Report on Mexican 'Dirty War' Details Abuse by Military

From the New York Times:

A secret report prepared by a special prosecutor's office says the Mexican military carried out a "genocide plan" of kidnapping, torturing and killing hundreds of suspected subversives in the southern state of Guerrero during the so-called dirty war, from the late 1960's to the early 1980's.
The report, which was not endorsed by the government of President Vicente Fox but was leaked by its authors last week, says that the genocide plan was ordered by President Luis Echeverría in 1970, and devised by Hermenegildo Cuenca Díaz, who was defense minister at the time.
It is based partly on declassified documents from the Mexican military and for the first time provides names of military officers and units involved in destroying entire villages that the government suspected of serving as base camps for the rebel leader Lucio Cabañas.
In those towns, soldiers rounded up all the men and boys, executed some on the spot and detained others, and then used violence, including rape, to drive the rest of the people away, the report says. Most of those detained suffered severe torture, including beatings, electric shock and being forced to drink gasoline, at military installations that were operated like "concentration camps."


Also check out Mexican Presidency Linked to 'Dirty War' from the Washington Post

--Tom Hayes

Felon Disenfranchisement in America

I have recently done some research on felon disenfranchisement and thought I would post some sources of information here for those interested. Felon disenfranchisement is a very interesting topic from a human rights standpoint for multiple reasons. One of the most striking are the examples are of various states taking away the right to vote of ex-felons who have served their entire sentence. Another important factor to look at is race as the following is an excerpt from a paper I wrote about this topic last year:

...in Alabama and Florida, 31 percent of all black men are permanently disenfranchised. In five states (Iowa, Mississippi, New Mexico, Virginia, and Wyoming) one in four black men are permanently disenfranchised. In Delaware and Texas, approximately one in five black men are currently disenfranchised. In 13 other states, between 10 to 18 percent of black men are currently disenfranchised. According to a recent Human Rights Watch report, if current rates of incarceration continue, 28.5 percent of black men will be confined to prison at least once during their lifetime, six times greater than that for white 13 men. If this estimation is correct, the majority of these prisoners will be disenfranchised for part or all of their lives.

The main source that I have looked at on the topic is the homepage of Christopher Uggen a professor at the University of Minnesota. On his website he has information about how each state chooses to disenfranchise felons forever, those who are on probation, parole, etc. Also, you can find information about how the American public feels on the issue. Definitely read his article entitled, "Punishment and Democracy: The Disenfranchisement of Nonincarcerated Felons in the United States" co-written with Jeff Manza. He also has a blog, which can be accessed by clicking here.

Another great source of information comes from the Sentencing Project a non-profit devoted to reducing the incarceration rate in America. Other non-profits and sources on the subject are pasted below:

Prison Policy Initiative

Report by Human Rigths Watch: "Losing the Vote: The Impact of Felony Disenfranchisement Laws in the United States"

Another more recent Human Rights Watch Report

International Center for Prison Studies (King's College London)

BBC News Article on the topic

If anyone has additional information on the topic, please send me an email or post in the comments section. Also, let me know your thoughts on felon disenfranchisement and whether the practice is just or not.

--Tom Hayes

Two-Thirds of Katrina Donations Exhausted

From the Washington Post:

Six months after Hurricane Katrina laid waste to the Gulf Coast, charities have disbursed more than $2 billion of the record sums they raised for the storm's victims, leaving less than $1 billion for the monumental task of helping hundreds of thousands of storm victims rebuild their lives, according to a survey by The Washington Post.
Two-thirds of the $3.27 billion raised by private nonprofit organizations and tracked by The Post went to help evacuees and other Katrina victims with immediate needs -- cash, food and temporary shelter, medical care, tarps for damaged homes and school supplies for displaced children. What's left, say charities and federal officials, will need to be stretched over years to rebuild lives and reconstruct the social fabric of the Gulf Coast -- from job training to mental health counseling to rebuilding the homes of the poor to reestablishing arts organizations and paying clergy as they wait for their congregations to return.

Click here to read the article.

--Tom Hayes

Belarus and Democracy

The New York Times Magazine has a good article about attempts to bring down the last ex-Soviet Dictator in Belarus and efforts to bring democratic reforms to the country. The article is entitled "Bringing Down Europe's Last Ex-Soviet Dictator" and was written by Steven Lee Myers who is the Times bureau chief in Moscow. The article is long, but a good read.

Click here to read past posts on this subject.

--Tom Hayes

Senator Specter Proposes NSA Surveillance Rules

From the Washington Post:

The federal government would have to obtain permission from a secret court to continue a controversial form of surveillance, which the National Security Agency now conducts without warrants, under a bill being proposed by Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.). Specter's proposal would bring the four-year-old NSA program under the authority of the court created by the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The act created a mechanism for obtaining warrants to wiretap domestic suspects. But President Bush, shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks, authorized the NSA to eavesdrop on communications without such warrants. The program was revealed in news reports two months ago...The draft version of Specter's bill, which is circulating in intelligence and legal circles, would require the attorney general to seek the FISA court's approval for each planned NSA intercept under the program. Bush has said the agency monitors phone calls and e-mails between people in the United States and people abroad when any of them is thought to have possible terrorist ties.
Specter's bill would require the attorney general to give the secret court "a statement of the facts and circumstances" causing the Justice Department to believe "that at least one of the participants in the communications to be intercepted . . . will be the foreign power or agent of a foreign power specified in [the law], or a person who has had communication with the foreign power or agent." The attorney general would have to provide "a detailed description of the nature of the information sought" and "an estimate of the number of communications to be intercepted . . . during the requested authorization period."

Click here to read the article.

--Tom Hayes

Change in U.S. Policy Toward Russia?

From the Washington Post an article about how the Bush administration is becoming increasingly skeptical of actions by Russian President Vladimir Putin, from the article:

The Bush administration is quietly exploring ways of recalibrating U.S. policy toward Russia in the face of growing concerns about the Kremlin's crackdown on internal dissent and pressure tactics toward its neighbors, according to senior officials and others briefed on the discussions. Vice President Cheney has grown increasingly skeptical of Russian President Vladimir Putin and shown interest in toughening the administration's approach. He summoned Russia scholars to his office last month to solicit input and asked national intelligence director John D. Negroponte to provide further information about Putin's trajectory, the sources said. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has sought to balance worries over Russian democracy with a pragmatic partnership on mutual issues such as Iran's nuclear program, responded by calling her own meeting with outside advisers a week ago. Some involved in the administration deliberations saw the move as an attempt to counter Cheney. Senior officials deny any split but describe the views of Cheney and Rice in different terms.

Click here to read the article.

