Apr
22
2013
On Tuesday, April 9, Lakota elders, activists and nonindigenous supporters marched through the streets of Manhattan to the United Nations, where they attempted to present a petition to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon. Entitled the Official Lakota Oyate Complaint of Genocide Based on the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, the petition listed the numerous injustices faced by the Lakota people. (Oyate is a Sioux word for “people” or …
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Apr
22
2013
Lynne Stewart, in the vindictive and hysterical world of the war on terror, is one of its martyrs. A 73-year-old lawyer who spent her life defending the poor, the marginalized and the despised, including blind cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, she fell afoul of the state apparatus because she dared to demand justice rather than acquiesce to state sponsored witch hunts. And now, with stage 4 cancer that has metastasized, spreading to her lymph nodes, …
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Apr
22
2013
A US drone strike in Yemen killed two people described in corporate media as suspected al Qaeda militants on Sunday, the second such attack in the country in less than a week.
The strike hit a house in Wadi Adeeda in the Marib province, east of the capital, which was reportedly storing weapons.
Agence France-Presse adds: “A tribal source said the strike was followed by ground clashes in which two Yemeni soldiers and a militant were killed.”
The …
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Apr
22
2013
At least four countries that had not used the death penalty in some time — India, Japan, Pakistan and Gambia — resumed doing so last year, the rights organization Amnesty International says in its annual compilation of capital punishment trends.
Amnesty, the London-based group that has made abolition of the death penalty one of its signature causes, also says the number of executions in Iraq nearly doubled in 2012 compared with a year earlier, which …
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Apr
22
2013
Victims and family members are still waiting for the Indonesian authorities to provide them with truth, justice and full reparation almost eight years after the end to the devastating Aceh conflict, Amnesty International said in a new report released today.
The report, “Time to Face the Past”, documents the failure of local and central authorities to establish the truth of what happened during the years of violence which left between 10,000 and 30,000 people dead, many …
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Apr
22
2013
Beijing (CNN) — Chinese authorities have detained at least a half-dozen activists this month, human rights groups said, in what appears to be a crackdown targeting a campaign to publicize the financial assets of top government officials.
Human rights groups named six supporters of the New Citizens Movement who they said had been rounded up by security forces in several waves starting on April 1. Among them were Ding Jiaxi, a human rights lawyer, and Zhao …
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Apr
22
2013
WASHINGTON — The Defense Department is expected to finalize a $10 billion arms deal with Israel, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates next week that will provide missiles, warplanes and troop transports to help them counter any future threat from Iran.
A weeklong visit to the region by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel will culminate a year of secret negotiations on a deal that Congressional officials said will be second only to the $29.5 billion …
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Apr
22
2013
During the Occupy Wall Street protests and their aftermath, they were the online-video symbols for those who said the New York Police Department was using excessive force:
Deputy Inspector Anthony Bologna, in his white commander’s shirt, walking up to a crowd of people and appearing to pepper-spray protesters at random. And Deputy Inspector Johnny Cardona, who appears to turn around a protester who is walking away and punch him in the face.
Inspector Bologna was found by …
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Apr
22
2013
German flag carrier Lufthansa is cancelling around 1,800 flights today as ground crews stage a one-day strike demanding higher wages.
“This time it is a strike … with a massive impact, completely excessive, that has only one aim – to position itself as a union at Lufthansa against many other unions and groups,” Stefan Lauer, Lufthansa’s chief personnel officer, told ARD television.
150,000 passengers are expected to be affected by the cancellations, according to Lauer.
The airline grounded …
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Apr
22
2013
COPEMISH, Mich. (AP) — California’s mighty redwoods are going international, cloned in an effort to promote reforestation and deal with climate change.
Although measuring just 18 inches (45 centimeters) tall, the laboratory-produced trees are genetic duplicates of three giants that were cut down in northern California more than a century ago. Remarkably, shoots still emerge from the stumps, including one known as the Fieldbrook Stump, which measures 35 feet (10.7 meters) in diameter. It’s believed to …
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