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Cops go back to college
The Associated Press
(5/7/08)

Feds penetrated drug culture easily at San Diego State

"Undercover agents who posed as college students to bust more than 100 suspected drug dealers at San Diego State University never had to crack a book to gain acceptance on campus. All it took was cash.
The federal agents went to one or two parties but never actually went to class or lived in the dorms. Instead, they merely arranged meetings with suspected dealers and asked about buying cocaine, Ecstasy, methamphetamine, marijuana and other drugs, authorities said Wednesday.
'All it took was saying, Hey, I go to State, can you hook me up?' said San Diego County prosecutor Damon Mosler. 'And then it was off to the races.'
The day after the drug sweep landed members of three fraternities in jail and led to the suspension of six frats, investigators revealed how easy it was to penetrate the university's drug culture.
Students who had gotten caught for fighting, drinking, minor drug offenses or other crimes quickly turned informants and used text messages to introduce their drug dealers to undercover agents. Dealers made handoffs in front of dorms, in parking lots or behind frat houses, sometimes in broad daylight in full view of surveillance cameras.
They apparently made little effort to launder their spoils. One fraternity brother arrested Tuesday drove his Lexus directly from a $400 cocaine sale on campus to a nearby bank, where he deposited the cash, according to court papers.
That came as a surprise to agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration, who were used to being thoroughly screened by dealers scared of being arrested.
'They never gave any thought that we could be doing an operation there,' said Eileen Zeidler, a spokeswoman for the DEA office in San Diego.
At least 75 people arrested during the five-month sting were San Diego State students, and 13 of them were from seven fraternities. All together, there were 128 arrests, 61 on Tuesday. Theta Chi had the highest number of students arrested, with five.
Campus police started the probe a year ago after the cocaine overdose death of a freshman sorority member, but they soon called in federal agents to provide fresh faces on campus and supply the money needed to make drug buys.
That was a major departure from the arms'-length relationship that has existed between colleges and police since the 1960s. For decades, police in many communities have largely turned a blind eye to drugs on campus."

Rumors of immigration agents nearby send Oakland neighborhood into panic
New America Media
(5/7/08)

Immigration Raids Startle Communities in Oakland and Berkeley

"Berkeley High senior Chase Stern said he was taking an Advanced Placement test May 6, when he noticed that his classmates were fidgeting in their seats and seemed distracted.
He soon found out that the Latino students were receiving text messages and phone calls from family members, warning them that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers were nearby, and that they should be cautious and find their way home because family members could not pick them up.
Scores of undocumented parents began to panic as early as 7:30 a.m. May 6, as word got around that ICE vehicles were parked near schools in East Oakland and South Berkeley ...
At about the same time, Oakland Unified School District (OUSD) officials were receiving similar calls from concerned parents and community members that ICE agency vehicles had been spotted near four Oakland schools, including Esperanza Elementary, where parents say they saw agents parked on International Blvd, 98th, 95th, and San Leandro Boulevard, a four block radius surrounding the school ...
As word of the presence of ICE agents in the neighborhood spread, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums rushed over to Esperanza Elementary School, where a number of parents and community members had gathered.
Addressing them, the Mayor called the situation the 'the ugly side of government.'
He labeled the ICE actions 'inappropriate and unnecessary' and reiterated that children needed education, not harassment. 'There should be no raids in Oakland,' he said.
'As a sanctuary city,' Dellums said, 'we're all in unison. We don't want this type of intimidation. Immigrants are human beings, and need to be dealt with respect.'
Oakland Vice Mayor Larry Reid, who also showed up at the school, said there was no warning about the ICE raids. 'ICE just rolls in and tells our police department after the fact," he said. 'The students are upset and crying. The school's administration said some of the kids are very shook up.'
ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice said that the agency is mindful of the sensitivities associated with schools. She said there was no truth to the reports that ICE was targeting schools on this day, and that the two ICE fugitive operations teams based in the Bay Area go out virtually ever day seeking immigrant fugitives."

Acquittal of cop may lead New York City to reform
The Associated Press
(5/8/08)

Protesters who snarled traffic arrested in New York City

"A day after his carefully orchestrated protests briefly blocked rush-hour traffic, the Rev. Al Sharpton on Thursday promised to stage another mass protest over three police detectives' acquittals in the 50-bullet killing of an unarmed man.
The next protest is planned somewhere in New York City within seven to 10 days, said Charlie King, acting national director of Sharpton's National Action Network. He said no other details would be released until next week.
'Yesterday was the beginning of a long and sustained campaign of civil disobedience,' King said ...
The protests were aimed at getting the U.S. attorney's office to pursue civil rights charges against the undercover detectives, who were acquitted of wrongdoing in the shooting last month in state court. Federal prosecutors are reviewing the case but declined to comment Thursday.
Sharpton and relatives of the slain man, Sean Bell, planned to meet privately Thursday with Gov. David Paterson to press for a state law requiring independent prosecutors to investigate police shootings, King said.
Bell was gunned down as he and two friends left his bachelor party at a Queens strip club on his wedding day in November 2006. The shooting stirred outrage and complaints about police conduct. One officer fired 31 bullets, emptying and reloading his gun.
The officers said they believed Bell and his friends were about to get a gun; no firearm was found. Bell's friends, who were seriously wounded, say the police shot without warning, which the officers deny.
Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has said his department is considering disciplinary action against the detectives."

The world's going to hell and it's time to make some big decisions
Spectrezine
(5/7/08)

Globalisation and War

In an address to the international congress of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War in New Delhi, past This is Hell! guest Susan George said, "Corporate-led, finance-driven globalisation has successfully transferred wealth from labour to capital. This has resulted in inequality and exclusion on a massive scale which, combined with the pressure on water and other environmental resources, is likely to fuel new conflicts ...
We face the oldest moral question in the world, whether for religions or for secular political bodies as well as for social movements and civil society organisations. What do the rich owe to the poor, the fortunate to the less fortunate, the educated to the uneducated; the healthy to the ill? Do these obligations, if there are any, apply only to the people in our own societies, to our own countries, or to everyone, everywhere? The kind of globalisation we choose-and I assure you that it is a choice, not a fate to which we must submit-will determine whether there is peace or war. In my mind, there can be no peace without justice.
The other big question concerns the laws and regulations we should demand, in our own interests, so as to keep the market under control and to protect the planet from further destruction. How can we make sure such laws are put in place, particularly in the international arena where there is no democratic machinery? If we do not have enforceable laws and binding rules, the vile maxim of 'All for ourselves and nothing for other people' will continue to prevail, nationally and internationally. We especially need rules which oblige societies to share because, if we are to believe Adam Smith, this is not going to happen spontaneously. This means that we need taxes, including international taxes, in order to promote individual welfare, social cohesion and-the subject that has brought all of us here ... "

New US trafficking legislation redefines sex workers as victims rather than criminals
AlterNet
(5/8/08)

Satisfied Sex Worker or Domestic Trafficking Victim?

