Saudi Child Bride Drops Fight to Divorce 80-Year-Old
Via AFP via Google News:
RIYADH — A 12-year-old Saudi girl unexpectedly gave up her petition for divorce from an 80-year-old man her father forced her to marry in exchange for a dowry, Saudi media reported Tuesday.
Despite support from human rights lawyers and child welfare advocates, the girl and her mother, who originally sought the divorce, withdrew the case Monday in a court in Buraidah, in Al-Qasim province, newspapers said.
The girl told the court that her marriage to the man was done with her agreement, according to Okaz newspaper. “I agree to the marriage. I have no objection. This is in filial respect to my father and obedience to his wish,” she said.
Saleh al-Dabibi, a lawyer supplied by a charity group to help the girl, said her mother did not inform…
Vermont Legislature Considers Eugenics Apology
Most people don’t realize that many of the terrible eugenics and marriage laws that characterized Nazi Germany trace their origin back to the United States. It’s hard to see our history clearly, and this story is a step in the right direction.
From Burlington Free Press:
If the state of Vermont had carried out a plan to sterilize his grandmother, Don Stevens said Tuesday, he “wouldn’t be here.”Many Vermonters of mixed French Canadian and American Indian heritage, like Stevens’ grandmother, as well as poor, rural whites, were placed on a state-sanctioned list of “mental defectives” and degenerates in the 1930s and placed in state institutions like the Home for the Feeble Minded in Brandon.
Some had surgery after Gov. Stanley Wilson in 1931 won enactment of a sterilization law. It was designed to…
Patriot Act – Eight Years Later
From Truthout:
After 2009 – a year when federal prosecutors charged more suspects with terrorism than in any year since the attacks of September 11, 2001 – and in today’s atmosphere of heightened fear triggered by the aborted plot to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day, Congress will begin again this month to consider reauthorization of key parts of the USA Patriot Act.
The act was passed by a frightened Congress, with very little debate, just 45 days after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the hijacked airliner that crashed in Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Only one US senator – Democrat Russ Feingold of Wisconsin – voted against the legislation.
Three sections of the Act were due to “sunset” – expire, unless reauthorized – on December 31 of…
Iraq To Sue U.S., Britain Over Depleted Uranium Bombs
Via the Tehran Times:
Iraq’s Ministry for Human Rights will file a lawsuit against Britain and the U.S. over their use of depleted uranium bombs in Iraq, an Iraqi minister says.
Iraq’s Minister of Human Rights, Wijdan Mikhail Salim, told Assabah newspaper that the lawsuit will be launched based on reports from the Iraqi ministries of science and the environment.
According to the reports, during the first year of the U.S. and British invasion of Iraq, both countries had repeatedly used bombs containing depleted uranium.
According to Iraqi military experts, the U.S. and Britain bombed the country with nearly 2,000 tons of depleted uranium bombs during the early years of the Iraq war.
Atomic radiation has increased the number of babies born with defects in the southern provinces of Iraq.
Iraqi doctors say they’ have been…
UK Airports Commence Mandatory Full Body Scans
While I don’t have strong privacy concerns, I do worry about the effects of the scans on the human body, particularly on frequent travelers who undergo multiple scans. So are these mandatory “accept the scan or don’t fly” policies in the first world’s most developed surveillance state, Great Britain, a reasonable response to the underpants bomber? This report is from the Daily Mail:
Air passengers who refuse to submit to controversial full body scans will be barred from boarding their flights.
The technology – which has been strongly condemned by civil liberties campaigners – began operating at Heathrow and Manchester airports yesterday. Birmingham will follow suit later this month before the anti-terror devices are rolled out nationally.
The move – strongly criticised by civil liberties campaigners who say the scanners are an invasion…
Report: No sanctions for Lawyers who OK’d Torture
Is anyone surprised at this report? Is anyone not disgusted?
From Yahoo News:
Bush administration lawyers who drafted legal theories that led to waterboarding and other harsh treatment of terrorism suspects showed poor judgment but won’t face sanctions for professional misconduct, according to a published report.A forthcoming government ethics report initially concluded the two key authors of the so-called torture memos, Jay Bybee and John Yoo, who were officials in the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel during the Bush administration, had violated their professional obligations as lawyers when they crafted the memos that allowed the use of harsh interrogation tactics.
But a senior Justice Department official, David Margolis, later softened the department’s finding to say the authors simply showed poor judgment, Newsweek reported.