--Tom Hayes

I.R.S. Finds Sharp Increase in Illegal Political Activity

From the New York Times:

The I.R.S. said yesterday that it saw a sharp increase in prohibited political activity by charities and churches in the last election cycle, a trend that it aims to reverse as the country heads into the midterm elections. The tax agency found problems at three-quarters of the 82 organizations it examined after having received complaints about their political activities, according to a report the Internal Revenue Service released. The infractions included distributing materials that encouraged people to vote for particular candidates and giving cash to campaigns. The agency said it was seeking to revoke the exemptions of three organizations but did not name them, pending an appeals process. Charities are generally prohibited from campaigning for candidates, although they can take stands on issues.

Click here to read the article.

--Tom Hayes

Rights Groups put Pressure on US to support new UN Human Rights Council

From the Washington Post:

The United States came under pressure from key human rights groups to accept a compromise proposal to replace the discredited U.N. Human Rights Commission with a new Human Rights Council. Ten advocacy groups sent a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Thursday urging the United States to support the proposal. They called it "a concrete step in the right direction," even though it wasn't as strong as they had hoped, and warned that trying to change it "will not lead to a better result." The letter was in response to comments from U.S. Ambassador John Bolton, who questioned whether the draft resolution would keep human rights abusers off the new council _ a key U.S. goal _ and raised the possibility of new negotiations.
The Geneva-based Human Rights Commission has been widely criticized by Western governments and human rights campaigners for allowing some of the worst-offending countries to use their membership to protect each other from condemnation or criticize others. In recent years, members have included Sudan, Libya, Zimbabwe and Cuba.
But replacing the commission, an idea first recommended by Secretary-General Kofi Annan in March 2005, has divided the 191-member U.N. General Assembly and sparked months of contentious negotiations.

Click here to read the full article.

--Tom Hayes

Walmart Announces Plan to Expand Health Care to More Employees

From the Denver Post:

Wal-Mart on Thursday said it will expand health care coverage to more employees and reduce the time it takes for part-time workers and their children to qualify for coverage.
Critics immediately branded the announcement as a publicity stunt, and employees said they were unsure what kind of impact the changes would have. Bentonville, Ark.-based Wal-Mart is Colorado's largest private employer. It reported 24,274 employees in the state in January.
The retailer has battled criticism over its health care polices. It made the announcement in advance of chief executive Lee Scott's scheduled Sunday speech at the National Governors Association Winter Meeting in Washington.
Scott is expected to renew Wal-Mart's criticism of bills filed in at least 22 states, including Colorado, that would force the retailer to spend more on health care. Scott said Thursday that employers cannot continue to meet the rising costs of health care and urged a government- business partnership to find an answer.

Click here to read the full article.

Update: 2-25-06 read about a bill that failed in Colorado's legislature from the Denver Post, "Dems fold on Wal-Mart bill"

--Tom Hayes

'Social Cleansing' Squads Operate in Guatemala

From the Washington Post, an article about self-styled "social-cleansing" squads in Guatemala that are bringing back memories for some of the long and bloody civil war in which government backed death squads killed thousands of people. From the article:

People here call it limpieza social , Spanish for "social cleansing." But the recent surge in armed abductions and murders by self-appointed anti-crime squads throughout Guatemala is leaving a messy trail of blood and tears.
Almost every night, teams of gunmen storm into the nation's poorest neighborhoods to seize another man, woman, or teenager deemed guilty of wrongdoing. Almost every morning, another corpse turns up showing signs of torture or strangulation. Already this year, Guatemalan human rights monitors say, as many as 98 people in this nation of about 13 million are known to have been murdered by such groups, and 364 others have been killed by methods that suggest such groups could be responsible. Last year, nearly 3,000 murders similar to these took place, and officials predict the total this year could exceed that.
Often the targets are petty thieves or tattooed members of the fearsome gangs that have terrorized residents across Central America for the past decade. But just as often, they appear to be victims of mistaken identity, false accusations or petty personal feuds.

Click here to read the article.

--Tom Hayes

Chromium Evidence Buried, Report Says

From the Washington Post:

Scientists working for the chromium industry withheld data about the metal's health risks while the industry campaigned to block strict new limits on the cancer-causing chemical, according to a scientific journal report published yesterday.
The allegations, by researchers at George Washington University and the Washington-based Public Citizen Health Research Group, are based on secret industry documents obtained by the authors. They come just days before the Occupational Safety and Health Administration is to announce its new standard for workplace exposure to hexavalent chromium -- a known carcinogen handled by 380,000 U.S. workers in the steel, aerospace, electroplating and other industries. Documents in the report, published in the peer-reviewed online journal Environmental Health, show that the industry conducted a pivotal study that found a fivefold increase in lung cancer deaths from moderate exposures to chromium but never published the results or gave them to OSHA. Company-sponsored scientists later reworked the data in a way that made the risk disappear.

Click here to read the full article.

Public Citizen (one of the best public interest organization's out there) helped research the report and a link to their website with more information can be found by clicking here.

--Tom Hayes

Survey Finds Abusive G.I.'s Not Pursued

From the New York Times:

The longest sentence for any member of the American military linked to a torture-related death of a detainee in Iraq or Afghanistan has been five months, a human rights group reported Wednesday. In only 12 of 34 cases has anyone been punished for the confirmed or suspected killings, said the group, Human Rights First, which is based in New York and Washington.
Beyond those cases, in almost half of 98 known detainee deaths since 2002, the cause was never announced or was reported as undetermined.

Click here to read the full article.

A link to Human Rights First (the group that conducted the study) can be found here.

--Tom Hayes

Freedom in China

The New York Times has two interesting articles about China in today's (2-23-06) edition.

One article, "China Unveils Plan to Aid Farmers, but Avoids Land Issue" talks about a new plan by the Chinese government to aid poor farmers, yet avoiding the issue of whether they can buy and sell land.
The second article is about a Chinese journalist just freed after 17 years in prison for his protest during the 1989 pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square. The article is titled, "Man Freed After Years in Jail for Mao Insult." Both articles are worth reading and very interesting from a human rights standpoint.

--Tom Hayes

Shrine Bombing Causes More Violence in Iraq

From the Washington Post:

A wave of sectarian strife and recrimination swept Iraq Thursday after Wednesday's bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in the city of Samarra. The interior ministry said that more than 100 people have been killed in the violence.
Officials in Baghdad, struggling to restore order, expanded an existing curfew in an effort to get people off the streets after dark and canceled all leaves for Iraqi security forces.


Click here to read the full article.

