A leading US civil rights group has released a report which warns that right-wing militias are mushrooming across the country.
The Southern Poverty Law Centre (SPLC) said that it had identified at least 50 new armed militias in the last few months.
The SPLC suggested that the market meltdown and the election of a centre-left administration led by an African-American president had spurred right-wing extremism and an increase in hate crime.
Online Journal, Aug 12, 2009
By Gary G. Kohls, MD
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Sixty-four years ago, on August 9, 1945, the second of the only two atomic bombs ever used as instruments of mass destruction was dropped on the defenseless civilian city of Nagasaki, Japan, by an all-Christian bomb crew who had been training for this mission for months. The crew was only “doing its job,” and they did it with military efficiency and precision.
It had been only three days since the first bomb, a uranium bomb, had incinerated Hiroshima, with chaos and confusion in Tokyo, where Japan’s fascist military government leaders and the Emperor Hirohito had been searching for months for a way to an honorable end to the war, a war which had exhausted Japan to virtually a moribund defenseless state.
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Uruknet.info, August 11, 2009 The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) strongly condemns the harassment and cruel and degrading treatment inflicted upon Palestinian civilians by Israeli troops positioned at military checkpoint throughout the West Bank. PCHR field workers documents three cases of harassment against Palestinian civilians in the first three days of the week. |
By Agence France-Presse
Raw Story, August 11, 2009
Musharraf imposed a state of emergency and sacked about 60 judges on November 3, 2007 when the supreme court appeared poised to declare him ineligible to contest a presidential election while in military uniform.
On a plea filed by lawyer Mohammad Aslam Ghuman, Islamabad district and sessions judge Mohammad Akmal directed police to register a case against Musharraf, who is currently in Europe.
A US drone strike into the South Waziristan Agency of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) struck a house in the village of Ladda, killing at least 14 people and wounding several others. The village was near last Wednesday’s drone strike, which officials claim killed TTP leader Baitullah Mehsud.
Pakistani officials say the house attacked today was a “militant hideout” or conversely a “training ground,” but a spokesman for an unnamed Taliban-style organization in the area insisted it was a civilian residence and only civilians were killed in the strike.
It was the first US attack in the region since last week’s strike, and the status of Baitullah Mehsud is still unknown. Pakistani and US officials insist they are certain he was killed, but they also claimed to be certain Hakimullah Mehsud, one of his aides, was killed in a battle days later. Hakimullah has since emerged to insisted that neither he nor Baitullah is actually dead.
TTP spokesman Maulvi Omar says that Baitullah is being held at an undisclosed relative’s house and that he is ill. Baitullah has diabetes and has sometimes been in failing health as a result.
| Al Jazeera, Aug 11, 2009 |
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The head of a Russian charity and her husband who were kidnapped in Chechnya have been found shot dead, the Interfax news agency has reported. The bodies of Zarema Sadulayeva and Alik Dzhabrailov, her partner, were found in Grozny, the Chechen capital, on Tuesday. “The rights activists were found in the boot of a car with gunshot wounds in the settlement of Chernorechye,” Interfax quoted an official government source as saying.
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By Sandy English | wsws.com, Aug 11, 2009
UNESCO, the United Nations cultural organization, has issued a report outlining the extensive damage caused by US occupation forces in Iraq to the archeological site of ancient Babylon, about 100 Km (60 miles) south of Baghdad.
The report was based on examinations of the site by prominent specialists, including John Curtis, John Russell and Elizabeth Stone.
It charges American and Polish forces with carrying out “a grave encroachment on this internationally known archaeological site.”
The Obama Administration has today asked the Supreme Court to overturn an appeals court decision which would require the Pentagon to release dozens of heretofore unseen photos of the abuse of prisoners in US military custody, claiming the release would pose a significant risk to the military.
The photos of abuse at several prisons have been a matter of no small controversy. The Pentagon agreed with the judge that the photos could be safely released in April, but several weeks later President Obama insisted that the photos would have to remain secret because they might “further inflame anti-American opinion.”
Officials say that the reversal in the administration’s position came at the behest of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who reportedly predicted that “Baghdad will burn” if the photos ever see the light of day and warned it could delay the US pullout.
Though President Obama had previously claimed that the photos didn’t contain anything sensational, the Justice Department filing with the Supreme Court reveals that several of the photos include soldiers pointing guns at hooded prisoners and one includes a soldier “acting as if” he is anally raping a detainee with a broom handle. The ACLU has been spearheading the effort to secure the photos’ release.
Militarization of Kashmir with impunity
By Angana Chatterji | ZNet, Aug 8, 2009
On May 29, 2009, as has been variously attested, Asiya Jan and Neelofar Jan were subjected to rape, reportedly by more than one perpetrator, and murdered. Ms. Asiya Jan and Mrs. Neelofar Jan were Muslim residents of Shopian town, in Shopian district, in Indian-administered Kashmir, and 17 and 22 years of age, respectively.
