 23, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Zimbabwe’s opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai has reportedly signed an agreement with the government of Robert Mugabe to meet to discuss a power-sharing arrangement between the ruling Zanu-PF party and Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change, which many believe won disputed elections outright earlier this year. The meeting would be the first face to face meeting in ten years between the rivals.
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July 16, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
The Hague human rights court’s prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo, investigating allegations of war crimes and genocide in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, has recommended to the International Criminal Court it indict Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and genocide. Bashir would be the first serving head of state to be indicted by the court.
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July 11, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
President George W. Bush yesterday signed an update to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) into law, after the Senate passed the controversial legislation, giving telecommunications firms retroactive immunity for cooperating with warrantless wiretapping conducted on American citizens, with no foundation in US law and in direct violation of the original FISA law, and the US Constitution. A federal court had ruled that the warrantless wiretaps violated the US Constitution, prompting a move by Pres. Bush and his allies in Congress to pass a new law correcting the legal problem.
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July 2, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
A 3-judge panel on the DC-circuit Court of Appeals has ruled against the evidentiary grounds on which the Pentagon has held Huzaifa Parhat, a Uighur Muslim from western China, for 6 years as an enemy combatant. The government argued it had grounds to hold Parhat because the charges they allege against him had been repeated in three secret documents; evidence supporting the claims has not been made public.
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June 29, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Zimbabwe’s 5-term president Robert Mugabe, the only one since liberation from the British nearly 3 decades ago, looks poised to serve a 6th term after holding a “presidential runoff election”, in which his opponent was forced to withdraw due to allegations of constant violence and intimidation from ruling-party supporters and paramilitaries. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai had asked his supporters to vote for Mugabe if they felt their safety would otherwise be in jeopardy.
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June 27, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Thursday’s 5 to 4 ruling by the US Supreme Court, in the District of Columbia v. Heller case [PDF], overturns a 30-year ban on handguns in the capital, Washington, DC. Gun rights advocates say it vindicates a basic Constitutional right, while gun-control advocates say it distorts the founders’ intentions and endangers innocent civilians. Some now fear a massive increase in violent crime, which had been curbed by increasingly severe gun-control laws in many urban centers.
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June 23, 2008 :: Denver Lessing :: No Comment Yet
Pres. Robert Mugabe has been accused by the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, as well as numerous independent observers, of using state-backed and paramilitary violence to intimidate his opponents and “rig” the vote scheduled for 27 June. Now, the MDC’s leader Morgan Tsvangirai has withdrawn his candidacy for the vote, calling the entire process illegitimate. Tsvangirai won more votes than Mugabe in the 1st round of voting, even by the state’s official count, which many believe may have been manipulated in order to force a runoff.
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June 23, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Democratic and Republican leaders have reached an agreement on legislation that would expand the government’s legal right to wiretap foreign suspects on American soil, including up to 7 days surveillance on Americans, where such a method is deemed necessary to target foreign suspects. Warrants will not be passed over completely, and the bill should bring government policy in line with Constitutional provisions on privacy.
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June 15, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
The US Supreme Court has taken its fourth serious action in limiting the expanded war powers claimed by the administration of Pres. George W. Bush. Observers who favor the president’s views have sought to accuse the court of “liberal” behavior, but 7 of the 9 justices were appointed by Republican presidents. In fact, the Court has moved to scale back revolutionary expansions of legal authority claimed by the executive branch. And, the four rebukes to White House claims in this time of war, are a historic intensification of the Court’s role in protecting the Constitution’s basic principles.
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June 13, 2008 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
The United States Supreme Court has ruled 5 to 4 that individuals held in detention at the US naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, can appeal their detention in US civilian courts. The ruling cites the intended permanence of Constitutional safeguards and their relevance to all US government prosecutions. Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony Kennedy explains “The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times”.
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June 7, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
There is a more than notable tendency among human beings to adopt profound attachments to other human faces, even if those faces are known not as flesh but only as patterns of light. In the much-seen, or much-envisaged, visage, there comes an air of the familiar, almost the attachment of identity. The face celebrated either by adoration or by derision can have the effect of assisting in a psychology whereby the individual sees him or herself in the face of another.
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June 7, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
In a not-too-thinly-veiled effort to rig the outcome of the 27 June runoff election, in which Robert Mugabe (Zanu-PF), incumbent with 28 years in power, will contest Morgan Tsvangirai (MDC), the Mugabe regime has attacked foreign diplomats looking into charges of state-sponsored violence, banned all NGOs from the country, cracked down on foreign press, and beaten and detained members of the opposition. Tsvangirai has been detained twice in the last week.