Update 2-27-06: Iraq Death Toll Higher Than First Thought

--Tom Hayes

Safety of Post-Hurricane Sludge Is Disputed

From the Washington Post:

Floodwaters from Hurricane Katrina deposited arsenic, lead and petrochemical compounds across greater New Orleans in amounts that are potentially dangerous to human health despite federal and state assurances that the sludge is safe, according to a new study based on Environmental Protection Agency data.
The study, which was conducted by the Natural Resources Defense Council and is being released today, urges the government to clean up the waste before permitting young children to return to the struggling city. The NRDC report, which was obtained by The Washington Post, comes as a new internal report of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service suggests that as much as 350,000 gallons of hazardous materials are threatening the Sabine National Wildlife Refuge in Louisiana as a result of Hurricane Rita.
Government officials have minimized the public health threat in New Orleans, the environmental group said. Louisiana officials have said some toxic contaminants have been found only on golf courses that use pesticides containing arsenic, but the NRDC report includes maps detailing dozens of high arsenic levels taken across wide swaths of the urban area.

Click here to read the article.

--Tom Hayes

South Dakota Abortion Bill Aims to Challenge Roe

From the Washington Post:

South Dakota lawmakers yesterday approved the nation's most far-reaching ban on abortion, setting the stage for new legal challenges that its supporters say they hope lead to an overturning of Roe v. Wade .
The measure, which passed the state Senate 23 to 12, makes it a felony for doctors to perform any abortion, except to save the life of a pregnant woman. The proposal still must be signed by Gov. Mike Rounds (R), who opposes abortion. The bill was designed to challenge the Supreme Court's ruling in Roe , which in 1973 recognized a right of women to terminate pregnancies. Its sponsors want to force a reexamination of the ruling by the court, which now includes two justices appointed by President Bush.




Click here to read the article.

Click here to read more information on the abortion debate in S. Dakota and in the United States.

--Tom Hayes

Hostage Crisis in Nigeria Continues

I have tried to find good reporting on this issue since it is scarce in the American press. In the American news stories that I have read, there barely a mention of the people who have taken hostages or why they have done what they did, rather they are only referred to as "militants." I have pasted a couple of articles below, and the BBC at least makes an effort to explain why The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) has taken hostages and disrupted oil production in Nigeria. As one BBC article reports:

The BBC's Abdullahi Kaura Abubakar managed to meet one of the group's leaders, who used the alias Major-General Godswill Tamuno...Mr Tamuno told our reporter that Mend was fighting for "total control" of the Niger Delta's oil wealth, saying local people had not gained from the riches under the ground and the region's creeks and swamps.
He said the Delta had been exploited for the benefit of other parts of Nigeria and foreign companies and ordered all oil companies and Nigerians whose roots lie elsewhere to leave the region.


Here are various articles on the subject, see for yourself the difference in reporting:

Nigeria Militants Won't Release Hostages from the Washington Post

Nigeria's shadowy oil rebels from BBC News

Nigerian militants claim attacks from BBC News

--Tom Hayes

Juvenile-Justice Advocacy Groups Seek Change in Colorado

Following a series about juvenile offenders in Colorado prisons in both Denver papers, a group is seeking support for legislation in the Colorado House that would lessen the sentences for juvenile offenders. From the Rocky Mountain News:

A juvenile-justice advocacy organization called on the state legislature Tuesday to change the way violent child offenders are sentenced in Colorado.
Pendulum Juvenile Justice rallied its advocates at the state Capitol in support of House Bill 1315, which would change sentencing for Class 1 felonies, including murder.
The bill would allow juveniles convicted of murder in the adult system to be eligible for parole after 40 years behind bars...The group also made some demands of its own, including:
• Asking for a bipartisan commission to review every case of a juvenile tried as an adult and sentenced to adult prison.
• Calling on the legislature to model Colorado's juvenile-justice system after the system in Texas, home of the Giddings State School. There, violent child offenders can be paroled in four to six years after completing intensive treatment, the group said.
• Asking the governor to consider clemency for juveniles serving time in adult prisons.
• Requesting that district attorneys stop trying juveniles in adult court until "a complete review and overhaul of the system is undertaken."

Click here to read the article.

Click here to read the recent series in the Denver Post.

--Tom Hayes

Is a National ID Card a Good Idea?

The New York Times had an interesting op-ed by Douglas McGray (a fellow at the New America Foundation) arguing why the U.S. should adopt a national ID card, which McGray argues would reap benefits in areas such as health care, voter empowerment, education, etc. The article is interesting and worth reading as it will hopefully further the debate about privacy vs. a national id card.

Click here to read the op-ed.

--Tom Hayes

Littleton High School Student Suspended Over Comments on Website

The Rocky Mountain News has an interesting story about a local high school student who has recently been allowed to return to school after being suspended for writing satirical comments about his school on myspace.com. As the article reports:

A Littleton High School student who was suspended for criticizing his school on the Internet is back in school today after the American Civil Liberties Union threatened to file a federal lawsuit accusing school officials of violating his First Amendment rights.
The ACLU of Colorado said an agreement was reached with school district officials Monday evening to let Bryan Lopez, a 16-year-old junior, return to classes.
Littleton Public Schools suspended Lopez for 15 days and was looking into expelling him after he used his home computer to post satirical commentary on the Internet web site MySpace.com on Feb. 7. Lopez missed six school days before the ACLU reached agreement with school officials to let him return.

Click here to read the full article.

--Tom Hayes

Campos on Guantanamo Prisoners

CU Boulder law professor Paul Campos, who also writes for the Rocky Mountain News has an excellent column about Guantanamo prisoners and is titled, "The Shame of Guantanamo".

Click here to read the full column.

--Tom Hayes

University of Colorado Struggles with Diversity

The Denver Post has an interesting article about colleges struggling to create a "diverse" campus. The article focuses on the University of Colorado at Boulder and explores some of the reasons why the campus does not even come close to the same percentages of minorities that the state itself has. As the article reports, "The Boulder campus is under pressure to boost its 1.6 percent black population and 6 percent Latino population and build a student body that looks more like Colorado - a state that is 3.9 percent black and 18.7 percent Latino." I think one of the main reasons why the school does not meet these small percentages of minority students is that there is less and less funding each year for the University. The article does devote some attention to this as it states, "As one of the lowest-funded state higher-education systems in the nation, the university lacks funding to attract low-income students, particularly out-of- state students who would have to pay $21,000 in annual tuition. Students who chose not to enroll cited cost as a main reason."

Click here to read the article.

--Tom Hayes

Bush Urges Funding for Alternative Energy

Today the President spoke at Johnson Control and as the Washington Post reports it is, "a company that is working on the next generation of hybrids that can be plugged in at home to recharge a new line of batteries that will further decrease gasoline use and pollution. The company's lithium-ion batteries are designed to provide two or three times as much power as today's nickel-metal-hydride batteries, and the potential to reduce battery weight by 50 percent, according to Johnson Controls."