Past This is Hell! guest Kari Lydersen writes, "Public and governmental attention has been increasingly focused on victims of international sex trafficking over the past few years, with immigration visas and social services offered to victims. By current legal and social definitions, the girl described above has not been trafficked. But advocates argue the DePaul study shows U.S.-born prostitutes working in the United States should, in many cases, be defined as trafficking victims, exploited and trapped in situations beyond their control. The House version of the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act (TVPRA, also HR 3887), passed overwhelming in December 2007, redefines trafficking to include many domestic prostitutes. If a similar bill is passed in the Senate and becomes law, it will mean that women -- and some men -- in this situation would be treated as crime victims deserving of resources and institutional support, rather than as criminals. And their pimps and traffickers would face increased criminal penalties.
Among other things, the legislation widens the US Department of Justice's definition of trafficking, which currently hinges on the presence of "force, fraud or coercion." The House bill designates trafficking involving force, fraud or coercion as "aggravated trafficking" and expands simple trafficking to include other forms of deceit, manipulation and control including threats, verbal abuse and withholding of support. It also makes sexual tourism to foreign countries a crime akin to importing people to the US for sexual servitude ...
The DePaul study found that, in general, the vast majority of young women in prostitution are controlled by pimps and suffer worse conditions in terms of violence, number of clients and lack of autonomy the longer they stay in the trade. Sixty-four percent of women reported wanting to leave sex work, but 43 percent reported they could not leave without physical harm. Sixty-four percent of women also have a romantic relationship (usually an abusive one) with their pimp, adding extra layers of emotional vulnerability and manipulation to the situation.
The study found that 58 percent of women were transported to different locations for prostitution (26 percent out of state), 53 percent could not keep any of the money they made, and many were watched or guarded when not working -- hallmarks of trafficking situations.
'This is a highly organized sex trade,' said Jody Raphael, co-author of the DePaul study. 'They take these women to where they know there is demand" -- including Las Vegas or the state capitol when the legislature is in session. 'To me, transportation and control equals trafficking.'
The study also confirmed that a majority (57 percent) of women were deceived as to the conditions or terms of their work when they were recruited into prostitution.
For example: 'He told me I would never get hurt. I get hurt on a regular basis.' And, 'He promised we would get rich, and we didn't. He promised no violence; there is violence' ...
The Young Women's Empowerment Project, a Chicago group of youth in sex work, said their experiences with police -- who often demand sexual favors -- and the court system give them no faith that abuses can be addressed through the justice system.
'Making more laws and hoops to jump through will not change this situation,' the group said in a collective statement. 'If adults really want to support young women who trade sex for money, they will keep us away from the criminal legal system -- away from cops and courts and social workers. They will ensure that we have the documentation and the skills that we need to achieve our goals, and they will offer us concrete assistance (jobs, housing, transportation -- where we set the terms of the assistance) rather than roping us in to a larger system that hurts us.'
Raphael said that while she supports the expanded legislation, she doesn't think law enforcement is the key to ending domestic trafficking.
'Communities themselves have to say this is not acceptable,' she said. 'This has been normalized in many communities; that needs to change. Change has to come from the bottom up.'"

America's best, brightest and non-deployable all fighting in Iraq
USA Today
(5/8/08)

43,000 deployed unfit for combat

"More than 43,000 US troops listed as medically unfit for combat in the weeks before their scheduled deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2003 were sent anyway, Pentagon records show.
This reliance on troops found medically non-deployable is another sign of stress placed on a military that has sent 1.6 million servicemembers to the war zones, soldier advocacy groups say.
'It is a consequence of the consistent churning of our troops,' said Bobby Muller, president of Veterans For America. 'They are repeatedly exposed to high-intensity combat with insufficient time at home to rest and heal before redeploying' ...
According to those statistics, the number of troops who doctors found non-deployable but who were still sent to Iraq or Afghanistan fluctuated from 10,854 in 2003, down to 5,397 in 2005, and back up to 9,140 in 2007 ...
This is the first war in which this health screening process has been used, the Pentagon said."

Colombian describes life in President Uribe's intimidation nation
Inter Press Service
(5/8/08)

"Mark Him on the Ballot - The One Wearing Glasses"

"The woman agreed to talk to IPS on the condition that she be asked neither her name (we will call her "L.") nor the name of her village.
The main city in the fertile region of Magdalena Medio is Barrancabermeja, an oil port on the Magdalena River, which runs across Colombia from south to north before emptying into the Caribbean Sea.
What convinced the villagers to vote for Uribe? "Because the region where we live is poor, very poor, it’s so difficult to find work, and when I heard him say I am going to work for the poor, I am going to help them, I thought this is a good president.'
When the rightwing president’s first four-year term came to an end in 2006, most of the villagers decided again to vote for him, reasoning that he just needed more time to reduce poverty.
The odd thing was that in both the 2002 and 2006 elections, despite the fact that the villagers had already decided to vote for Uribe, the far-right paramilitaries, who had committed a number of murders since 1998, when they appeared in the region that was previously dominated by the leftwing guerrillas, pressured the local residents to vote for Uribe anyway.
The paramilitaries did not kill people to pressure the rest to vote for Uribe, as they did in other communities, but merely used 'threats,' said L.
'If you don't vote for Uribe, you know what the consequences will be,' the villagers were told ominously.
And on election day, they breathed down voters’ necks: 'This is the candidate you’re going to vote for. You’re going to put your mark by this one. The one wearing glasses,' they would say, pointing to Uribe’s photo on the ballot, L. recalled.
'One (of the paramilitaries) was on the precinct board, another one was standing next to the table, and another was a little way off, all of them watching to see if you voted for Uribe,' she added, referring to the less than subtle way that the death squads commanded by drug traffickers and allies of the army ensured that L.’s village voted en masse for the current president in both elections.
'We form part of a municipality where there is corruption, from the mayor to town councillors, the police, the army and the justice officials -- in a word, everyone. They are just one single corrupt mass. So what are you supposed to do?' said L., who added that the paramilitaries 'control everything' ...
'Instead of creating jobs for us, what they did was to make us lose the ones we already had,' she said ...
Analysts say that what is collapsing in Colombia today is the legitimacy of the executive branch and the ruling alliance.
The governing parties have set forth several proposals, such as the creation of a special 'institutional adjustment' commission, named by the very legislators who are under scrutiny for their ties to the paramilitaries.
The commission would be an alternative to a proposed referendum in which voters would be able to recall the current members of Congress, and perhaps even the president, or to a referendum on whether or not to convene a constituent assembly to rewrite the constitution."

The fight over Pemex, Mexico's state-run oil company, is gonna get ugly
Inter Press Service
(5/7/08)

Pemex Oozes Corruption

"Funds belonging to the Mexican state oil monopoly, Pemex, have paid in recent years for liposuction treatment for the wife of the company’s chief executive, a presidential candidate’s campaign, contracts with firms facing legal action, and the whims of trade union leaders who are not required to account for their expenses ...
The 70-year-old Pemex, the biggest company in Latin America, which employs 154,761 people, 125,523 of whom belong to the powerful oil workers union, is facing severe financial difficulties and is in dire need of upgrading its technology infrastructure. Moreover, Mexico’s proven oil reserves are expected to run out in nine years.
Billions of dollars are lost to corruption which, according to observers, is deeply rooted in an opaque administration choked with red tape, and in political and economic vested interests.
In April, the conservative government of Felipe Calderón proposed reforms of the company, which would include the creation of an audit committee in charge of ensuring transparency, and would give Pemex greater freedom with respect to making decisions on managing its budget, making purchases, reinvesting earnings in production and exploration and contracting out to private companies.
However, the leftwing opposition parties are fighting the reforms, which they consider privatisation in disguise.
According to a prominent Mexican nongovernmental organisation, Fundar - Centro de Análisis e Investigación (Centre for Analysis and Research), the government’s proposed reforms would "encourage opacity and corruption."

Bush administration, Pentagon cool with rocket fuel in drinking water
The Associated Press
(5/7/08)

EPA Might Not Act To Limit Rocket Fuel in Drinking Water

"An EPA official said Tuesday there's a 'distinct possibility' the agency won't take action to rid drinking water of a toxic rocket fuel ingredient that has contaminated public water supplies around the country.
Democratic senators called that unacceptable. They argued that states and local communities shouldn't have to bear the expense of cleansing their drinking water of perchlorate, which has been found in at least 395 sites in 35 states - or the risk of not doing so.
The toxin interferes with thyroid function and poses developmental health risks, particularly to fetuses."

