Humanitarian Issues

"When former military liberation movements come to power, the very 'command character' that ensured success against the enemy tends to become the structural flaw which impedes their building of the democratic institutions required by civil society ... The much-celebrated attainment of formal peace with the north and, maybe eventually, independence for the south, should not be equated with liberation, and certainly not with the creation of lasting democracy." [more]

"'Every single thing the U.S. did led to civil war,' says Christian Parenti, author of 'The Freedom,' his account of occupied Iraq. 'The failure of reconstruction, the firing of the army, the blatant theft of Iraqi oil money, the use of the Badr Brigade, the use of Peshmerga, the use of death squads, the use of indiscriminate detention and torture, the destruction of Falluja and other towns in Al Anbar province,' explains Parenti, created a raging insurgency and sparked civil war. [more]

"U.S. broadcast media are failing to provide even minimal coverage of the ongoing crisis — some say genocide — in Darfur, Sudan, according to a new report, which concludes that media fixation with celebrity, as well as the Iraq war, is crowding out news of important events that deserve global attention 10 years after the genocide in Rwanda." [more]

"The Minutemen left California as a failure, drawing few people to their project while encountering strong resistance from a broad coalition of opposition." [more]

"The Bush administration has turned Guantánamo into a place that is devoid of due process and the rule of law. It's a place where human beings can be imprisoned for life without being charged or tried, without ever seeing a lawyer, and without having their cases reviewed by a court. Congress and the courts should be uprooting this evil practice, but freedom and justice in the United States are on a post-9/11 downhill slide." [more]

"'The biggest surprise was that 76 percent of people who had a medical-related bankruptcy had health insurance when they first got sick,' said Dr. Steffie Woolhandler, a doctor at Cambridge Hospital and one of the authors. 'That's really new. No one has asked that before.'" [more]

"In the Senate hearings, lawmakers grilled Gonzales on whether it is legally permissible for U.S. personnel to engage in 'cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment' of noncitizens detained outside of the United States. Gonzales replied that 'aliens interrogated by the United States outside the United States enjoy no substantive rights' under the U.S. Constitution or the Convention Against Torture, a treaty ratified by the Senate in 1994 that bans all interrogation methods that cause severe pain or discomfort." [more]

"Without a resolution of the fighting in Darfur, peace in Sudan is only partial. Despite this, Secretary of State Colin Powell has signaled Washington's intention to relax sanctions and allow U.S. companies to take advantage of Sudan's oil wealth." [more]

"The Council's current relationship with Mr. Kissinger," Maxwell wrote in his resignation letter to Hoge, "evidently comes at the cost of suppressing debate about his actions as a public figure. This I want no part of." [more]

"The FBI complained that military interrogators have gone far beyond the restrictions of the Geneva Conventions prohibiting torture and have followed an apparently new executive order from President Bush that permits the use of dogs and other techniques to harass prisoners." [more]

Sentenced to three years in prison, Staff Sergeant Johnny Horne was also demoted to the rank of private, ordered to forfeit all pay and handed a dishonourable discharge at a court martial in the Iraqi capital, the army said. [more]

The Federal Court (Bundesgerichtshof) in Karlsruhe is obliged to accept the case filed by the American-based Center for Consitutional Rights (CCR) [against Rumsfeld], a legal group renowned for their spirited defense of the Guantanamo-detainees and representation of soldiers victimized by "stop-loss" policies, because of a law passed in 2002 in Germany stipluating that War Crimes can be tried in Germany regardless of whether the case involves a German citizen or resident. Whether Rumsfeld will be able to weather this and other storms may have less to do with the letter of law, however, than with the strength of his persona. [more]

A U.S. human rights group filed war crime charges against U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other senior U.S. officials and military officers early this week, saying they were responsible for the torture and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib. [more]

"During the last three years, this holocaust has not only spread wider but also been given a general acceptability, to such an extent that now it seems to be a matter of routine even when several hundred Muslims are slaughtered in a single day." [more]

"In a departure from protocol, the International Committee of the Red Cross urged all warring parties to comply with international humanitarian law and let aid workers carry out their duties. The damning indictment by one of the world’s most respected humanitarian aid organisations comes as a US official warned it would be difficult to hold elections in January unless the situation improved." [more]

"'I decided to swim ... but I changed my mind after seeing U.S. helicopters firing on and killing people who tried to cross the river.' He watched horrified as a family of five was shot dead as they tried to cross. Then, he 'helped bury a man by the river bank, with my own hands.'" [more]

"Last week, the Nyala relocations prompted a chorus of international condemnation, with the United States accusing Khartoum of violating UN principles concerning internally displaced people and UN security council resolutions on Darfur." [more]

"A United Nations team has begun investigating allegations of genocide against the Sudanese Government as ethnic-minority rebels accuse the army and its militia allies of destroying the evidence of mass graves in Darfur." [more]

"Doctors said people brought in at least 15 dead civilians at the main clinic in Falluja on Monday. By Tuesday, there were no clinics open, residents said, and no way to count casualties." [more]

"The word on the street that the resistance was mostly out of Falluja prior to this battle is verified by the Iraqi Minister of Defense himself. The fire had begun to spread long before the current onslaught of Falluja." [more]

"What I believe is ... likely to be done to Falluja will be a war crime and crime against humanity, morally indefensible by any civilized standard or for that matter, by the Statute of the International Criminal Court (to which, conveniently, neither the US nor Iraqi Government adheres)." [more]

"Tuesday's attack on civilians was just one of many, and anti-government rebel groups are growing more violent and numerous. From Bosnia to Sierra Leone, the world has a painful history of putting peacekeepers into situations where there is no peace to be kept. Darfur may be one more." [more]

"The air strikes reduced the Nazzal hospital, run by a Saudi Arabian Islamic charity, to rubble. Hospital officials quoted by Reuters news agency say all the contents were ruined." [more]

"Rape in war, if committed by combatants, is both a grave human rights violation and a war crime. Yet it has long been mischaracterized as a private crime, the ignoble act of wayward soldiers. Worse still, it has been accepted precisely because it is so common." [more]

The most complete attempt yet to identify some of the estimated 15,000 Iraqi civilians killed since the US-led invasion in March last year was unveiled in Chicago today. [more]

In sum, although savage attacks against civilians should never be condoned, the harsh reality is that Russia, Israel, and the United States must expect further attempts by Islamist terrorists to attack their soil until the underlying cause of the terrorism is removed. [more]

"Iraq has reinstated the death penalty for murderers and those threatening national security, according to a US-appointed, interim Iraqi government spokesman." [more]

But there have also been disturbing reports of the US military using aid as a political weapon, which has further contributed to undermine the neutrality of the NGOs. [more]

A spokesperson "despaired that military campaigns were employing 'hearts and minds' strategies more and more often, making it difficult for aid workers to maintain their aura of all-important impartiality. If armies are handing out food assistance and medical equipment, it becomes harder for locals to tell the aid workers from the occupiers." [more]

A fundamental question was whether the human rights convention "applies to the forces of a European state outside the territory of the council of Europe". A second such question was whether the Human Rights Act, which incorporated the convention into UK domestic law, could only be enforced in the territory of the UK, and not in Iraq. [more]

Food aid advocates and U.S. senators have said that a line of text in the proposed World Trade Organization's Doha Round trade agreement, which could potentially be approved this week, is threatening international in-kind food aid programs. [more]

[There] may be instances arising in the future where persons are wrongfully detained in places unknown to those who would apply for habeas corpus in their behalf [so a U.S. court can determine if they're legally held]. . . . These dangers may seem unreal in the United States. But the experience of less fortunate countries should serve as a warning . . . — Ahrens v. Clark, U.S. Supreme Court, 1948, Justice Wiley Blount Rutledge dissenting [more]

Last Thursday [...] the House quietly passed a renewed appropriation that keeps open the U.S.'s most infamous torture-teaching institution, known as the School of the Americas (SOA), where the illegal physical and psychological abuse of prisoners of the kind the world condemned at Abu Ghraib and worse has been routinely taught for years. [more]

"In a report to be released Monday, Amnesty International said the sexual attacks in Darfur amounted to war crimes and crimes against humanity. But it said it did not have sufficient evidence to show that the Janjaweed, as the government-backed militias are known, have carried out genocide in Darfur, as some critics of Sudan's government maintain." [more]

"Two rebel groups — the Justice and Equality Movement and the Sudan Liberation Army — took up arms against the Sudanese government in February 2003, demanding a greater share of power and wealth in Africa's largest nation. Violence in Darfur has since made more than 1m homeless and killed an estimated 30,000 people." [more]

"The prisoners were against the wall and we were standing in the courtyard when the Interior Minister said that he would like to kill them all on the spot. Allawi said that they deserved worse than death - but then he pulled the pistol from his belt and started shooting them." [more]

Last December, the United Nations General Assembly voted to ask the UN’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) to rule on the legality of the barrier. On Friday July 9th, the court published its ruling, declaring the barrier illegal under international law, demanding the dismantlement of those parts that already encroach on the West Bank and calling for compensation for the many Palestinians whose rights have been “gravely” infringed by it. [more]

Israel is counting on the US to use its veto in the UN Security Council to block any Palestinian attempts to have the ruling enforced. [more]

"As the world's attention was turned to crises in the Middle East, a slaughter has raged for 17 months in Sudan's Darfur region. Arab gunmen on horses and camels, backed by bombers and helicopter gunships, have razed hundreds of black African villages, killed tens of thousands and driven more than one million from their homes." [more]

"Nothing from the package has been spent on construction, health care, sanitation and water projects. More money has been spent on administration than all projects related to education, human rights, democracy and governance." [more]

