Daily Report
Borderlands activists in legal victory
On Sept. 1 in Tucson, Arizona, US District Judge Raner Collins dismissed federal charges against humanitarian activists Shanti Sellz and Daniel Strauss. The two were arrested by the Border Patrol near Tucson on July 9, 2005, while driving sick migrants to a clinic, and were indicted on Aug. 3, 2005, for transporting undocumented immigrants. Collins ruled that No More Deaths officials had assured the activists "that the 'protocol' had been approved by Border Patrol and that the transportation for these medical purposes was not a violation of the law." Collins noted that in the three years before 2005, "no one was arrested and prosecuted for following the protocol." (Arizona Daily Star, Sept. 2, 5)
Study: global warming fuels hurricanes
From the Sydney Morning Herald, Sept. 14:
Most of the increase in ocean temperature that feeds more intense hurricanes is a result of human-induced global warming, says a study that one researcher says "closes the loop" between climate change and powerful storms like Katrina.
NYC bicyclists win another round
A small tentative step in the right direction—a little counter-vortex against the general downward spiral of global civilization towards ecological hell, permanent war and petrochemical totalitarianism. From amNewYork, Sept. 13:
City puts forth ambitious bike plan
After a series of high-profile bicycle rider deaths this summer, the city Tuesday unveiled its most ambitious plan ever to improve cyclist safety and access across the five boroughs.
WHY WE FIGHT
From Newsday, Sept. 12:
Chilling testimony told in limo crash trial
Little Kate Flynn's body was not difficult to identify after she died in the wreckage of a head-on crash on the Meadowbrook Parkway, a Nassau medical examiner testified this morning: Her mother was still carrying her daughter's head at the hospital.
US troops raid Iraq Freedom Congress offices
An urgent alert from the Iraq Freedom Congress:
US Troops raid offices of Iraq Freedom Congress (IFC) in Baghdad
On September 7 and 8, U.S occupying troops raided the head office of IFC in Baghdad. The raid came after a number of IFC public activities against the occupation. The troops were outraged when they saw the anti-occupation banners and posters showing international solidarity with the Iraqi people hanging on the walls. They reacted aggressively and ruined all internal doors, destroyed furniture, and confiscated most of the office property.
Colombian military implicated in Bogotá blasts
Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe took over the country's airwaves Sept. 10 to defend the military against reports soldiers were behind a string of bombings in the capital, Bogota. In a live half-hour speech during prime-time on all the major networks, he also called for an investigation into how the press came by the reports. "It has still not been proved that there was any participation by the soldiers in the attacks," Uribe said.
On Sept. 8, the national daily El Tiempo reported that four soldiers worked with a demobilized FARC Lidia Alape Manrique, alias "Jessica," to organize bombings ahead of Uribe's Aug. 7 inauguration. Two of the implicated soldiers were officers: Major Javier Efrén Hermida Benavidez and Captain Luis Eduardo Barrero, both assigned to an elite counter-terrorism unit, the Army Military Intelligence Regional (Rime). The officers allegedly hoped to claim reward money from the government's informants program for discovering the bombs. One attack was alleged to be a car bomb that killed a civilian and injured 18 soldiers on July 31.
"Jessica," arrested in the bombings Sept. 8, allegedly said under interrogation that she had worked in the past with Major Hermida.
Colombia's capital was on high alert on the inauguration day as authorities tried to prevent a repeat of the scenes when Uribe first took office four years earlier, when guerillas launched mortar attacks on the city center.
Uribe's focused on the "illegal leak" which "has caused so much damage, must be investigated." He said he would not be making any changes to the armed forces brass.
The military has been the largest recipient of the more than $4 billion in aid the US has given Colombia since 2000. But this is but the latest in a series of recent have hurt the military's image.
A number of army units are under investigation for extra-judicial killings of civilians, and one is accused of taking money from drug traffickers to assassinate 10 Colombian anti-narcotics police agents and an informant. The incident was presented as a "friendly fire" tragedy, but evidence has revealed they were killed at point-blank range. Several soldiers, including a colonel, have been arrested in the case. (El Tiempo, Sept. 9; AP, BBC, Sept. 11)
See our last post on Colombia.
Terror convictions in Jordan
A military court in Jordan Sept. 13 convicted 10 people in two cases involving conspiracies to kill "Americans training Iraqi police" at the Muwaqqar barracks outside Amman. The court said the defendants were found guilty of "conspiring to carry out terrorist acts and of illegal possession of automatic weapons," in two plots foiled last year.
Syria puts down attack on US embassy
If, as we recently speculated, the White House was hoping it could groom Islamists in Syria as proxies to destabilize the regime, this ought to provide a little cold water in the face. In fact, much to the consternation of the neocons, we could see Washington mending fences with Damascus, viewing the Assad dictatorship as the most expedient proxy to put down the Islamists. Official embrace of the "terrorist" lingo indicates Assad may want such as arrangement, lest he be on the receiving end of the Pentagon's smart bombs. From Canada's CTV, Sept. 12:
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