In Malaysia, blogging about a royal family member's link to murder can get you jailed
Asia Sentinel
(5/6/08)

Malaysian Political Blogger Charged with Sedition

"Raja Petra Kamaruddin, the editor of a popular Malaysian website called Malaysia Today, was ordered jailed Tuesday on sedition charges after a flame-throwing article last month that linked Deputy Prime Minister Najib Tun Razak to the murder of Mongolian translator Altantuya Shaariibuu and accused Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi of withholding evidence about the case.
Altantuya was executed on October 20, 2006, allegedly by two of Najib’s bodyguards at the request of political analyst Abdul Razak Baginda, one of Najib’s closest friends. She had flown to Malaysia to confront Abdul Razak, who had jilted her, and to ask for money for support when she was killed with two bullets to the head and her body blown up with plastic explosives in a patch of jungle near the suburban city of Shah Alam. She was last seen being bundled into a car and driven away from Abdul Razak’s house.
The article, titled 'Let’s Send the Murderers of Altantuya to Hell,' highlighted a series of controversies and irregularities in the trial of Abdul Razak and the two bodyguards, and questioned whether Najib is immune from Malaysia’s laws. The murder trial has been droning on for nearly a year, raising questions of whether it is being deliberately delayed because of the closeness of the three to top political figures ...
The police showed up at Raja Petra’s door last Friday to question him about the matter. He refused to cooperate. On Tuesday, he refused to pay RM5,000 in bail Tuesday in protest of what he called 'political harassment' after being charged, and elected to go to jail instead. There was no indication when he would be released.
'Is it seditious to influence people against corrupt leaders? There is nothing seditious,' he told reporters outside the court where he was charged.
The sedition charge is unusual to say the least, since such charges are laid for conduct or language inciting rebellion against the authority of a state. Although scathing, his questions over allegations that the deputy prime minister was connected to the case hardly appear to constitute inciting rebellion. Some legal authorities in Kuala Lumpur had expected Najib to file suit for defamation, although others pointed out that a civil suit for defamation would expose the deputy premier to motions for discovery and questioning over his relationship, if any, to the dead woman.
The leadership’s depth of irritation over Raja Petra is evidenced by the fact that he has been charged although he is a member of the royal family of Selangor. It is extremely rare for royalty to be charged for any criminal offenses. Some members of royalty have literally got away with murder. However, as a continuing thorn in the side of Malaysian government leaders, he has been arrested and questioned before."

• Think Najib Tun Razak as a kind of Freddy Quimby from "The Simpsons". CM

And here's more from an article with the catchy title, "Let’s Send the Murderers of Altantuya to Hell."
"It is time for Malaysians to push this issue and not allow the murderers who walk in the corridors of power to get away with this vile and evil deed unscathed. It is time to ‘storm the Bastille’. It is time we sent these sorry excuses for human beings to hell where they deserve to be."

Saginaw has the highest amount of dioxin ever found in the US ... and Dow Chemical has friends in DC
Chicago Tribune
(5/2/08)

EPA official ousted while fighting Dow

"The battle over dioxin contamination in this economically stressed region had been raging for years when a top Bush administration official turned up the pressure on Dow Chemical to clean it up.
On Thursday, following months of internal bickering over Mary Gade's interactions with Dow, the administration forced her to quit as head of the US Environmental Protection Agency's Midwest office, based in Chicago.
Gade told the Tribune she resigned after two aides to national EPA administrator Stephen Johnson took away her powers as regional administrator and told her to quit or be fired by June 1.
The call came as the Tribune was preparing to publish a story about the dioxin issue and Gade's crusade.
Jonathan Shradar, an EPA spokesman in Washington, said Gade has been placed on administrative leave until June 1. He declined further comment, saying the agency does not publicly discuss personnel matters.
Gade has been locked in a heated dispute with Dow about long-delayed plans to clean up dioxin-saturated soil and sediment that extends 50 miles beyond its Midland, Mich., plant into Saginaw Bay and Lake Huron. The company dumped the highly toxic and persistent chemical into local rivers for most of the last century.
Many local residents see Dow as a lifeline in region plagued by plant closings and layoffs. But all along the two wide streams that cut through this old industrial town, signs warn people to keep off dioxin-contaminated riverbanks and to avoid eating fish pulled from the fast-moving waters. Officials have taken the swings down in one riverside park to discourage kids from playing there. Men in rubber boots and thick gloves occasionally knock on doors, asking residents whether they can dig up a little soil in the yard.
Gade, appointed by President Bush as regional EPA administrator in September 2006, invoked emergency powers last summer to order the company to remove three hotspots of dioxin near its Midland headquarters.
She demanded more dredging in November, when it was revealed that dioxin levels along a park in Saginaw were 1.6 million parts per trillion, the highest amount ever found in the US
Dow then sought to cut a deal on a more comprehensive cleanup. But Gade ended the negotiations in January, saying Dow was refusing to take action necessary to protect public health and wildlife. Dow responded by appealing to officials in Washington, according to heavily redacted letters the Tribune obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.
Regional EPA administrators typically have wide latitude to enforce environmental laws, but in April Gade drew fire from officials in Washington after she sent contractors to test soil in a Saginaw neighborhood where Dow had found high dioxin levels. The levels in one Saginaw yard were nearly six times higher than the federal cleanup standard, and 65 times higher than what Michigan considers acceptable.
On Thursday, Gade said of her resignation: 'There's no question this is about Dow. I stand behind what I did and what my staff did. I'm proud of what we did.'"

Nothing's happening in the Bush administration
The Washington Post
(5/6/08)

It's About Nothing

"Eight months before the end of his second term, President Bush is forgotten but not gone. Power has shifted to Congress, attention has moved to the campaign trail, and the White House seems at times to be just going through the motions. For many reporters who remain on the White House beat, it has become a time to phone it in -- literally."

Taiwanese 'chequebook diplomacy' scandal
BBC News
(5/6/08)

Taiwanese officials in $30m row

"Two top Taiwanese officials have quit over the loss of $30m (£15m) of public money during a failed attempt to secure diplomatic ties with Papua New Guinea.
Vice Premier Chiou I-jen and Foreign Minister James Huang said they had resigned to take blame for the scandal.
The money was given to two men to broker a deal with PNG in 2006. They are suspected of embezzlement.
China regards Taiwan as part of its territory, and the island often courts small nations in a bid for recognition.
The resignation offers of both Mr Chiou and Mr Huang have reportedly been accepted.
Mr Chiou said at a news conference that he was standing down while the investigation took place, AFP news agency reports.
He added that the inquiry would prove his innocence."

Ecuador finally sending 'Yanqui' home
Miami Herald
(5/5/08)

U.S. base is no longer welcome in Ecuador

"Mayor Jorge Zambrano pulled up to the Manta City Hall in his black Ford Explorer, expecting to find a rally in support of the American military outpost that runs drug-surveillance flights from this gritty port city.
He left an hour later behind a wall of riot shields and a cloud of Mace, as police fended off banner-waving protesters who crashed the event in March.
With 18 months left on its decade-long contract, the US Forward Operating Location in Manta has few friends in this South American nation -- and fewer still who believe that the agreement has any hope of being extended.
Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa has vowed not to renew the base's contract beyond its November 2009 expiration. And politicians drafting a new constitution have proposed banning the base or any other foreign military presence in the country.
If the Manta base closes, it would leave the United States shopping for a new airstrip for the radar-mounted AWAC E3s, and P-3 spy planes that ply the Eastern Pacific, looking for drug runners.
It would also be another dark turn for rapidly deteriorating U.S.-Ecuadorean relations.
The United States sees the Manta compound -- with its manicured lawns and staff of about 150 pilots and crew members -- as part of a multinational effort that helped block $4.2 billion worth of narcotics last year.
But in Ecuador, the Base de Manta is viewed largely as an affront to national sovereignty that threatens to drag the country into the regional drug war."

Video surveillance by British police showing few positive results
The Guardian
(5/6/08)

CCTV boom has failed to slash crime, say police

"Massive investment in CCTV cameras to prevent crime in the UK has failed to have a significant impact, despite billions of pounds spent on the new technology, a senior police officer piloting a new database has warned. Only 3% of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images, despite the fact that Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe.
The warning comes from the head of the Visual Images, Identifications and Detections Office (Viido) at New Scotland Yard as the force launches a series of initiatives to try to boost conviction rates using CCTV evidence."

