Iran faces US in international court over asset seizure


FILE - Rescue workers sift through the rubble of the U.S. Marine base in Beirut in Oct. 23, 1983 following a massive bomb blast that destroyed the base and killed 241 American servicemen. Iran told the United Nation’s highest court on Monday, Sept. 19, 2022, that Washington’s confiscation of some $2 billion in assets from Iranian state bank accounts to compensate bombing victims was an attempt to destabilize the Iranian government and a violation of international law. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2016 ruled money held in Iran’s central bank could be used to compensate victims of the 1983 bombing linked to Iran. (AP Photo, File)

MOLLY QUELL
Mon, September 19, 2022 

THE HAGUE, Netherlands (AP) — Iran told the United Nations' highest court on Monday that Washington’s confiscation of some $2 billion in assets from Iranian state bank accounts to compensate bombing victims was an attempt to destabilize the Iranian government and a violation of international law.

In 2016, Tehran filed a suit at the International Court of Justice after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled money held in Iran’s central bank could be used to compensate the 241 victims of a 1983 bombing of a U.S. military base in Lebanon believed linked to Iran.

Hearings in the case opened Monday in the Hague-based court, starting with Iran's arguments. The proceedings will continue with opening statements by Washington on Wednesday.

At stake are $1.75 billion in bonds, plus accumulated interest, belonging to the Iranian state but held in a Citibank account in New York.

In 1983, a suicide bomber in a truck loaded with military-grade explosives attacked U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 American troops and 58 French soldiers.

While Iran long has denied being involved, a U.S. District Court judge found Tehran responsible in 2003. That ruling said Iran’s ambassador to Syria at the time called “a member of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and instructed him to instigate the Marine barracks bombing.”

The international court ruled it had jurisdiction to hear the case in 2019, rejecting an argument from the U.S. that its national security interests superseded the 1955 Treaty of Amity, which promised friendship and cooperation between the two countries.

“The freedom of navigation and commerce guaranteed by the treaty have been gravely breached,” Tavakol Habibzadeh, head of international legal affairs for Iran, told the 14-judge panel Monday.

A 2012 U.S. law ordered the bank to hand over the assets to the families of those killed in the Beirut bombing. A U.S. court concluded the attack, which struck barracks for service members conducting peacekeeping operations during Lebanon's civil war, was carried out by Iranian agents supported by the Hezbollah militant group.

Iran claims it was not involved in the attack. Habibzadeh said Monday that the U.S has created an “industry of litigation” against Iran and Iranian companies in an effort to undermine the regime. The seizure was just one maneuver “aiming to destabilize Iran and the Iranian government,” Habibzadeh said.

The two countries have had no diplomatic relations since the 1979 U.S. Embassy takeover by militant students in Tehran.

The pair have a second case pending before the ICJ over the same obscure treaty. Tehran filed an unrelated complaint with the court in 2018 after former president Donald Trump re-imposed sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program. In response, the U.S. withdrew from the treaty entirely.

The hearings come as Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi headed on Monday to New York, where he will be speaking to the U.N. General Assembly later this week.

Talks between Iran and world powers over reviving a 2015 deal to curb Iran's nuclear activities remain stalled. Tehran and Washington have traded written responses in recent months on a roadmap that would see sanctions lifted against Iran in exchange for restricting its rapidly advancing nuclear program.

Brad Pitt unveils his sculptures at a first art show

Mon, September 19, 2022 

In the actor's first-ever public art exhibition, Brad Pitt has unveiled his sculptures in a lakeside art museum in Finland, the gallery said on Monday.

Located in Finland's third largest city of Tampere, this is the first time the "largely self-taught" American star presented his sculptures to the public, Sara Hilden Art Museum said.

Pitt's sculptures were revealed by the actor himself on Saturday as part of a larger exhibition by British artist Thomas Houseago, alongside a ceramic series by Australian alternative rocker Nick Cave.

"For Nick and I this is a new world and our first entry. It just feels right," Pitt told Finnish broadcaster Yle at the opening ceremony.

Pitt's work includes a moulded plaster panel "depicting a gunfight" and a series of house-shaped silicone sculptures that each have been shot with a different gauge of ammunition.

"To me it's about self-reflection. It's about where I have gotten it wrong in my relationships, where have I misstepped," Pitt said at the opening.

The 58-year-old actor's unexpected visit took the Nordic country by surprise as his involvement in the exhibition was not previously announced.

"In that sense this is exciting and wonderful," Chief Curator Sarianne Soikkonen told AFP.

As well as hosting Pitt's sculptures for the first time, the art show is Houseago's exhibition debut in the Nordic countries.

The decision to include his friends Cave and Pitt in his exhibition was shaped by the pandemic and "events in Houseago's personal life", Soikkonen said.

ehu/cdw

How many ants are on Earth? 

