Top Story
U.N. calls U.S. human rights record "deplorable": A new report suggests the U.S. [under Bush] may have committed war crimes -- and endorses the formation of a truth commission.
The May 26, 2009, report by Australian law professor Philip Alston, the U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, does praise the United States for establishing compensation payments for civilians accidentally killed by U.S. forces in the heat of battle. But Alston quickly adds the following: "However, there have been chronic and deplorable accountability failures with respect to policies, practice and conduct that resulted in alleged unlawful killings -- including possible war crimes -- in the United States' international operations."
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...Here is what Alston says about at least five detainee deaths at Guantánamo: "The Department of Defense provided little public information about any of the five detainee deaths."
...He notes "credible reports" of at least five deaths caused by torture at the hands of the CIA. Except for one case of a CIA contractor, however, "No investigation has ever been released and alleged CIA involvement has never been publicly confirmed or denied."
Alston doesn't think the Justice Department has done a bang-up job either. "U.S. prosecutors have failed to use the laws on the books to investigate and prosecute (contractors) and civilian agents for wrongful deaths, including, in some cases, deaths credibly alleged to have resulted from torture and abuse."
Torture and Prosecution News
- Valtin reports: With Pressure Growing over Torture Pics, Obama Turns to Supreme Court to Stop Release.
The quick change in strategy by Obama points to a great deal of anxiety about the impact these photos will have; and I don't mean necessarily the photos directly related to the ACLU suit, but those other pictures -- hundreds or thousands of them, including the suppressed Abu Ghraib photos -- which would have to be released "consistent with the Court’s previous rulings on responsive images in this case." (H/T Peterr).
While it may be true that the Obama administration and the generals and admirals in the Pentagon are afraid of the effects the pictures' release might have on U.S. efforts in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, it seems just as likely that they are very worried that if these photos are released in toto that demands for investigations and prosecutions here in the U.S. will become overwhelming.
- Victims recall U.S. abuse: other Iraqis shrug.
The marks on Firas al-Sammarrai's body from when he says U.S. soldiers repeatedly electrocuted him are one reason he can't forget his abuse at their hands, even if other Iraqis want to move on.
U.S. President Barack Obama this month blocked the release of new detainee abuse photos on fears they may trigger more attacks against the U.S. military. The move enflamed Western opinion, but elicited little response in Iraq.
After years of bombings and sectarian slayings many Iraqis say they have seen worse, and some add the release of the photos has much to do with the U.S. image abroad as Obama attempts to mend ties with the Muslim world.
..."But deciding to cover the photos up in order to manipulate world opinion ... I believe this is another crime against the Iraqi people and humanity in general."
- The Bogus Torture Coverup.
The Daily Beast has confirmed that the photographs of abuses at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison, which President Obama, in a reversal, decided not to release, depict sexually explicit acts, including a uniformed soldier receiving oral sex from a female prisoner, a government contractor engaged in an act of sodomy with a male prisoner and scenes of forced masturbation, forced exhibition, and penetration involving phosphorous sticks and brooms.
- Supreme Court asked to weigh in on detainee photos.
The Obama administration is turning to the Supreme Court as it seeks to block public release of photos apparently depicting abuse of suspected terrorists and foreign soldiers in U.S. custody.
Justice Department lawyers late Thursday told a federal appeals court in New York -- the same one on which high court nominee Sonia Sotomayor sits -- to hold off a ruling ordering release of the material, saying they plan to ask the justices to hear their case.
The government said it would proceed "absent intervening legislation" from Congress.
- Bush defends interrogation program [torture] in Michigan speech.
Former President George W. Bush on Thursday repeated Dick Cheney's assertion that the administration's enhanced interrogation program, which included controversial techniques such as waterboarding, was legal and garnered valuable information that prevented terrorist attacks.
... "The first thing you do is ask what's legal?" Bush said. "What do the lawyers say is possible? I made the decision, within the law, to get information so I can say to myself, 'I've done what it takes to do my duty to protect the American people.' I can tell you that the information we got saved lives."