Wait are you telling me Iran may not actually be involved in Iraq?
Time
(5/5/08)

Doubting the Evidence Against Iran

"American circles in Baghdad and Washington are probably not pleased with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's plan for a special panel to investigate allegations of Iranian interference in Iraq. Many U.S. officials are already convinced of the worst and, for years, US officials have aired accusations against Iran, insisting that Tehran is stoking Iraq's violence by keeping up a flow of money, weapons and trained fighters into the country. The Iraqi government, however, remains unconvinced — with good reason.
Despite having been initiated by the Iraqi government, the offensive by Iraqi security forces against...
'We want to find really good evidence and not evidence made on speculations,' Ali al-Dabbagh, a spokesman for the Iraqi government, told reporters in Baghdad on Sunday. Last week an Iraqi government delegation went to Tehran to discuss the allegations of Iranian involvement in the Iraqi militias, the government said. Details of the evidence presented in Tehran remains hazy, but at the same time American officials in Baghdad and Washington have never offered a convincing case publicly to support their allegations. [In the meantime, Tehran announced that it would not hold a new round of talks — the third of their kind with American representatives — regarding security in Iraq unless the US ceased its operations against Iraqi Shi'ites. American forces have been working with the Iraqi Army against Shi'ite militias in Baghdad's sprawling slum, Sadr City.]
Indeed, the US allegations appear to be based on speculation, spurred by the appearance about a year ago of a new breed of roadside bomb in Iraq ...
Instead, the Americans argued their case publicly with deductive reasoning ...
Taken altogether, the US evidence offered publicly about Iran's supposedly nefarious activities in Iraq is far from a slam-dunk case, a fact Dabbagh was at pains to make when speaking to reporters in Baghdad. 'If it turns out there is hard evidence, the government will deal with it,' Dabbagh said.
The Americans in Iraq, for now, seem content to wait for the Iraqi government to change its view on Iran, a country that al-Maliki and other Iraqi leaders largely see as a friend rather than a foe. 'It looks like now that the government of Iraq wants to set up an official process to discuss Iranian interference with the Iranians, between official representatives of the Iraq government and the official Iranian government and when they do that, they'll gather whatever evidence they find and discuss that in dialogue with the Iranians,' said Rear Admiral Patrick Driscoll, a US military spokesman in Baghdad. 'We've made the case. Now I think it's proper for the Iraqi government to make their case based on their interpretation of the facts, and have a dialogue with the government of Iran.'"

Brazil's case of the murdered nun takes yet another turn
The Associated Press
(5/6/08)

Man in Brazil contradicts testimony about gun in nun case

"The confessed killer of American nun Dorothy Stang contradicted earlier testimony, claiming Monday the gun he used did not come from the rancher accused of ordering her murder.
Rayfran Neves Sales confessed to firing six shots at the 73-year-old nun at close range but denied he had received the gun from co-defendant Vitalmiro Moura, said court spokeswomen Gloria Lima by telephone from Belem, the capital of the Amazon state of Para. Sales said the gun was his own ....
Over the course of three trials and pretrial depositions, Sales has repeatedly changed his testimony, sometimes implicating Moura and at other times seeking to clear him. At his first trial in 2005, Sales stated that he shot Stang after mistaking a Bible she was pulling out of her bag for a gun.
Prosecutors say Sales was offered US$25,000 (euro16,200) to kill the nun because of a dispute over a patch of jungle that she wanted to preserve and ranchers wanted cut down for development. At his last trial, Sales claimed he was acting in self defense.
An accomplice, a middleman and a rancher also have been convicted in connection with the killing ...
Human rights defenders say the prosecutions are a key measure of whether those behind land-related killings can be held accountable in Para state, which is plagued by land-related violence.
Land ownership is hard to trace in the Amazon, and powerful ranchers often resort to forged deeds and violence to drive poor settlers away.
The trial before the seven-member jury is expected to end late Tuesday."

PETA at the races; Euthanized Derby horse should have prize revoked, jockey suspended
The Associated Press
(5/4/08)

PETA wants Eight Belles jockey suspended after filly's death

"People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is seeking the suspension of Eight Belles' jockey after the filly had to be euthanized following her second-place finish in the Kentucky Derby on Saturday.
Gabriel Saez was riding Eight Belles when she broke both front ankles while galloping out a quarter of a mile past the wire. She was euthanized on the track.
PETA faxed a letter Sunday to Kentucky's racing authority claiming the filly was 'doubtlessly injured before the finish' and asked that Saez be suspended while Eight Belles' death is investigated.
'What we really want to know, did he feel anything along the way?' PETA spokeswoman Kathy Guillermo said. 'If he didn't then we can probably blame the fact that they're allowed to whip the horses mercilessly.'
Eight Belles trainer Larry Jones said the filly was clearly happy when she crossed the finish line.
'I don't know how in the heck they can even come close to saying that,' Jones told The Associated Press on Sunday. 'She has her ears up, clearly galloping out.'"

• It is fine to genetically engineer ("breed") them, drug them to the gills, feed them weird food, and gift them with a fancy au naturale life of running in circles a lot - but don't you dare shoot them when they break their legs! Is this like the JFK assassination for PETA nerds?
  What did the jockey feel and when?! ED

President Bush's latest judicial nominee connected to dead convict
AlterNet
(5/5/08)

Meet Gus Puryear: Bush's Latest Villainous Nominee for a Lifetime Judgeship

"In 2004, Estelle Richardson's lifeless and battered body was found on the floor of a Corrections Corp. of America prison cell. Four years later, that unsolved homicide has come back to haunt Republican stalwart 'Gus' Puryear, the nation's top private prison litigator and Bush nominee for U.S. District Court. This is Part I of an AlterNet exclusive, two-part investigative feature by Silja J.A. Talvi ...
It took one year and three months for the four male guards to be charged with reckless homicide. (The female guard was not charged.) During that time period, all four guards were on paid administrative leave. After they were arrested, each posted bail and were quickly released from custody. While the prosecution moved forward, the Richardson family filed the $60 million lawsuit against CCA for being responsible for her murder by failing to provide adequate training and supervision of its guards.
Under Puryear's direction, a bevy of outside lawyers was already hard at work so as to minimize the damage to CCA. Medical experts were brought in to challenge chief medical examiner Dr. Bruce Levy's original autopsy conclusions about the injuries indicating that she had been murdered, who reported that her fatal injuries were several days old and thus could have been self-inflicted or caused by earlier fights with prisoners. CCA's hired pathologist, Dr. William McCormick, went so far as to postulate that the 'cause of the rib and liver injuries is almost certainly the resuscitative attempts made on Ms. Richardson.'
In the process, Puryear and his legal team, while emphasizing their empathy for the family's "tragic loss" and their desire to comply with the investigation, alleged that her death could have been the result of earlier injuries sustained from fights with other prisoners, a seizure or a self-inflicted injury. 'My understanding of the medical experts' opinions is that this raises the possibility that Ms. Richardson could have unintentionally struck her own head against an object or concrete floor (as in the case of a seizure or fall),' Puryear wrote to the Senate Judiciary Committee.
CCA's interpretation of the injuries leading to Richardson's death and a lack of videotaped evidence, provided the necessary level of doubt to help Puryear lessen the PR and financial damage to CCA. Puryear's legal strategy worked. His timing was good: Not only had the medical findings cast doubt on the circumstances surrounding Richardson's death -- something that would making a court victory much harder to obtain -- but severe infighting between economically struggling family members had worn them down. Buie's mother lost custody of Richardson's children. As a result, they were shut out of the lawsuit, although the two of them had always been in the children's lives (and had assumed the primary responsibility of raising the kids when Richardson left for Tennessee), Buie and her mother aren't related to Richardson by blood; they were her mother and sister by adoption.
On February 22, 2006, Puryear personally represented CCA in the final mediation between the company and Richardson's family members. CCA settled with the plaintiffs for an undisclosed sum after plaintiffs dropped all civil actions against the four guards. Citing lack of definitive proof that the four guards caused her death, the Davidson County D.A.'s office dropped all charges against them, while acknowledging that she had, indeed, been killed. Richardson's murder remains unsolved to this day. A story like this isn't particularly unusual within the American prison system. It's not unusual for correctional employees accused of abuses behind prison walls to have charges dropped once enough time has passed -- that is, if charges got filed in the first place. It's certainly not unusual for public and private prison systems to settle lawsuits away from the public eye, reassured by the knowledge that strict nondisclosure clauses can keep aggrieved parties from speaking out.
It's not unusual that Richardson entered the CCA jail as a nonviolent offender with a drug problem, or that she was abused in the confines of an out-of-sight segregation unit. What is unusual is that a woman with so little power in her day-to-day life, particularly in the eyes of the people who arrested, sentenced, and imprisoned her, would heavily influence Puryear's hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee this past February. Much of the reason why Richardson's murder popped back up to haunt Puryear's appointment as a federal court judge is attributable to a former CCA prisoner, Alex Friedmann. It can be said with a fair amount of certainty that Puryear couldn't possibly have seen Friedmann's agitation against his confirmation coming his way. And he certainly couldn't have expected that Estelle Richardson's unsolved murder didn't just go away with a few handshakes, a confidentiality agreement, and a $2 million settlement check."