[Read more at Yahoo News]
…
Haiti Earthquake: Orphans For Sale For $50
By Nick Allen in Haiti for the Telegraph:
Orphans in Haiti are being offered for sale to foreigners for as little as £30 amid warnings that up to one million children in the country have been left vulnerable to abuse and trafficking in the wake of the earthquake.
In a remote area north of Port-au-Prince, a man was reported to have offered to sell a young boy to a Canadian man for just $50.
The first confirmed case of a child being offered for sale since Haiti was devastated by a 7.0-magnitude earthquake on Jan 12 took place near Gonaives, 150km north of Port-au-Prince.
It was reported by Noel Ismonin, a Canadian pastor who rescues orphans in the area. A man offered to sell him the boy but the pastor refused.
Meanwhile, in camps…
John Stewart: ‘Corporations Now Have More Rights Than Gay People.’
Congress needs to challenge this ruling now. It seems like the most important things that presidents have done for the last forty-five years is appoint Supreme Court judges (notwithstanding declaring unlawful wars). Via the Daily Show:
1/3 of Women in U.S. Military Have Been Raped
Ole Ole Olson writes on News Junkie Post:
According to NPR, “In 2003, a survey of female veterans found that 30 percent said they were raped in the military. A 2004 study of veterans who were seeking help for post-traumatic stress disorder found that 71 percent of the women said they were sexually assaulted or raped while serving. And a 1995 study of female veterans of the Gulf and earlier wars, found that 90 percent had been sexually harassed.”
The BBC recently reported on “The Lonely Soldier: The Private War of Women Serving in Iraq” by Helen Benedict. This book examines the extreme difficulties female soldiers have in serving abroad. Benedict interviewed several women in the military to get a deeper understanding of the issue, and some of their stories were real eye…
ACLU Slams Senators: The Constitution is Not ‘Optional’
From The Raw Story:
Four U.S. Senators are pursuing legislation they believe would fix the “mistake” President Obama made with the man who allegedly failed to blow up a Christmas Day flight into Detroit.That “mistake” was treating him like a serious criminal, tossing him in jail and planning a trial.
Nevertheless, Senators Joseph Lieberman (I-CT), Susan Collins (R-ME), Robert Bennett (R-UT) and John Ensign (R-NV) are pushing legislation that would require civilian authorities to consult with intelligence leaders when taking an accused terrorist into custody.
“[This] legislation would not deprive the President of any investigative tool,” Sen. Lieberman’s Web site claims. “It would not preclude a decision to charge a foreign terrorist in our military tribunal system or in our civilian criminal justice system.”
In a response, Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the…
‘Net Neutrality’ Key to Free and Open Internet
From The Hill:
When it comes to Internet freedom, the United States of America can be a beacon to the rest of the world. But we must start at home.
On Friday, The Hill published an attack on our organization Free Press from an industry-funded hit man trying to distract policymakers with hyperbole, character assassination and fear-mongering. This screed didn’t say much about the crucial issue of Network Neutrality, but it used a lot of scary words like “bloodthirsty,” “radical,” “neo-Marxist” and “fringe” designed to scare policymakers.
Andrew Keen of Arts + Labs, twists a Free Press statement about an important speech delivered by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton (actual headline: “Free Press Echoes Secretary Clinton’s Call for Internet Freedom”) into an attack. He tries to drive a wedge into the broad…
EFF: Court Ruling Means ’Surveillance of Americans Immune from Review’
From The Raw Story:
A US District Court judge in San Francisco has dismissed a lawsuit brought against the US government by individuals who say their rights were infringed by the National Security Agency’s warrantless wiretapping program.The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy watchdog that participated in the lawsuit, described the judge’s ruling as declaring “that mass surveillance of Americans is immune from judicial review.”
Nine plaintiffs — five customers of telecom companies from California and four others from Brooklyn — had sued the NSA arguing that their rights had been infringed by the wiretapping program, which potentially could have spied on anyone in the United States.
“This ruling robs innocent telecom customers of their privacy rights without due process of law,” EFF legal director Cindy Cohn said in a statement. “Setting limits on…
A Sonic Blaster So Loud, It Could Be Deadly
David Hambling writes for Wired:
All kinds of of devices have been dubbed “sonic blasters” — from the Long Range Acoustic Device super loudhailer to the piercing Banshee to the Inferno (”most unbearable, gut-wrenching noise I’ve ever heard in my life” according to Danger Room’s own Sharon Weinberger). But a new device, developed in Israel, merits the “sonic blaster” label more than most: the Thunder Generator really is a blaster, producing a series of ear-splitting explosions. Some are so loud, they could be deadly.
