Report on Dead Polar Bears Gets a Biologist Suspended: here.
Asian states are failing to stem the illegal cross-border trade in bear bile amid growing demand for folk remedies harvested from the live animals, an anti-smuggling group warned today: here.
This is a video from Honduras about teacher Ilse Ivannia Rodriguez Velasquez being killed.
From The Argus Press:
1 dead, 2 injured in protests by Honduras teachers
Fernando Antonio
Posted: Saturday, March 19, 2011 1:11 am
A woman lies on the ground after she was allegedly struck by a vehicle as protesters ran when police advanced against them in the city of Tegucigalpa, Honduras Friday March 18, 2011. Local media reports that the woman, teacher Ilse Ivannia Rodriguez Velasquez, 59, later died in the hospital of head injuries. This is the second day of protests by supporters of ousted former president Manuel Zelaya who demand his return to Honduras.
“FOB” is military jargon for Forward Operating Base. It is a secure, forward military position that supports tactical operations and reduces the reaction time of the military forces that use it.
The Pentagon has them throughout Afghanistan and until recently had them all over Iraq. In the Pentagon’s scheme of things Honduras is a giant FOB right in the middle of Central America, with a Caribbean seacoast. This FOB carries a low profile, and most people in the U.S. do not know that it exists. For the people of Honduras it is a part of their lives 24/7.
The heart of the FOB is the José Enrique Soto Cano Air Base, located about 60 miles from the nation’s capital, Tegucigalpa. The U.S. military presence is officially known as Joint Task Force-Bravo and includes permanently assigned Army and Air Force units, including the 1st Battalion, the 228th Aviation Regiment and the 612th Air Base Squadron.
While technically considered a Honduran military base, the U.S. controls base security and all airfield functions at Soto Cano, such as air traffic control, weather forecasting and logistics.
WVoN have printed just the headlines below, but please read the full statement on her blogspot:
1. Women cannot have their rights until the system of male guardianship is completely removed from the laws and rules of the Saudi state because without his permission she cannot:
* work
* travel
* receive education
* get married or divorced
* follow and finish official documents and papers
* have medical surgery
* open a bank account for her kids, enroll them in schools, ask for their school files, or travel with them without the permission of her male guardian.
2. Saudi Arabia should prohibit, fight and ban violence against women and create laws to save women’s rights and to sue everyone who uses violence against them even if they are their legal male guardians.
3. Saudi Arabia should completely ban marriage for females under the age of 18.
4. Saudi Arabia should guarantee the right of car driving to women.
5. Saudi Arabia should impose complete gender equality.
6. Saudi women should have their complete political rights.
7. After activating all previous rights, The Royal Court should establish a powerful women’s committee to activate the role of women in all aspects of the society, fight sexism legally, and spread awareness of the danger of sexism in society.
WVoN co-editor comment: It is very brave of Saudi women, who obviously have absolutely no rights whatsoever, to nonetheless put together such a structured protest. WVoN supports them wholeheartedly.
Yemeni forces once again attacked non-violent protesters in front of Sanaa University Friday, March 18, as snipers and soldiers on-the-ground fired live weapons into the crowd, killing an estimated 40 people and wounding another 200: here.
Today, 8th Anniversary of IraqWar: US troops to remain despite 2011 withdrawal date: here.
Mark Mazzetti and Scott Shane, New York Times News Service: “The uprising against [Muammar el-Qaddafi], along with the revolts that drove out the presidents of Tunisia and Egypt and threaten other rulers, have cast a harsh light on the cozy relationships between America’s intelligence agencies and autocratic, often brutal Arab governments. The CIA faces questions about whether such ties blinded it to undercurrents of dissent and may now damage America’s standing with emerging democratic governments”: here.
Thousands of people in Bahrain have defied a government ban on public gatherings to mourn the death of a protester who was killed in Wednesday’s violence.
Meanwhile, authorities have demolished a statue in Pearl Roundabout, as part of its effort to crack down on anti-government protesters.
Al Jazeera’s special correspondent filed this report from Manama. (Mar 19, 2011)
How the Bahrain Regime Wants to Erase Its Bad Memories: here.
CNN’s Leone Lakhani goes inside a Bahrain hospital where doctors say the military has raided the complex: here.
Iraqis protest against crackdown on Shiites in Bahrain: here.
Yemen opposition activists clash with police: Security forces open fire in southern city of Aden: here.