• And check out this tease for part two: "Puryear battles his opposition with a few unlikely allies, including the lead attorney on the lawsuit against CCA, Thurgood Marshall, Jr., US senators, and bipartisan Tennessee attorneys. What most of them have in common is the company that Puryear has spent over a half-decade defending, the GOP, and a bunch of well-placed campaign donations." CM

Pentagon propagandists double-dipping with military contractors
Center for Media and Democracy
(5/2/08)

What the Pentagon Pundits Were Selling on the Side: Propaganda Meets Corporate Lobbying

"The Pentagon launched its covert media analyst program in 2002, to sell the Iraq war. Later, it was used to sell an image of progress in Afghanistan, whitewash the US detention center at Guantanamo Bay, and defend the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping, as David Barstow reported in his New York Times expose.
But the pundits weren't just selling government talking points. As Robert Bevelacqua, William Cowan and Carlton Sherwood enjoyed high-level Pentagon access through the analyst program, their WVC3 Group sought 'contracts worth tens of millions to supply body armor and counterintelligence services in Iraq,' reported Barstow. Cowan admitted to 'push[ing] hard' on a WVC3 contract, during a Pentagon-funded trip to Iraq.
Then there's Pentagon pundit Robert H. Scales Jr. The military firm he co-founded in 2003, Colgen, has an interesting range of clients, from the Central Intelligence Agency and US Special Operations Command, to Pfizer and Syracuse University, to Fox News and National Public Radio.
Of the 27 Pentagon pundits named publicly to date, six are registered as federal lobbyists. That's in addition to the less formal -- and less transparent -- boardroom to war-room influence peddling described above. (There are 'more than 75 retired officers' who took part in the Pentagon program overall, according to Barstow.)
The Pentagon pundits' lobbying disclosure forms help chart what can only be called a military-industrial-media complex. They also make clear that war is very good for at least some kinds of business ...
Increasingly, news audiences are realizing the many ways in which interested parties skew media coverage. Media outlets need to wake up to that reality and work to strengthen their safeguards in defense of the public interest. Their only alternative is to start composing their next weak and belated mea culpa, in a desperate attempt to protect their ever-dwindling credibility."

Mining boom threatens western US freshwater supply
Environmental Working Group press release
(5/5/08)

Mining Surge Near Colorado River Threatens Drinking Water For 25 Million

"Mining claims near the Colorado River have doubled in the last five years, raising fears that the West's most important waterway - a source of drinking water to 25 million people - could become contaminated by toxic heavy metals, including radioactive uranium waste.
The Colorado, which provides drinking water to Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix, Las Vegas and other cities, and irrigation water for agriculture in California's Imperial Valley - one of the nation's most important sources of food - is under assault by multinational corporations rushing to cash in on record prices for uranium, gold and other metals. Yet under the antiquated 1872 Mining Law, federal officials are virtually powerless to prevent mining even if it would affect the West's most precious commodity.
An investigation by Environmental Working Group (EWG) of Bureau of Land Management records found that hardrock mining claims within 10 miles of the 1,450-mile-long Colorado have increased from 2,568 in January 2003 to 5,545 in January 2008. In that period, claims within 5 miles of the river more than doubled, from 395 to 1,195."

Follow Barack Obama's money all the way back to Wall Street
Counterpunch
(5/5/08)

Obama's Money Cartel

"Wall Street, known variously as a barren wasteland for diversity or the last plantation in America, has defied courts and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) for decades in its failure to hire blacks as stockbrokers. Now it’s marshalling its money machine to elect a black man to the highest office in the land. Why isn’t the press curious about this?
Walk into any of the largest Wall Street brokerage firms today and you’ll see a self-portrait of upper management racism and sexism: women sitting at secretarial desks outside fancy offices occupied by predominantly white males. According to the EEOC as well as the recent racial discrimination class actions filed against UBS and Merrill Lynch, blacks make up between 1 per cent to 3.5 per cent of stockbrokers --  this after 30 years of litigation, settlements and empty promises to do better by the largest Wall Street firms.
The first clue to an entrenched white male bastion seeking a black male occupant in the oval office (having placed only five blacks in the US Senate in the last two centuries) appeared in February  on a chart at the Center for Responsive Politics website. It was a list of the 20 top contributors to the Barack Obama campaign, and it looked like one of those comprehension tests where you match up things that go together and eliminate those that don’t. Of the 20 top contributors, I eliminated six  that didn’t compute. I was now looking at a sight only slightly less frightening to democracy than a Diebold voting machine. It was a Wall Street cartel of financial firms, their registered lobbyists, and go-to law firms that have a death grip on our federal government.
Why is the “yes, we can” candidate in bed with this cartel? How can 'we', the people, make change if  Obama’s money backers block our ability to be heard?
Seven of the Obama campaign’s top 14 donors consisted of officers and employees of the same Wall Street firms charged time and again with looting the public and newly implicated in originating and/or bundling fraudulently made mortgages. These latest frauds have left thousands of children in some of our largest minority communities coming home from school to see eviction notices and foreclosure signs nailed to their front doors. Those scars will last a lifetime.
These seven Wall Street firms are (in order of money given): Goldman Sachs, UBS AG, Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Credit Suisse. There is also a large hedge fund, Citadel Investment Group, which is a major source of fee income to Wall Street. There are five large corporate law firms that are also registered lobbyists; and one is a corporate law firm that is no longer a registered lobbyist but does legal work for Wall Street. The cumulative total of these 14 contributors through February 1, 2008, was $2,872,128, and we’re still in the primary season. 
But hasn’t Senator Obama repeatedly told us in ads and speeches and debates that he wasn’t taking money from registered lobbyists? Hasn’t the press given him a free pass ...
Senator Obama has become the inspiration and role model to millions of children and young people in this country.  He has only two paths now: to be a dream maker or a dream killer. But be assured of one thing: this country will not countenance any more grand illusions."

• This is part one of another two-parter. CM

Is protesting only China an Olympic-size hypocrisy?
Counterpunch
(5/5/08)

Past This is Hell guest David Zirin writes "AND YET, while I support the right of any athlete to speak out and not be silenced by Olympic bureaucrats to make things pleasant for China's rulers, we should also look critically at what it is that people are protesting.
It speaks to a far different set of concerns than those represented by Tommie Smith, John Carlos and the Olympic Project for Human Rights.
Smith and Carlos came to Mexico City to raise awareness about injustices happening in their own country. They wore no shoes on the stand to protest poverty in the United States. They wore beads to protest lynching in the United States. They wore gloves and raised them during the playing of the anthem to signify dissent against the way the African American Olympic athletes were treated. As they said in their founding statement, 'Why should we run in Mexico City only to crawl home?'
Yet none of this 2008 crop of athletes is daring to say that maybe protest begins at home. They are raising concerns about China's policies in Tibet or Darfur, but not the US wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. There are concerns about China's labor standards, but not the way their own sponsors, like Nike, exploit those standards.
No wonder the head of the US Olympic Committee, Chief Executive Jim Scherr, issued a surprisingly benign statement that athletes should 'do what they want to do' but 'shouldn't feel undue pressure to be a part of someone else's cause.' But blaming China for the ills of the world ignores the stubborn fact that there is a reason the games are in Beijing. Western complicity in China's crimes isn't challenged by bashing China."

While an eighth of America is black, one third of African-Americans are busted on drug charges
The New York Times
(5/6/08)

Racial Disparities Found to Persist as Drug Arrests Rise

"Two new reports, issued Monday by the Sentencing Project in Washington and by Human Rights Watch in New York, both say the racial disparities reflect, in large part, an overwhelming focus of law enforcement on drug use in low-income urban areas, with arrests and incarceration the main weapon.
But they note that the murderous crack-related urban violence of the 1980s, which spawned the drug war, has largely subsided, reducing the rationale for a strategy that has sowed mistrust in the justice system among many blacks.
In 2006, according to federal data, drug-related arrests climbed to 1.89 million, up from 1.85 million in 2005 and 581,000 in 1980.
More than four in five of the arrests were for possession of banned substances, rather than for their sale or manufacture. Four in 10 of all drug arrests were for marijuana possession, according to the latest F.B.I. data.
Apart from crowding prisons, one result is a devastating impact on the lives of black men: adult black males are nearly 12 times as likely to be imprisoned for drug convictions as adult white men, according to the Human Rights Watch report.
Others are arrested for possession of small quantities of drugs and later released, but with a permanent blot on their records anyway.
'The way the war on drugs has been pursued is one of the biggest reasons for the growing racial disparities in criminal justice over all,' said Ryan S. King, a policy analyst with the Sentencing Project, who wrote its report, which focuses on the differential arrest rates, not only between races but also among cities around the country. Some cities pursue urban, minority drug use far more intensively than do others.
Both Democratic presidential candidates, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, have strongly condemned the wider racial disparities in arrests and incarceration during their campaigns, although neither has said how to end them.
Two-thirds of those arrested for drug violations in 2006 were white and 33 percent were black, although blacks made up 12.8 percent of the population, FBI data show. National data are not collected on ethnicity, and arrests of Hispanics may be in either category.
'The race question is so entangled in the way the drug war was conceived,' said Jamie Fellner, a senior counsel at Human Rights Watch and the author of its report.
'If the drug issue is still seen as primarily a problem of the black inner city, then we’ll continue to see this enormously disparate impact,' Ms. Fellner said."