"A report prepared by the top CIA official handling the matter says Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the [Halabja] massacre, and indicates that it was the work of Iranians. Further, the Scott inquiry on the role of the British government has gathered evidence that following the massacre the United States in fact armed Saddam Hussein to counter the Iranians chemicals for chemicals." [more]

"They also demanded the United States stop undermining public confidence in generic anti-AIDS drugs, stop limiting access to condoms and reproductive choices through family planning, and give the promised $15 billion for AIDS prevention and treatment to the Global Fund." [more]

"A resolution granting a year's exemption had passed the council the past two years, but this year the attempt to renew it ran into difficulties because of the prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq and a strong statement of opposition from Secretary General Kofi Annan." [more]

"The United States launched many more failed airstrikes on a far broader array of senior Iraqi leaders during the early days of the war last year than has previously been acknowledged, and some caused significant civilian casualties, according to senior military and intelligence officials." [more]

A memo dated October 9, 2003 on "Interrogation Rules of Engagement", which each military intelligence officer was obliged to sign, set out in detail the wide range of pressure tactics they could use - including stress positions and solitary confinement for more than 30 days. [more]

Angry Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee called on Ashcroft to provide the document, saying leaked portions that have appeared in news reports suggest the Bush administration is reinterpreting U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions prohibiting torture. [more]

If, as war supporters claim, our goals in Iraq (now that we've lost the rationale of hunting down weapons of mass destruction) are stability and democracy, we are proceeding in exactly the wrong way. [more]

"'Why do you think the Erez industrial estate is still attractive for 200 factories that have stayed put despite all the terrorist attacks?' asked Gabi Bar. 'The most important motive is the low wages paid to the workers: around 1,500 shekels ($332) as against 4,500 shekels ($995), which is the minimum wage in Israel. What is more, the employers don’t have to abide by Israeli labour laws.'" [more]

"Unlike early reports suggesting the abuses were failings by individual soldiers, Provance told the AP and other media outlets that interrogators at the prison viewed sleep deprivation, stripping inmates naked and threatening them with dogs as normal ways of dealing with 'the enemy.'" [more]

"The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision, approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focussed on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Rumsfeld’s decision embittered the American intelligence community, damaged the effectiveness of élite combat units, and hurt America’s prospects in the war on terror." [more]

"What Bush seemed to have in mind was applying his broad doctrine of pre-emption to interrogations: to get information that could help stop terrorist acts before they could be carried out. This was justified by what is known in counterterror circles as the 'ticking time bomb' theory—the idea that when faced with an imminent threat by a terrorist, almost any method is justified, even torture." [more]

If today the U.S. government were to put itself on trial, on the same basis it employed to try the Nazis at Nuremberg, for actions taken in Afghanistan and Iraq in recent years, it might have to convict itself—if only for the sake of consistency. [more]

Despite widespread ill-feeling about the abuse of prisoners by American forces and allegations of mistreatment by British troops, coalition forces will be protected from any legal action. [more]

Font, [his lawyer], told jurors the soldier believed that "because he had become a conscientious objector, he would not be required to serve in Iraq anymore." [more]

"Iraqis interviewed on the videotape said revelers had fired volleys of gunfire into the air in a traditional wedding celebration before the attack took place. American troops have sometimes mistaken celebratory gunfire for hostile fire." [more]

Colonel Erez "argued that Israel's decision to use ground troops, rather than simply bomb the neighborhood from the air, showed its concern for Palestinian civilians and 'maintaining our moral posture.' Several wounded Palestinians interviewed in the last 24 hours said they were shot by snipers when they stepped out into the street. Noting the curfew, Colonel Erez said, 'Someone who exits is obviously someone who is looking for trouble' and was therefore 'a legitimate target.' " [more]

"In her role as dominatrix over Iraqi men England exposed the sexualization of national conquest. As a participant in the militarized construction of the masculine she inaugurated a brand new, frightening archetype: dominant-nation female as joyful agent of sexual, national, racial and religious humiliation. How’s that for liberation?" [more]

"The tortures at Abu Ghraib have exposed to the world the utter moral bankruptcy of Bush's war. Far from being fought on behalf of Iraqi democracy, it is a war for U.S. supremacy in which racist dehumanization and brutalization of Arabs and Muslims play an absolutely central role." [more]

The High Court ruling coincided with a report from Amnesty International claiming British forces had shot and killed 37 Iraqi civilians when they were under no apparent threat. [more]

"Although no principle stands higher in military doctrine than that the commander bears full responsibility for the actions of his subordinates, neither Bush nor Rumsfeld, the two top military commanders, has the decency to resign — not just on account of the prison disclosures, of course, but also on account of the plethora of actions by which they have abused their constitutional powers and brought everlasting shame upon the United States." [more]

As for the members of Congress holding the hearings, they seemed more concerned about the release of the photos than with the barbaric behavior depicted in them. Would the behavior have been more acceptable if no photos or videos had been taken of it? Hardly. [more]

"The picture [the Army report] draws of Abu Ghraib is one in which Army regulations and the Geneva conventions were routinely violated, and in which much of the day-to-day management of the prisoners was abdicated to Army military-intelligence units and civilian contract employees. Interrogating prisoners and getting intelligence, including by intimidation and torture, was the priority." [more]

"The pictures of American soldiers humiliating Iraqi detainees are reminiscent of sadomasochistic porn — and we should not be surprised." [more]

In any unnecessary war, the leaders of the attacking side are morally responsible for all deaths in the enemy military: accidental killings of civilians (the military euphemism is “collateral damage”) as well as abuses by rogue elements of those same groups toward enemy prisoners... [more]

The war in Iraq shares parallels with both the Vietnam War a generation ago and the Spanish-American War a century earlier—massive civilian deaths and torture are characteristics of all three imperial interventions... The estimates of civilians killed in the Philippines range from 200,000 to a high of perhaps 600,000 — no one really knows... [more]

"The British pictures show a hooded Iraqi aged between 18-20 on the floor of a military truck being brutalised. According to two squaddies who took part in the torture, but later blew the whistle, the Iraqi’s ordeal lasted eight hours and he was left with a broken jaw and missing teeth. He was bleeding and vomited when his captors threw him out of a speeding truck. No-one knows if he lived or died." [more]

"Six months before he faced a court martial, Frederick sent home a video diary of his trip across the country. Frederick, a reservist, said he was proud to serve in Iraq. He seemed particularly well-suited for the job at Abu Ghraib. He’s a corrections officer at a Virginia prison, whose warden described Frederick to us as 'one of the best.' The Army investigation confirms that soldiers at Abu Ghraib were not trained at all in Geneva Convention rules." [more]

The US administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, acknowledged Friday that mistakes had been made in the occupation of the country and invited former Iraqi army officers who served under ousted president Saddam Hussein to help establish a new national force. [more]

Part of the problem, a British officer said, is that Americans tend to see the Iraqis as “untermenschen,” the term for “sub-humans.” [more]

"All vehicles not belonging to the US military will be fired on according to US military command. The move over the weekend is likely to cause massive dislocation by preventing Iraqis using the highways north and south of Baghdad — the main economic lifelines of the country — where insurgents have launched frequent attacks. The main roads to Turkey, Jordan and Kuwait will be cut." [more]

"United Nations police in Kosovo are investigating a weekend shootout between Jordanian and US police units in the province which left two US woman officers and a Jordanian dead. There are fears that it was motivated by anti-Americanism." [more]

"Few governments have expressed concern over the conditions under which the detainees are being held in Guantanamo, which rights watchdog Amnesty International described this week as 'a major human rights scandal that has widespread implications for the whole world.'" [more]

"'We've called it a humanitarian crisis,' State Department spokesman Adam Ereli told reporters on April 6. 'But I really hesitate to use the G-word at this point, not really having considered it in that light.'" [more]

"As I reflect on lessons learnt from the Rwandan genocide, the most powerful one remains the reality that African lives do not matter to the leaders, and the majority of the citizens, of the world's most powerful nation and its European allies./ Their non-interventionist attitude is couched in references to lack of strategic interest. But the underlying reason is an entrenched racism that prevents them from reacting with the urgency and emotional commitment that has propelled them to intervene in less extensive acts of mass murder among their kinsmen in Europe." [more]

"Fighting in Darfur broke out more than a year ago, when rebels attacked government targets, saying black Africans were being oppressed in favour of Arabs. Mr Egeland described it as one of the world`s worst humanitarian crises." [more]

"Mugabe's atrocities are not limited to inflicting egregious pain on individuals. The ICC should be able to hold him accountable also for committing 'other inhumane acts' under the statute. This would include the systematic and widespread policy of using food as an economic weapon. Interviews with a number of Zimbabweans reveal a nefarious government policy of manipulating the supply and distribution of international and government food aid. If a Zimbabwean does not possess a registration card from Mugabe's ruling party, then he or she cannot register for this life-sustaining grain." [more]

"The plaintiffs also alleged that Chevron Nigeria's management was involved in the detention and torture of protest leader Bola Oyinbo, and that a helicopter flown by Chevron pilots and vehicles supplied by Chevron Nigeria transported government forces that opened fire on two villages, killing several people." [more]

"Just over a week into the protest, and strikers are already being threatened by the paramilitary Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, which issued a statement to 'declare war on the individuals that we have already identified as the leaders of the organisation. They must leave . . . or they will become a military target and we will finish them off. Anti-subversive justice will carry out justice.'" [more]