- Levin: Cheney lied about torture.
"Mr. Cheney has also claimed that the release of classified documents would prove his view that the techniques worked," Levin said of documents he has also seen. "But those classified documents say nothing about the numbers of lives saved, nor do the documents connect acquisition of valuable intelligence to the use of abusive techniques. I hope that the documents are declassified, so that people can judge for themselves what is fact, and what is fiction."
Political News
- Obama sure Sotomayor would restate 2001 comment.
President Barack Obama on Friday personally sought to deflect criticism of Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, who finds herself under intensifying scrutiny for saying in 2001 that a female Hispanic judge would often reach a better decision than a white male judge. "I'm sure she would have restated it," Obama flatly told NBC News, without indicating how he knew that.
The quote in question from Sotomayor has emerged as a rallying call for conservative critics who fear she will offer opinions from the bench based less on the rule of law and more on her life experience, ethnicity and gender. That issue is likely to play a central role in her Senate confirmation process.
- The Secret Code Words of the Sotomayor Confirmation Battle.
colorful
-adjective
- Hispanic; esp. Puerto Rican: Sotomayor's humble upbringing has shaped her personality—vibrant and colorful, and so different from the Bronx projects where she grew up in a working-class existence in a home with a drab yellow kitchen.—Associated Press.
[A] brilliant, accomplished and colorful choice to replace Justice David Souter—Ronald Goldfarb.
domineering
-adjective
- bitchy; behaving like a female in a position of power: [Sotomayor] is reportedly domineering in oral arguments. —Fox’s Bill Hemmer;
She has an inflated opinion of herself and is domineering during oral arguments—Jeffrey Rosen.
empathy
-noun
- a condition unique to liberals whose symptoms include spinelessness and cowardice: Crazy nonsense empathetic. I'll give you empathy. Empathize right on your behind. Craziness.—Michael Steele;
In the president's now-famous word, judging should be shaped by "empathy" as much or more than by reason.—The Wall Street Journal.
- Was Bush on a mission from God?
George W. Bush comes to Toronto today bedevilled by fresh questions about whether the former U.S. president felt the hand of God driving his wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
...They include last week's GQ magazine exposé into the hawkish use of scripture in 2003, when then-defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld forwarded secret intelligence memos to Bush embroidered with biblical passages.
Stranger still are new accounts emerging from France describing how former president Jacques Chirac was utterly baffled by a 2003 telephone conversation in which Bush reportedly invoked fanatical Old Testament prophecy – including the Earth-ending battle with forces of evil, Gog and Magog – in his arguments to enlist France in the Coalition of the Willing.
- Anti-Pelosi ads, calls to begin in districts GOP has sights on.
Republicans on Thursday began unleashing a barrage of television and radio ads, as well as robo-calls, aimed at discrediting House Speaker Nancy Pelosi in congressional districts held by Democrats they see as vulnerable.
The latest GOP effort includes a television ad titled "Explanation: Impossible," as well as 32-second recorded phone calls with a woman telling listeners she had an "important voter alert" about how the local congressman "voted to block an investigation" into Pelosi's May 14 comments.
- Kerry’s Panel Follows the Money in Probes From Iran to Mexico.
The Massachusetts Democrat is wielding his gavel with an investigative zeal, and plans to take on Iran’s nuclear program, gun-running on the Mexican border, terrorism, narcotics and human trafficking, all through the prism of money laundering. He has hired a former investigative reporter, an ex-CIA agent and a one-time managing director of Bear Stearns Cos. LLC to help him.
"There are lots of big pieces out there that depend on money moving," he said in an interview in his office in the Senate, where he is serving his 24th year.
- O’Reilly Defends Cherry-Picking Comments To Attack Blogs.
O’REILLY: Wow. Miss Malkin is upset, because I did not identify the Hussein comment was made by a civilian, not her or her staff. And that’s true. I should have been more precise.
