The Chechnya War and the Right Not to Kill from War Resisters International On October 7, 2006, Anna Politkovskaya, a well-known journalist who regularly exposed Russian human rights violations in Chechnya, was murdered in her flat in Moscow. Six days… Read moreCONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION IN RUSSIA
Continue ReadingCONSCIENTIOUS OBJECTION IN RUSSIAfrom Weekly News Update on the Americas Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez Frias started his third term—his second full six-year term—on Jan. 10 in a ceremony before the 167-deputy National Assembly. No foreign dignitaries attended the Jan. 10 inauguration. According to… Read moreVENEZUELA: TOWARDS “21st CENTURY SOCIALISM”
Continue ReadingVENEZUELA: TOWARDS “21st CENTURY SOCIALISM”from Weekly News Update on the Americas Promising to end “the long night of neoliberalism,” economist Rafael Correa started a four-year term as president of Ecuador in a ceremony in Quito on Jan. 15. Only about 25 of the 100… Read moreECUADOR: END TO “LONG NIGHT OF NEOLIBERALISM”
Continue ReadingECUADOR: END TO “LONG NIGHT OF NEOLIBERALISM”from Weekly News Update on the Americas Argentine bricklayer Luis Gerez, a survivor of torture who testified against a former police official, disappeared the evening of Dec. 27 in his town of Belen de Escobar, 60 kilometers north of the… Read moreARGENTINA: “DIRTY WAR” DEATH SQUADS BACK?
Continue ReadingARGENTINA: “DIRTY WAR” DEATH SQUADS BACK?from Weekly News Update on the Americas HONDURAS: ENVIRONMENTALISTS MURDERED On Dec. 20, environmental activists Heraldo Zuniga and Roger Ivan Cartagena were shot and killed in the central plaza outside the mayor’s office in Guarizama municipality, in the large eastern… Read moreCENTRAL AMERICA: ECOLOGISTS ASSASSINATED IN HONDURAS; LAND CLASH, ASSASSINATIONS IN GUATEMALA
Continue ReadingCENTRAL AMERICA: ECOLOGISTS ASSASSINATED IN HONDURAS; LAND CLASH, ASSASSINATIONS IN GUATEMALAAn End to Africa’s Reign of Impunity? by Michael Fleshman, Africa Renewal The world took a giant step towards eliminating impunity for human rights abuses on November 9 when the International Criminal Court (ICC) opened its first-ever hearing in a… Read morePRESIDENTS IN THE DOCK
Continue ReadingPRESIDENTS IN THE DOCKShulamit Aloni writes for Ynet (English translation via Kibush), Jan. 4: Indeed there is Apartheid in Israel A new order issued by the GOC Central command bans the conveyance of Palestinians in Israeli vehicles. Such a blatant violation of the… Read moreIsraeli pol: yes, it’s apartheid
For the first time since it stopped attempting to count Syria’s dead back in 2014, the UN has released a new casualty number. The UN Human Rights Office now says 350,209 people were killed in the war between March 2011 and March 2021—but cautions that because of the strict methodology used, this figure is "certainly an under-count of the actual number of killings." And it doesn't include those who died from causes that would likely have been more easily treatable were it not for the ongoing violence, such as hunger or COVID-19, which is now barrelling through northwest Syria, spreading quickly in displacement camps and overwhelming healthcare facilities. (Photo: Destruction of Aleppo, via 7ee6an)
Apocalypto Reveals More About Mel than the Maya by Shlomo Svesnik Here we go again. Mel Gibson’s 2004 surprise mega-hit The Passion of the Christ was all the more unlikely a success because the dialogue was entirely in Latin and… Read moreMEL GIBSON’S HEART OF DARKNESS
Continue ReadingMEL GIBSON’S HEART OF DARKNESSfrom Weekly News Update on the Americas: El Salvador: Water “Reform” Protested About 50 Salvadoran union members, campesinos and environmental activists blocked the Juan Pablo II avenue near the Legislative Assembly in San Salvador for about two hours to protest… Read moreCENTRAL AMERICA: CAMPESINOS MARCH FOR LAND, WATER
Continue ReadingCENTRAL AMERICA: CAMPESINOS MARCH FOR LAND, WATERfrom Weekly News Update on the Americas: The Second Summit of the South American Community of Nations (CSN), held Dec. 8-9 in Cochabamba, Bolivia, concluded with a declaration that the meeting had laid the “cornerstone” for a regional union with… Read moreSOUTH AMERICA: SUMMIT PROCESS STALLS
Continue ReadingSOUTH AMERICA: SUMMIT PROCESS STALLSfrom Weekly News Update on the Americas: On Dec. 13, some 5,000 people from across Argentina (or as many as 10,000, according to some press reports) took part in a colorful march in scorching weather to the Plaza de Mayo… Read moreARGENTINA: THOUSANDS MARCH FOR ENVIRONMENT
Continue ReadingARGENTINA: THOUSANDS MARCH FOR ENVIRONMENT