"Israel has prohibited vehicles belonging to the United Nations and other humanitarian agencies from crossing the Erez checkpoint into Gaza for the last three weeks, the statement said, and staff must go through on foot. Food shipments through Karni, the only commercial crossing point in Gaza, have also been obstructed." [more]

"'The United States stands alone in opposing these safe, inexpensive and WHO-certified generic medicines,' Csete said. 'The Bush administration should dispel all accusations that it is protecting the interests of brand-name drug companies, and instead it should endorse and purchase these cheaper drugs, which would maximize the return on its investment in fighting AIDS.'" [more]

"Corporate critics say they are comfortable with these ideals, which are already pursued by many companies on an individual basis. What they reject is the notion that there should be any international compulsion. While the charter would not have the force of a formal UN treaty, it has taken the rare step of including an enforcement lever that might force negligent firms to pay compensation to their alleged victims - if they are convicted in local courts." [more]

"Military lawyers refuse to name the soldiers, reportedly from the 800 Military Police Brigade, who were charged, or to release their charge sheets or describe the nature of the alleged abuse. In response to a question, they said none of the prisoners was given medical treatment, and would not say if any of the mistreated prisoners were women." [more]

"The Security Council tonight, acting in response to the deteriorating political, security and humanitarian situation in Haiti, authorized the immediate deployment of Multinational Interim Force for a period of three months to help to secure and stabilize the capital, Port-au-Prince, and elsewhere in the country." [more]

"What this wall is really doing is taking Palestinian lands. It is also ... helping turn Palestinian communities into dungeons, next to which the bantustans of South Africa look like symbols of freedom, sovereignty and self-determination." [more]

"There is also a growing belief that the release was a cynical move to divert attention from the US Supreme Court’s hearing later this year to test the legality of holding the Camp Delta detainees. Two of the released British detainees were named as plaintiffs in a legal challenge mounted by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), arguing that the US cannot order indefinite detention without due legal process in 'a prison that operates entirely outside the law.'" [more]

Welcoming Tunisia's president, Zine el-Abidine ben Ali, to the White House makes America's promotion of Arab democracy ring hollow. [more]

"Mr Begg is believed by his family to have cracked after repeated questioning and confessed to a plot to attack the Houses of Parliament with planes laden with anthrax. His supporters say this is a sign that he will say anything in the hope of getting out. There have been at least 28 suicide attempts among the 680 detainees." [more]

"The U.S. game in Haiti has always been a double game - public lip service for "democracy" - at the same time giving concrete covert aid to the most violent anti-democratic forces." In sharp disagreement with establisment media, Reeves states " Whatever Aristide's mistakes and weaknesses have been (and they are many), they pale when compared to the extreme brutality of those who are today implicated in the violence in Gonaives and elsewhere in Haiti." [more]

"For the wounded veterans of the Iraq war, the battles now are with sleeping and waking, and the close-in fighting is with intimates and one's self." [more]

At least 20,000 rallied yesterday in freezing weather against the signing of a free trade pact with Chile. "Violence erupted as their voices of dissent were silenced. Carts were set on fire, police busses and barricades were attacked, and police were fended off with steel pipes, stones and other small objects." [more]

"Since the end of 2002, most of the major US think tanks, human rights groups, and Western NGOs have persistently pointed out the flaws in US strategy and suggested the fairly obvious changes that need to be made. As in Iraq, however, the Bush administration is extremely reluctant to admit its mistakes or rectify them publicly or even make reliable information available." [more]

"Action by Western nations on behalf of human rights and democracy in Saudi Arabia does not go beyond accusations made by Western writers and journalists who describe Saudi society as backward and dictatorial." [more]

A Vietnam veteran columnist reflects on the treatment of POWs. [more]

"Over the past year harrowing first-hand testimonies from North Korean defectors have detailed execution and torture, and now chilling evidence has emerged that the walls of Camp 22 hide an even more evil secret: gas chambers where horrific chemical experiments are conducted on human beings." [more]

"Annan suggested forming a U.N. committee on preventing genocide and having a 'special rapporteur' who would report directly to the Security Council to monitor 'massive and systematic violations of human rights and threats to international peace and security.' " [more]

"A major difference between Iraq's $116-billion debt and Africa's aggregate $300-billion debt is the creditors. Iraq's is owed mainly to various countries. Africa's main lenders are the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank ... Activists charge that the contrast between progress on Iraqi debt and the paralysis of debt-relief programs for Africa reflects the low priority Western nations often accord Africa." [more]

"A man who lived on a golf course for 40 years was told to leave because some golfers complained that he scared them." [more]

"Guantánamo's inmates are among the least significant of any detainees captured since the Sept. 11 attacks, according to several American counterterrorism experts. The C.I.A. has not sent any of the highest-ranking Qaeda leaders it has captured to the base, officials said." [more]

"Rumsfeld [said] that Saddam's classification may change and he may lose POW status if it appears he had a role in the postwar insurgency in Iraq that has killed more than 200 Americans." [more]

"Saddam's capture is a 'model opportunity' for international justice, says the head of Amnesty International USA, but it doesn't justify Bush's civil liberties crackdown." [more]

"Any trial of Hussein would be a hugely complicated undertaking, especially for an Iraqi justice system that barely exists eight months after U.S. forces captured Baghdad. Human rights organizations raised questions today about the credibility of a still-unformed Iraqi tribunal that would operate with U.S. backing." [more]

"Scores of Iraqi civilians were killed or injured needlessly, because Britain failed in its duty as an occupying power, a human rights group claims. " [more]

" 'You have to understand the Arab mind,' Capt. Todd Brown, a company commander with the Fourth Infantry Division, said as he stood outside the gates of Abu Hishma. 'The only thing they understand is force — force, pride and saving face.' " [more]

The city was closed down by squads of riot police during the Free Trade Area of the Americas meeting ... armored vehicles patrolled the streets, police helicopters hovered overhead and, during street clashes on Nov. 20, police fired volleys of rubber bullets and pepper spray at protesters in the city center. [more]

"About 70 allied soldiers have died in November, already making it the deadliest month since April, when 73 troops died. President Bush declared major combat over May 1." [more]

In "liberal" New York City, 100 people attending a fundraiser for APOC, an anti-racist group of activists of color was attacked by police with nightsticks and pepperspray after police responded to an officer who claimed he had seen someone with an "open container" outside the venue of the fundraiser. 8 activists have been arrested, charged with disorderly conduct, resisting arrest, and inciting riot. [more]

With all the recent propaganda released by police about the upcoming Free Trade Agreement of the Americas protests in Miami, Indymedia provides a refreshingly realistic account of the preparations (on both sides) being made to ready Miami for the impact of the FTAA. [more]

"The tightening net of Border Patrol and Immigration agents has slowed trade, snarled traffic and cost American taxpayers millions, perhaps billions, of dollars, while hundreds of migrants have died trying to evade the growing army of border authorities." [more]

"[Ebadi] criticized U.S. military intervention in Muslim countries. Asked about Iraq and Afghanistan, she said in English, 'In Iraq and Afghanistan — especially in Iraq — people do not have water and electricity. And it is very important for people. How can we talk about human rights and freedom?' " [more]

A spokesperson "said that it was intolerable that the complex was used as 'an investigation center, not a detention center.' He said the International Red Cross was making the unusual statements because of a lack of action." [more]

"Since 1996, when the first Wal-Mart supercenter and Sam's Club opened in the city of Shenzhen in south China, it has set up 30 stores in 14 cities all over China in which over 99.9 percent of its employees are Chinese." [more]

"Though U.S.-led coalition forces are stationed in hot zones, their sights are trained on terrorists rather than the local thugs, drug traffickers and bandits who make life for Afghans miserable. For many Afghans, the country is less secure today than it was before the coalition bombers arrived." [more]

"Aid groups are fleeing in terror. They blame much of their exodus from the southern third of the country on its drug crop, worth an estimated $1.6 billion Cdn, which purportedly finances Islamic extremist violence, ethnic blood feuds, warlord war chests, provincial property disputes and competing political movements." [more]

"Often the children are there beside the cheap wooden coffins, screaming and crying and numb with loss. The families weep and they say that no one cares about them and, after expressing our sorrow to them over and over again, I come to the conclusion they are right. No one cares." [more]

"The civilians died in their beds when a bomb landed on their tent in Naw Bahar district of the southern province of Zabul on Wednesday night." [more]

"The night watchman said the soldiers had arrived in military vehicles but were casually dressed and were drinking beer. At the tiger's cage, now empty, pools of blood showed that the soldier passed through a first cage intended only for keepers and stood next to the inner cage's narrow bars." [more]

"There were three separate ambushes in Khaldiya and the guerrillas showed a new sophistication. Even as I left the scene of the killings after dark, US army flares were dripping over the semi-desert plain 100 miles west of Baghdad while red tracer fire raced along the horizon behind the palm trees. It might have been a scene from a Vietnam movie, even an archive newsreel clip; for this is now tough, lethal guerrilla country for the Americans, a death-trap for them almost every day." [more]

"I'm just watching two Apache helicopters as I speak to you now just flying over the buildings in front of me, on 'antiterrorist patrol', as it's called. There is a real guerilla war underway here, and when you are on the ground you realize it's moving out of control. Washington is still trying to present this as a success story and it's not, anymore than Afghanistan." [more]

"Thirty years ago, Chile was a democracy, yet tyranny triumphed—in the name of fighting terror." [more]

"The EPA inspector general said the agency was persuaded by the White House to omit cautionary language about the possible hazards from air pollutants such as asbestos, cadmium and lead after the World Trade Center towers fell. In addition, the report said the EPA omitted from early public statements guidance for the professional cleaning of indoor spaces, leading some people to return to their homes before they had been properly cleaned." [more]

