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| Taking a Closer Look at the Stories Ignored by the Corporate Media |
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Archive for the Month of June, 2005.
Viewing Human Rights NEWS articles 1 through 32 of 32.
- There is a strange phenomenon occurring in America, and it serves to perpetuate a widening circle of debauchery, violence and mayhem. This strange practice is the glorification of criminals through media sensationalism.
- Each day, 13-year-old Claudia Lundi wakes at 4 a.m. and begins cooking, sweeping, fetching water and doing other household chores that last until well after sunset. She sleeps on the concrete floor cushioned by a pile of clothing and eats sparingly, alone, in the kitchen. "If I don't finish my work they will beat me up," said Claudia, picking nervously at her fingernails. "They beat me with a whip all over my body."
- By aiming the spotlight on the criminal justice system in the United States, President Castro exposed a tender nerve for Washington. My more than 20 years as a criminal defense lawyer and professor of criminal defense advocacy confirm the widely known assessment that every aspect of the criminal justice system is ripe for criticism and laden with hypocrisy.
- Both predecessor companies owned or held as collateral several hundred slaves. The predecessor companies profited directly from the slave trade or use of slave labor. Several founders and board members of the predecessor companies were directly involved in the slave trade.
- Race facilitates rule. If race did not exist, the powers-that-be would have had to invent it, for an ordered, hierarchical society requires an Other, preferably physically distinct from Us. The Other typically serves many purposes, sometimes providing a disposable work force.
- The White House often cited Amnesty to make the case for war in Iraq.
- As poverty leads to a surge in thefts, jails are bursting. Children and adults share cells, often awaiting trial beyond the time they'd likely serve.
- A Saudi Arabian couple was in custody Friday, accused of turning a young Indonesian woman into a virtual slave, forcing her to clean, cook and care for their children while she was threatened and sexually assaulted.
- Senate admits failing to stop 'holocaust' of public executions - Regardless of cast, color, creed or national identities, the world is divided into two main opposing social classes, the tiny Haves and the massive Have-nots. The main driving force of modern history is simply the struggle between these two classes. Religious polarization is merely another tool in the hands of the Haves to keep the Have-nots busy, heads down, in their myriad struggles lest they pause long enough to behold their own emaciated selves and the folds of fat around the frames of the slave masters.
- U.S. employers have fired or otherwise retaliated against more than 10,000 workers so far this year for demonstrating support for a union, according to labor rights advocates. Every 23 minutes, a worker suffers retaliation just because they supported a union at work. - The ruling clears the way for prosecutions of officials suspected of human rights abuses during military rule between 1976 and 1983. - On May 17 a legal summons was delivered to U.S. and UK embassies in capitals around the world—including Istanbul, Tokyo, Lisbon, and Brussels—on behalf of the World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI). The summons requested the attendance of President Bush and Prime Minister Blair to defend charges that they are in “violation of common values of humanity, international treaties, and international law” for waging war in Iraq.
- Human rights campaigners have accused the police of breaching civil liberties as they gather intelligence on people planning to protest against the G8 summit. Scotland Today has learned that detectives visited the homes of two activists after learning of their involvement in protest groups.
- Just what is so bad about a 32-hour week? Or a 4-day week? People used to say the same thing about reformers who were demanding a 40-hour, 5-day week, too, a century ago. And what's so bad about early retirement? - More than 2 million people languish in prisons and jails here, frequently enduring conditions of confinement that rise to the level of torture.
- During his confirmation, Johnson revealed that EPA is conducting more than 250 other experiments on human subjects. Several of those experiments involve testing chemicals on children, including: exposing children to a pesticide (chlorpyrifos) that was banned for residential use in 2000; paying children to inhale methanol vapors at levels described as "a worst case scenario"; and having asthmatic children inhale harmful ultra fine carbon particles.
- The number of refugees around the world rose by 1million last year, to 11.5million, mainly because of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur and people fleeing Iraq into Syria.
- Miles argues that health professionals turned a blind eye, or worse, to the torture and deaths of some of their patients. "These health professionals could have protested," he said. Instead, "the medical system here became one of the professional arms of a torturing society."
- Hundreds of thousands of Indonesian girls working as domestic maids are being abused and treated as slaves because the government is showing no will to implement the laws it has passed to protect them.
- A divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development in a decision anxiously awaited in communities where economic growth often is at war with individual property rights.
- What the tort reformers, who are by and large conservatives, fail to reaWhat the tort reformers, who are by and large conservatives, fail to realize is that tort reform is paternalist, if not downright totalitarian. lize is that tort reform is paternalist, if not downright totalitarian.
- There are many in this world for whom the ravages of war - including arson, looting, murder and rape -- are a way of life. These people have known little else than war all their lives, like their parents before them and their children (if they survive) after them. These generations of war face atrocities on a daily basis, and most of these go unnoticed by the rest of the world. - Thirteen inmates, among them a Brazilian, a Chilean and a Colombian, have crucified themselves in Ecuadoran prisons as part of a protest to demand reduced sentences, a spokesman for the protesters said.
- Six months after the Asian tsunami, a leading international charity says the poorest victims have benefited the least from the massive relief effort. - More than half of Kenya's 32 million population is in danger of harassment and torture by police, a rights group said in a report that accused security agencies of routinely violating human rights.
- Both the Maoists and the Army have involved children in their bloody nine-year war. The Maoists, who are trying to overthrow the monarchy, control 75 percent of the country's territory - most everything but cities, towns, and district headquarters. They have set up their own courts and systems of taxation and governance. Over 8,000 children have been orphaned and tens of thousands displaced in a conflict that has claimed over 12,000 lives. The Royal Nepalese Army (RNA) has caused two-thirds of the deaths, according to INSEC, a human rights organization.
- With 714 prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants, the United States remains the country with the highest incarceration rate in the world, ahead of Russia and Belarus, according to figures published by the London University King's College International Centre for Prison Studies.
- Under a newly-proposed rule (that will most likely be formally adopted), the EPA would allow pesticide manufacturers to test their products on human "volunteers." The volunteers would include pregnant women and prisoners, as well as newborns and children. - Belief in the myth of the self-made man has made many ordinary people suckers for the right-wing pitch. - One in six countries in the world face food shortages this year because of severe droughts that could become semi-permanent under climate change, UN scientists warned yesterday. - Before the transfer of sovereignty to an Iraqi interim government a year ago, the International Committee of the Red Cross reported registering 107 detainees under 18 during visits to six prisons controlled by coalition troops. Some detainees were as young as 8. Since that time, Human Rights Watch reports that the number has risen.
Pages for June, 2005
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