But we often cite hateful civilian comments on blogs and say they should be edited, as we do on BillOReilly.com. That’s the point. The Daily Kos traffics in hatred all day long. It’s not enough to say, "I didn’t do it."
And pointing out hateful things on any Web site is not a smear.
War News
- Iraq's Sadr wants homosexuality eradicated.
Iraq's radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr ordered the "depravity" of homosexuality be eradicated but warned against the anti-gay violence that has recently erupted, a spokesman said on Friday.
"The purpose of the meetings is to fight the depravity and to urge the community to reject this phenomenon," said Sheikh Wadea al-Atabi, referring to a Thursday seminar attended by clerics, tribal leaders and police.
"The only remedy to stop it is through preaching and guidance. There is no other way to put an end to it," he said, stressing that the movement could not resort to violence after a series of killings of gay men in Baghdad.
- Iraq Faces the Mother of all Corruption Scandals: Allegations of kickbacks rock key government department as 1,000 officials face arrest and Trade Minister is forced to resign.
Iraq plans to arrest 1,000 officials for corruption after a scandal which has forced the resignation of the Trade Minister and is threatening the food supply of millions of Iraqis.
Corruption at the Trade Ministry is an important issue in Iraq because the ministry is in charge of the food rationing system on which 60 per cent of Iraqis depend. Officials at the ministry, which spends billions of dollars buying rice, sugar, flour and other items, are notorious among Iraqis for importing food that is unfit for human consumption, for which they charge the state the full international price.
- U.S. Soldier And 11 Iraqis Die in Attacks.
An American soldier was killed when unidentified men threw a grenade at a military patrol in the northern city of Mosul on Friday, according to Iraqi and American authorities.
The death brings to at least 22 the number of American military personnel members killed in Iraq in May, the highest monthly figure since September. The increase in the number of deadly attacks on American forces may be related to the deadline of June 30, when the Iraqi-American security agreement signed last year dictates that coalition forces are to withdraw from the cities.
- Iraq redux? Obama seeks funds for Pakistan super-embassy.
The U.S. is embarking on a $1 billion crash program to expand its diplomatic presence in Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan, another sign that the Obama administration is making a costly, long-term commitment to war-torn South Asia, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
...The scale of the projects rivals the giant U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, which was completed last year after construction delays at a cost of $740 million.
Environmental News
- Report: Climate change crisis 'catastrophic'.
The first comprehensive report into the human cost of climate change warns the world is in the throes of a "silent crisis" that is killing 300,000 people each year.
More than 300 million people are already seriously affected by the gradual warming of the earth and that number is set to double by 2030, the report from the Global Humanitarian Forum warns.
"For the first time we are trying to get the world's attention to the fact that climate change is not something waiting to happen. It is impacting seriously the lives of many people around the world," the forum's president, former U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, told CNN.
Speaking to CNN's Becky Anderson in London on Friday, Annan said the migration of people from newly uninhabitable areas presents a security issue that needs to be addressed by the United Nations Security Council.
- 20 nobel laureates compare climate crisis to threat from nuclear weapons.
Twenty Nobel prizewinners, including US energy secretary Steven Chu, Nigerian writer Wole Soyinka, and Kenyan environmentalist Wangari Maathai, have compared the threat of climate change to that posed to civilisation by nuclear weapons.
Borrowing a phrase from US civil rights leader Martin Luther King, they said at the end of a three-day climate change symposium hosted by Prince Charles in London: "We must recognise the fierce urgency of now. The evidence is compelling for the range and scale of climate impacts that must be avoided, such as droughts, sea level rise and flooding leading to mass migration and conflict. The scientific process, by which this evidence has been gathered, should be used as a clear mandate to accelerate the actions that need to be taken. Political leaders cannot possibly ask for a more robust, evidence-based call for action."
- Global warming must stay below 2C or world faces ruin, scientists declare.