"Congress passed harsh laws in 1996 that mandated detention for virtually all "criminal aliens"—noncitizens convicted of committing crimes—and also expanded the list of crimes deemed deportable offenses. That created a sudden surge in the numbers of detainees, who were crowded into jails that weren't always properly equipped to handle them. Post–9-11 crackdowns since then have made it even harder for detainees to win release." [more]

"Most people don't realize just how frequently the United Nations puts itself between trigger-happy combatants around the globe ... [yet] which do most people associate with the United Nations? The ones in which U.N. troops failed to prevent disaster." [more]

"The withdrawal came as the US death toll from the postwar occupation rose above the number killed in the invasion itself." [more]

"It is a movement that is more diverse, yet less integrated. It is desirous of new blood, yet often out of touch with younger people. It is embracing new political causes, yet fighting to maintain its political influence. And many of the issues on the current agenda are far more subtle and complex, less easy to package, than the right to register to vote without fear of injury or death." [more]

"The [Canadian] government provided Butt with an attorney to plead his asylum case, health benefits, and, until he finds work, a housing allowance. He has applied for three factory jobs. Asylum-seekers in the United States, by contrast, must wait six months to work, relying on charity in the meantime. Sometimes they end up in jail as their case winds through the courts." [more]

"Salvation is at hand, but President Bush bizarrely has refused to order the U.S. forces into the country. With the UN, the regional allies and all factions of Liberians begging the United States to act, the president dithers." [more]

"The Army is telling troops to take precautions as it tries to figure out the cause of pneumonia cases, including two deaths, among forces in the Afghan and Iraqi campaigns." [more]

"Mr. Stueve could not specify how many soldiers are in hotels, but said Walter Reed is referring about 20 patients or their relatives to hotels each day. Hotels in Silver Spring, just across the D.C. line, offer discounted rates for outpatients and their families, and the military pays the bill." [more]

"Hunching down to sprint across road junctions, ducking the ever-whistling bullets, has become a way of life for people who have no choice but to move in an often futile hunt for food and clean water." [more]

"Secretary of State Colin Powell said Bush was examining the options and was still considering sending combat troops. But the Pentagon was believed to be reluctant to commit soldiers." [more]

"Amnesty staff heard complaints that included prolonged sleep deprivation and detainees being forced to stay in painful positions or wear hoods over their heads for long periods. Detainees also said U.S. troops had shot some captives." [more]

"If the greatest injustice in the world is U.S. imperialism, the world's greatest injustices must be found where U.S. imperialism is strongest. And, here, Africa poses a problem. Africa, after all, has less contact with the United States than any other part of the world ... the United States has avoided acting like an empire in post-cold-war Africa, and, thus, the hard left has found little cause for moral concern." [more]

"By all appearances, insurgents have consciously turned against foreign aid workers despite work done during the days of the mujahideen resistance and Taliban rule. Attacks on their local helpers as well suggest that more than xenophobia is at work. Rather, the attacks seem part of a concerted effort to undermine the reconstruction work itself." [more]

A UNICEF official said that "the casualties were the result of handling arms, ammunition and cluster bombs dumped at several hundred sites around Iraq. Hundreds of surface-to-air missiles abandoned by the now-disbanded Iraqi army, many of them damaged and unstable, also pose a serious threat." [more]

"Nine U.N. agencies are now operating in Iraq, doing many of the jobs the U.S. military was apparently not prepared to tackle." [more]

"Officials say the LRA has abducted hundreds of children in northern Uganda in recent years, forcing them to fight as child soldiers if they are boys, or to become sex slaves for rebel commanders if they are girls." [more]

" 'Sure, Bush is coming to visit our AIDS clinic — and he will be here for a whole four hours,' said Walfula Oguttu, editor-in-chief of Uganda's independent newspaper. 'But we all know it all has to do with fighting terrorism. His AIDS money is trying to buy Africa.' " [more]

" 'Then there are the deaths by malnutrition and dehydration as a consequence of the war which we haven't even started talking about,' Sloboda added." [more]

"The three known defendants are being held with as many as 680 other foreign captives at Camp X-Ray at Washington's Guantánamo Bay naval base in Cuba where, according to a series of court decisions, none of them enjoys the basic due-process rights required by the U.S. Constitution." [more]

"Bush set Taylor's departure as a first condition for bringing stability to Liberia and necessary before he would agree to send peacekeepers to the West African country wrecked by nearly 14 years of violence. But the former warlord has said he wants a peacekeeping force in place first to prevent rebels or his own volatile fighters from running wild." [more]

"Americans attacked an Iraqi village several miles away where the convoy had stopped earlier in the evening. Several houses were destroyed and a number of villagers injured. Two were killed — Hakima Khalil and her one-year-old daughter Maha. The residents of the village could not understand why they had become targets as they claimed the convoy was just a group of livestock smugglers." [more]

"A surreal society has emerged at the tip of Cuba in which rules are the only common language and prisoners and guards alike feel marooned." [more]

"Governments that abuse their own citizens, or allow corporations to abuse their citizens, promote environments conducive to terrorism. Far from undermining our security, then, the U.S. legal system's ability to enforce basic human rights standards has the potential to ward off terrorism by bringing to justice the malicious despots that create the illiberal conditions in which terrorism thrives." [more]

"The consequences of failure rates are magnified by the numbers of grenades used: To destroy one air-defense system covering 100 square yards requires 75 rockets, each carrying 644 grenades — a total of 48,300. The 16 percent failure rate listed by the Pentagon produces 7,728 unexploded grenades, scattering them over 600 square yards." [more]

The GIs spoke of shooting civilians at roadblocks. Sgt Meadows said: "When they used white flags we were told to stop them at 400 metres out and then strip them down naked then bring them through. Most obeyed the order. We knew about others who had problems with [Iraqis] carrying white flags and then opening up on our guys. We knew about every trick they were trying to do. Then they'd use cars to try and drive at us. They were men, women and children. That day we shot up a lot of cars." [more]

"Afghans and Pakistanis who were detained for many months by the American military at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba before being released without charges are describing the conditions as so desperate that some captives tried to kill themselves." [more]

"An investigation reveals that Pvt. Lynch — still in the hospital after 67 days — suffered bone-crushing injuries in a crash during the ambush." [more]

"Security procedures enforced today at the Erez checkpoint out of Gaza prevented Peter Hansen, UNRWA's Commissioner-General and an Under-Secretary General of the United Nations, taking his senior management team from Gaza to a meeting of the Agency's directors in Amman, Jordan. It is the first time in the 53-year history of UNRWA that its quarterly management meeting has had to be cancelled because the Agency's freedom of movement has been curtailed in this way." [more]

"The AP excluded all counts done by hospitals whose written records did not distinguish between civilian and military dead, which means hundreds, possibly thousands, of victims in Iraq's largest cities and most intense battles aren't reflected in the total." [more]

"The war was supposed to be over. But the deaths of four U.S. soldiers and the wounding of 15 others in just two days in armed attacks across Iraq raise the troubling prospect that a fresh wave of violent resistance to U.S. occupation is beginning." [more]

"By agreeing to [Turkish] conditions, the U.S. government essentially took control of the region around the oil fields. Even if Kurdish self-rule takes root and expands, in other words, the area would remain under strong U.S. influence. From the viewpoint of Middle Eastern nations, the United States appears to be positioning itself to seize oil rights and dominate the north under the guise of supporting the Kurds." [more]

"UN peacekeepers will be sent to the Democratic Republic of Congo starting next week. According to diplomatic sources, the United States would vote in favor of a resolution forming a peacekeeping force and would support it but would not participate." [more]

"The Mail on Sunday reported the move is seen as logical by the US, which has been attacked worldwide for breaching the Geneva Convention on prisoners of war since it established the camp at a naval base to hold alleged terrorists from Afghanistan." [more]

"The coalition demanded that the United Nations play the lead role in rebuilding Iraq, while safeguarding human rights and being allowed to send its weapons inspectors back into the country." [more]

"A top humanitarian agency urged US and British forces to do more to restore security in Iraq as the five opposition leaders tapped by Washington to form the core of a new government were due to meet." [more]

"The medical team that cared for Lynch at the hospital formerly known as Saddam Hospital is only now beginning to appreciate how grand a myth was built around the four hours the U.S. raiding party spent with them early on April Fool's Day. And they are disappointed." [more]

"The battle for Baghdad cost the lives of at least 1,101 Iraqi civilians, many of them women and children, according to records at the city's 19 largest hospitals. The civilian death toll was almost certainly higher." [more]

"[A] 70-year-old great-grandfather is grieving for six members of his family — one son, three grandsons and two of their wives — who died when a missile exploded on their doorstep, demolishing two houses and leaving a large crater in the street." [more]

"US soldiers stripped four suspected Iraqi thieves naked and burned their clothes before pushing them into the street." [more]

"Looters operating right under the nose of U.S. forces emptied the museum of priceless antiquities documenting the development of mankind in ancient Mesopotamia, one of the world's earliest civilizations. Their theft has left the international archaeological community in shock. Two cultural advisers to the administration of President Bush resigned in protest at the failure of U.S. forces to prevent the looting." [more]

"Most Americans are satisfied with U.S. and British efforts to restore civil order in Iraq, and they now rank humanitarian needs as the top priority there." [more]

"At least 10 people were killed and scores wounded in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul when US troops fired on a crowd angered by a speech by the new US-backed governor, witnesses reported." [more]

"The Pentagon said yesterday that it has no plans to determine how many Iraqi civilians may have been killed or injured or suffered property damage as a result of U.S. military operations in Iraq." [more]