From the Washington Post:

President Bush visited one of the nation's leading producers of energy-efficient technologies on Monday and hailed the company's innovations as proof that the United States can one day wean itself off foreign oil. Speaking at Johnson Controls, a Fortune 500 company that produces batteries for hybrid vehicles and energy-saving devices for buildings, Bush said, "In order to seize the moment, this country needs to remain technologically advanced." Reiterating his belief that the nation is "addicted to foreign oil," the president renewed his call for increased spending on science research, development and education and greater government incentives for the makers and users of alternative sources of energy.

Click here to read the article.

Nicholas Kristof wrote a column in the New York Times on February 5th that talked about a California company that that converted a regular Prius to a plug-in hybrid, which can now get over 100 miles per gallon. The company is called CalCars and can be found by clicking here.

It's worth considering how human rights issues can be linked to resource conflicts and access to a clean environment. For example, the Center for World indigenous Studies has a map that shows the relationship between indigenous peoples across the globe along with resources and armed conflict (If anyone has a better map that I can link to, please send me the link.)

--Tom Hayes

Lobbying and Colorado Lawmakers

From the Denver Post, an article about some of the free gifts that lobbyists give to Colorado politicians and how that practice is likely to continue. Pending legislation attempts to ban some of the influence that lobbyists have by curbing the practice of gift giving, but the proposed legislation leaves out event tickets. From the article:

State lawmakers accepted dozens of tickets to sporting events, concerts, ski slopes and other occasions and venues last year, exposing yet another way lobbyists wield influence over the legislative process.
In 2005, 65 of the 100 state lawmakers reported accepting more than $29,000 worth of tickets, golf outings, ski-lift passes and fly-fishing and rafting trips.
In all, lawmakers reported receiving more than 322 tickets or gifts, such as greens fees at golf tournaments.
Those tickets - and the ability for donors to get private, exclusive meetings with lawmakers - would not be touched under a cash and in-kind gift ban that is pending in the state legislature.



Click here to read the article.

--Tom Hayes

More on the Government's Response to Katrina

There have been multiple articles in the past week about failure at all levels of government when responding to Hurricane Katrina. I have decided to past some of those articles from the Washington Post below for those interested:

Accepting Responsibility, With an Asterisk

Chertoff Acknowledges Lapses in Response

Report Slams 'Passivity' Over Katrina

Katrina Report Spreads Blame

Newsweek Interview with Yemeni editor imprisoned over Cartoons

Newsweek has an interesting interview with the Yemeni editor who was recently jailed over the publishing of the Danish cartoons which depicted the prophet Muhammad as a terrorist.

Here's the intro to the interview published on Newsweek's website:

Mohammed al-Asaadi is an improbable martyr to a free press. As the editor in chief of the generally pro-government Yemen Observer, a weekly English-language newspaper published by Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh's media adviser, al-Asaadi has not been party to the sort of controversies that have seen many Yemeni journalists jailed in recent years. But when his newspaper ran an article about the Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a terrorist, Asaadi decided to reprint the cartoons—albeit with a large X censoring most of them, and an article denouncing them. On Feb. 11, he was arrested and charged with insulting the Prophet. He is now in jail in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, awaiting trial. NEWSWEEK arranged for a visitor to take a cell phone to him today, and NEWSWEEK's Rod Nordland interviewed him by phone.

Click here to read the interview.

--Tom Hayes

Ontario Objects To EPA Plan on Coal Emissions

From the Washington Post:

Ontario, Canada's most populous province, is challenging a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposal that it says would allow higher emissions from nearby coal-burning power plants. The proposed change to the EPA's New Source Review program would probably cause more smog to drift into Ontario because it would ease pollution controls for plants in neighboring U.S. states such as Michigan, Minnesota and Wisconsin, Ontario's Ministry of the Environment said in a news release.

Click here to read the full article.

--Tom Hayes

Justices to Rehear Speech Case From October

From the Washington Post:

The Supreme Court announced yesterday that it will have to rehear a free-speech case that was argued before the justices in October, the first sign of an alteration in its normal flow of business because of the retirement of Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.
In a one-sentence order, the court said that it will restore Garcetti v. Ceballos , No. 04-473, to its calendar for reargument. The court did not say why. Historically, however, one reason for such a relatively unusual move has been that the court's preliminary vote in a case was 5 to 4 and one of the justices left the court before a result could be announced, leaving a 4 to 4 tie...Garcetti v. Ceballos centers on the free-speech rights of government employees. Richard Ceballos, a deputy prosecutor in Los Angeles, wrote a memo to his superiors complaining that a police officer may have lied to obtain a search warrant in a murder case. Ceballos recommended that the case be dismissed -- a suggestion his boss rejected.
Ceballos was later denied a promotion and sued then-Los Angeles County District Attorney Gil Garcetti, alleging that he had been punished for exercising his constitutional right to free speech. Garcetti objected, saying that public employees are not entitled to First Amendment protection for comments they make in the course of performing their jobs.

Click here to read the full article.

--Tom Hayes

President Calls for More Forces in Darfur Area

From the Washington Post:

President Bush said Friday that calming Sudan's war-ravaged Darfur region will require "probably double" the current number of international peacekeepers and a coordinating role for NATO. The U.N. already is planning to assume control of peacekeeping from the poorly trained and ill-equipped African Union force, numbering about 7,000, which has not stopped the violence in Darfur. The United States and several other nations have said genocide has occurred in western Sudan, where 180,000 have died from famine and violence in three years. The Arab-dominated government in Khartoum has been accused of backing the Janjaweed militia against ethnic tribe members


Click here to read the article.

--Tom Hayes

Senate Rejects Effort to Investigate Eavesdropping Program

From the Washington Post:

The Bush administration helped derail a Senate bid to investigate a warrantless eavesdropping program yesterday after signaling it would reject Congress's request to have former attorney general John D. Ashcroft and other officials testify about the program's legality. The actions underscored a dramatic and possibly permanent drop in momentum for a congressional inquiry, which had seemed likely two months ago.
Senate Democrats said the Republican-led Congress was abdicating its obligations to oversee a controversial program in which the National Security Agency has monitored perhaps thousands of phone calls and e-mails involving U.S. residents and foreign parties without obtaining warrants from a secret court that handles such matters.

Click here to read the article.

