Did anyone catch this one? What a shame the EU wimped out...

On April 21 the United Nations Commission on Human Rights voted 22-8 with 23 abstentions against a resolution proposed by Cuba for the organization to investigate charges of human rights abuses against some 500 Muslim and Mideastern prisoners the US is holding at its naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The commission then unanimously passed a resolution to designate a special rapporteur to monitor human rights violations carried out in the name of the "war against terrorism"; this resolution was introduced by Mexico, which had also backed the Cuban resolution. The votes occurred on the next-to-last day of the commission's annual meeting in Geneva.

Hey, anyone remember Haiti?

At least five Haitians were killed on April 27 in an exchange of fire between police and demonstrators during a march in Port-au-Prince. Police agents, many wearing black cloth masks over their faces, were seen firing at demonstrators, and five bodies lay on the street afterward, some with wounds in the back; several others were injured. Both sides accused the other of shooting first. Gunfire broke out just after the demonstrators passed a headquarters building for the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH). The protesters were calling for the return of ousted president Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the release of imprisoned members of his administration and an end to political persecution by the interim government. (Haiti Support Group News Briefs, April 27 from Reuters)

The "peak oil" phenomenon, which has so far received more serious treatment in the foreign press than here in the USA, is starting to break through to the mainstream--at least among the business media. On May 4, Bloomberg.com opinion columnist Matthew Lynn asks "Are You Ready to Sign Up for the $100 Oil Club?" He writes:

Its back to the drawing board yet again for the fractious fraternity of moguls and bureaucrats charged with overseeing redevelopment of Lower Manhattan's Ground Zero, site of the 9-11 disaster, which still sits empty (but for a new trans-Hudson rail line station) three-and-a-half years after the day the World Trade Center collapsed.

Sent to us by New York's Coalition for the Human Rights of Immigrants is this action alert in the case of two Muslim immigrant girls detained following spurious suspicion of plotting suicide attacks:

Vigil to Release Detained Youth!

Get on the Bus to York, PA on WED 5/11 for 16-year old girl's hearing

Demand the Release of Bangladeshi & Guinean 16 Yr Old Young Women Detained by Department of Homeland Security!

GET ON THE BUS from NYC to York Courthouse in Pennsylvania:
Wednesday, May 11th, for a VIGIL at the BOND HEARING of the Bangladeshi Young Woman from Queens

From VOA, May 4:

At least 14 people are now dead following an explosion that rocked a soccer stadium in the Somali capital, Mogadishu, as the prime minister addressed his supporters. The cause of Tuesday's blast is still unknown. Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi, who was not harmed, has insisted the explosion was accidental. But other unnamed Somali officials and diplomatic sources have told various news agencies the blast was an attempt to assassinate Mr. Gedi... This is his first visit to the Somali capital since he was appointed to the nation's first central government in 13 years. Mr. Gedi's tour was designed to boost support for his adminstration and end a dispute among lawmakers about where and when the Somali government, now based in Kenya, should relocate.

From a May 3 report in South Africa's Cape Times:

Cape Town - With the rapid decline of global oil supplies, the United States is heading for an economic crash unlike anything since the 1930s. And the collapse of the dollar will affect every nation on earth.

This is the chilling warning from academic Richard Heinberg of the New College of California. Heinberg is in Cape Town, South Africa, this week to share his views on what governments and societies need to do to mitigate the imminent global crisis after world oil production peaks.

"It's too late to maintain a 'business as usual' attitude. What is required is to manage the change that peak oil will bring in a way that causes the fewest casualties. This must be done at an economic and geopolitical level, to fend off resource wars. The US invasion of Iraq is clearly a resource war," Heinberg said on Monday.

A tribal woman in India's Andaman Islands who was paid just two rupees, or four cents, in compensation for damage to her coconut groves by the December tsunami has angrily returned the check from the local government, an official acknowledged. "Naturally, she is very angry," said the official, Sailen Singh Parihar, deputy administrator of Nancowrie Island in the Andamans chain. He called the assessment "absolutely absurd" and said he had ordered a review of claims on the islands. He rejected complaints that many other survivors had also received checks for tiny sums of money from the local administration but said he would investigate. (AFP)