"In the months leading up to the Iraq war, U.S. scholars repeatedly urged the Defense Department to protect Iraq's priceless archaeological heritage from looters, and warned specifically that the National Museum of Antiquities was the single most important site in the country." [more]

"The killings, in the northeastern region of Ituri on Thursday, occurred barely 24 hours after both sides in the country's 40-year war signed a deal to set up a government of national unity. [It] was the latest incident in a series of bloody inter-tribal feuds between the Hema and Lendu ethnic groups." [more]

"Experts say the move, which began four days ago in a northern Iraqi town, may violate international law." [more]

"Eleven days on, America's war to 'liberate' Iraq means only inexplicable grief to these poor Shia Muslims from the suburb of Shu'la in north-east Baghdad." [more]

"Complicating the humanitarian crisis has been a behind the scenes international struggle against the Bush administration's militarization of humanitarian aid." [more]

"We had a great day,' Sergeant Schrumpf said. 'We killed a lot of people.'" [more]

"US and British military officials said that they had no information and one military chief even hinted that they believed Saddam's regime might have been responsible. Then a US military spokesman at Central Command in Qatar said that coalition aircraft were targeting missiles and launchers in a residential area of Baghdad at around the time of the explosion. Later, a Pentagon spokesman said, that while no bombs or missiles were fired at the district, he could not rule out a stray missile." [more]

What seems to be clear is that the United States government is playing the same game as in Iraq - pushing for "regime change" in Haiti. Their strategy includes a massive disinformation campaign in U.S. media, an embargo on desperately needed foreign aid to Haiti, and direct support for violent elements, including former military officers and Duvalierists, who openly seek the overthrow of President Aristide. [more]

"Rumors about the death of the fanatics in Afghanistan were premature. Local bosses and drug traffickers are entering the vacuum created by the Karzai regime. The U.S., eager to bring the message of the West to Iraq, seems to be turning a blind eye." [more]

"The reality of the situation on the ground in southern Iraq is so insecure that relief workers say it will take at least several days and probably weeks before aid can really start being delivered into the country." [more]

"Four people were shot dead and dozens more were injured Friday as police clashed with demonstrators trying to storm the U.S. Embassy in Yemen, witnesses told CNN, on a second day of worldwide protests against the war in Iraq." [more]

" 'This is a sad day for the United Nations,' Annan said. 'I know that millions of people around the world share this sense of disappointment and are deeply alarmed.' " [more]

"An invasion was now certain, White House aides said, even if Saddam and his sons fled at the last minute. In that case, the American forces would still enter Iraq to assure order, find and destroy banned weapons, help rebuild, and lay the foundations for a new government." [more]

"On the brink of war, both supporters and critics of United States policy on Iraq agree on the origins, at least, of the haunted relations that have brought us to this pass: America's dealings with Saddam Hussein, justifiable or not, began some two decades ago with its shadowy, expedient support of his regime in the Iraq-Iran war of the 1980's." [more]

"A coalition of Kurdish nongovernmental organizations made their first attempt Saturday to convince the villagers bordering Saddam Hussein's Iraq to respect human rights and avert a blood bath of revenge." [more]

"The first permanent global war crimes court was inaugurated Tuesday with the swearing in of its first 18 judges. But Washington — which opposes the tribunal — stayed away from the ceremony. " [more]

" 'It's a fact that the children of Iraq are extremely vulnerable,' said UNICEF Executive Director Carol Bellamy. 'Their health, their nutrition, their access to safe water — all of which are weak already — will be further jeopardized in a war.' " [more]

"For Iraqi exiles, the televised destruction of Baghdad elicits grief and anger, not shock and awe." [more]

"The real economic cost of Bush's empire building is twofold: It diverts attention from pressing economic problems at home and it sets the United States on a long-term imperial path that is economically ruinous." [more]

"In the event of war, American and allied forces could not assure the safety of civilians who deliberately position themselves as human shields against attack on Iraqi targets, the U.S. general who would run the war said in an Associated Press interview." [more]

"To Nile Delta villagers, a war on Iraq would be unjust — and a disaster for Egypt's economy." [more]

"Afghan officials said yesterday that at least 17 civilians were killed in a US-led bombing raid in southern Afghanistan." [more]

"On the streets of Baghdad, Iraqis fear that neither Osama bin Laden nor the pope will be able to help them now." [more]

"The United States Congress has [had to step] in to find nearly $300 million in humanitarian and reconstruction funds for Afghanistan after the Bush administration failed to request any money in the latest budget." [more]

"Fears that Iraq will inflict heavy casualties on British and American troops intensified yesterday when it emerged the Pentagon had ordered almost five times the number of body bags it requested before the last Gulf War. " [more]

"In the event of war, how many Iraqi civilians will die? And how many will starve, or be displaced? In secret, the UN has been doing the sums." [more]

"Up to 500,000 people could suffer serious injuries during the first phase of an attack on Iraq, a confidential United Nations report says." [more]

"As rescue workers searched unsuccessfully yesterday for survivors amid the rubble of Chechnya's government headquarters, Russian politicians insisted they would press ahead with plans to impose peace on the rebellious territory." [more]

"The struggle of people of Turkey for freedom and human rights is truly inspiring, not only because of the depth of commitment but also because it seems so natural and without pretense, just a normal part of life, despite the severe threats that are never remote." [more]

"Those who refuse to cooperate inside this secret CIA interrogation center are sometimes kept standing or kneeling for hours, in black hoods or spray-painted goggles, according to intelligence specialists familiar with CIA interrogation methods. At times they are held in awkward, painful positions and deprived of sleep with a 24-hour bombardment of lights — subject to what are known as 'stress and duress' techniques." [more]

"A struggle of immense proportions and immeasurable importance is underway for the soul of Islam. It is a mighty contest that pits a humane, tolerant and progressive faith against a hangman's vision of a punitive god and a humankind defined by prohibitions. And we have not even noticed." [more]

"The idea, simply put, is that democratically elected African leaders might not be so prone to overstay their welcome as chief executives (or to keep meddling in local politics after leaving office) if they had a well-endowed university sinecure in the United States to look forward to." [more]

"Iraqis, resigned to war, are trying hard to get on with their lives." [more]

"There are a few other places where criminal sharia is applied regionally, such as in parts of Pakistan. And now there's Nigeria, where Muslims in 12 of the country's 36 states find themselves facing sentences that differ greatly from the sentences handed out to the country's non-Muslims. Theft? That's amputation of the right hand." [more]

Economic sanctions in Iraq as a weapon of mass destruction. [more]

"Three Afghans released after months of captivity at the US military base in Cuba included a man claiming to be 105 and a man in his seventies who says that American troops dragged him from his sickbed." [more]

" 'In a situation currently marked by threats of the use of power,' the Nobel citation read, 'Carter has stood by the principles that conflicts must as far as possible be resolved through mediation and international cooperation based on international law, respect for human rights and economic development.' " [more]

"Under the guidelines, US soldiers serving overseas would be immune from prosecution in the court, while politicians and US officials, including CIA operative, could claim diplomatic immunity. There would also be provisions for the US to try its nationals accused of war crimes, for example, in a US court." [more]

Elections held in Kashmir amid scattered violence. [more]

"Nobody knows exactly how many Taliban prisoners were secretly interred in this mass grave, a short distance from the main road. But there is now substantial evidence that the worst atrocity of last year's war in Afghanistan took place here; most controversially, during an operation masterminded by US special forces." [more]

" 'If I received a call at home on that day from somebody trying to sell me something, I would be personally offended,' Young said." [more]

"Following an aborted uprising at Mazar-i-Sharif, 7,500 prisoners were taken to a crowded jail in Sheberghan where, according to Afghans interviewed for the film, they were tortured by US Special Forces. After interrogation, thousands of Taliban fighters were stuffed into container trucks, and driven to the Dasht Leili desert. Hundreds suffocated on the way, and the rest were shot by Northern Alliance gunmen in the presence of US troops, and then buried in mass graves, the film charges." [more]

" 'All were bound hand and foot either with their own turbans or with strips ripped from their clothing, he says. Then they were packed in container trucks 'like cattle,' he says. He reckons that about 100 people died in his container. The drivers remain tormented by what they took part in. 'Why weren't there any United Nations people there to see the dead bodies?' asks one. 'Why wasn't anything being done?' " [more]

"The theme of the 10-day conference, which will be attended by at least 104 heads of state or government but not by President George W. Bush, is how to ensure global development now without ruining the environment for future generations. " [more]

"While procedures to determine refugee claims are still continuing, at least 580 have already been found to be refugees. Of those rescued by the Tampa, only 130 have found permanent protection in New Zealand, seven Afghans recently returned to Afghanistan from detention camps in Nauru, and almost all others are detained and awaiting final decisions on their future in Australia, Nauru and Papua New Guinea or on temporary visa in Australia. All of them, including scores of children, have already spent between three and 12 months in detention which was arbitrary, a form of state-controlled custody without charge, trial or independent review of whether detention is necessary in the individual case, appropriate and otherwise meets international human rights standards." [more]

"I was between 5th and 6th on the sidewalk. Maybe the ones in front were warned to move, but I didn't hear any warning. It had been a peaceful protest. Suddenly the police came forward spraying pepper spray. A man nearby with an infant in a backpack got hit real good. The baby's face was so red I thought it had quit breathing. From the other direction came cop cars through the crowd and rubber bullets were fired at those closest to the cars. I kept retreating but the cops kept spraying. Lots of people were sprayed, including the cameraman from Channel 2 KATU." [more]