World carbon emissions must start to decline in only six years if humanity is to stand a chance of preventing dangerous global warming, a group of 20 Nobel prize-winning scientists, economists and writers declared today.
The United Nations climate summit in Copenhagen in December must agree to halve greenhouse-gas emissions by 2050 to stop temperatures from increasing by more than 2C (3.6F), the St James’s Palace Nobel Laureate Symposium concluded.
While even a 2C temperature rise will have adverse consequences, a bigger increase would create "unmanageable climate risks", according to the St James’s Palace memorandum, signed today by 20 Nobel laureates in physics, chemistry, economics, peace and literature.
- Climate change hitting poor in U.S. hardest.
Climate change is disproportionately affecting the poor and minorities in the United States – a "climate gap" that will grow in coming decades unless policymakers intervene, according to a University of California study.
Everyone, the researchers say, is already starting to feel the effects of a warming planet, via heat waves, increased air pollution, drought, or more intense storms. But the impacts – on health, economics, and overall quality of life – are far more acute on society's disadvantaged, the researchers found.
...For instance, the report finds that African Americans living in Los Angeles are almost twice as likely to die as other Los Angelenos during a heat wave. Segregated in the inner city, they're more susceptible to the "heat island" effect, where temperatures are magnified by concrete and asphalt. Yet they're less likely to have access to air conditioning or cars.
- Survey: Arctic may hold twice the oil previously found there.
Continental shelves beneath the retreating polar ice caps of the Arctic may hold almost double the amount of oil previously found in the region, scientists say.
In new findings, the U.S. Geological Survey estimates the Arctic may be home to 30 percent of the planet's undiscovered natural gas reserves and 13 percent of its undiscovered oil.
- California fires up laser fusion machine.
A tentative first step towards an era of clean, almost limitless energy will take place today with the opening of a giant facility designed to recreate the power of the stars in an oversized warehouse in California.
The $3.5bn National Ignition Facility (NIF) sits in a 10-storey building covering three football fields and will harness the power of lasers to turn tiny pellets of hydrogen into thermonuclear energy.
If the machine works as planned, it will become the first to generate more energy than it consumes, a feat that could pave the way for commercial laser fusion power stations and an end to the world's energy security problems.
- Exxon Mobil CEO tells shareholders that fossil fuels have long future.
Exxon Mobil Chairman Rex Tillerson issued a ringing defense of the oil titan at the company’s annual meeting Wednesday, where 11 shareholder proposals, all opposed by management, were roundly defeated in a spirited gathering at the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center.
...In comments at the meeting and a news conference afterward, Tillerson said U.S. gasoline consumption has probably peaked and will slowly decline as a result of increased fuel economy and a growing reliance on low-sulfur diesel fuel. But he said the world isn’t anywhere close to reaching "peak oil," the point at which oil production will crest and then begin an irreversible decline as a result of dwindling petroleum deposits. A full-scale transition from fossil fuels could be "100 years away," he said.
- Chevron fights massive lawsuit in Ecuador: A case about responsibility for cleaning up a toxic drilling site could cost the company billions and send a chill through the industry.
The landmark lawsuit, which began in 1993 in New Yo rk and is now in an Ecuadorean court in this jungle region, alleges that Texaco, which was acquired by Chevron in 2001, knowingly unleashed toxins across an estimated 1,700 square miles – roughly the size of Rhode Island.
This allegedly occurred in one of the most biodiverse forests on the planet. Plaintiffs’ lawyers say Texaco’s dumping represents 30 times more than the crude spilled in the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska. According to a report by a court-appointed expert, Chevron could face $27 billion in damages to soil, groundwater, and drinking water – and even for cancer-related deaths. The decision is expected any day.
- The school lunchroom grows green: From kindergarten to college, school cafeterias become ecofriendly by banishing trays, growing veggies, and composting waste.