--Tom Hayes

Apparent Death Squad Is Linked to Iraqi Ministry

From the Washington Post:

U.S. and Iraqi authorities discovered an apparent death squad operating within the country's Interior Ministry last month when Iraqi troops prevented a group of highway patrol officers from killing a Sunni Arab man the officers had arrested, an American military spokesman said Thursday.
The 22 men, dressed in the camouflage uniforms of special police commandos, were stopped by chance at an Iraqi army checkpoint in northern Baghdad, according to Maj. Gen. Joseph Peterson, who gave a detailed account of the incident to the Chicago Tribune for an article published Thursday. When the soldiers asked the police what they were doing, they responded bluntly: They were going to execute their captive. Instead, they wound up in jail...The incident is the first hard evidence to support the widely held suspicion among Sunni Arabs that vigilantes in the country's Shiite-dominated police force are rounding up Sunnis and killing them.


Click here to read the full article.

--Tom Hayes

Compromise in Haiti Reached Giving Preval Presidency

From the Washington Post:

Tens of thousands of Haitians poured into the streets of this cramped capital Thursday morning, banging drums and waving banners to celebrate an unusual compromise that handed Haiti's presidency to Rene Preval and ended a nine-day electoral crisis.
Preval was awarded the presidency after days of intense negotiations with the interim government that rules Haiti and with international diplomats. The negotiators agreed not count more than 80,000 blank votes, nudging Preval past the 50 percent he needed to win the presidency without a runoff...Preval ended up with 51 percent of the vote after the compromise, enough to avert a runoff but short of an overwhelming mandate to lead this impoverished nation. His supporters are mindful of the issue of legitimacy in Haiti, which has been riven by political strife for decades.
Preval, who was president of Haiti from 1996 to 2001, is the only leader of this country in modern history to complete a full five-year term. Others, including his mentor, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, have been toppled by a succession of coups.


Click here to read the full article.

--Tom Hayes

Bird Flu Spreads to European Nations

From the Washington Post:

Migrating swans have spread a lethal strain of avian flu into several European nations in recent days and experts predicted it was likely only a matter of time before the virus was carried across the continent by migrating birds.
Germany confirmed Wednesday that two dead swans found on the island of Rugen in the Baltic Sea tested positive for the H5N1 strain of bird flu. The virus originated in Asia and has jumped from birds to infect at least 165 humans worldwide, killing 91, according to the World Health Organization. In the past week, dead swans that tested positive for the virus have also been reported in Austria, Italy, Greece, Slovenia and Bulgaria.
The virus has previously been detected in Romania, Croatia and Ukraine. And health officials in Poland, Denmark and Hungary announced Wednesday that they were checking dead swans to learn if the infection has spread to their countries as well...Experts worry that if the bird flu virus mutates, humans could become more susceptible and a global epidemic could result. Although no one in Europe has been reported infected by the H5N1 strain -- the closest cases have occurred in Turkey, all from contact with dead chickens -- there were signs that people were getting jittery.


Click here to read the article.

After the U.S. Governments response to Katrina (at all levels) it is worrisome to think about how they would respond if this ever becomes an epidemic killing humans in North America.

--Tom Hayes

The President's Budget and Health Care

From the Washington Post:

President Bush has requested billions more to prepare for potential disasters such as a biological attack or an influenza epidemic, but his proposed budget for next year would zero out popular health projects that supporters say target more mundane, but more certain, killers.
If enacted, the 2007 budget would eliminate federal programs that support inner-city Indian health clinics, defibrillators in rural areas, an educational campaign about Alzheimer's disease, centers for traumatic brain injuries, and a nationwide registry for Lou Gehrig's disease. It would cut close to $1 billion in health care grants to states and would kill the entire budget of the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Resource Center. In a $2.8 trillion budget, the amounts involved may seem minuscule, but proponents argue that the health care projects Bush has singled out are the "ultimate homeland security," as Vinay Nadkarni put it. The spokesman for the American Heart Association said he cannot fathom why the administration has recommended eliminating a $1.5 million program that provides defibrillators to rural communities and trains local personnel on how to use the machines to restart hearts that go into cardiac arrest.

Click here to read the full article.

--Tom Hayes

Audits Show Millions in Katrina Aid Wasted

From the Washington Post:

Tens of thousands of people received aid from the Federal Emergency Management Agency using possibly fraudulent identities because the relief effort did not perform routine checks that might have flagged such activity, government investigators said yesterday.
The extent of the fraud in the $6 billion evacuee-assistance effort has not been calculated, but it could reach hundreds of millions of dollars, investigators told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, and it appears that the losses were limited only by the thieves' ingenuity.

Click here to read the article.

--Tom Hayes

Bush and Annan Agree to Larger Force in Sudan

From the Washington Post:

President Bush and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan agreed on the need for a bigger, more mobile peacekeeping force in Sudan's troubled Darfur region during a White House meeting yesterday, but Annan made no specific requests for U.S. military help.
Speaking to reporters after the Oval Office session, Annan said it is premature to ask for more than a general commitment from the United States until the United Nations determines what it needs for the planned peacekeeping force in Darfur...The United Nations is making plans to send as many as 20,000 troops to help stabilize the huge Darfur region, where about 7,000 peacekeepers from the African Union have been struggling to end the bloodshed being inflicted on civilians by government-backed militias. Annan has said the African Union troops have been hamstrung by a lack of air transport capabilities and modern communications as they have attempted to keep the peace in the region, which is the size of France.

Click here to read the full article.

--Tom Hayes

What Can be Done About Darfur?

In the Sunday February 12 version of the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof writes another poignant op-ed about the situation in Darfur. I think the most interesting part is when he gives suggestions for what the President can do to help the situation. Many people that I have conversations with about this topic often question how much the President can really contribute to positive change without sending U.S. troops and the following excerpt from the article responds to such questions:

President Bush is doing more about Darfur than most other leaders, but that's not saying much. The French are being particularly unhelpful, while other Europeans (including, alas, Tony Blair) seem to wonder whether it's really worth the expense to save people from genocide. Muslim countries are silent about the slaughter of Darfur's Muslims, while China disgraces itself by protecting Sudan in the United Nations and underwriting the genocide with trade. Still, even Mr. Bush is taking only baby steps.
Here are some grown-up steps Mr. Bush could take: He could enforce a no-fly zone to stop air attacks on civilians in Darfur, lobby Arab leaders to become involved, call President Hu Jintao and ask China to stop protecting Sudan, invite Darfur refugees to a photo op at the White House, attend a coming donor conference for Darfur, visit Darfur or the refugee camps next door in Chad, push France and other allies for a NATO bridging force to provide protection until United Nations troops arrive, offer to support the United Nations force with American military airlift and logistical support (though not ground troops, which would help Sudan's hard-liners by allowing them to claim that the United States was starting a new invasion of the Arab world), make a major speech about Darfur, and arrange for Colin Powell to be appointed a United Nations special envoy to seek peace among Darfur's tribal sheiks.
With Mr. Bush saying little about Darfur, presidential leadership on Darfur is coming from ... Slovenia. The Slovenian president, Janez Drnovsek, has emerged as one of the few leaders who are actually organizing an international effort to stop the genocide.
"You ask, Why Slovenia?" he told me. "I can ask, Why not Slovenia?"
Mr. Drnovsek came to the United States recently to talk about Darfur with Kofi Annan, Bill Clinton and Chinese officials. But he says that President Bush declined to see him; if Mr. Bush were more serious about Darfur, he would be hailing Slovenia's leadership indeed, emulating it.


