The United States Supreme court opposes George W Bush’s plans for summary ‘trials’ by military commissions for detainees at Guantanamo Bay.
See also this cartoon.
And Clarence Thomas, chickenhawk.
Australia: new documentary film shown on Guantanamo, called Prisoner 345.
This video is the film Prisoner 345.
By Kate Randall:
1 July 2006
A top US Army commander in Iraq has ordered an investigation into allegations of yet another atrocity committed by US soldiers in Iraq.
The case involves a particularly gruesome and sadistic episode, in which an Iraqi woman was allegedly stalked, raped and murdered.
Three other members of her family were killed, and the corpse of the violated woman was burned.
The revelation of these killings follows a string of exposures in recent weeks of execution-style murders and other violent crimes against Iraqi civilians by US troops.
The latest investigation involves an incident that occurred on March 12 in the market town of Mahmoudiyah, about 20 miles south of Baghdad.
The Associated Press reported that the incident involved five soldiers from a unit of the 502nd Infantry Regiment, which is attached to the Fourth Infantry Division.
See also here.
And here.
And here.
US soldiers kill pregnant woman: here.
Haditha update: here.
And here.
This video is about Palaeoloxodon antiquus.
From the BBC:
Early signs of elephant butchers
Bones and tusks dating back 400,000 years are the earliest signs in Britain of ancient humans butchering elephants for meat, say archaeologists.
Remains of a single adult elephant surrounded by stone tools were found in northwest Kent during work on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link.
Scientists believe hunters used the tools to cut off the meat, after killing the animal with wooden spears.
The find is described in the Journal of Quaternary Science.
The first signs of the Stone Age site were uncovered by constructors at Southfleet Road in Ebbsfleet, Kent.
Excavations revealed the skeleton of an extinct species of elephant (Palaeoloxodon antiquus) lying at the edge of what would once have been a small lake.
Flint tools lay scattered around, suggesting the animal had been cut up by a tribe of the early humans around at the time, known as Homo heidelbergensis.
“It is the earliest site of elephant butchery in Britain,” Dr Francis Wenban-Smith of the University of Southampton told the BBC News website.
“In fact it is the only such site in Britain and it is very rare to find undisturbed evidence of this kind.”
Early hunting ground
Dr Wenban-Smith believes the elephant, which was twice the size of those living today, was probably brought down by a pack of hunters armed with wooden spears.
“They either hunted it or possibly found it in an injured state and then killed it,” he explained.
“Then they got some flint tools from nearby and they would have swarmed all over it and cut off the meat.
“They would have been carrying off armfuls of meat to their local base camp.”
Rhino feast
The elephant would have been eaten raw, as there is no evidence that fire was used for cooking at the time.
The hunter gatherers probably also feasted on other large mammals, as the bones of buffalo, rhino, deer and horse were also found nearby.
Early humans used tiny, flint ‘surgical’ tools to butcher elephants. A new study reveals that the early humans known as Acheulians crafted tiny flint tools out of recycled larger discarded instruments as part of a comprehensive animal-butchery tool kit: here.
Homo heidelbergensis in France: here.
Around 150,000 years ago, Homo heidelbergensis cavemen ate ducks that they either roasted or consumed whole and raw. The feast happened at Bolomor Cave in Valencia, Spain, according to a recent study: here.
Age of earliest human burial in Britain pinpointed. The Red Lady remains are 4000 years older than previously thought: here.
Neanderthal man in evolution: here.
See also here.
South Africa: Paranthropus. Paranthropus: here.
How a prehistoric ‘super river’ turned Britain into an island nation: here.
This video from Britain is called Your Face our Future – Anti Racism Exhibition.
From London daily News Line:
Saturday, 1 July 2006
‘INSTITUTIONAL MURDER’ – says Mubarek family
‘We make no bones about the death of Zahid Mubarek.
He died because of institutional murder,’ said the young Asian’s uncle, Imtiaz Amin.
In response to inquiry chairman Mr Justice Keith’s report into Zahid’s murder by his cellmate at Feltham Young Offenders Institute, Amin added: ‘The report exposes a litany of failures from prison staff to senior management all of which are culpable for the circumstances in which Zahid was placed in a cell with a known racist and psychopath.
It was obvious what would happen.
‘The report represents a devastating critique of the whole prison system and it is important that something like this does not happen again.’
See also here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 