In New York City, police stops up over 600% in six years
The New York Times
(5/6/08)

Police Data Shows Increase in Street Stops

"Despite criticism about aggressive policing, New York City police officers stopped more people on the streets during the first three months of 2008 than during any quarter in the six years the Police Department has reported the data.
The 145,098 stops from January through March — up from 134,029 during the same quarter a year earlier — led to 8,711 arrests and put the Bloomberg administration on course for the highest annual total. The numbers also reflect an increased reliance on a practice that has become an emotional flashpoint, particularly after the fatal police shooting of Sean Bell in 2006.
Street stops have gradually increased, to 508,540 in 2006 from 97,296 in 2002, according to departmental statistics. Because more than half of those stopped were black, the increases led some police critics to suggest that minorities were being unfairly singled out, though the police reject such claims ...
'It’s a record number, there’s nothing even close,' said Christopher T. Dunn, the associate legal director of the New York Civil Liberties Union, who has mapped the quarterly numbers provided by the Police Department ...
'The numbers are troubling both because of the number of people stopped and because blacks continue to be, overwhelmingly, the ones who are stopped,' Mr. Dunn said. 'Someone outside the Police Department, like the mayor’s office, the City Council or the Justice Department has now got to step in and demand a public accounting of the department’s stop-and-frisk practices.'
The police have said that while a large percentage of the street stops involve black people, an even larger percentage of crimes involve suspects described as black by their victims.
Mr. Dunn said less than 20 percent of the stops were attributable to a police officer’s response to a report about a suspect. 'The vast majority of stops are the result of a police officer spontaneously stopping someone because of something they claim to have observed on the street,' he said."

If you're pissed about Big Oil's profits then check out Big Food's?
The Independent
(5/4/08)

Multinationals make billions in profit out of growing global food crisis

"Giant agribusinesses are enjoying soaring earnings and profits out of the world food crisis which is driving millions of people towards starvation, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. And speculation is helping to drive the prices of basic foodstuffs out of the reach of the hungry.
The prices of wheat, corn and rice have soared over the past year driving the world’s poor - who already spend about 80 per cent of their income on food - into hunger and destitution.
The World Bank says that 100 million more people are facing severe hunger. Yet some of the world’s richest food companies are making record profits. Monsanto last month reported that its net income for the three months up to the end of February this year had more than doubled over the same period in 2007, from $543m (£275m) to $1.12bn. Its profits increased from $1.44bn to $2.22bn.
Cargill’s net earnings soared by 86 per cent from $553m to $1.030bn over the same three months. And Archer Daniels Midland, one of the world’s largest agricultural processors of soy, corn and wheat, increased its net earnings by 42 per cent in the first three months of this year from $363m to $517m. The operating profit of its grains merchandising and handling operations jumped 16-fold from $21m to $341m.
Similarly, the Mosaic Company, one of the world’s largest fertiliser companies, saw its income for the three months ending 29 February rise more than 12-fold, from $42.2m to $520.8m, on the back of a shortage of fertiliser. The prices of some kinds of fertiliser have more than tripled over the past year as demand has outstripped supply. As a result, plans to increase harvests in developing countries have been hit hard.
The Food and Agriculture Organisation reports that 37 developing countries are in urgent need of food. And food riots are breaking out across the globe from Bangladesh to Burkina Faso, from China to Cameroon, and from Uzbekistan to the United Arab Emirates ...
The revelations are bound to increase outrage over multinational companies following last week’s disclosure that Shell and BP between them recorded profits of £14bn in the first three months of the year - or £3m an hour - on the back of rising oil prices. Shell promptly attracted even greater condemnation by announcing that it was pulling out of plans to build the world’s biggest wind farm off the Kent coast.
World leaders are to meet next month at a special summit on the food crisis, and it will be high on the agenda of the G8 summit of the world’s richest countries in Hokkaido, Japan, in July"

Peruvian supporters of former President Fujimori round up critics, claim they are allied with "inactive" guerillas
Inter Press Service
(5/2/08)

Peru: Government Lashes Out at Human Rights Groups

"The Peruvian government, with the backing of the parliamentary bloc that supports former President Alberto Fujimori, has unleashed a campaign against non-governmental organisations that defend human rights, according to activists and lawyers.
It all started on Apr. 25, when the European Parliament turned down a request by the centre-right European People’s Party (EPP) to add Peru’s Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) to its list of terrorist organisations. The motion was defeated by a vote of 275-271, with 16 abstentions.
The MRTA was one of the guerrilla organisations involved in the 1980-2000 internal armed conflict in Peru.
Later the same day in Lima, the bloc of pro-Fujimori legislators argued in Congress that the European Parliament (EP) rejected the request because a letter sent on Apr. 23 by the Peruvian Human Rights Association (APRODEH) pointed out that the Marxist-Leninist MRTA no longer exists.
'Treason!' clamoured the Fujimorista members of Congress, led by Rolando Sousa, a former lawyer for ex-president Fujimori (1990-2000) who is on trial for a number of human rights violations.
'That letter shows that non-governmental human rights organisations are defending terrorists and insulting the armed forces that fought the terrorists who sowed death all over the country,' said Sousa.
The letter from APRODEH, signed by its leaders Francisco Soberón and Miguel Jugo, says that 'the MRTA has been inactive for eight years, its main leaders are in prison, some have served their sentences, and dozens are no longer linked to the organisation, and are living in many different places around the world.'
If at this point the EP designates the MRTA as a terrorist organisation that continues to exist, it could be used as a pretext to 'persecute social activists and political opponents, accusing them unjustly of terrorism,' the APRODEH letter said. In fact, APRODEH is already providing legal defence for seven Peruvians arrested by the anti-terrorist police in February on their way home from Quito, where they had attended the Second Congress of the Continental Bolivarian Committee (CCB)."

Today is 'No Homework Day.' That is all.

The war profiteering story has everything ... sex, money, crime and corruption ... except US media coverage
Mother Jones
(5/2/08)

Contractors Gone Wild

"Allegations of widespread mismanagement and corruption among private contractors in Iraq are nothing new; if anything, tales of cronyism, over-billing, and embezzlement have become so frequent that our national tolerance for them seems only to have increased as the Iraq War has drawn on. Even so, the testimony earlier this week of three whistleblowers before the Senate's Democratic Policy Committee (DPC) stands out for the sheer outrageousness of their accusations—namely that U.S. private contractors looted Iraqi palaces and ministries, stole military equipment, fenced supplies destined for US troops, and even operated a prostitution ring that may have contributed to the death of fellow contractor. Yet despite its focus on such salacious matters as sex and corruption, the session earned little media attention ...
A theme running through all three witnesses' testimony, aside from the pervasiveness of corruption among private contractors in Iraq, was that blowing the whistle on abuses rarely did any good. As is often the case with whistleblowers, speaking out was a shortcut to getting fired or demoted. 'There's a no-talk, no-speak policy in effect in Iraq about what goes on,' Halley said." (Barry Halley is "a former project manager for Worldwide Network Services, a Washington, D.C.-based firm that was working on subcontract for DynCorp. According to Halley, his site manager in Iraq, who he said was employed by a 'major defense contractor,' moonlighted as the leader of a prostitution ring serving American contractors in Iraq that indirectly caused the death of a colleague.")

