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A Mexican sting that netted a huge stash of cash, guns and drugs has turned into a PR nightmare for President Felipe Calderon. The primary suspect claims the money is actually illegal campaign funding he was forced to hide.
Photo: pgr.gob.mx
An exhaustive series of interviews with 50 Iraq war veterans by two reporters with the liberal weekly The Nation reveals that attacks on innocent civilians are much more common than the U.S. media suggests. According to the accounts of these soldiers, who served all over Iraq between 2003 and 2005, Abu Ghraib was the tip of the iceberg. They tell stories of living in constant fear of IEDs, and devolving view of Iraqi civilians who are increasingly treated as “less human than us.” The result has been indiscriminate killings that are never investigated — and justified by planting weapons on unarmed corpses — torture, debasement, and worse. Veterans described opening fire on Iraqi civilians every time an IED goes off, running over Iraqi children who didn’t get out of the way of their convoys fast enough.
Important but overlooked news from around the world. QUOTED:
“What is ironic is that at the same time lawmakers were crowing about no earmarks this year, they were surreptitiously drowning agency heads in funding requests.” — Government watchdog Steve Ellis says Democrats in Congress didn’t go easy on the pork after all (see “Top Stories,” below). CONTENTS:
*Top Stories*
A Mexican drug sting bites back
Abu Ghraib: the tip of the iceberg? Democratic Congress a pork-barrel pool party
*War & Terrorism*
Iraqi fatalities on the rise amid checkpoints, eye scans
*Law & Justice*
Joseph Koney: Wanted for war crimes, betting on settlement
*Environment & Health*
Bottled water revolt gathers steam
TOP STORIES
Mexican Drug Sting Bites Back
A drug bust that netted $205 million gave Mexican President Felipe Calderon bragging rights back in March, but has since turned into a PR nightmare.
Green-minded cities are working to encourage residents to trade in their bottled water for tap water, which is often the same thing (most bottled water is purified tap water). The City Council of Ann Arbor, Michigan, passed a resolution banning the use of bottled water at any city-affiliated event, noting that local tap water has received awards for quality. Ann Arbor officials say that in general, few plastic bottles are ever recycled, and they take 450 years to break down in a landfill. Michigan House Democrats, worried that water bottlers are staging a run on already-depleted Great Lakes aquifers, also recently passed a series of new environmental regulations. In Britain, the Green Party wants people to think twice before ordering bottled water at a restaurant, even if it makes them look cheap.
It was Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni who triggered the indictment of Joseph Kony and other former leaders of the Lord’s Resistance Army by the International Criminal Court in 2003. Now Museveni wants the court to drop the charges, to the consternation of the international community. Rather than jeopardize the ongoing peace talks with Kony and his officers, who face 33 charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, Museveni offered the men a blanket amnesty, which may or may not be legal. The LRA has said it will not sign a comprehensive peace agreement until the charges are dropped. Accountability is the question, although the people of the Acholi tribe in northern Uganda, who were most affected by the violence, have a different answer.
American checkpoints and database ID programs seek to stem the tide of insurgent attacks ripping through Iraqi society. But the bolstered security programs come at a human cost. U.S. soldiers have killed or wounded 429 Iraqi civilians at checkpoints since June 2006, according to statistics obtained exclusively by McClatchy News Service. The number has risen each month even as more U.S. troops pour into Iraq. They continue on average to rise each month as well, in spite of claims that the numbers are actually in decline.
After a military spokesman in Baghdad reported the killing of al Qaeda leader Kamal Jalil Uthman last month, a reporter for the Examiner noticed Uthman had been previously killed by U.S. forces in 2006.
Photo: CNN covers Uthman’s second death
Important but overlooked news from around the world. QUOTED:
“We’re aging, and there’s little time left. We request the court mediate and seek a settlement through direct negotiations.” — Excerpt from a letter sent by Japanese plaintiffs seeking an expedited settlement to an air pollution lawsuit that has dragged on for 11 years (see “Environment II: Pollution & Health,” below). CONTENTS:
*Top Stories*
The two burials of Kamal Jalil Uthman
Schwarzenegger: on the wings of charity
Big boom in Baghdad home shares
*War & Terrorism*
Armenia & Azerbaijan: A war without end
*Environment I: Conservation*
It’s not easy being green
*Environment II: Pollution & Health*
Asia’s plague of cars
TOP STORIES
The Two Burials of Kamal Jalil Uthman
U.S. military officials took credit for killing a top al Qaeda leader — twice.
Taking pictures without a permit of New York City’s many landmarks will be prohibited under new, post-9/11 regulations that have the ACLU claiming a First Amendment violation.
Photo: Tourists in Manhattan/Scalleja
Photo-Free NYC
A post-9/11 requirement that tourists and other casual photographers get a permit before taking pictures in New York City has the ACLU claiming a First Amendment violation. The city’s Office of Film, Theater and Broadcast proposed the new rules, which would “require City-issued permits and proof of insurance for any person using a handheld camera in any public area in a group of two or more and using the camera for more than thirty minutes,” according to the North Country Gazette. The rules are expected to affect tourists more than any other group, as they tend to gather at places like Ground Zero with their cameras for long periods of time. Backlash Brewing in Mogadishu
Mogadishu’s transitional government, backed by Ethiopian troops, is credited with pushing out the hard-line Union of Islamic Courts. But residents say the new mayor’s harsh tactics have made life even more unbearable than before.