Sunday, Jun 30th
Last update07:49:10 AM GMT
Human Rights Glance
Human rights activists say the Feb. 17 death is part of a deadly phenomenon called "false positives" in which the armed forces allegedly kill civilians, usually peasants or unemployed youths, and brand them as leftist guerrillas.
A macabre facet of a general increase in "extrajudicial killings" by the military, "false positives" are a result of intense pressure to show progress in Colombia's U.S.-funded war against leftist insurgents, the activists say.
The U.S. military has given an interrogator immunity for possible abuses against a prisoner now held at Guantanamo Bay in exchange for his cooperation with prosecutors against the detainee in a war-crimes trial.
"Our people in Jerusalem are under an ethnic cleansing campaign," he said. "They are suffering from a series of decisions like tax hikes and construction prohibitions."
Abbas said Palestinians were "facing a campaign of annihilation" by the Israeli state.
Of course, Israel has the right to blockade the Palestinian territories and impose curfews for days, for weeks, for months, denying people the basic necessities of life—food, water, medicine, electricity, freedom of movement, their very livelihoods. It does not mean to visit oppressive collective punishment upon the Palestinian population. That’s just the way it is.
A Philippine general says American intelligence guided his troops in a hunt for militants, but eight villagers were slain.
The human rights commission report recommending criminal and administrative proceedings against troops and officers involved in the operation was written before a Times reporter informed the panel of Rafael's account of U.S. surveillance. The commission gets its mandate from the Philippine Constitution.
Within the first year of the war, news of atrocities by U.S. forces—the torching of villages, the killing of prisoners—began to appear in American newspapers. Although the U.S. military censored outgoing cables, stories crossed the Pacific through the mail, which wasn’t censored.
President George W. Bush said Saturday he vetoed legislation that would ban the CIA from using harsh interrogation methods such as waterboarding to break suspected terrorists because it would end practices that have prevented attacks.
TVNL Comment: Good, Maybe someday we can use it on him and Cheney!
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