Both houses of Congress have now voted to extend the most onerous measures of the PATRIOT Act, which is due to expire in December. (IHT, Aug. 1) But these measures still may not survive judicial review. From Immigration News Briefs, Aug. 6:

Patriot Act Statutes Deemed "Vague"
In a July 28 decision, US District Judge Audrey Collins in Los Angeles ruled that several Patriot Act provisions on material support for terrorist organizations remain unconstitutional. Collins said Congress had failed to remedy all the problems she defined in a Jan. 23, 2004 ruling striking down the statute. "Even as amended, the statute fails to identify the prohibited conduct in a manner that persons of ordinary intelligence can reasonably understand," Collins ruled.

Writing for Toward Freedom Aug. 2, Benjamin Dangl provides an overview of regional press coverage of the new US troop presence in Paraguay. Dangl finds that the troop contingent—ostensibly sent in support of humanitarian missions like road-building—is actually about policing neighboring Bolivia, where militant indigenous and popular movements are threatening government plans for corporate gas and oil exploitation. According to a July 7 article in the Bolivian newspaper El Deber, a US base is being developed in Mariscal Estigarribia, Paraguay, 200 kilometers from the border with Bolivia. The base will permit the landing of large aircraft and is capable of housing up to 16,000 troops. A statement released that same day from the US embassy in Paraguay said the US has "absolutely no intention of establishing a military base anywhere in Paraguay" and "has no intention to station soldiers for a lengthy period in Paraguay." (Translation at Information Clearing House)

Amnesty International has released testimony from two Yemeni men now detained in their own country, who were recently transfered there from Guantanamo Bay but also told of being held at a secret US detention facility at an unknown location where they were tortured. The men say they were held in solitary confinement at an underground facility and interrogated by masked men for more than 18 months without being charged or allowed any contact with the outside world. Amnesty argued that the reports add to long-standing claims that the US has held "secret detainees" at an international network of clandestine prisons. "We fear that what we have heard from these two men is just one small part of the much broader picture of US secret detentions around the world," said Sharon Critoph, an Amnesty researcher who interviewed the men in Yemen.

In his Aug. 4 video-communique, al-Qaeda bigshot Ayman al-Zawahiri claimed that the 7-7 bombings were payback for British participation in the United States' "policy of aggression against Muslims." While not directly taking credit for the London bombings, he promised more attacks on Britain, the US and other allies, saying "tens of thousands" more American troops will be killed in Iraq if there isn't an immediate withdrawal. Bob Ayers, a counterterrorism expert at Chatham House, Britain's most prestigious think-tank, says: "By linking the bombings to Iraq, he basically sent the message that no matter what Blair says, Iraq is the reason. He's calling Blair a liar." (CSM, Aug. 5, via TruthOut)

The L.A. Times had this week two op-eds on Hiroshima. That's way above average; the NY Times, for example, had none. Instead, the NY Times editors managed to harness the August 6 holocaust to score a political cheap shot in support of the White House policy of defending its nuclear supremacy.

Back to the LA Times. In The Myth of Hiroshima Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, authors of a biography of Robert Oppenheimar, review briefly the reasons why the common justifications for the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki are wrong: the bombs were not the cause of the Japanese surrender, they didn't save lives, etc.

While it's good to see the LA Times correct the historical record on such an important national myth, I am somewhat disappointed by the lackluster op-ed. So many words have been written about the subject by so many gifted writers. One feels the LA editors didn't put their heart into the matter. That's sad, especially because they did manage to find a very good writer to justify the bombing of Hiroshima.

Tricked into enlisting, US soldier found most soldiers would rather self-mutilate than serve in Iraq.

Dateline: Sunday, July 24, 2005
as told by Joshua Key, and written up by Annick Cojean for Le Monde, translation at straightgoods.ca

I am a deserter.

One morning in December, 2003, I put my family into an old car, bought for $600, and left the military base in Colorado Springs, where I was on leave. I did not want to return to Iraq. I did not want to participate in this war based on lies. I did not want to kill any Iraqi civilians. I did not want to participate in the slaughter. I understand my fellow citizens consider me a coward and a traitor. But I don't give a damn. To each his own conscience. I also know that I will never benefit from an amnesty. When one is in the military one does not desert. But I take responsibility for this. I can live with this. Not with Iraq.

Hiroshima and Nagasaki: Worst terror attacks in history

August 6 and August 9 will mark the 60th anniversaries of the US atomic-bomb attacks on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In Hiroshima, an estimated 80,000 people were killed in a split second. Some 13 square kilometres of the city was obliterated. By December, at least another 70,000 people had died from radiation and injuries.

Three days after Hiroshima's destruction, the US drooped an A-bomb on Nagasaki, resulting in the deaths of at least 70,000 people before the year was out.

The Indonesian government has charged a local unit of Denver-based Newmont Mining Corp., the world's largest gold miner, with damaging the environment at its mine near Manado in eastern North Sulawesi province. The government also charged Newmont of Indonesia's president, Richard Ness. "He was aware of what was happening," Robert Ilat, spokesman for the North Sulawesi prosecutor's office, told a district court.