This time it is none other than neocon whiz kid and former undersecretary of defense Douglas J. Feith, along with Justin Polin, a sidekick from the Hudson Institute, who favorably invoke the Sufis in a New York Times op-ed about… Read moreNeocons exploit Sufis on NYT op-ed page —again!
President Barack Obama says he won’t consider speeding up the troop pullout from Iraq—as Baghdad clashes between Sunni Guardians and security forces left three dead and several detained.
US Army Sgt. First Class Joseph Mayo was convicted and sentenced to 35 years in prison for killing four unarmed Iraqi prisoners in 2007.
Faced with declining production and economic chaos, Venezuela is again opening its oil-fields to private companies—reversing much of the progress in asserting state control of the hydrocarbons industry that was made under Hugo Chávez. Just after a series of new contracts with private firms was announced, President Nicolás Maduro flew to Beijing for a meeting with Xi Jinping. The two leaders announced further deals to open Venezuela's Orinoco Belt to Chinese companies. This comes a decade after Exxon withdrew from the Orinoco Belt, unable to come to terms with the Chávez government. (Photo via OilPrice.com)
Amnesty International called upon countries to ban fully autonomous weapons systems on the first day of the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons Group of Governmental Experts on Lethal Autonomous Weapons Systems meeting. Amnesty states that technology related to advanced weapons systems is outpacing international law. Future technologies may be able to replicate human responses, including "the ability to analyse the intentions behind people's actions, to assess and respond to often dynamic and unpredictable situations, or make complex decisions about the proportionality or necessity of an attack." A complete ban on fully autonomous weapons is necessary in order to avoid possible "dystopian" futures. Human interaction should be required by law to be involved in the identification, selection, and engagement of targets in advanced weapons. (Photo: Future of Life Institute)
At least 20 have been killed as gunmen seized a police academy in Lahore. Meanwhile, Obama warned Islamabad: “If we have a high-value target within our sights…we’re going after them.”
A hostage crisis involving three International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) workers may force agencies to stop bringing assistance to some areas of the Philippines, officials told the UN news agency IRIN. Stephen Anderson, the World Food Programme (WFP)… Read morePhilippines: Mindanao hostage crisis jeopardizes aid work
Former US State Department lawyer Vijay Padmanabhan publicly criticized the administration of ex-president Bush for approving the use of torture against terrorism suspects.
Human Rights Watch called for the US and Yemen to agree on a repatriation plan that provides “meaningful legal process” for the nearly 100 Yemeni detainees still at Guantánamo Bay.
Electronic Journal & Daily Report CIUDAD JUÁREZ MILITARIZED Mexico’s Internal “Surge” on the Rio Grande by Kent Paterson, Frontera NorteSur HUMANITARIAN AID AS CRIME ON THE SOUTHWEST BORDER Activists Defy Law to Help Migrants Survive by Julianne Ong Hing, Color… Read moreIssue #156, April 2009
Five international rights groups are urging Algerian authorities to drop their effort to dissolve a prominent civil society group over alleged violation of the "law on associations." The five groups—Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Cairo Institute of Human Rights Studies, the International Federation of Human Rights, and the MENA Rights Group—say the government's move "threatens freedom of association." A appeals tribunal in Algiers upheld a petition to dissolve the Rassemblement Action Jeunesse (Youth Action Rally, or RAJ). The petition claimed that the group's political activities violated the purposes set forth in its own bylaws. RAJ leaders said that authorities targeted the association due to its support of the Hirak pro-democracy movement. (Photo: Faten Aggad/Africa Arguments)