Click here to read the full op-ed.

For past posts on Darfur, click here.

--Tom Hayes

European Cartoons, Muslim Anger, and Autocratic Governments

From the New York Times Week in Review Section, an interesting article exploring the intensity of Arab rage over European cartoons. The article's author, Michael Slackman, links much of the rage to the frustration of many Muslims in Middle Eastern countries who lack the ability to participate in the political system as well as the lack of response to multiple accidents (such as the recent example of an Egyptian ferry with 1400 passengers sinking in the Red Sea). From the article:

But in the coincidence of the two events, there is a clue to a dynamic that has played out in this region for many years: Leaders often call attention to external enemies — most often the Israelis — as a device to allow their own subjects to blow off steam. The anger itself is almost always home grown.
The crisis over the cartoons has often been portrayed as a clash in values between the Muslim and Western worlds, focusing on issues of free expression and respect for other cultures.
But that crisis and the ferry sinking also reflect another difference in perspective. While the West speaks of democracy and freedom, Muslims here tend to speak of justice. There is widespread feeling that the region's governments deny their people justice, and this feeling has been instrumental in the increased support for Islamists throughout the Middle East, whether the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, or Hamas among the Palestinians.


Click here to read the full article.

For more on this topic and to see a timeline of events dealing with the protests of the cartoons, click here.

--Tom Hayes

Grandmother Tests Democratic Reforms in Morocco

From the Washington Post:


The monarchy in this North African country dates back 1,200 years and has survived foreign invaders, civil wars and communist plots. Now it is confronted by a new threat: a grandmother who preaches nonviolence and democracy. This week, Moroccan prosecutors are scheduled to resume a criminal trial against Nadia Yassine, a leader of Justice and Charity, an underground Islamic movement that has become increasingly aggressive in testing the rule of King Mohammed VI. Yassine, 47, was charged last June with publicly criticizing the monarchy after she stated in a newspaper interview that the country would be better off as a republic than as a kingdom...Since ascending the throne in 1999, Mohammed has transformed his country by approving parliamentary elections, a robust press and equal rights for women, giving Moroccans more freedom than most of their Arab neighbors in North Africa and the Middle East. Those changes have also given new life to long-suppressed opposition groups that are demanding more concessions from the king but do not necessarily believe in a Western-style democracy...While the trial has attracted international attention as a test of Morocco's commitment to free speech and democracy, it has shed less light on Yassine, a complicated figure whose dedication to individual rights is questioned by many people here...The Moroccan constitution makes it illegal to criticize or insult the king, who traces his lineage to the prophet Muhammad. Authorities said they had long tolerated Yassine's outbursts but that this time she went too far...She has cast herself as a feminist and a champion of democracy whose Justice and Charity movement has sworn to remain nonviolent. But Justice and Charity also favors the establishment of a strict Islamic state and has strongly opposed many of the democratic changes that have taken place under Mohammed, such as a new family code that gives more rights to women.

Click here to read the article.

--Tom Hayes

Congress and Immigration

The Washington Post has an interesting op-ed about U.S. immigration policy and a story of two different immigrants. One was allowed to become a citizen after Congress moved quickly to allow a Canadian to join our Olympic team. The other is a 14 year old girl from Africa, trying to join her adoptive mother. Congress moved to allow the Canadian to become a citizen, while denying the 14 year old girl to become a citizen.


Click here to read the op-ed.

--Tom Hayes

Patriot Act Compromise Ready for Vote

From the Washington Post:

Efforts to extend the USA Patriot Act cleared a major hurdle yesterday when the White House and key senators agreed to revisions that are virtually certain to secure Senate passage and likely to win House approval, congressional leaders said...The proposal would restrict federal agents' access to library records, one of the Patriot Act's most contentious provisions. A form of secret subpoena known as a National Security Letter could no longer be used to obtain records from libraries that function "in their traditional capacity, including providing basic Internet access," Sununu and others said in a statement. But libraries that are "Internet service providers" would remain subject to the letters, Durbin said.
The Senate proposal would no longer require National Security Letter recipients to tell the FBI the identity of their lawyers.
The compromise bill also addresses "Section 215 subpoenas," which are granted by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court. Recipients of such subpoenas originally were forbidden to tell anyone about the action. The proposed Senate measure would allow them to challenge the "gag order" after one year, rather than the 90-day wait in earlier legislation.


Click here to read the full article.

For past posts on this subject, click here.

--Tom Hayes

Colorado Bill Raises Abuse-Case Time Limits

From the Denver Post, an article about a bill that will go before the Colorado House of Representatives. The bill (1088) would remove the time limits for pursuing criminal cases and lawsuits against sexual abusers in private institutions. What is very interesting about this bill is that the Catholic Church has come out against it, arguing that it unfairly targets religious institutions while ignoring public institutions like schools. While I think that it is a fair criticism to argue that public institutions should be included in the legislation, I think opposing the current bill is quite ridiculous, since it is still a good thing (in my view) for victims of child abuse to be able to go after their abusers once they become adults.


Click here to read the full article.

Update, 2-10-06: Church bolsters case against bill from the Rocky Mountain News

--Tom Hayes

Free Media in China

From the New York Times, an article about how many believe the Chinese government will not succeed in controlling the free media, despite its recent actions. From the article:

Whether Chinese will hold a long-term grudge is arguable. But Web specialists are far more confident that the government will fail in its efforts to reverse a trend toward increasingly free expression that has been reshaping this society with ever more powerful effects for more than two decades. Last year, China ranked 159th out of 167 countries in a survey of press freedom, Reporters Without Borders, the Paris-based international rights group, said. But rankings like this do not reflect the rapid change afoot here, more and more of which is escaping the government's control.

Click here to read the full article.