That whole torture thing could blow up at any time
Vanity Fair
(May 2008)

The Green Light

"The abuse, rising to the level of torture, of those captured and detained in the war on terror is a defining feature of the presidency of George W. Bush. Its military beginnings, however, lie not in Abu Ghraib, as is commonly thought, or in the 'rendition' of prisoners to other countries for questioning, but in the treatment of the very first prisoners at Guantánamo. Starting in late 2002 a detainee bearing the number 063 was tortured over a period of more than seven weeks. In his story lies the answer to a crucial question: How was the decision made to let the U.S. military start using coercive interrogations at Guantánamo?
The Bush administration has always taken refuge behind a 'trickle up' explanation: that is, the decision was generated by military commanders and interrogators on the ground. This explanation is false. The origins lie in actions taken at the very highest levels of the administration—by some of the most senior personal advisers to the president, the vice president, and the secretary of defense. At the heart of the matter stand several political appointees—lawyers—who, it can be argued, broke their ethical codes of conduct and took themselves into a zone of international criminality, where formal investigation is now a very real option. This is the story of how the torture at Guantánamo began, and how it spread ...
Those responsible for the interrogation of Detainee 063 face a real risk of investigation if they set foot outside the United States. Article 4 of the torture convention criminalizes 'complicity' or 'participation' in torture, and the same principle governs violations of Common Article 3.
It would be wrong to consider the prospect of legal jeopardy unlikely. I remember sitting in the House of Lords during the landmark Pinochet case, back in 1999—in which a prosecutor was seeking the extradition to Spain of the former Chilean head of state for torture and other international crimes—and being told by one of his key advisers that they had never expected the torture convention to lead to the former president of Chile’s loss of legal immunity. In my efforts to get to the heart of this story, and its possible consequences, I visited a judge and a prosecutor in a major European city, and guided them through all the materials pertaining to the Guantánamo case. The judge and prosecutor were particularly struck by the immunity from prosecution provided by the Military Commissions Act. “That is very stupid,” said the prosecutor, explaining that it would make it much easier for investigators outside the United States to argue that possible war crimes would never be addressed by the justice system in the home country—one of the trip wires enabling foreign courts to intervene. For some of those involved in the Guantánamo decisions, prudence may well dictate a more cautious approach to international travel. And for some the future may hold a tap on the shoulder.
'It’s a matter of time,' the judge observed. 'These things take time.' As I gathered my papers, he looked up and said, 'And then something unexpected happens, when one of these lawyers travels to the wrong place.'”

• This time its on the torture of Gitmo prisoners and the higher ups in the White House traveling to make sure it happened. KH

Big Brother China rules online
der Spiegel
(5/2/08)

How China Leads the World in Web Censorship

"The virtual People’s Republic abides by other laws than the rest of the Internet. But how do the communist sentinels of cyberspace manage to control the information flow so precisely?
Surveillance computers form the backbone of the Chinese security system, monitoring the bulk of online communication round the clock. The machines are supported by an army of government censors, whose numbers are estimated at over 30,000. This Herculean effort is on the increase as Internet users multiply at a record rate. As of February, China officially has the most Internet users in the world (221 million to America’s 220.6 million). And what happens in China can easily change the Internet as a whole. Experts believe that the country has already exported its innovative censorship methods to countries such as Iran and Vietnam.
Dozens of media researchers are now studying the architecture of the Great Wall 2.0 with a mixture of horror and fascination. What they’re discovering is how surprisingly dynamic, subtle and state-of-the-art the censors of the 21st century are."

Shell blowing up in Nigeria
BBC News
(5/3/08)

Attack on Shell plant in Nigeria

"Militants in Nigeria have blown up an oil flow station belonging to the Shell company in the Niger Delta, causing it to cut some of its production.
It is the fifth attack on the oil industry in recent weeks, reducing output and pressuring global prices.
It is not yet clear which group was responsible for the attack.
Several previous ones have been blamed on supporters of the militant leader Henry Okah, who is currently awaiting trial on treason charges."

North Carolina voter suppression scheme linked to Hillary Clinton supporter
Wired
(4/30/08)

Washington, D.C., Group Accused of High-Tech Dirty Tricks to Suppress Black Vote

"A DC advocacy group called Women's Voices, Women Vote is being accused of waging a high-tech voter suppression campaign, after voters in predominantly black districts in North Carolina began receiving automated phone calls implying that they hadn't properly registered to vote in the upcoming Democratic primary.
Page Gardner, Women's Voices, Women Vote's president has apologized for any 'confusion' caused by her group's anonymous robocalls to North Carolina voters.
The controversy underscores the mounting tension in the Democratic primary race. Polling in North Carolina currently favors Barack Obama over rival Hillary Clinton for the May 6 Democratic presidential primary there. Blacks, who overwhelmingly favored Obama in primaries in Virginia and Maryland, make up about 22 percent of the population in North Carolina, according to the U.S. Census.
Voters began complaining to The Raleigh News & Observer last week that they were receiving the automated calls, which the paper reported were primarily going to black households. The calls play a 20-second message voiced by a man who calls himself 'Lamont Williams.'
'In the next few days, you will receive a voter-registration packet in the mail,' the Williams recording said. 'All you need to do is sign it, date it and return your application. Then you will be able to vote and make your voice heard. Please return the voter-registration form when it arrives. Thank you.'
The recording does not identify the group behind the calls. But what most concerned some recipients of the calls is that they had already registered to vote. And, notwithstanding the message's promise, the calls were placed well after the deadline for submitting a new registration.
The Institute for Southern Studies, a Durham, North Carolina nonprofit, investigated the mysterious calls and traced them to Women's Voices, Women Vote, a nonpartisan group dedicated to 'improving unmarried women's participation in the electorate and policy process,' according to the group's website. The organization has not endorsed a candidate.
On Wednesday, the women's group acknowledged making the calls, but dismissed the charges of voter suppression. President Page Gardner said the calls were an extension of a legitimate voter-registration drive that the group began in July 2007. In that effort, the group mailed out some 3 million authentic voter-registration cards, after placing automated calls telling residents to expect them ...
The Institute for Southern Studies notes that North Carolina isn't the only state in which Women's Voices, Women Vote has caused a ruckus among voters and election officials, and that many of its officials have connections with Hillary Clinton, either by having worked in President Bill Clinton's administration or through campaign donations.
'Gardner, for example, contributed $2,500 to Clinton's HILLPAC on May 4, 2006, and in March 2005 she donated a total of $4,200 to Clinton, according to the Center for Responsive Politics' OpenSecrets.org. She has not contributed to the Obama campaign, according to the database,' wrote Executive Director Chris Kromm on the institute's blog.
A spokeswoman for Women's Voices, Women's Vote did not return repeated phone calls Wednesday.
The North Carolina Department of Justice is investigating the incident, said Jennifer Canada, a department spokeswoman. North Carolina enacted asked campaigning politicos to voluntarily comply with a political 'do-not-call' list last year, after its residents flooded the state attorney general's office with complaints about political robocalls during the 2006 election season.
Don Powell, who runs a political phone-calling company in Portland, Oregon, says the fact that the autodial campaign was performed anonymously suggests it wasn't an innocent mistake. In general, he says, anonymous, automated campaigns are designed to suppress voter turnout."