"Refugees returning from abroad used to receive a one-time handout of 550 pounds of wheat to get them back on their feet. That was cut this month to 220 pounds, and Guy Gauvreau, the WFP's representative for northern Afghanistan, said he feared a cut to 110 pounds within two weeks if aid does not arrive." [more]

"List of U.S. military personnel killed in Operation Enduring Freedom (as of Aug. 18)" [more]

"A Christian Science Monitor/TIPP poll from November 2001 said roughly one-third of Americans would support government-sanctioned torture of terror suspects held in the United States or abroad." [more]

"A former member of a Special Forces unit from one of America's coalition partners supplied his own explanation for the American behaviour when I met him a few days later. 'When we go into a village and see a farmer with a beard, we see an Afghan farmer with a beard,' he said. 'When the Americans go into a village and see a farmer with a beard, they see Osama bin Laden.'" [more]

"'What this generation is passing through will bear more hatred, and they will become more and more hostile against the Jews in the future,' says Maryan Suleiman, 62, as she sadly watches her giggling 7-year-old twin grandchildren pretend to be terrorists in her living room. 'The suiciders now are nothing compared to what will be.'" [more]

With Nevada skin I burn to tell a Truth obstructed of desolate Earth and People united by a cataclysmic obsolescence. With Lop Nor legs I run to find a secret crevice where I lie hidden from a home on the brink of nuclear precipice. [more]

"The State Department said the action alleging the oil company knew of human- rights abuses by the Indonesian military guarding its facilities in Aceh province "could impair cooperation with the U.S. across the full spectrum of diplomatic initiatives, including counterterrorism."" [more]

"Many of the reports of human rights groups contain accounts of wounded civilians waiting days to reach medical assistance, and being refused medical treatment by IDF soldiers. In some cases, people died as a result of these delays. In addition to those wounded in the fighting, there were civilian inhabitants of the camp and the city who endured medication shortages and delays in medical treatment for pre-existing conditions. For example, it was reported on 4 April that there were 28 kidney patients in Jenin who could not reach the hospital for dialysis treatment." [more]

"Marcia Fee Achenbach, one of those captured, was four when her camp was liberated by US soldiers in 1944. She discovered the papers while doing research in the National Archive. Among the evidence uncovered was a telegram that Francis Sayre, the high commissioner of the Philippines, had sent to the US state department urging an evacuation plan. The state department's confidential reply read: 'Visualise the remaining of Americans generally in the Philippines in an emergency, and plan accordingly.' " [more]

"A UN source said that the report was produced by a team of 'experienced and reputable UN people, who have been in the region a while and know it well'. It states that there was clear evidence that human rights violations had taken place and that coalition forces had arrived on the scene very quickly after the airstrikes and 'cleaned the area', removing evidence of 'shrapnel, bullets and traces of blood'. Women on the scene had their hands tied behind their backs." [more]

"Human rights advocates and diplomats argued that the protocol was essential to enforce the international convention on torture passed 13 years ago and since ratified by about 130 countries, including the United States. Countries are supposed to enforce the convention on their own, but rights groups argue that that isn't working everywhere." [more]

"The evidence suggests that many civilians have been killed by airstrikes hitting precisely the target they were aimed at. The civilians died, the evidence suggests, because they were were made targets by mistake, or because in eagerness to kill Qaeda and Taliban fighters, Americans did not carefully differentiate between civilians and military targets." [more]

"With folks at the summit such as Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, who stole his last election, and Libyan leader Moammar Khadafy, who refuses to hold an election, the question is: How real can this be?" [more]

"An Israeli official said that the Bush administration is considering a plan to create new bank accounts for Palestinian aid and reconstruction that could not be accessed by PA leader Yasser Arafat or his Cabinet or allies." [more]

"If the Bush administration had wanted to change the specifics of the court, it could have held out for new negotiations. The Rome treaty, like the Kyoto treaty on global climate change, was based on the valid perception that there are certain concerns — such as genocide and global warming — that cannot be dealt with by individual governments acting alone. Both treaties represent flawed but remediable attempts to devise a plan to do that." [more]

The AU "would commit every nation on the continent to the fundamental democratic principle that governments exist to serve their people, not to be served by them. And it would give to all the right to intervene to end gross violations of human rights and the democratic principle in any." [more]

"One problem with this prejudice (as with Osama bin Laden's) is that it blinds the bigots to any understanding of what they deride. If Islam were really just the caricature that it is often reduced to, then how would it be so appealing as to become the world's fastest-growing religion?" [more]

"While there have been several reports of civilian casualties ever since the military campaign in Afghanistan began on Oct 7, 2001, the sheer casualty figures in the July 1 attack — the Afghan government estimates 48 people were killed and 117 injured — have raised fears that Washington's precarious battle for minds could tip the wrong way." [more]

"Women and children lay dead and wounded in and around one big house where they had been gathered for an engagement party, torn apart by cannon fire from the American attack plane, an AC-130 gunship. Survivors said they were gathering up the bodies, picking up limbs and body parts from the streets and adjoining orchard, and carrying the wounded to the village mosque, when the soldiers arrived." [more]

"Preliminary reports indicate that heavy cannon fire from a U.S. AC-130 warplane and not an errant 2,000-lb bomb dropped by a U.S. B-52 bomber may have torn into an Afghan wedding party, killing and maiming perhaps dozens of people, defense officials said on Tuesday." [more]

"The Red Cross has warned Afghan children not to play with unexploded yellow cluster bomblets dropped on Afghanistan by the United States last year that look a little like toys." [more]

" 'The forensic team also found evidence of recently disposed human remains in two of the nine gravesites that were visited. While we are not in a position to verify the provenance of the remains in these sites, we heard speculation from well-informed international observers that one of these sites, near the city of Sheberghan, could have been a disposal ground of Taliban prisoners who had surrendered to the Northern Alliance in November and December 2001.' " [more]

"Speaking in a committee room of the House of Lords, Dr Haley said he had uncovered evidence of 'chemical disturbance' in the brain. A similar study of British veterans by Goran Jamal, consultant physician at Imperial College School of Medicine, London University, which also revealed brain damage, had been ignored by the authorities, Dr Haley said." [more]

"Sima Samar's opponents, some of them allied with President Hamid Karzai, have even branded her the Afghan Salman Rushdie — raising chilling memories of the death threat that haunted the Indian-born writer for more than a decade." [more]

"Malawi, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Lesotho have already declared national disasters, and Mozambique and Swaziland are also struggling. Four million more people are expected to need emergency aid in the next few months as this season's meager harvest runs out, the United Nations says." [more]

"No one in the 15-member council agrees with the American stance on the court, the world's first permanent tribunal to try the worst crimes: genocide, war crimes and systematic, gross human rights abuses." [more]

"They hoped it would galvanise co-operation between hundreds of groups seeking alternatives to what they see as an undemocratic way of global rule represented by the G8." [more]

"US soldiers took part in the torture of Taleban prisoners and may have had a role in the 'disappearance' of around 3,000 men in Mazar-i-Sharif in north-west Afghanistan, according to a new documentary." [more]

" 'Protests against these institutions in the first world have started only in the last two or three years, while protests in the poor countries against these institutions have been going on for decades. The Western media has been conveniently ignoring it and continues to ignore it. There have been huge protests against World Bank–funded dams in India, Thailand and Guatemala. There have been have been huge protests against World Bank–funded water privatization in Bolivia, against electricity privatization in South Africa—I could go on and on.' " [more]

"Nyoman, who has got a number of monumental statues to his credit, touches our feelings with his depiction of some people writhing at the end of a pile of debris. It was on the ground of this tragedy that US President George W. Bush and his allies attacked Afghanistan, toppled the ruling Taliban government and tried to capture Osama bin Laden but to no avail. Nyoman Nuarta has not created this statue as a means to state he takes sides with the United States. Rather, through his piece, he declares he sides with humanity." [more]

"The United States is blocking an international plan to halve the number of people, two-fifths of the population of the planet, who have no sanitation. Some 2.4 billion people lack even a bucket for their wastes, and this is one of the main causes of world disease." [more]

"'They have been struck physically, strip-searched, deliberately stopped from praying; they've been cuffed behind their backs, picked up by their thumbs and dragged from one place to another,' said Sandra Nicholls, representing two current detainees. 'They feel they are suffering reprisals because they talked to the inspector general.' One inmate said he was told: 'Now you're suffering like the people in the towers suffered.'" [more]

" 'The latest Israeli military incursions have dealt a hard blow to an already vulnerable economy, pushing many Palestinians into destitution,' Mr Adly said. He highlighted 'prolonged Israeli closures and cumbersome security procedures' which have hampered Palestinian farmers." [more]

"The European Union's special envoy to Afghanistan has called for urgent action by Afghan authorities to end the plight of more than 2000 starving Taliban supporters being held prisoner in conditions he compared to the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz." [more]

"The effort by Nuaimi and his colleagues may be the most potent legal undertaking so far to challenge the government's detention of the 384 captives in Cuba and Hamdi, who is held in the brig at the Norfolk Naval Station." [more]

"Of those reporting abuses, 46% reported the killing of a household member; 23% reported the beating of a household member; and 25% reported that a household member had sustained a gunshot wound or was injured from explosive ordnance. Other abuses included the seizure of land and being forced to flee their homes. 75% of survey participants accredited Uzbek forces with the reported abuse and 44% said that they believed the reason for the abuses being committed was their ethnicity. One respondent reported that many women in his home village had been gang raped by Afghan forces of Uzbek origin." [more]

