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Uprising’s guest expert Courtney Morris, an assistant professor of African American and women’s Studies at Penn State University, analyzes today’s news headlines:

A rights group accuses the United States and NATO of violating human rights – in Afghanistan. Amnesty International has just released a new report detailing the impacts of night raids and air strikes in Afghanistan between the years 2009 and 2013. Focusing on ten attacks that resulted in 140 people dead, the group claimed they found, “compelling evidence of war crimes,” particularly around two incidents of raids on houses by US Special Forces that involved kidnapping, torture, and killing. An Amnesty spokesperson in Afghanistan told the press, he was shocked by the, “lack of justice and the impunity.” Click here for a Washington Post article about the story.

The pristine area of the Arctic around Russia is about to be drilled by Exxon Mobil. In spite of Western tensions with Russia over Ukraine, including severe economic sanctions, Russian president Vladimir Putin welcomed the plan. Putin said, “Today, commercial success is driven by efficient international cooperation…Businesses, including Russian and foreign companies, perfectly realize that and despite certain current political difficulties, pragmatism and common sense prevail.” Environmental groups like Greenpeace have vehemently protested drilling in the Arctic, saying that an oil spill could devastate the fragile region. Click here for a Commondreams article about the story.

The St. Louis suburb of Ferguson in Missouri was wracked by protests over the weekend after the fatal police shooting of an unarmed 18-year old black man named Michael Brown. Public anger was high as people chanted, “We Are Michael Brown, and “Killer Cops have Got to Go.” The shooting came just days after a 22-year old Black man named John Crawford was killed in the aisle of a Walmart store in Beavercreek, Ohio after brandishing a toy gun sold there. And, New Yorkers are still waiting for accountability from their police department after a 44-year old asthmatic African American man named Eric Garner died after police placed him in what appears on video to be an illegal chokehold. Garner’s death was ruled a homicide. Click here for a Think Progress report about the Michael Brown story, and here for a Think Progress report about the John Crawford story.