Jim Lobe
OneWorld US
Tue., Jun. 29, 2004
WASHINGTON, D.C., Jun 29 (OneWorld) - U.S. and international human rights groups have hailed Monday's Supreme Court's rulings that U.S. citizens and foreign nationals detained as "enemy combatants" by U.S. forces have the right to challenge their detention in federal court.
by Michel Chossudovsky
www.globalresearch.ca 25 June 2004
"Throughout the history of mankind there have been murderers and tyrants; and while it may seem momentarily that they have the upper hand, they have always fallen." (Mahatma Gandhi)
The United States has discarded pretensions to international legality and decency, and embarked on a course of raw imperialism run amok." (William Rockler, Nuremberg Tribunal prosecutor)
by Amanda Luker
Jun 24
Federal agents arrested three Long Island residents for illegally smuggling 69 Peruvian immigrants into the United States and keeping them in "virtual servitude" until they repaid the smugglers, reports Newsday.
Assistant US Attorney Bonnie Klapper told Newsday that the Peruvians lived in squalid conditions, stuffed into two houses, as they worked only to hand over nearly all wages for the cost of room, board, transportation and the repayment of the $7,500 tourist visa and smuggling charge. Their three alleged captors, Jose Ibanez, his wife Mariluz Zavala and their daughter, Evelyn Ibanez, threatened to turn the workers over to law enforcement or harm their families in Peru if they did not pay.
21 June, 2004
by Catherine Hunter
Israel's policy of erecting barriers and destroying Palestinian lives and homes in the name of security represents a travesty of international humanitarian norms. Yet it fails to attract the publicity and action necessary to protect the lives of Palestinian civilians and to nurture any fragile hopes for the future.
The international community has become inured to atrocities in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, including the death of over 100 Palestinians in May 2004 and at least 32 minors, most during “Operation Rainbow” in Rafah. All that the US could tell Israel was that "some of their actions don't create the best atmosphere."
By Melissa Dayrit
An Introduction to Water and Sanitation
Statistics about lack of safe water and sanitation offer the most acute reflection of the failure of the modern world to distribute the rewards of new technologies. Over one billion people lack access to safe water and over two billion live without proper sanitation.
Water Carrier © WaterAid
Water-related diseases result in over five million deaths annually, of whom most are children. At the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, Governments were shamed into tough commitments but will their promises stumble over funding shortfalls, corporate meddling, and continuing wars?