At a private school in Newark, N.J., students dine daily on ingredients grown on the building’s roof. In Baltimore, city schools have their own 33-acre organic farm, while in Riverside, Calif., elementary school students trundle wheelbarrows of lettuce and buckets of strawberries from a community garden behind the playground directly to their own salad bar.
Across the United States, efforts to make school lunches more environmentally friendly have paired with the local food movement, as educators try to reconnect children with the growing season. School lunchrooms are also getting revamped to cut water and energy use and lessen food waste.
- Research reveals Pacific Ocean threats and solutions.
The Pacific Ocean, occupying a third of the planet's area, faces threats that will render some coastal areas uninhabitable.
Pollution such as sewage, runoff from land and toxic waste; habitat destruction; over-fishing; and climate change
leading to sea level rise, ocean acidification and warming will all interact to damage the ocean's ecology and coastal economies.
...The study divided the Pacific Ocean into seven regions, revealing threats and potential solutions for each.
Widely applicable solutions include capacity building in ocean management, efforts to adapt to climate change and reduce overfishing, and using information technologies to monitor and share information... .
- Yale Study Finds Evidence that Damaged Ecosystems Can Recover Rapidly.
A recent study by Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies reports that if humans commit to the restoration effort, most ecosystems can recover from very major disruption within decades to half-centuries. The study was written by Holly P. Jones and Oswald J. Schmitz and will appear in the June edition of the journal PLoS ONE. According to the study, researchers compiled information from 240 independent studies conducted since 1910 that examined large, human-scale ecosystems recovery following the termination of both human and naturally imposed disruption.
...The average recovery time was 20 years or less, and reportedly did not exceed more than 56 years. It was found that recovery from human disturbances was slower than natural disturbances, such as hurricanes. Recovery following agricultural, logging, and multiple stressors was significantly slower than all of other disturbance types.
- A solar plant that's worth its salt.
Solar Two, a pilot project near Barstow, proved more than a decade ago that power can be produced by using molten salt. A Santa Monica energy firm is planning to build a larger version at an undisclosed desert site by 2013. The plant would generate enough electricity for 100,000 homes.
The mineral is a key part of a Santa Monica firm's proposed alternative energy project in the desert. The technology was proved workable in a pilot project near Barstow in the 1990s.
- Study links stranded marine animals to pollution.
Cape Cod is one of the top areas in the world for marine mammal strandings. The animals are sometimes loaded with parasites or are sick. But, despite a long history of pollution in our coastal waters, the toll pollution takes on sea creatures has been harder to establish.
In a study, recently published in the journal Environmental Pollution, Eric Montie, a University of South Florida scientist who did most of his research while a doctoral student at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, found high levels of man-made chemicals in the brains and fluid surrounding the brains of marine mammals.
- Stingrays suffering from contact with wildlife tourists, study finds.
It features regularly on lists of things people want to do before they die, but swimming with stingray may not be the life-enhancing experience expected – at least not for the animals.
A new study has revealed that stingray at a tourist hotspot in the Cayman Islands are suffering because of all the human attention. The Grand Cayman sandbank, dubbed Stingray City, is regularly swamped with up to 2,500 visitors at a time, most of whom have paid handsomely for the chance to feed, stroke and swim with the creatures.
The study highlights the risks to animals posed by the growing "wildlife tourism" industry. Experts say wild populations of creatures such as dolphins, penguins and sharks are also affected by increased contact with curious people.
The study was one of the first to investigate direct effects on the physiology of animals involved in such tourism. Blood tests showed that the stingrays at Stingray City had weaker immune systems and were in poorer health than animals not disturbed by tourists, perhaps making them more vulnerable to disease and storms.
- Why Coral Reefs Around The World Are Collapsing.
An explosion of knowledge has been made in the last few years about the basic biology of corals, researchers say in a new report, helping to explain why coral reefs around the world are collapsing and what it will take for them to survive a gauntlet of climate change and ocean acidification.