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June 2, 2008 :: staff :: No Comment Yet
The human rights group Reprieve has accused the United States government of using military ships as offshore prisons, to hold an unknown number of individuals detained in the war on terror (ranging from Africa to south and central Asia, and possibly southeast Asia). It names two specific vessels as likely involved, and suspects as many as 17 have been used in this way. The group has called on the US administration of Pres. George W. Bush to name all individuals held, their location, condition, reason for detention and to permit a normal criminal defense.
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May 10, 2008 :: jr3o :: No Comment Yet
As multiple nations scramble to get aid supplies into position, and UN negotiators attempt to persuade the military junta to accept international rescue, health and food assistance, the generals ruling the country have turned away aid, seized aid packages while expelling aid-workers and sought to prevent journalists from entering the country. Some suspect the behavior, which one UN official called “unprecedented”, is tied to the junta’s aim of manipulating a referendum on its proposed constitution.
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May 8, 2008 :: jr3o :: No Comment Yet
As aid agencies warn of the threat of starvation, infection and epidemic, the junta of generals that rules Burma (which they have renamed Myanmar) is refusing access to most foreign aid being offered. The top US diplomat in the country has said the death toll could reach as high as 100,000 and some observers have said the junta has done little to collect the bodies floating in lingering flood waters.
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April 11, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
The Zimbabwe opposition party Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), led by Morgan Tsvangirai, has been meeting with African leaders in an effort to shore up support against the regime of Robert Mugabe, which preliminary vote counts suggest may have lost the recent election, both for parliament and the presidency. Mugabe’s suppoerters have been fighting to keep down opposition support, while Mugabe has refused to allow vote counts to be made public.
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March 31, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
Demonstrations against Chinese rule in Tibet turned violent in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, yesterday, as police wielded bamboo clubs and beat demonstrators, including Buddhist monks and nuns. The UN has said Nepal’s harsh clampdown on Tibetan demonstrators violates international human rights law, including the right to peaceful assembly, as embodied in treaties signed by Nepal.
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March 25, 2008 :: J.E. Robertson :: No Comment Yet
We are on the verge of a major communications and global economic revolution, in which major media, technological advances, cloud computing and dispersed optimization, adapt to and take over new models for living and producing in human society. The New Scientist magazine reports in its March 15-21, 2008 edition that “web 3.0 will be about making information less free”.
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March 22, 2008 :: admin :: One Comment
The Chinese government’s military crackdown on demonstrators in Tibet and in neighboring Chinese provinces has been intense, though foreign media have been unable to confirm reports of mounting death tolls. In Sichuan province, there are allegations of 23 killed by security forces in one incident, including a 16-year-old. Reports of mounting fear among civilians in Tibet and Sichuan have become common in recent days.
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March 17, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
A revolutionary web-based social networking project, Witness.org has created a platform for delivering evidentiary video documenting human rights abuses for the collective conscience of the online world. ‘The Hub’, as the video sharing platform is called, is designed to ensure that individuals who have documented potential human rights abuses, or who are able to give […]
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March 16, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
Two days after peaceful demonstrations across Tibet turned violent in the capital Lhasa, the Reuters news agency has reported that the violent clashes between protesters and Chinese security forces have spread to neighboring provinces. Supporters of the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, say they have confirmed at least 80 deaths among demonstrators.
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March 15, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
International media reports say that sources in the Tibetan exile community, from India to New York, have confirmed that at least 30 civilian demonstrators were killed by Chinese security forces as they moved to end a demonstration in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, on Friday. Demonstrations had begun on Monday, and for four days, reports suggest the majority of demonstrations were peaceful.
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March 13, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
13 March :: The Environmental Protection Agency plans to tighten standards for ground-level ozone pollution, reducing the maximum allowable from 84 parts-per-billion to 75 ppb over an 8-hour period; critics say “implementation could be decades away”, depending on regulatory procedure and court review; last year, an official review suggested maximum allowable ozone levels of 60 […]
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February 29, 2008 :: admin :: One Comment
For the first time in the nation’s history, 1 in every 100 adults in the United States is behind bars. Fully 1% of the adult population is in prison. The US incarcerates more people than any other nation in the world, including Communist China, with a population more than 4 times the size. The US […]
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February 17, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
17 February :: Kosovo to declare independence from Serbia today, according to reports from Pristina, EU agencies; EU officials said “around 1,900 international police officers, judges, prosecutors and customs officials and approximately 1,100 local staff will be based in headquarters in Pristina or located throughout the judicial and police system in Kosovo”, according to CNN, […]
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February 5, 2008 :: admin ::
