Reporters Without Borders is calling for the immediate release of Nosir Zakirov, a correspondent for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty in Uzbekistan's eastern province of Namangan, who was convicted of "insulting a government official" and sentenced to six months on prison on Aug. 26.

"We are outraged by the severity of this sentence, which is out of all proportion to the alleged offence and shows the extent of the threat to free expression in Uzbekistan, where criticism is not tolerated anywhere," the group said in a statement.

Reporters Without Borders said it had registered three other cases of harassment of Radio Free Europe correspondents since June, adding that "harassment of an independent radio station is unacceptable."

From Halliburton Watch:

Army demotes senior official who exposed Halliburton cronyism
29 August 2005

WASHINGTON, Aug. 29 (HalliburtonWatch.org) -- The top civilian contracting official at the US Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) was demoted after exposing cronyism between Halliburton and the Army, the New York Times reported today.

Bunnatine H. Greenhouse, a civil servant with 20 years of contracting experience, had complained to Army officials on numerous occasions that Halliburton's KBR subsidiary had been unlawfully receiving special treatment for work in Iraq, Kuwait and the Balkans. The seriousness of her allegations prompted the U.S. Justice Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Pentagon's inspector general to open criminal investigations that continue today.

Raymond Bonner reports for the New York Times Aug. 28 that a new grass-roots political movement here has gathered more than 7,000 names of supporters on its web site in a campaign to free David Hicks, an Australian citizen being held at Guantánamo Bay.

The organization, GetUp!, was founded this month by two young Australians. They collected the names for a letter to the Australian foreign minister, Alexander Downer, demanding that he take action to have Hicks, 30, brought back to Australia to stand trial.

Hicks was taken prisoner in Afghanistan in December 2001. In June 2004, US prosecutors charged him with conspiracy to commit war crimes, attempted murder and aiding the enemy. He is to be tried in a secret military tribunal rather than in open court. Australian officials have said that Hicks has not violated any Australian laws, so bringing him back would likely be tantamount to giving him his freedom.

Oil prices hit new record highs, crossing $70 a barrel in Asian trading, as Hurricane Katrina threatened the Gulf of Mexico region and Bush urged residents of New Orleans to comply with a general evacuation order. A state of emergency has been declared for Louisiana and Mississippi. (AFX, Aug. 28) Chevron and Exxon have both shut offshore oil and gas production and evacuated staff, and the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port closed its pipeline to refineries. (Bloomberg, Aug. 28)

Violence continues to escalate in Haiti, with the world paying very little note. In a grim irony, the latest massacre—carried out with the complicity of police forces—took place at a football match organized to promote peace. UN "peacekeeping" forces are also implicated in recent attacks on civilians. Amidst the bloodshed, peasants rallied last week, protesting that a "neoliberal" economic model is being imposed that will further entrench the majority in poverty.

Henry Kissinger, a key architect of the US war in Vietnam told CNN's "Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer" Aug. 28 that he has "a very uneasy feeling" that some of the same factors that damaged support for the war in the 1960s are re-emerging in the two-year-old war in Iraq. "For me, the tragedy of Vietnam was the divisions that occurred in the United States that made it, in the end, impossible to achieve an outcome that was compatible with the sacrifices that had been made," said the former secretary of state (and noted war criminal).

From Iraq scholar Juan Cole's Informed Comment website. While we share Prof. Cole's concern about civil war in Iraq, we question whether the US troop presence is forestalling or hastening it...

Monday, August 22, 2005

Ten Things Congress Could Demand from Bush on Iraq

The Washington Post notes that the Democratic Party is deeply divided between those who want US troops out now and those who fear the consequences and think it best to stay the course. The article might as well have noted that the Republicans are also divided on Iraq policy.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is investigating allegations that several Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) deportation agents assaulted and tortured Nigerian detainee Daso Abibo at the ICE office in Oklahoma City on June 14, 2004. FBI spokesperson Gary Johnson confirmed that the agency is investigating the case but declined to discuss further details. According to Associated Press, the regional ICE office in Dallas has issued a written statement saying the alleged assault is being investigated by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of the Inspector General.

Abibo is married to a US citizen but was ordered deported after an asylum plea failed. ICE tried to deport him on May 19, 2004, but the Nigerian consulate refused to issue travel documents. Back at the ICE office in Oklahoma City on June 14, Abibo was attacked after he told an officer he would not sign a deportation-related document or place his fingerprint on it without first consulting his attorney. "In a flash, five, maybe six officers attacked me," Abibo wrote in a letter from Oklahoma County Jail following the assault. "My legs were in shackles," he stated. "One officer grabbed my neck from the back with his hand pressing it. Another officer was holding tight on my ears, twisting and pulling hard on them as if to pull them off my head... One officer was twisting my left hand, while another was busy knocking on my Achilles heel's tendon. It was a nightmare. It was so painful, I asked them to shoot me...dead so they could get what they want."