...The problems facing coral reefs are still huge, and increasing. They are being pressured by changes in ocean temperature, pollution, overfishing, sedimentation, acidification, oxidative stress and disease, and the synergistic effect of some of these problems may destroy reefs even when one cause by itself would not. Some estimates have suggested 20 percent of the world's coral reefs are already dead and an additional 24 percent are gravely threatened.
World News
- Countries Destroying Cluster Bomb Stockpiles: Report.
Several of the 96 states that have so far signed a treaty to ban cluster bombs have started to destroy their stockpiles of the deadly weapons even before the treaty is ratified, an advocacy group said on Friday.
Supporters of the ban on the munitions that have killed or maimed tens of thousands of people said they hope the United States, which remains outside the pact along with Russia, China and other powers, will shortly sign up.
"Only a few years ago the destruction of these stockpiled cluster munitions would have been unthinkable, but there has been a sea change of opinion against this weapon," said Steve Goose of non-governmental organisation Human Rights Watch.
- Satellite spots activity at North Korean missile site, officials say.
U.S. satellite imagery has spotted "vehicle activity" at a North Korean ballistic missile site, two Defense Department officials said Friday.
This activity is similar to that before a long-range missile launch by North Korea earlier this year.
The officials said the imagery shows vehicles used to transport Taepodong 2 missiles were spotted, but no missile parts were seen. The Taepodong 2 missile is a long-range missile that North Korea tested this year.
- Obama takes tough and risky stance on Israeli settlements.
President Barack Obama Thursday ratcheted up what might be America's toughest bargaining position with Israel in a generation, demanding anew that Israel stop expanding its settlements in the disputed West Bank as a key step toward making peace with its Arab neighbors.
Obama made the demand after a White House meeting with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, building on unusually blunt language the day before from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
- Aid Slowly Reaching Sri Lanka’s War Refugees.
Eleven days after the Sri Lankan government declared victory over Tamil rebels in the country’s north, aid organizations are slowly beginning to get freer access to the 265,000 civilians displaced by the fighting, but not quickly enough to meet the vast needs, according to aid officials in the region.
Sri Lankan officials have eased restrictions on vehicle traffic in the camps, allowing workers from organizations like the International Committee of the Red Cross, the United Nations and Doctors Without Borders, better access to the ethnic Tamils displaced by the fighting who are living in sprawling and squalid camps, according to aid workers.
National News
- Pentagon Plans New Arm to Wage Cyberspace Wars.
The Pentagon plans to create a new military command for cyberspace, administration officials said Thursday, stepping up preparations by the armed forces to conduct both offensive and defensive computer warfare.
The military command would complement a civilian effort to be announced by President Obama on Friday that would overhaul the way the United States safeguards its computer networks.
Mr. Obama, officials said, will announce the creation of a White House office — reporting to both the National Security Council and the National Economic Council — that will coordinate a multibillion-dollar effort to restrict access to government computers and protect systems that run the stock exchanges, clear global banking transactions and manage the air traffic control system.
- Bush, Clinton not aware of new U.S. passport rule.
The two men who preceded Barack Obama in the White House admitted Friday they had no idea the United States was implementing a new rule Monday that would require Canadians and Americans to have passports to cross the border.
Mr. Clinton too said he'd only heard about the passport requirement a day earlier, adding that in all likelihood most Americans were completely unaware of it as well.
- Authorities: Ponzi scams unraveling with economy.
Following the headline-grabbing Madoff case and stock market meltdown, authorities say they're investigating a growing number of investment-fraud cases and finding common threads. The scammers usually live large, spending millions on sports cars, sprawling homes and lavish lifestyles. They target members of the same community, church or ethnic group.
The schemes thrive on investors' greed, promising rates of return of 18-20 percent or higher. More recently, they've capitalized on fear, too, luring investors who wanted out of the volatile stock market. Many investors are retired or nearing retirement.
- Foreclosures, mortgage delinquencies climb at record rate.
