WORLD NEWS

Detritus of war keeps claiming new victims in Afghanistan

For the first time, many more civilians are being killed and maimed in Afghanistan by dud munitions than by landmines, which were more or less outlawed in 1999 but linger around the world as the wreckage of earlier wars.

A study published in Friday’s British Medical Journal says that the biggest problem is now unexploded ordnance (UXO) — incidentally, much easier and cheaper to get rid of than landmines — which includes grenades, bombs, mortar shells, and cluster munitions that fail to detonate on impact.

Using data collected by the United Nations Mine Action Center and the International Committee of the Red Cross, researchers discovered that in fact, the casualty ratio had precisely “flipped” in recent years. As the proportion of injuries from UXO went from 37 percent in 1997 to 57 percent in 2002, the proportion of injuries from landmines fell correspondingly from 57 percent to 36 percent.

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Ghosts from the past have Pinochet in their grip once again

Ghosts from the past have again reached out to trap former Chilean dictator Gen. Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990) in the web of justice Jan. 4, after his defense lawyers failed in their attempt to get him declared mentally unfit to stand trial.

In a three-to-two ruling, a Supreme Court panel of judges rejected a challenge brought by Pinochet’s defense counsel, thus allowing charges against him to go ahead.

In accordance with a Dec. 13 decision by Judge Juan Guzmán, Pinochet will thus be put under house arrest on charges of being the “intellectual author” of nine kidnappings (forced disappearances) and one homicide of Chileans who were seized in the 1970s by the security forces in Argentina, Paraguay, and Brazil.

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Tensions sparked by alleged kidnapping of guerrilla leader

Venezuela has launched an investigation to determine whether Colombian agents kidnapped a FARC rebel leader in Caracas, then claimed he had been captured in Colombia.

If this is the case, “it would be a serious violation of our sovereignty,” said Venezuelan Interior and Justice Minister Jesse Chacón.

The captured rebel leader is Rodrigo Granda, also known as Ricardo González. He is the second in command to Raúl Reyes in the International Commission or “foreign ministry” of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the main leftist rebel group active in that country.

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Washington’s hand seen in looming drug import ban

For years, poor, uninsured and elderly US residents have turned to their northern neighbor to fill life-saving prescriptions that local pharmacies had priced out of reach.

But now the Canadian government is strongly signaling that it plans to crack down on the mail-order drug trade with a cabinet vote amending the Canada Food and Drug Act to effectively block Internet sales, possibly as soon as Jan. 11.

Canada — which, unlike the United States, maintains price controls on most prescription drugs — argues that the flourishing cross-border trade is jeopardizing its own supplies, a claim dismissed by critics as baseless.

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US doctors accused over Guantánamo abuse

Doctors at Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib used their medical knowledge to help devise coercive interrogation methods for detainees including sleep deprivation, stress positions and other abuse, it was reported yesterday.

An article in the New England Journal of Medicine provides the most authoritative account so far that doctors were active participants in the abuse of prisoners in the US “war on terror.”

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US considers ‘Salvador option’ to tackle Iraq insurgents

According to a Jan. 8 report in Newsweek, the United States is considering setting up an elite squad of assassins to target leaders of the Iraqi insurgency.

Newsweek said the Pentagon is drawing up possible proposals to send US Special Forces teams to advise, support and train hand-picked Iraqi squads to target rebels.

The ploy has apparently been called the “Salvador option” after the strategy that was secretly employed by Ronald Reagan’s administration to combat the leftist guerrilla insurgency in El Salvador in the early 1980s.

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Trickle of prison abuse reports becoming a torrent

Even as the alleged ringleader of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal was set to face court-martial on Jan. 7, human rights groups are questioning whether his case is really the “aberration” the Pentagon claims.

“The trial of Charles Graner is a first step toward accountability, but no one should confuse it with the end of the process,” said Reed Brody, special counsel at Human Rights Watch. “The issue isn’t only who was the local ringleader, but whether his superiors led him to believe he had permission to engage in such atrocities.”

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US island base given tsunami warning

A British-owned US base on an island in the Indian Ocean received prior warning of the tsunami from the US, the Guardian has established.

Unlike countries devastated by the huge wave, the military base on Diego Garcia was alerted by the US tsunami warning center on Hawaii in the Pacific.

The base, located in the British Indian Ocean Territory south of India and described by the US military as the “best-kept secret in the navy,” was warned because it is linked to the US Pacific Command, according to US officials.

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Aussie official ‘watched abuse’

An Australian consular official watched US guards aggressively subdue and then take “trophy” photographs of alleged Australian terrorist Mamdouh Habib in Pakistan in October 2001, according to US court documents.

The official was also present when the US transferred Habib to Egypt, where he was allegedly tortured using electricity, beatings, threats that dogs would sexually assault him, and being held in rooms where rising water threatened to drown him, the documents allege. Lawyers for Habib made the claims after interviewing the Australian-Egyptian man at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where he has been held since May 2002.

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British troops face torture evidence in courts martial

Photographs of British troops allegedly torturing Iraqi prisoners and forcing them to perform sexual acts will serve as key and potentially damning evidence in the courts martial of four soldiers from the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers which opened in Germany Jan. 10.

The four are charged with assault and indecent assault for alleged incidents at a warehouse in Iraq in 2003 which have been described as “Britain’s Abu Ghraib.” They face imprisonment and dismissal from the armed forces if convicted.

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US attacks on civilians fuel calls for withdrawal

On Wed. Jan. 5, four Iraqis were injured after US helicopters bombed residential buildings in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil.

The bombing damaged the building where students of Salah al-Din University live, in the Sidawa neighborhood.

The building and other nearby houses were set ablaze and some nearby cars were also damaged.

Four students were injured in the two-hour-long strike, officials said. The attack came after a US helicopter had come under fire from the same area, witnesses said.

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Allawi to lock down Iraq on election day

Iraq’s government extended a state of emergency for another 30 days on Jan. 6 ahead of a security lockdown for the first elections since the US-led invasion.

Unprecedented security controls will be imposed for the vote on Jan. 30, including drastic travel restrictions and night-time curfews, in an effort to tackle a growing insurgent campaign of violence.

The prime minister, Ayad Allawi, extended the state of emergency, which was imposed two months ago before the assault on Fallujah.

The order gives him the power

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