" 'Without new contributions, the World Food Program will have nothing to distribute in June,' said U.N. food agency spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume. 'We have averted one famine. We don't want to go back to that.' " [more]

"Human right must be respected by all, and in all circumstances. That is why the international community is right to seek to investigate the recent assault on Jenin." [more]

"Local residents have been kept away from this location and we have eyewitnesses who said they saw container trucks dumping bodies into this site ... all leads us to fear that these graves may contain possibly large numbers of Taleban prisoners," she added. [more]

"The situation on the ground belies the Bush Administration's claims that it has won the war on terrorism in Afghanistan, averted a famine and liberated women. As the US military struggles to stamp out persistent pockets of now-you-see-them, now-you-don't Al Qaeda and Taliban, death from hunger is common, lawlessness rampant, and little has changed for the vast majority of Afghan women." [more]

"Rebuilding Afghanistan will be a massive task requiring years and many billions of dollars. But the job could be under way, and pay quick dividends, if the United States were to respond promptly to petitions for relief by hundreds of Afghans who lost loved ones or property as a result of U.S. bombing attacks." [more]

"What if leaders of the world's major religions got together one day and denounced all religious violence? What if they unanimously agreed to make this plain, clear and bold statement to the world? 'Violence and terrorism are opposed to all true religious spirit and we condemn all recourse to violence and war in the name of God or religion.' At the very least, it would be big news, wouldn't it? Apparently not." [more]

"This complaint, filed today in U.S. District Court, argues that some detainees have been imprisoned 'in tiny, windowless cells for over 23 hours a day ... Many class members have suffered physical and verbal abuse by their guards. Some were badly beaten.' Among other allegations: prisoners are subject to cavity searches, lights are kept on to prevent them from sleeping and they are only given two pieces of toilet paper per day." [more]

"As fiscally strapped governments cut funding for public services, privately funded Islamist schools, clinics, hospitals and welfare agencies filled the breach, lending credence to the Islamists' claim that 'Islam is the solution!' " [more]

"The attacks of Sept. 11 demonstrate that the danger increases when people are left without hope and help in desperate situations in which they have nothing to lose." [more]

"We face a dangerously schizophrenic approach to educating our young people. At present, tens of thousands of Muslim students, mostly from the impoverished developing nations that comprise the bulk of the Islamic world, are sent abroad to study in technologically more advanced societies. And so it is that every year thousands of young Muslims from developing nations such as Indonesia come of age while studying as strangers in foreign lands." [more]

"No official count has been made, but some estimates of the number of civilians killed by American bombing range in the low thousands. A review by The Associated Press early this year suggested a toll in the mid-hundreds. Ruzicka said her organization believes the U.S. government should conduct a thorough study of the toll." [more]

"The theft of aid goes on despite the involvement of international troops in relief efforts. Russian troops have set up two mobile hospitals and British-led international troops from Kabul have set up another. Humanitarian relief has arrived quickly to the region, mainly because of the presence of international aircraft and aid groups engaged in rebuilding the countryís infrastructure." [more]

"More than 30 Afghans seized by American troops in a 3 a.m. raid on a village security post said they were kicked and abused at a U.S. Army detention center before being freed four days later." [more]

"In January, a team from Physicians for Human Rights, which is based in Boston, found an epidemic of dysentery and jaundice, the latter indicative, the group said, of hepatitis A. The group said the conditions at Jowzjan were in "grave violation of international standards for the treatment of prisoners" and called on the United States to ensure that conditions improve." [more]

"Mr. Aslam described the transaction: the boys' father had offered to give up his sons so long as they were kept well fed. 'But I know about human rights,' said the restaurant owner. 'I knew I was obligated to pay him something.'
The compensation settled upon was 400,000 Afghanis per month ó about $5 at the time of the deal. 'After two years, I stop paying and the boys are mine forever,' Mr. Aslam said happily, presenting the situation as something as benevolent as an adoption.
He asked the youngsters to sit at his side. He requested a smile. They complied." [more]

At least $1 million was promised; $50 million is thought to be needed, but nothing has been delivered. "Afghanistan's new women's minister, whose job is to restore women's rights after years of Taliban oppression in which girls could not go to school and women could not go out alone, has yet to receive any funding to start her work." [more]

"The Pashtuns of northern Afghanistan are fleeing their villages by the thousands now, telling tales of murder and rape and robbery, and leaving behind empty towns and grazing grounds just beginning to shimmer with the first grass of spring." [more]

" 'We will not create a safer world with bombs or brigades alone,' [World Bank president James D.] Wolfensohn said in a speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center. While poverty does not itself lead to violence, it 'can provide a breeding ground for the ideas and actions of those who promote conflict and terror,' he said. [more]

There "are the freedoms the Bush administration says it wants women to have. It leaves out, though, the part about a woman's freedom to control her reproductive health." [more]

"At 10:30 p.m., the first bombs struck the party; the assault lasted six hours. The next day, a team of special forces arrived in Qila-Niazi to inspect what was thought to have been a triumphant blow against Osama bin Laden's network. Instead it found the remains of [a] party. Out of 112 people, two women had survived." [more]

"A hunger strike yesterday by almost two-thirds of the 300 al Qaeda and Taliban detainees at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba, called to protest two guards' removal of a makeshift turban from a captive's head, prompted a rapid about-face by U.S. military officials, who told the inmates they could indeed wear such a headdress." [more]

"The leader of Afghanistan's interim government, Hamid Karzai, visited Tehran today and appealed to Iran and the United States to put aside their differences and help build his war-ravaged country." [more]

"Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's admission last week that the United States mistakenly killed 16 people in the village of Hazar Kadam on the night of Jan. 23 is confused and inadequate." [more]

"Hours before the appearance of British-born Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who already has spent time in an Indian jail for a 1994 kidnapping, troops were already in place around the court in central Karachi where Pearl's kidnap occurred." [more]

"The inspired addresses of those men and women, representatives of the different religious confessions, as well as their sincere desire to work for concord, the common search for authentic progress and peace in the heart of the whole human family, found both their high and concrete expression in a 'decalogue' proclaimed at the conclusion of this exceptional day." [more]

Afghans accused British paratroopers yesterday of shooting dead a civilian in Kabul as he took his pregnant sister-in-law to hospital. [more]

"Taliban officials dramatically inflated the number of people living in Afghanistan's largest camp for displaced people, according to a new survey by [UN] relief officials." [more]

"The American media may still debate which prisoners captured in Afghanistan qualify for 'prisoner of war' status, but there is now little doubt left that these prisoners and their families have been ill-treated by the US troops. At least three leading American newspapers have recently broken stories of excesses by the US troops rounding up suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban men in Afghanistan, before flying them off to the US base in Cuba." [more]

"Then it occurred to me: What if all those Americans who declare their support for Bush's 'war on terrorism' could see, instead of those elusive symbols—Osama bin Laden, Al Qaeda—the real human beings who have died under our bombs? I do believe they would have second thoughts. There are those on the left, normally compassionate people whose instincts go against war, who were, surprisingly, seduced by early Administration assurances and consoled themselves with words like 'limited' military action and 'measured' response. I think they, too, if confronted with the magnitude of the human suffering caused by the war in Afghanistan, would have second thoughts." [more]

"Many have died in Afghanistan to make us more secure. Are we?" [more]

"U.S. commanders acknowledged last week that they mistakenly took 27 prisoners in the raid, believing they were al-Qaeda and Taliban warriors ... Several contended in reports in The New York Times and The Washington Post that they were beaten and kept in a cage with wooden bars during their detention in Kandahar." [more]

"Instead of taking advice from the U.S. Treasury Department or the International Monetary Fund, many struggling countries would rebound from economic crisis more quickly if they focused efforts on the specific needs of society, said Joseph Stiglitz, who was one of former President Clinton's economic advisers and co-winner of the 2001 Nobel prize in economics." [more]

"Afghans captured by American forces in two raids in Oruzgan in Afghanistan last month have said that they were beaten and abused by American soldiers, despite their protests that they were supporters of Interim leader Hamid Karzai." [more]

"Ý'Tell me why our homes were destroyed and 55 people ó even little children ó are dead?' asked an angry young man named Gul Nabi, standing in December among the 15 obliterated houses of a village named Madoo. 'There were no Arabs here," he said, referring to Al Qaeda fighters. 'There were only farmers who lived a good life and prayed to Allah for peace.'Ý" [more]

"The combined effects of 23 years of war and the last three years of drought have left many people entirely destitute. The team heard how girls as young as ten are being offered for marriage in exchange for bags of flour in a desperate struggle for survival in parts of Herat and Farah provinces in western Afghanistan." [more]

Human Rights Watch, a privately funded human-rights advocacy group, plans to send a team of researchers to Afghanistan next month to try to estimate the number of civilians killed during the course of the campaign. Amnesty International may do the same after trying unsuccessfully to get the Pentagon to disclose details about a number of bombings that reportedly killed civilians. [more]

"Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International said that Mr Bush was wrong to take such a decision 'without convening a competent tribunal, as required by the Geneva Conventions.' They said the conventions provided explicit protection to all combatants captured in an international armed conflict." [more]

"President Bush reversed himself yesterday and declared that captured combatants who fought for Afghanistan's Taliban regime will be formally covered by the Geneva Conventions. But the president refused to confer that status on detainees who are members of the al Qaeda terrorist network." [more]

"The United Nations High Commission on Refugees (UNHCR) said it was "Ý'greatly concerned about the recent public vilification of asylum seekers' and urged governments to show leadership in providing accurate and up-to-date information on asylum seekers and promoting a public debate 'based on facts rather than negative stereotyping.'
The High Commissioner's statement follows two weeks of tense protests at the Woomera detention centre, including a hunger strike and threats of self-mutilation by the detainees." [more]