When it comes to Texas sex, 'abstinence education' is 'absent education'
Texas Monthly
(5/1/08)

Faith, Hope, and Chastity

"Texas ranks number one in teenage births, which, all told, cost taxpayers at least $1 billion a year. (Twenty-four percent of those births are not the girl’s first delivery.) While the number of teenage births in Texas is actually going down of late, it is decreasing at a slower rate than the nation’s at large. And 52.5 percent of Texas teens are having sex, compared with the national average of 47 percent. Rates of HIV/AIDS infection among teens are currently on the rise. Texas ranks fifth in teenage pregnancy (a number even more disconcerting in light of the fact that the US ranks near the top in this category among developed nations).
To confront these challenges, Texas has become a leader in abstinence education. Thanks in part to the efforts of powerful advocates, from George W. Bush to the Medical Institute for Sexual Health (MISH), based in Austin, the state has endorsed abstinence education as its primary agent to combat teenage sexual activity. Texas now gets more money through Title V, a stream of federal funding for abstinence programs, than any other state, more than $4.5 million a year. The Texas Education Code, written by the Legislature, lists directives with regard to sex education. One states that in the classroom, abstinence must be given more attention than any other approach; another requires that it be presented as the only method that is 100 percent effective at preventing pregnancy, STDs, HIV/AIDS, and the 'emotional trauma associated with adolescent sexual activity.' These two directives haven’t been terribly controversial. Whether 'emotional trauma' results from adolescent sexual activity is debated (studies suggest that activity is a consequence—not a cause—of mental health problems), but critics rarely belabor this point. Health care workers agree that it would be good if teenagers remained virgins.
More problematic is what isn’t taught. No law mandates that methods of contraception be included in sex ed classes, and nowhere in the code is condom instruction encouraged. Teachers in Texas who do promote condom use must cite 'actual use' rates of condom effectiveness, not theoretical rates (more on that later). Only one of the four state-approved high school student health textbooks uses the word 'condom,' and that book reaches only a small percentage of the Texas market. Because the language of the code does not insist on condom instruction, schools are free to leave it out. Garnet Coleman, a Democratic state representative from Houston who has been on the House Committee on Public Health since 1993, explained to me, 'Abstinence-only wasn’t the intent of the legislation, but it de facto became that.”
'What I say we do is absent education,' said David C. Wiley, the president of the American School Health Association and a professor of health education at Texas State University. 'I have never met anyone in all my fifty years that has ever had a comprehensive sex Ed program in their schools—ever. We are raising generation after generation of sexually illiterate adults.'
And the situation is getting worse. Over the past thirty years, the age of the average female at the time of her first menstruation has decreased (about one month per decade), while the age of a person at the time of his or her first marriage has increased (by at least three years). At the same time, children are becoming sexualized earlier than ever before. Recently, Abercrombie & Fitch marketed thong underwear emblazoned with the phrases 'wink, wink' and 'eye candy' for 'tweens'—consumer marketing—ese for seven- to twelve-year-olds. Kids trying to navigate this terrain want to hear from their parents about sex, but only about half of them do. More often, they pick up their information (and misinformation) from magazines, television, the Internet, and their peers. Without a sex Ed curriculum in the classroom that works, these kids, and the taxpayers who end up footing the bill for their mistakes, are extremely vulnerable."

Gross ads turn off Montana meth users
The Economist
(5/1/08)

Shock tactics

"A billboard shows a young girl with vacant eyes and waxy skin, pinned to the ground by a faceless man in a dirty shirt: '15 bucks for sex isn't normal. But on meth it is.' On April 30th the state agreed to take that billboard down, after complaints. But other ads suggest that meth users can expect to contract HIV, beat their mothers and end up in prison.
The ads are apparently effective. In 2005 Montana had one of the highest rates of methamphetamine use in the country, and all the trouble that goes with it. Half of all children in the state's foster-care system, for example, were there because their parents had abused or neglected them while high. But Mike McGrath, the attorney-general, says the state was then 'in denial'.
An aggressive public-awareness campaign was the answer ...
The state now ranks 39th for meth use. According to a report from its attorney-general published last month, the number of teenagers trying the drug dropped by 45% between 2005 and 2007, and Montana's teenagers are now much warier of the drug than their peers nationwide."

Genetically modified foods lead to Monsanto's seed police
Vanity Fair
(May 2008)

Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear

"Gary Rinehart clearly remembers the summer day in 2002 when the stranger walked in and issued his threat. Rinehart was behind the counter of the Square Deal, his 'old-time country store,' as he calls it, on the fading town square of Eagleville, Missouri, a tiny farm community 100 miles north of Kansas City.
The Square Deal is a fixture in Eagleville, a place where farmers and townspeople can go for lightbulbs, greeting cards, hunting gear, ice cream, aspirin, and dozens of other small items without having to drive to a big-box store in Bethany, the county seat, 15 miles down Interstate 35.
Everyone knows Rinehart, who was born and raised in the area and runs one of Eagleville’s few surviving businesses. The stranger came up to the counter and asked for him by name.
'Well, that’s me,' said Rinehart.
As Rinehart would recall, the man began verbally attacking him, saying he had proof that Rinehart had planted Monsanto’s genetically modified (G.M.) soybeans in violation of the company’s patent. Better come clean and settle with Monsanto, Rinehart says the man told him—or face the consequences.
Rinehart was incredulous, listening to the words as puzzled customers and employees looked on. Like many others in rural America, Rinehart knew of Monsanto’s fierce reputation for enforcing its patents and suing anyone who allegedly violated them. But Rinehart wasn’t a farmer. He wasn’t a seed dealer. He hadn’t planted any seeds or sold any seeds. He owned a small—a really small—country store in a town of 350 people. He was angry that somebody could just barge into the store and embarrass him in front of everyone. 'It made me and my business look bad,' he says. Rinehart says he told the intruder, 'You got the wrong guy.'
When the stranger persisted, Rinehart showed him the door. On the way out the man kept making threats. Rinehart says he can’t remember the exact words, but they were to the effect of: 'Monsanto is big. You can’t win. We will get you. You will pay.'
Scenes like this are playing out in many parts of rural America these days as Monsanto goes after farmers, farmers’ co-ops, seed dealers—anyone it suspects may have infringed its patents of genetically modified seeds. As interviews and reams of court documents reveal, Monsanto relies on a shadowy army of private investigators and agents in the American heartland to strike fear into farm country. They fan out into fields and farm towns, where they secretly videotape and photograph farmers, store owners, and co-ops; infiltrate community meetings; and gather information from informants about farming activities. Farmers say that some Monsanto agents pretend to be surveyors. Others confront farmers on their land and try to pressure them to sign papers giving Monsanto access to their private records. Farmers call them the 'seed police' and use words such as 'Gestapo' and 'Mafia' to describe their tactics.
When asked about these practices, Monsanto declined to comment specifically, other than to say that the company is simply protecting its patents. 'Monsanto spends more than $2 million a day in research to identify, test, develop and bring to market innovative new seeds and technologies that benefit farmers,' Monsanto spokesman Darren Wallis wrote in an e-mailed letter to Vanity Fair. 'One tool in protecting this investment is patenting our discoveries and, if necessary, legally defending those patents against those who might choose to infringe upon them.' Wallis said that, while the vast majority of farmers and seed dealers follow the licensing agreements, 'a tiny fraction' do not, and that Monsanto is obligated to those who do abide by its rules to enforce its patent rights on those who 'reap the benefits of the technology without paying for its use.' He said only a small number of cases ever go to trial.
Some compare Monsanto’s hard-line approach to Microsoft’s zealous efforts to protect its software from pirates. At least with Microsoft the buyer of a program can use it over and over again. But farmers who buy Monsanto’s seeds can’t even do that.
The Control of Nature
For centuries—millennia—farmers have saved seeds from season to season: they planted in the spring, harvested in the fall, then reclaimed and cleaned the seeds over the winter for re-planting the next spring. Monsanto has turned this ancient practice on its head....
Farmers who buy Monsanto’s patented Roundup Ready seeds are required to sign an agreement promising not to save the seed produced after each harvest for replanting, or to sell the seed to other farmers. This means that farmers must buy new seed every year. Those increased sales, coupled with ballooning sales of its Roundup weed killer, have been a bonanza for Monsanto.
This radical departure from age-old practice has created turmoil in farm country. Some farmers don’t fully understand that they aren’t supposed to save Monsanto’s seeds for next year’s planting. Others do, but ignore the stipulation rather than throw away a perfectly usable product. Still others say that they don’t use Monsanto’s genetically modified seeds, but seeds have been blown into their fields by wind or deposited by birds. It’s certainly easy for GM seeds to get mixed in with traditional varieties when seeds are cleaned by commercial dealers for replanting The seeds look identical; only a laboratory analysis can show the difference. Even if a farmer doesn’t buy GM seeds and doesn’t want them on his land, it’s a safe bet he’ll get a visit from Monsanto’s seed police if crops grown from GM seeds are discovered in his fields.
Most Americans know Monsanto because of what it sells to put on our lawns— the ubiquitous weed killer Roundup. What they may not know is that the company now profoundly influences—and one day may virtually control—what we put on our tables. For most of its history Monsanto was a chemical giant, producing some of the most toxic substances ever created, residues from which have left us with some of the most polluted sites on earth. Yet in a little more than a decade, the company has sought to shed its polluted past and morph into something much different and more far-reaching—an 'agricultural company' dedicated to making the world 'a better place for future generations.'"