A record 12 percent of all U.S. mortgages were at least one payment behind or in the foreclosure process during the first three months of this year, a report said Thursday.
In a reminder that the nation's economic problems aren't going away anytime soon, the report also found that the foreclosure rate on prime fixed-rate loans to financially healthy borrowers has doubled in the past 12 months. For the first time since the explosion in subprime lending to borrowers with weaker credit began early in this decade, in fact, the largest percentage of new foreclosures in January, February and March were on prime fixed-rate loans.
- Schwarzenegger would close most California state parks.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's plan to eliminate funding for the state parks system would close 220 locations, including Sutter's Fort and the State Capitol Museum in Sacramento, according to a list released by the administration.
Only parks that are self-sufficient or receive local government financial support would remain open, 59 in all.
The governor made the proposal this week to save $70 million in 2009-10 and help close a $24.3 billion budget deficit.
- US judge refuses to dismiss 'Day of Prayer' suit.
A federal judge has refused to dismiss a lawsuit that claims the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional.
...A federal law sets the first Thursday in May as the day for presidents to issue proclamations asking Americans to pray.
...The Obama administration and National Day of Prayer Task Force filed motions to dismiss the case, but Crabb rejected them as premature.
- Obama: Hurricane readiness is residents' responsibility.
Ahead of Monday's official start of the hurricane season, President Barack Obama urged Americans in vulnerable areas to take responsibility for their own safety and to get ready now.
He said all Americans should make plans now for how they'd handle an emergency, and to have a ready stock of non-perishable food, water, first aid kits and radios.
Obama said during a visit to the Federal Emergency Management Agency that the federal government is determined to be ready for an emergency. However, he stressed that the first responsibility falls with individuals, and then with the state governments.
Civil Rights, Discrimination & Hate News
- Nobel Prize Winner Gets Hassled At Bush Intercontinental Airport.
Mairead Corrigan Maguire thought the hard part was over. Along with fellow Nobel Laureates Rigoberta Menchu of Guatemala, American landmine activist Jody Williams, and Iranian Shirin Ebadi, she had been in Guatemala, where the women had just co-hosted a three-day conference on democracy, human rights and peace that had attracted 150 female international activists.
Unfortunately for Maguire, her flight back home to Northern Ireland was routed through Houston, where none of that meant diddly. Federal Customs officials were far less interested in any of that than they were in a box on the back of the transit form she filled out on her flight.
"They questioned me about my nonviolent protests in USA against the Afghanistan invasion and Iraqi war," Maguire said later in a statement. "They insisted I must tick the box in the Immigration form admitting to criminal activities."
Maguire was detained for two hours -- grilled once, fingerprinted, photographed, and grilled again. She missed her flight home. She was only released after an organization she helped found -- the Nobel Women's Initiative -- started kicking up a fuss.
- Men in Power group organized to balance government initiatives for women and girls.
A group of University of Chicago students think it's time the campus focused more on its men.
A third-year student from Lake Bluff has formed Men in Power, a student organization that promises to help men get ahead professionally. But the group's emergence has been controversial, with some critics charging that its premise is misogynistic.
Others say it's about time men are championed, noting that recent job losses hit men harder and that women earn far more bachelor's and master's degrees than do men.
"It's an enormous disparity now," said Warren Farrell, author of "The Myth of Male Power" and former board member of the New York chapter of the National Organization for Women. He noted, among other things, an imbalance in government and private initiatives that advance the interests of women and girls.
- Calif. Gay Marriage Supporters Plan March On D.C..
Organizers of a Fresno-based same-sex marriage rally will announce an October march on Washington, CBS5 has learned.
"We are kicking off a national march on Washington...because the person who really has promises he needs to make good on is President Obama," said, Meet in the Middle director Robin McGehee.
...Carroll said the Washington event will take place on the weekend of October 10th and 11th, coinciding with "National Coming Out Day," said Carroll.