--Tom Hayes

Money and Politics

The New York Times has two good op-eds today about the influence of money on politics in Congress and the recent budget. The two articles are:

Earmarked Men by Jeff Flake

Jurassic Pork by KORI SCHAKE


--Tom Hayes

Sweden Plans to Be World's First Oil-Free Economy

From the Common Dreams NewsCenter:

Sweden is to take the biggest energy step of any advanced western economy by trying to wean itself off oil completely within 15 years - without building a new generation of nuclear power stations. The attempt by the country of 9 million people to become the world's first practically oil-free economy is being planned by a committee of industrialists, academics, farmers, car makers, civil servants and others, who will report to parliament in several months.
The intention, the Swedish government said yesterday, is to replace all fossil fuels with renewables before climate change destroys economies and growing oil scarcity leads to huge new price rises.
"Our dependency on oil should be broken by 2020," said Mona Sahlin, minister of sustainable development. "There shall always be better alternatives to oil, which means no house should need oil for heating, and no driver should need to turn solely to gasoline."


Click here to read the full article, orginially reported in the Guardian.

--Tom Hayes

President calls for sell-off of Western public land

From the Denver Post:

President Bush wants to sell more public land across the West to raise money for schools, conservation and deficit reduction.
Bush's proposed 2007 federal budget, sent to Congress on Monday, calls for granting the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management new authority to sell off land. Those agencies together control hundreds of millions of acres in Western states.
Democrats and environmentalists compare the idea to recent proposals by Tom Tancredo and other Republicans in Congress to sell federal land to pay for hurricane relief and invigorate the mining industry...The Forest Service proposes selling 150,000 to 200,000 acres to raise $800 million over five years. The agency is trying to maintain a program that supported rural schools with timber proceeds but ran into financial trouble when logging declined.
The BLM doesn't have an estimate of how many acres it might sell under the plan, but it expects to sell land worth $40 million to $50 million per year.


Click here to read the article.

--Tom Hayes

U.S. Says It Will Forgive Afghan Debt

From the Washington Post:

The Bush administration said Tuesday it will forgive the entire $108 million that Afghanistan owes to the United States, and larger creditors also plan to erase Afghan debt.
"The government and people of Afghanistan are working diligently to build a sustainable market economy despite many challenges," State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. In Afghanistan, the government of President Hamid Karzai welcomed the decision.
"After 30 years of devastation, we are starting from nothing and any move such as this helps the reconstruction of Afghanistan," said Khaleeq Ahmed, a Karzai spokesman.
The announcement came a week after nearly 70 nations and international bodies pledged $10.5 billion to help Afghanistan fight poverty, improve security and crack down on the drug trade. The pledges were intended to fund the goals set out in a five-year plan delegates signed Tuesday for redevelopment in Afghanistan, which has been devastated by decades of war.


Click here to read the full article.

--Tom Hayes

Maoist Rebels Call Strike in Attempt to Foil Nepalese Elections

From the Washington Post:

Barely a year after seizing absolute power, King Gyanendra is a monarch under siege -- shunned by former allies, struggling to contain a raging Maoist insurgency and confronting a new alliance between the rebels and mainstream political parties that dismiss his plans for restoring democracy as a farce.
The parties are boycotting municipal elections scheduled for Wednesday, a step that in combination with Maoist threats has ensured that most of 4,000-plus local seats will not even be contested. The Maoists are also enforcing a week-long general strike that has paralyzed normal life in cities and towns throughout the country.


Click here to read the article.

For a previous post on Nepal and more information on the situation there, click here.

Update, 02/08/06: Turnout Appears Low in Vote in Nepal from the Washington Post.

--Tom Hayes

Attorney General Defends Surveillance

From the Washington Post:

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales spent more than seven hours yesterday sparring with skeptical lawmakers over a controversial domestic eavesdropping program, defending its legality while refusing to answer dozens of questions about its operations or whether President Bush has authorized other types of warrantless searches or surveillance in the United States.
Gonzales also suggested in testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee that the administration had considered a broader effort that would include purely domestic telephone calls and e-mail but abandoned the idea in part due to fears of the negative public reaction.

Click here to read the full article.

What is most interesting about the hearing that occurred today was the reaction by some Republicans as they argued with Gonzales. For a complete transcript of the Senate hearing, click here.

--Tom Hayes

Lebanon Protesters Set Embassy Afire

From the Washington Post:

Thousands of Muslim protesters, enraged over the publication of caricatures of Islam's prophet Muhammad, set ablaze the Danish Embassy on Sunday and rampaged through a predominantly Christian neighborhood, escalating sectarian tensions in a country whose melange of faiths can sometimes serve as a microcosm of the world's religious divide.
The unrest, which involved as many as 20,000 protesters, was some of the worst in Lebanon in years, and leaders from across the political and religious spectrums appealed for calm. In vain, some Muslim clerics tried to step into the hours-long fray to end the clashes, which news agencies said left at least one demonstrator dead and 30 wounded.

Click here to read the full article.

--Tom Hayes

Lawmakers Urge More Executive Branch Oversight

From the Washington Post, an article about members of Congress seeking more oversight of the Executive branch, especially after the Bush administration's recent actions during the NSA spying revelation and their refusal to turn over documents relating to Katrina. From the article:

The Bush administration's reluctance to provide lawmakers with documents related to domestic surveillance, the response to Hurricane Katrina and other matters prompted stern complaints from Congress yesterday, as Democrats in particular vowed to push for more aggressive oversight of the executive branch.
The sharpest exchanges involved the administration's legal reasoning for tasking the National Security Agency to monitor Americans' international calls and e-mails without obtaining a court warrant. The Senate Judiciary Committee has scheduled a hearing on the issue starting Monday, but some members said the inquiry will be pointless if the administration refuses to share legal documents that rationalized the eavesdropping program soon after the 2001 terrorist attacks.


Click here to read the article.

--Tom Hayes

Democrats to Question Intelligence officials on NSA domestic spying

Mark Hosenball writes in Newsweek that Senate Democrats are planning on questioning intelligence officials during an upcoming intelligence meeting, as Hosenball writies:

National Intelligence Director John Negroponte and his principal deputy, Gen. Michael Hayden, are scheduled to appear with several other top intelligence officials at what was supposed to be a routine Senate Intelligence Committee hearing to discuss the intelligence community’s assessment of current threats to the United States, including terrorist attacks and nuclear proliferation. However, congressional sources say Democrats on the Senate committee plan to use the hearing to grill officials about alleged NSA domestic surveillance. They are particularly interested in questioning Hayden, who before joining Negroponte’s office, served as NSA director. The controversial NSA monitoring program was launched under his command.


Click here to read the article.

For a later post on this topic, click here.

