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Migrants common prey of Mexico's deadly violence
Aug. 29- This week, Mexico experienced the worst mass killing in what was already an incredibly bloody battle against organized crime. Seventy-two migrants were gunned down by what authorities say were drug cartel hitmen.
The migrants, from Central and South America, were trying to get through Mexico in hopes of crossing illegally into the U.S.
The massacre has terrified migrants still in Mexico, who know it's not uncommon to be seized while transiting Mexico and held for ransom.
Mexico's Human Rights Commission said in a report released last year that 20,000 migrants are kidnapped annually trying to cross the country. Another 60,000 are detained by the Mexican immigration authorities and deported. Hundreds of thousands more make it to the United States and then try to get past the U.S. border patrol.
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Source: National Public Radio |
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Obama resists pressure for red line on Iran's nuclear capability
Aug. 26- President Barack Obama's refusal in a White House briefing earlier this month to announce a "red line" in regard to the Iran nuclear program represented another in a series of rebuffs of pressure from Defense Secretary Robert Gates for statement that the United States will not accept its existing stocks of low enriched uranium.
The Obama rebuff climaxed a months-long internal debate between Obama and Gates over the "breakout capability" issue which surfaced in the news media last April.
Gates has been arguing that Iran could turn its existing stock of low enriched uranium (LEU) into a capability to build a nuclear weapon secretly by using covert enrichment sites and undeclared sources of uranium.
That Gates argument implies that the only way to prevent Iran having enough bomb-grade uranium for nuclear weapons is to insist that Iran must give up most of its existing stock of LEU, which could be converted into enough bomb-grade uranium for one bomb.
But Obama has publicly rejected the idea that Iran's existing stock of LEU represents a breakout capability on more than one occasion. He has stated that Iran would have to make an overt move to have a "breakout capability" that would signal its intention to have a nuclear weapon.
Obama's most recent rebuff of the Gates position came in the briefing he gave to a select group of journalists Aug. 4.
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Source: Inter Press Service |
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Cuba expands free-market reforms
Jul. 28- The Cuban government has issued two free-market reforms aimed at boosting its struggling economy, including allowing foreign investors to lease state-owned land for up to 99 years.
The moves, announced in the official Gazette newspaper on Thursday and Friday, are considered a significant shift for the country as Raul Castro, the country's president, promises to scale back government control of businesses.
The government has said it was modifying its property laws "with the aim of amplifying and facilitating" foreign investment in tourism, and that doing so would
provide "better security and guarantees to the foreign investor".
A small group of investors in Canada, Europe and Asia have been waiting to crack the market for long-term tourism in Cuba, built on drawing wealthy visitors who could live part-time on the island instead of visiting for a few days.
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Source: Al Jazeera |
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Yemen accused of human rights violations in 'war on terror'
Aug. 25- The Yemeni authorities must stop sacrificing human rights in the name of security as they confront threats from al-Qa'ida, Zaidi Shi'a rebels in the north, and address growing demands for secession in the south, Amnesty International said in a new report.
Yemen: Cracking Down Under Pressure documents a catalogue of human rights violations including unlawful killings of those accused of links to al-Qa'ida and Southern Movement activists, and arbitrary arrests, torture and unfair trials.
Yemenis accused of supporting the Huthis who are armed Zaidi Shi'a rebels in the northern Sa'dah region, or the Southern Movement, have also been targeted for arbitrary detention, unfair trials in specialized courts and beatings, together with journalists, dissenters, human rights defenders, and critics of the government.
Some have been subjected to enforced disappearance for weeks or months by largely unaccountable security agencies that report directly to Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh.
"An extremely worrying trend has developed where the Yemeni authorities, under pressure from the USA and others to fight al-Qa'ida, and Saudi Arabia to deal with the Huthis, have been citing national security as a pretext to deal with opposition and stifle all criticism." said Malcolm Smart, Amnesty International's Director for the Middle East and North Africa Program.
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Source: Amnesty International |
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19 dead in shootout in Russia's Caucasus
Aug. 29- A shootout between the Chechen president's personal protection detail and suspected separatist insurgents left 19 people dead early Sunday, including five civilians, officials and media reports said.
At least 12 suspected insurgents and two security officers were killed when the rebels entered Tsentoroi, Ramzan Kadyrov's home village, his spokesman Alvi Karimov told The Associated Press. TV reports said five civilians were killed in the crossfire.
Kadyrov, who is thought to regularly supervise security operations in the field, was in the village at the time and directed the counter-offensive, Karimov said.
"We let them into the village so they couldn't escape," Kadyrov told Channel One television, which showed him examining the bodies of the suspected militants strewn across a road. "We forced them into a place where they could be eliminated," he said.
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Source: Associated Press |
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Iran shifts assets out of European banks
Aug. 29- Iran has transferred assets out of European banks in its latest effort to defend itself against the effects of sanctions that are part of what Iranian officials have called an "economic war" against the country by the United States and other Western countries.
Iran's "Central Bank had previously specified a list of its banking reserves in Europe and has transferred them," the bank's governor, Mahmoud Bahmani, was quoted as saying by Iran's semiofficial Fars news agency on Saturday.
Mr. Bahmani did not specify the amount or date of the transfers but said the move had been envisioned "six months in advance" of the new round of trade and financial restrictions placed on Iran by Western nations because of their concerns over the nature of Iran's nuclear program.
"We are currently facing an all-out economic war and we have to be completely prepared," Mr. Bahmani told a conference on Islamic banking here on Saturday.
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Source: New York Times |
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Somali presidential palace shelled
Aug. 31- Four African Union (AU) peacekeepers have been killed in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, after al-Shabab fighters fired a mortar at the presidential palace.
"A mortar was fired at one of our positions, and it killed four soldiers and injured eight," said Ba-Hoku Barigye, a spokesman for the peacekeeping force. Barigye said the dead soldiers are all Ugandan.
Uganda and Burundi have deployed more than 6,300 troops to support Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG).
The AU pledged last month to expand the force, with both Guinea and Djibouti promising new troops.
Monday's mortar attack was the latest bloody clash in a week of heavy fighting between al-Shabab and the peacekeepers.
At least six people were killed in several battles on Wednesday, and al-Shabab fighters killed nearly 40 people on Tuesday in a suicide bombing at a Mogadishu hotel.
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Source: Al Jazeera |
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India blocks Vedanta mine on Dongria-Kondh tribe's sacred hill
Aug. 24- After years of controversy and confusion, Vedanta's project to mine bauxite on a forested hill considered sacred by an ancient tribe has been stopped by the Indian government.
"There's no emotion, no politics, no prejudice," environment minister Jairam Ramesh said as he announced that Vedanta would not be allowed to mine in the Niyamgiri Hills of the eastern Orissa state. "I have taken this decision purely on a legal approach – laws are being violated."
Trouble seems to be brewing for the UK-listed Vedanta Resources on another front too – its plan to buy oil and gas explorer Cairn India for $9.6 billion could face regulatory hurdles and a takeover battle.
Bloomberg and the Press Trust of India reported that not only would the government insist on its approval for the Cairn buyout, but it may also get state energy companies Oil & Natural Gas Corp and Gail, India's largest gas transmission and marketing company, to team up for a counter bid.
The immediate crisis facing Vedanta however, is the setback to its plans for expansion in the aluminum sector.
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Source: Guardian (UK) |
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Cost of the War in Iraq
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| Quote of the Week |
| " Total US deaths in Afghanistan have doubled under President Obama, and when the next US soldier is reported dead, the majority of US deaths in Afghanistan will have occurred under President Obama. " |
-- Robert Naiman, truthout, 8/16/2010.
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