Daily Report

Australia bush fires: harbinger of global warming?

From The Guardian, Feb. 8:

Bushfires and global warming: is there a link?
Scientists are reluctant to link ­individual weather events to global warming, because natural variability will always throw up extreme events. However, they say that climate change loads the dice, and can make severe episodes more likely.

Guadeloupe: general strike spreads

After 22 hours of negotiations, on the morning of Feb. 8 management and strikers in the French overseas department of Guadeloupe reached a preliminary agreement that could form the basis for ending a general strike that has paralyzed the island since Jan. 20. Under the agreement, the 45,000 Guadeloupean workers who earn up to 1.6 times the minimum wage (SMIC, for Minimum Interprofessional Growth Salary in French) would get an increase of 200 euros (about $259) a month, while workers with higher salaries could negotiate with management for raises of 2.5% to 3%. Of the strikers' 146 demands, the government and business owners have already met about 50, including measures to bring down the cost of fuel. (Nouvel Observateur, France, Feb. 8; Le Parisien, France, Feb. 8)

Haiti: Lavalas barred from senate race

Hundreds of supporters of Haiti's Lavalas Family (FL) party demonstrated in Port-au-Prince on Feb. 7 to protest the decision of the Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) to reject all 16 candidates from two different slates that the party's rival factions had tried to run in a partial senatorial election slated for April 19. The CEP rejected a total of 40 of the 105 candidates who had filed to run for the 12 Senate seats at stake. Another candidate barred from the race was former military officer Guy Philippe, who led a 2004 insurgency against the FL's founder, former president Jean Bertrand Aristide; Philippe is suspected of narco trafficking. (AlterPresse, Feb. 8)

Colombia: two FARC hostages free—and talking

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) released former Meta governor Alan Jara to a humanitarian mission on Feb. 3 in Guaviare department; the rebels had held him as a hostage for more than seven and a half years. On Feb. 5 the group released former legislative deputy Sigifredo López in Cauca department; López, who had spent almost seven years in captivity, is the only surviving member of a group of 12 deputies from Valle del Cauca department captured by the FARC in April 2002.

Argentina: arms smuggling, terrorism charges advance against ex-prez Menem

On Feb. 6, former Argentine president Carlos Menem (1989-1999), now a senator from La Rioja province, made his first appearance at an arms smuggling trial that began in Buenos Aires on Oct. 16. Menem and 17 other defendants are charged with involvement in the government's clandestine sale of arms to Ecuador and Croatia from 1991 to 1995 in violation of international agreements. He declined to attend previously, claiming health problems. In his Feb. 6 appearance—before federal judges Luis Imas, Horacio Artabe and Gustavo Losada—Menem failed to make any declaration on the smuggling charges, citing "pending questions, including appeals." He could face 12 years in prison if convicted, although the Senate would have to vote to lift the immunity he enjoys as a legislator.

Eco-militant gets 21 years; violent racists half that

The blog Green is the New Red notes Feb. 5 that environmental activist and mother of two Marie Mason was sentenced to 21 years for her role in an arson attack 10 years ago at a Michigan State University biotech lab—in which nobody was injured. The FBI nonetheless hyped the case as "domestic terrorism." Lansing's WLNS TV reported that the town was on "high alert" following FBI warnings that Animal Liberation Front "terrorists" might attend the sentencing at the federal courthouse. Three days earlier, an FBI press release announced guilty pleas from four young men who carried out racist assauls on New York's Staten Island the night of Barack Obama's election victory. As we noted, one of the victims, a teen-aged Liberian immigrant, had his scalp ripped open with baseball bats. The press release informs us that another, "whom the defendants mistakenly believed was African-American," was run over with a car and remained in coma for weeks. Three of the men received 10-year terms; a fourth who held out before copping a plea received 12 years. Mason, like the Staten Island thugs, also copped a plea—but on significantly harsher terms.

Sheriff Arpaio's ugly publicity stunt: Obama's immigration reform wake-up call?

On Feb. 4, Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona's Maricopa County marched shackled immigrants in black-striped jail uniforms through the streets of Phoenix from the Durango Jail to a new Tent City he has erected to hold them, surrounded by an electric fence. The degrading spectacle was a blatant publicity stunt to promote Arpaio's new Fox Reality Channel TV program. Meanwhile, Arizona's ex-Gov. Janet Napolitano, the new Homeland Security secretary, has called for a review of immigration enforcement measures—including 287g, which allows local police to enforce federal civil immigration law. Maricopa County has entered into a 287g agreement with the federal government that gives Sheriff Arpaio broad powers to detain immigrants—whether or not they are accused of committing criminal offenses.

Left complicit in anti-Jewish backlash?

Jonathan Freedland writes for The Guardian, Feb. 4:

As British Jews come under attack, the liberal left must not remain silent
It should be perfectly possible to condemn Israel's brutal action in Gaza while taking a stand against antisemitism

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks on September 11 2001 and July 7 2005, a noble impulse seized the British liberal left. Politicians, commentators and activists united to say to their fellow citizens that, no matter how outraged they felt at the loss of civilian life they had just witnessed, they should under no circumstances take out that anger on the Muslim community. Progressive voices insisted that Muslims were not to be branded as guilty by association, just because the killers of 9/11 and 7/7 had been Muslims and had claimed to act in the name of all Muslims.

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