Update: read this article to find out what happened during the meeting, "Democrats and Bush Aides Spar in Senate Over U.S. Spying"

--Tom Hayes

House Passes Budget Cuts By a Slim Margin

The House, be a 216 to 214 vote, passed budget cuts that hurt students, the elderly and the poor most of all. As the Washington Post reports:

The House yesterday narrowly approved a contentious budget-cutting package that would save nearly $40 billion over five years by imposing substantial changes on programs including Medicaid, welfare, child support and student lending.
With its presidential signature all but assured, the bill represents the first effort in nearly a decade to try to slow the growth of entitlement programs, one that will be felt by millions of Americans. Women on welfare are likely to face longer hours of work, education or community service to qualify for their checks. Recipients of Medicaid can expect to face higher co-payments and deductibles, especially on expensive prescription drugs and emergency room visits for non-emergency care. More affluent seniors will find it far more difficult to qualify for Medicaid-covered nursing care. College students could face higher interest rates when their banks get squeezed by the federal government. And some cotton farmers will find support payments nicked. State-led efforts to force deadbeat parents to pay their child support may also have to be curtailed.



Click here to read the full article.

To see how your member of Congress voted, click here. It is interesting that not one Democrat supported the measure, while 13 Republicans voted against it. Also, three members of the House did not vote at all, 2 Republicans and 1 Democrat.

The Colorado delegation voted along party lines as follows:

For:
Bob Beauprez, Joel Hefley, Marilyn Musgrave, Tom Tancredo

Against:
Diana DeGette, John Salazar, Mark Udall

--Tom Hayes

Free Speech in Cambodia

Below is an interesting article from the New York Times about the resurgence of Cambodia's democratic movement.

January 30, 2006
Haunted by Past Horrors, Cambodians Speak Out
By SETH MYDANS
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — Leaving their crops and animals behind, 800 of Cambodia's poorest people gathered the other day in the shade of a blue tarpaulin in a village south of the capital and poured out a torrent of complaints and demands.

The price of fuel, the poor education system, problems with health care, bribery at every turn — these grievances have found a new outlet in a series of independent forums that are challenging the control of information by an increasingly repressive government. But the subject that dominated all others in this meeting in the commune of Rokar Khnong was a passionate demand for free speech and democratic rights.

One man wept as he stood at the microphone. One shouted. One raised a cheer for democracy. An elderly woman with cropped white hair recited a poem in which she promised to die so that her country could live.

"I love democracy," declared a farmer, who spoke boldly, but like the other participants did not give his name for fear of being arrested. "I stopped work on my harvest so I could come here and speak at a democratic forum. We want to exercise our right to free speech."

Even the organizers said they were taken aback by the turnout and assertiveness of the villagers. The government has been cracking down on free speech and in recent months has arrested several human rights advocates.

Among those arrested was Kem Sokha, who founded these independent forums three years ago. Since then, they have taken place more than 100 times, in every district of the country. And their impact has grown through taped broadcasts — some lasting four hours or more — on independent radio stations, which have also become targets of the crackdown.

Earlier this month, under international pressure, Prime Minister Hun Sen released Mr. Kem Sokha and three other activists on bail and now says he will drop defamation charges against them. But other activists and political figures remain in jail, and the threat of arrest still hangs over those who speak out.

The outrage in Rokar Khnong suggests that the government will not have it easy if it tries to crush the democratic ideas that were introduced by the United Nations in the early 1990's as it sought to end decades of bloodshed. The concepts of human rights and free expression appear to have taken root, and if Mr. Kem Sokha's forums are an indicator, the fields and villages of Cambodia are restless with discontent.

"I have a question for the government," said an old woman wearing a checkered head cloth. "You talk about democracy, but how much right do the people of Cambodia have to speak out? If we speak out, will we be arrested like Kem Sokha?"

Another woman seized the microphone. "I have lived through many wars, and I only have two relatives left alive," she said. "I am old now, and I want to see democracy before I die."
Another followed: "I don't know how to speak," she said, "but I just want to send a message to Hun Sen. Stop sending people to jail for small crimes. You are abusing your power."
Furthermore, she said, nobody can believe anything the government says. Referring to the government's official spokesman, she used a local expression: "You ask him cow, and he answers buffalo."

Several speakers were angry enough to refer to the torments of the Khmer Rouge years, from 1975 to 1979, when 1.7 million people were executed or died of starvation, disease or overwork.
"In the Khmer Rouge time, my father was served soup and they asked him if it tasted good," one man said. " 'Tell the truth,' they said. And so he said it did not taste good, and they killed him. Now when we speak the truth, are we going to be jailed? Is Cambodia going back to the Communists again?"

Another man, a former schoolteacher, noted that Mr. Kem Sokha had been arrested simply for having political slogans painted on a banner. "What about the Khmer Rouge, who killed millions of Cambodians 27 years ago?" he said. "Why haven't they been put on trial?"
After years of delay, preparations for a trial have finally begun, though any proceedings are still many months away. Human rights advocates say the enduring impunity of the Khmer Rouge has contributed to a sense of injustice in Cambodia.

As with other forums, local leaders were invited to join a panel in front of the speakers. At Rokar Khnong, a deputy village chief and deputy district police chief were present. Ou Virak, a member of Mr. Kem Sokha's organization, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, was moderating in his absence and invited them to speak.
"In a democratic forum, we want to hear opposing ideas, not just the people who support the forum," he said.

Seng Toich, the police officer, stood up.
"Some people focus all the time on individual rights and think that means we can do anything we want," he said. "But our rights have limitations. They cannot be used to harm others."
Temples must limit the use of loudspeakers in order not to disturb the peace, he said. A motorcycle rider must obey traffic rules. A farmer cannot graze his animals in a public park. Speech that is too free can harm the reputations of others.

A student rose to rebut him. "That is not what we are asking for, to break traffic rules or disturb the peace, but to exercise our democratic rights," he said.
The meeting ended with a reading of the section of the Cambodian Constitution guaranteeing the rights of free speech and free assembly.
Mr. Ou Virak, the moderator, said it was beginning to be more difficult to organize the forums because of new fears of retribution in the villages. As the day's meeting dispersed, he thanked the local officials for allowing it to be held.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
-- JB

United States sides with Iran on Anti-Gay Vote at the United Nations

From Reuters:

(Washington, D.C., January 25, 2006) - In a reversal of policy, the United States on Monday backed an Iranian initiative to deny United Nations consultative status to organizations working to protect the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people.

Click here to read the full article.

-- JB

Enron Trial Begins

The Enron trial started recently and both sides have laid out their strategy in the case. As the Washington Post reports, "The trial is the biggest corporate fraud case in history, a reminder of an era when companies soared and then crashed, executives walked away with millions of dollars, and thousands of employees lost their retirement savings and pensions."

Click here to read the full article.

For an excellent summary of some of what happened at Enron, check out the documentary entitled, "Enron:the Smartest Guys in the Room." You won't believe some of the audio from what the Enron traders said, especially while making money off of the California energy crisis.

--Tom Hayes