Israeli firm PDT Agro developed the Thunder Generator, based on a gadget to scare away birds. The design is very simple: gas from a cylinder of domestic liquid petroleum (LPG) is mixed with air and then detonated, producing a series of high-intensity blasts. Patented “pulse detonation” technology ensures high-decibel blasts. According to…
Murder in Memphis: Classic Out There Podcasts on MLK
Hey guys, I hope you enjoy this little nugget from my archive of past podcasts. 
Out There Radio: Episode 28 – Murder in Memphis
This episode is the first of two dealing with the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. In this first part, we deal with the events leading up to the assassination, including FBI surveillance and harrassment of Dr. King. Included in this episode is Dr. King’s “Beyond Vietnam” speech, in its entirety, recorded on April 4, 1967 (one year to the day before he was murdered).
Out There Radio: Episode 29 – Murder in Memphis, pt. 2
This episode is the second of two dealing with the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. This episode features a short discussion about the Military Commissions Act of 2006, followed by the…
Google Lifts the Veil on Tiananmen Massacre Images in China as Censorship Row Continues
From Daily Mail:
Google has stopped censoring images of the Tiananmen Square massacre on its Chinese website.
Users on Google.cn’s image search can now see the iconic picture of Tank Man, among other images from the massacre in the Beijing square in 1989 – just as users on Google’s other country portals, such as Google.co.uk, can.
Students and intellectuals protested communist rule for seven weeks in the square in 1989 in the face of a brutal security crackdown. Roughly 100,000 people are believed to have taken part in the protests – with up to 3,000 of those killed during the demonstrations.
Tank Man: One of the most iconic images of the Tiananmen Square massacre, that of a man standing alone and defenceless in a face off against four tanks, now appears on Google.cn
Previously, the…
Haiti and America’s Historic Debt
From Consortium News:
Announcing emergency help for Haiti after a devastating 7.0-magnitude earthquake, President Barack Obama noted America’s historic ties to the impoverished Caribbean nation, but few Americans understand how important Haiti’s contribution to U.S. history was.
In modern times, when Haiti does intrude on U.S. consciousness, it’s usually because of some natural disaster or a violent political upheaval, and the U.S. response is often paternalistic, if not tinged with a racist disdain for the country’s predominantly black population and its seemingly endless failure to escape cycles of crushing poverty.
However, more than two centuries ago, Haiti represented one of the most important neighbors of the new American Republic and played a central role in enabling the United States to expand westward. If not for Haiti, the course of U.S. history could have…
Losing the Internet as We Know It
From The Huffington Post:
How much have you already used the Internet today?
We don’t think twice about how much we rely on the Internet. Imagine not being able to map directions on Google or check the weather online. A business that doesn’t have a Web site? Forgettable. Or rather, unsearchable. Remember when we didn’t have e-mail? Would you want to go back to those Dark Ages? Me neither.
The Internet is in the very fabric of how we communicate, learn, shop, conduct business, organize, innovate and engage. If we lost it, we’d be lost.
But did you know that we’re at risk of losing the Internet as we know it? Millions of Americans don’t know that a battle over the future of the Internet is being played out right now in Washington. How…
Chinese Internet Activists Applaud Google, See No Backdown
From Reuters:
Google’s announcement that it may quit China over censorship and hacking drew applause, warnings and bouquets from dissidents and Internet activists on Wednesday, with few seeing much chance of the wary government giving ground.
Google, the world’s top search engine, said it might shut its Chinese-language google.cn website after China-based cyber attacks on dissidents using its Gmail service.
At the company’s China headquarters in Beijing’s university district, a dozen locals laid a bouquet of red roses and white lilies on Google’s sign at the company entrance.
They praised the company, shouting some salty Beijing slang.
“We want to express outrage, but not at Google. Coming here is a type of support for Google,” said IT worker Zhao Gang, 30.
“Google faces very strict and adverse conditions in China. Something we knew in our hearts…
Israeli Officers Cancel UK Trip For Fear Of Arrest For War Crimes
MARK LAVIE writes on Huffington Post:
An Israeli military delegation has canceled an official visit to Britain, officials said Tuesday, the latest in a string of politicians and army officials to put off travel to the U.K. because of fears of war crimes prosecution.
Israel complained that the practice, spearheaded by pro-Palestinian activists, is harming relations, and Britain’s visiting attorney general said an urgent solution must be found.
The Israelis called off their trip because their British army hosts could not guarantee they would not be arrested, the Israeli officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter. Neither the Israeli military nor the British government would comment.
The incident underlined the effectiveness of a pro-Palestinian legal campaign to harass Israeli officials in the wake of war crimes allegations…