The security forces of India were implicated in the brutalization and death of Asiya Jan and Neelofar Jan.
For our report, and related photographs, short video clip, map, and secondary resources, see:
http://www.kashmirprocess.org/shopian
The events in Shopian of May-July 2009 are contextualized within a continuum of past violences and violations by the Indian military and paramilitary, and reciprocal relations between heightened militarization and social and gendered violence in Indian-administered Kashmir. The population of Shopian district numbers 2,00,000-2,50,000. The population of Kashmir was recorded at approximately 69,00,000 in 2008, with Muslims constituting approximately 95 percent of the population. Across Jammu and Kashmir, which includes Ladakh, approximately 67 percent of the population was of Muslim descent. Shopian town is home to approximately 60,000-70,000 residents. The military and paramilitary are hyper-present in and outside the town. At its limits are the police and paramilitary Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) camps. Beyond, the locality is surrounded by the Rashtriya Rifles (military) and various camps of the CRPF, in Gagaran, Batpora, Balpora and on Mughal Road. The Rashtriya Rifles stage flag marches and the CRPF regularly patrols the area. Since May 29, 2009, the CRPF established another camp near the site of the incidents, close to the police residential quarters, across the Rambi-Ara nullah (a tributary of a stream) beyond the edge of Shopian town. Approximately 3,000 police and personnel of the Special Operations Group (SOG) monitor the area. Further, about 20,000+ security forces personnel are deployed across Shopian district.
What is the ‘truth’ of the matter, who are in the know, and what is being shielded? While investigations into the events of May-June 2009 in Shopian have emphasized the procedural conduct of the police in their handling of the investigation, they failed to focus on the actual crimes that were committed, or the conduct of state institutions. The investigations in Shopian have not focused on the identification and prosecution of perpetrators or on addressing structural realities of militarization in Kashmir that foster and perpetuate gendered and sexualized violences, and undermine rule of law and justice. The investigations have instead concentrated on locating ‘collaborators’ and manufacturing scapegoats to subdue public outcry. ‘Control’ rather than ‘justice’ has organized the focus of the state apparatus, including all processes related to civic, criminal, and judicial matters.
Beginning May 30, 2009, throughout June, until July 16, 2009, for forty-seven consecutive days, civil society protests continued in Shopian town, led by the Majlis-e-Mushawarat and other groups, seeking justice, joined, in solidarity, by others across Kashmir. Daily life remained interrupted, economic and social life overrun. Through non-violent means, civil society continued to dissent the horrific events that transpired, the relationship of these events to military and paramilitary forces, the actions and impassivity of security forces and institutions, and those of the state. Civil society members reiterated that civil disobedience was the sole mechanism available to them via which to seek justice.
The events in Shopian and the broader structural and sustained context of militarization portray the reach of the security apparatus in Kashmir under what is not termed ‘military rule’. The conflict in Jammu and Kashmir has been ongoing since October 1947. A will to peace in Kashmir requires an attested commitment to justice, palpably absent in the exchanges undertaken by the Government of India and its attendant institutions with Kashmir civil society. The premise and structure of impunity connected to militarization, and corresponding human rights abuses, bear witness to the absence of accountability inherent to the dominion of Kashmir by the Indian state, and a refusal to take seriously the imperative of addressing these issues as the only way forward to a just peace. The international community continues to engage India in trade, commerce, military, nuclear, and cultural relations, without insisting on answerability for the violations committed by its government and military and paramilitary forces.
The events in Shopian marked the inability of the state apparatus to deliver justice in Kashmir. It remained incumbent on civil society institutions and international human rights groups and those working with issues of social justice to seek accountability.
Angana Chatterji is Convener of the International People’s Tribunal in Indian-administered Kashmir and Professor, Anthropology, California Institute of Integral Studies.
Peace and Justice Post 
EGYPT: Israel Gas Deal Inflames Opposition
August 13, 2009By Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa Al-Omrani, Inter Press Service
CAIRO, Aug 12 (IPS) – Opposition figures and political activists have slammed a new deal to sell Egyptian liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Israel at what they say are vastly reduced prices.
“Egyptian gas is being sold to Israel at prices far below the international average,” Ibrahim Yosri, former head of legal affairs and treaties at the Egyptian Foreign Ministry told IPS. “This agreement is proof that the ruling regime is unconcerned with public opinion and is insistent on depriving the Egyptian public of its rightful national assets.”
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Tags:Egypt, gas deal, Gaza, Ibrahim Yosri, Israel, Israeli policies, Nasr Farid Wassil, Palestine
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