"Interestingly, while Walker is being provided a trial in the United States, hundreds of his comrades in arms have been denied any such 'luxury'. Many across the world should have been relieved to see Walker enter the courtroom without handcuffs or fetters. No one, however, seems to be concerned about the fate of hundreds of al Qaeda and Taliban captives being kept in Cuba precisely so they cannot approach a court of law." [more]

"The old woman rose up out of the dust, her black chador unwinding behind her, like an apparition in slow motion, and moved towards the road. 'Food,' she wailed. 'We need food. Give us food.'Ý" [more]

"Afghans will be armed with a United Nations warning of unrest if $100 million is not injected immediately into the crippled Afghan bureaucracy. Street crime, already high, could spiral out of control, UN officials said. The nation's shaky leadership faces the danger of being toppled before it even has a chance to begin meaningful work, they added." [more]

"While Afghanistan's interim administration and its U.S.-promoted leader, Hamid Karzai, build a central government in Kabul, most of Afghanistan has fallen under the sway of Pentagon-backed militia commanders, such as Dostum, who have acknowledged the Kabul administration but run their zones with wide autonomy." [more]

"The U.S. bombs that blasted this clump of mud-brick homes a few hours before dawn on Dec. 29, killing dozens of civilians, were aimed at Taliban and al Qaeda leaders who survivors deny were ever here, and an arms cache they say they never saw. What remains in view is the tattered evidence of a little world blown apart." [more]

"The United States and its opponents are preparing for a new phase of combat in Afghanistan, with information suggesting that after March a renewed anti-US struggle is likely to begin in the country. The movement will not be led by Al-Qaeda or the Taliban, but will be a combination of various Afghan factions inside and outside of Afghanistan, and even including some elements of the Northern Alliance. And informed sources have revealed to Asia Times Online that this new movement wants to solicit the either direct or indirect support of Iran, which has serious reservations over the US presence in the region." [more]

"Deteriorating conditions in eastern Afghanistan are pushing more Afghans to flee towards Pakistan, a spokesperson for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported today. 'In the North West Frontier Province area of Pakistan, we have received information from authorities regarding the presence of several thousands of Afghans crowded at the Kurram border area in an attempt to be admitted into Pakistan,' Fatoumata Kaba told reporters in Islamabad." [more]

"The United Nations said it had an unconfirmed but reliable report that the airstrike on the village of Niazi Kala, in Paktia province about 100 miles south of Kabul, had left 52 civilians dead. A spokeswoman in Kabul said that U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi was 'very concerned' and would raise the issue with Afghanistan's interim government and with U.S. officials." [more]

"Relief officials said that several days ago six trucks loaded with rice arrived from Pakistan, enough food to feed everyone now requesting assistance. But the Eastern Shura seized four of the trucks to feed its armies or the relatives of soldiers who died in the war. The seizures left little rice for the refugees." [more]

"US forces were reported to have killed 106 Afghan civilians when they dropped bombs on the village of Qalaye Naizi, in eastern Afghanistan. Military authorities denied having mistakenly bombed a village, and said the warplanes had targeted a compound used by al-Qaeda." [more]

"Afghan villagers said Monday an American air strike killed more than 100 civilians as U.S. forces combed rugged mountain terrain for fugitive Osama bin Laden. A Reuters cameraman in the stricken village in eastern Paktia province said he could see huge craters blasted by bombs. Amid the destruction were scraps of flesh, pools of blood and clumps of what appeared to be human hair." [more]

"New York and Afghanistan, paired worlds of rubble, work and grief. To travel from one to the other ó 12 days at ground zero; three months in Central Asia and Afghanistan ó was to wander a succession of stages populated by distinct and overburdened tribes.
From afar, the escalating events, filtered through radio, television and newspapers, achieved a sort of context, with analysis and interpretation from many points of view. Up close, context usually fell away. The devastation in New York and Afghanistan, and the war that joined them, became a blur of people and impressions. No single scene can capture it, at least not according to the notebooks, or the memories tumbling out." [more]

"Gangs of Northern Alliance soldiers have unleashed a crimewave of looting and killing in Kabul which is awakening nostalgia for the Taliban. Lawlessness is creeping into daily life, after six years of Taliban order, in the form of robberies, extortion and murder aimed at the few Kabul residents with visible wealth." [more]

As air strikes continue on the Tora Bora caves, some Afghan leaders say the U.S. resisted a surrender because the terms would have allowed bin Laden and others to give themselves up to the United Nations. [more]

"As the investigation into the anthrax attacks widens to include federal laboratories and contractors, government officials have acknowledged that Army scientists in recent years have made anthrax in a powdered form that could be used as a weapon. Experts said this appeared to be the first disclosure of government production of anthrax in its most lethal form since the United States renounced biological weapons in 1969 and began destroying its germ arsenal." [more]

"What causes the documented high level of civilian casualties—3,767 civilian deaths in eight and a half weeks—in the U.S. air war upon Afghanistan? The explanation is the apparent willingness of U.S. military strategists to fire missiles into and drop bombs upon, heavily populated areas of Afghanistan." [more]

"Stability is reported to be returning to Kandahar but aid agencies remain concerned about the humanitarian situation in the southern Afghan city which fell to anti-Taleban forces last week. International relief organisations say they are still unable to reach much of the area. There have been no food or medical convoys into Kandahar for more than three weeks." [more]

"Dozens of Taliban prisoners died after surrendering to Northern Alliance forces, asphyxiated in the shipping containers used to transport them to prison, witnesses say.
Faced with transporting thousands of potentially dangerous prisoners even while a prisoner uprising in the Qala Jangi fort near Mazar-i-Sharif was under way, the Northern Alliance packed many of the detained into the sealed shipping containers for the journey from Kunduz." [more]

"A few privileged Afghan women have been caught smiling for AP cameras, but many Afghan women, men and children are silently dying behind the burqa of U.S. deceit.
The facts are simple. Massive food distribution programs put in place prior to 9-11 in response to widespread famine were derailed by the anticipation of and then the actual U.S. bombing campaign, and have been even further set back by the Taliban's retreat. According to the New York Times (11/30/01), 'In the past two weeks, the tonnage [of aid] delivered dropped to a pace less than half of what it had been in the previous two weeks.' The problem is that the 'towns and cities are so chaotic that relief agencies cannot safely operate. Many roads are off limits because of lawlessness and banditry.' " [more]

"Three American soldiers were killed and 20 wounded in Afghanistan Wednesday when a bomb launched from an Air Force B-52 bomber missed its target. The friendly-fire accident produced the worst U.S. casualty toll of the war." [more]

Babies and infants stranded in northern Afghanistan are dying as temperatures in the war-ravaged country continue to plummet, the UK charity Save the Children has warned. [more]

"As the net tightened around the Taliban leadership yesterday, questions were being asked about whether the bloody end to this week's prison siege at the 19th-century Qala-i-Jhangi fort outside the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif will be the defining moment of the Afghan war. Pictures of aid workers picking their way through the corpses of Taliban prisoners killed by a combination of Northern Alliance fighters and American bombings, have caused revulsion around the world. At least 175 prisoners were killed; that is the number of bodies recovered so far by the Red Cross." [more]

"In a revealing reversal of fortunes, food deliveries have actually dropped since the Northern Alliance took Mazar-i-Sharif, the crossroads city that could become the hub for supplies across the northern half of Afghanistan. In the past two weeks, the tonnage delivered dropped to a pace less than half of what it had been in the previous two weeks." [more]

"Even as the CIA saluted its slain colleague, the first American fatality in Afghanistan, 'American hero' Johnny ëMikeí Spann, who died in the prison revolt, British journalists in Mazar-i-Sharif have begun reporting that Spann was less an innocent victim than the one who allegedly provoked the riot." [more]

"A planned womenís freedom march through the streets of Kabul on Tuesday was banned on the orders of Northern Alliance interior minister Younis Qanooni, organiser Soraya Parlika said." [more]

"Dozens of captives loyal to Osama bin Laden [are] said to be fighting to the death.
Hundreds of the prisoners had been killed a day earlier in fighting and U.S. airstrikes after they pulled weapons from their tunics and attacked their outnumbered guards, according to the Pentagon and the northern alliance.
Two witnesses and an alliance commander claimed at least one American soldier had been killed ... [and] five U.S. troops were injured by an errant American bomb that landed near the prison compound." [more]

At least half Kunduz, the Taliban's last major city in northern Afghanistan, is now under control of the Northern Alliance. Taliban prisoners who had surrendered Saturday in Mazar-e-Sharif rioted, and Alliance troops and U.S. airstrikes quelled the rebellion by killing at least 300 soldiers. [more]

"The International Committee of the Red Cross says it has recovered up to 600 bodies in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e-Sharif. The organisation could not specify whether the victims had died in the fighting or had been summarily executed after the Northern Alliance captured the town from the Taleban two weeks ago." [more]

"An early-morning U.S. raid on Kabul's northern outskirts Sunday killed at least 13 civilians, including eight members of one family, witnesses said, a day after another apparent stray U.S. air strike hit two villages in territory occupied by the main opposition coalition, the Northern Alliance." [more]

"Wage rigiditiesóoften the fruits of hard fought bargainingówere thought to be part of the problem facing many countries, contributing to their high unemployment; a standard message was to increase labor market flexibilityóthe not so subtle subtext was to lower wages and lay off unneeded workers. Even when labor market problems are not the core of the problem facing the country, all too often workers are asked to bear the brunt of the costs of adjustment." [more]