The United States should immediately suspend military assistance to Yemen until President Ali Abdullah Saleh ends attacks on largely peaceful anti-government protesters and prosecutes those responsible, Human Rights Watch said today: here.
Al-Jazeera correspondents departed from Yemen: here.
USA: No Coverage Zone: Media Ignores Brutal Crackdowns By US Allies Bahrain And Yemen: here.
Australia’s detention centre at Woomera was hailed as the new way of dealing with illegal immigration. This week’s offering is the definitive story of the controversial camp. The compound gained notoriety for its riots, protests and breakouts and became a damning indictment of Australian immigration policy. And whilst detainees lived in atrocious conditions, the American backed company running the centre siphoned off millions in profits. It’s a story of lies, cover-ups and relentless trauma.
Australian government uses tear gas and synthetic bullets to suppress refugee protests
19 March 2011
In a clear demonstration of the criminal character of its “border protection” and mandatory detention regime, the Gillard Labor government has supported Australian Federal Police (AFP) units firing tear gas canisters and potentially lethal “bean bag” bullets at protesting refugees inside the immigration detention centre on Christmas Island this week. At least one detainee was badly wounded, reportedly suffering a broken leg as the result of being hit by one of the synthetic bullets. After a week of escalating clashes on the remote Indian Ocean island, the Labor government has mobilised nearly 200 AFP personnel to take command of the locked-down facility, in an attempt to suppress further protests.
The government’s actions are in flagrant violation of international refugee law, which upholds the right to flee persecution.
Kirk Semple, The New York Times News Service: “Immigration enforcement in the United States is plagued by unjust treatment of detainees, including inadequate access to lawyers and insufficient medical care, and by the excessive use of prison-style detention, the human rights arm of the Organization of American States said Thursday. The group, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, issued those findings in a report that also took aim at a federal program that allows county and state law enforcement officials to enforce federal immigration laws. The report said the government had failed to ensure that local police were not singling out people by race or detaining illegal immigrants on the pretext of investigating crimes”: here.
The Japanese nuclear crisis worsens as Japanese authorities race to cool the overheating reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station. Earlier today, Japan raised the nuclear alert level at the crippled plant from a four to a five, on par with Three Mile Island. This decision has shocked many nuclear experts. “Our experts think that it’s a level 6.5 already, and it’s on the way to a seven, which was Chernobyl,” says Philip White of the Citizens’ Nuclear Information Center in Tokyo. We also speak with Dr. Ira Helfand of Physicians for Social Responsibility about the long-term health effects from radiation exposure from Fukushima. [includes rush transcript]
Radiation from Fukushima has now been detected as far away as California as Japan’s nuclear safety agency raised its assessment of the crisis from 4 to 5 on the 7-point scale: here.
An interview with Linda Gunter of Beyond Nuclear: “This was a preventable catastrophe”: here.
Rosa Moussaoui, l’Humanité: “Profit at any price: This could be the motto of Tokyo Electric Power (Tepco), the multinational that exploits the nuclear power plants at Fukushima. The largest producer of electricity in the world illustrates the excesses of an industrial sector in which neo-liberalism has unfurled to the last extremities of its destructive logic”: here.
On the heroism and heavy price being paid the the “Fukushima 50″: here.
Japan: The Cost in Human Lives Grows. Bruce Odent, l’Humanité: “The estimated number of victims has been re-evaluated at 30,000. There is growing concern for the 600,000 refugees faced with icy temperatures and deprivation. The cost in human life of the earthquake and sunami, which ravaged the north-east coast of Japan last Friday, keeps on growing. According to recent evaluations by local authorities, there will certainly be about 30,000 victims, taking into account the thousands of persons still reported missing in the coastal regions, the regions most severely damaged”: here.
India used bribes to win vote on US nuclear accord, WikiLeaks cables show: here.
This video is called Thousands Demand Ouster Of Yemen’s President.
At least 46 workers were killed and scores more wounded in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, when security forces opened fire on a march of tens of thousands demanding an end to the dictatorial regime of President Ali Abdullah Saleh: here.
The World Socialist Web Site categorically opposes any military intervention in Libya. The drive toward war has nothing to do with the humanitarian pretexts offered up by the major powers. Rather, it represents the violent imperialist subjugation of a former colony: here.
Fisk on Libya: “It is all wearingly familiar… we are back at it again, banging our desks in spiritual unity”: here.
