I couldn't agree more with Roger about the CPT response. I'm particularly appalled by the verb the CPT uses to describe what happened to the hostages — "released." Not "rescued." Not "freed." "Released" — as if, like Roger says, the Brigades of the Swords of Righteousness simply had a change of heart and let them go. I understand being opposed to...
The Santiago Times reports that a Chilean judge has indicted 13 retired army officers, including one general, on murder charges in connection with the notorious 1973 "Caravan of Death," in which 75 jailed dissidents — many of whom had voluntarily turned themelves in — were killed by a gang of soldiers that roamed the country by helicopter in the weeks...
According to the Times (UK) Online, the Vatican sponsored a conference last weekend aimed at rehabilitating the Crusades as wars fought with the "noble aim" of reclaiming the Holy Land for Christianity: At the conference, held at the Regina Apostolorum Pontifical University, Roberto De Mattei, an Italian historian, recalled that the Crusades were “a response to the Muslim invasion of Christian...
According to a recent report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the number of persons seeking asylum in the industrialized countries has fallen by 50% since 2000, reaching their lowest level in nearly two decades. In most individual countries, the 2005 total was the lowest in many years. The number of persons who sought asylum in Germany was the...
A Spanish Judge, Fernando Grande-Marlaska, has indicted 32 suspected Islamic militants for conspiring to drive a truck carrying 1,100lbs of explosives into the National Court in Madrid. The judge said that the attack could have killed more than 900 people, although he he did not release a date for the planned attack and no explosives have ever been found....
Voice of America reports that an Afghan man, Abdul Rahman, is facing the death penalty for converting to Christianity from Islam, a capital offense under Afghanistan's Islamic law. The case points to an fundamental tension in the new Afghan constitution. On the one hand, the constitution declares Afghanistan an "Islamic Republic" (Ch. 1, Art. 2) and prohibits...
Behold the new face of the anti-war movement. Sure, she's pretty. And I'm completely on board with the "no war" sentiment. But why does she have — as Josh Marshall astutely points out — a Mercedes-Benz symbol on the other side of her face? Have the hippies been so soon forgotten? Or is she trying...
Here's a story you don't see every day:NAVY EXCHANGES FIRE WITH SUSPECTED PIRATES DUBAI, United Arab Emirates - Two U.S. Navy warships exchanged gunfire with suspected pirates Saturday off the coast of Somalia, and one suspect was killed and five others were wounded, the navy said. Twelve suspects were taken into custody after the early-morning shootout, said Lt. Cmdr. Charlie Brown, spokesman...
One of the Bush administration's central justifications for invading Iraq was the supposed "collaborative relationship" between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. The link, according to the administration, was Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian terrorist responsible for some of the bloodiest attacks in Iraq, from the bombing of the UN's headquarters to the beheading of Nicholas Berg. Recall Colin Powell's...
The ICC has reached another milestone -- it now has its first indictee in custody: Mr Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, a Congolese national and alleged founder and leader of the Union des Patriotes Congolais (UPC) was arrested and transferred to the International Criminal Court as part of the judicial proceedings under the Rome Statute (the “Statute”). Thomas Lubanga is alleged to have...
In the first Tribunal decision to deal with the actions of Mujahedin soldiers in central Bosnia and Herzegovina, the ICTY Trial Chamber II has found two former Bosnian Muslim army commanders, General Enver Hadzihasanovic and Brigadier Amir Kubura, guilty of war crimes committed against Bosnian Croat and Bosnian Serb civilians during the 1992-95 war. Both men were convicted...
I'm not sure anyone still believes that newspapers — or news services — objectively report the news, but here's a good example of how different takes on the same event are not only possible but likely. From the AP: FEW MOURNERS COME TO SEE MILOSEVIC COFFIN BELGRADE, Serbia-Montenegro - The flag-draped coffin of Slobodan Milosevic went on public display Thursday, but...