20 quadrillion, study says

Mon, September 19, 2022 

There are at least 20 quadrillion ants on Earth, according to a new study that says even that staggering figure likely underestimates the total population of the insects, which are an essential part of ecosystems around the world.

Determining the global population of ants is important for measuring the consequences of changes to their habitat -- including those caused by climate change.

Ants play a significant role, dispersing seeds, hosting organisms and serving as either predators or prey.

Some studies have already attempted to estimate the global ant population, but they resulted in a far smaller number than 20 quadrillion, which is 20 million billion.

For this new attempt -- published Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) -- researchers analyzed 465 studies that measured the number of ants locally in the field.

The hundreds of studies used two standardized techniques: setting traps that captured ants passing by during a certain period of time, or analyzing the number of ants on a given patch of leaves on the ground.

While surveys have been carried out on all continents, some major regions had little or no data, including central Africa and Asia.

This is why "the true abundance of ants globally is likely to be considerably higher" than estimated, the study says. "It is of utmost importance that we fill these remaining gaps to achieve a comprehensive picture of insect diversity."

There are more than 15,700 named species and subspecies of ants that are found all over the planet, and probably an equal number that have yet to be described.

But nearly two-thirds of them are found in only two types of ecosystems: tropical forests and savannahs.

Based on the estimated number of ants, their total global biomass is thought to be 12 megatons of dry carbon -- more than that of wild birds and mammals combined, and 20 percent of that of humans.

In the future, researchers plan to study the environmental factors influencing population density of the tiny creatures.

la/wd/bgs/ec

quad·ril·lion

[kwäˈdrilyən]

NUMBER

1. a thousand raised to the power of five (10¹⁵).

   • dated

     BRITISH
     a septillion, that is, a thousand raised to the power of eight (10²⁴).

U.S. refiners eye Canadian oil once strategic reserve turns off taps

By Stephanie Kelly and Nia Williams - Yesterday 

The Imperal Oil refinery in Canada's "Chemical Valley" in Sarnia

© Reuters/NICK IWANYSHYN

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. refiners are expected to buy more Canadian oil after the Biden administration ends releases from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) this fall, traders said, adding this should boost the price of Canadian barrels at a time of tight global supply.

The coming end of SPR releases could shift market dynamics again in a year of high volatility following Russia's invasion of Ukraine in February. In March the White House announced it would release 180 million barrels from the U.S. strategic reserve to help quell high prices.

The releases have weighed on the price of Western Canada Select (WCS), the benchmark Canadian heavy grade. That oil, because it has similar qualities to the sour crude that dominates U.S. reserves, has traded at around $20 a barrel below U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude for much of the summer. In 2021 the average WCS discount was $12.78 a barrel, according to the Alberta Energy Regulator.

The WCS discount to WTI is expected to narrow as the SPR supply dwindles, market sources said.

"Once that overhang goes through, and it may not be in Q4 or Q1 but in Q2 and beyond, we should see a much stronger differential than where we are right now," one trader said. He added that he expected WCS traded in Alberta to be around $14 or $15 a barrel under WTI next year, compared with about $21 now.

Related video: U.S. oil inventory levels are low because we've become the largest exporter in the world, says Citi's Morse

Duration 4:02   View on Watch

However, increased medium sour crude production from OPEC countries such as Saudi Arabia, as well as discounted Russian Urals, could keep that differential wider, according to RBN Energy.

Canadian crude exports from the U.S. Gulf have dropped in the last two months, falling to around 130,000 barrels per day (bpd) in July and August, below last year's pace of 200,000 bpd, said Matt Smith, lead oil analyst for the Americas at Kpler. Foreign buyers have turned to discounted Russian barrels, tempering Canadian crude exports.

"It's a bit of a game of musical chairs," Smith said. "When the SPR releases finish, these refiners will look to lean harder again on Canadian barrels or seaborne imports."

Some market participants worry that limited pipeline capacity from Canada to the United States could cause bottlenecks. This could cause a glut in the Alberta hub, which could in turn drive down prices there.

Canada hit record production of 5.5 million barrels a day of oil in 2021, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and is forecast to reach 5.7 million bpd this year.

Enbridge Inc is once again rationing pipeline capacity, in a practice known as apportionment, on its Mainline system as Canadian output has risen. That system ships the bulk of Canadian crude exports to the United States.

Apportionment fell steeply last year when the Line 3 pipeline expansion opened and stopped entirely from March until July, but Enbridge has since started rationing capacity on its Mainline again. Crude deliveries into the Kerrobert, Saskatchewan, hub were apportioned by 2% in August and 6% in September, Enbridge said.

(Reporting by Stephanie Kelly and Nia Williams; Editing by David Gregorio)

US judge tosses murder conviction of man featured on 'Serial' podcast

Issued on: 19/09/2022 - 

A US judge vacated the conviction of Adnan Syed, who has served over 20 years in prison for his ex-girlfriend's murder -- a case that received worldwide attention thanks to the hit podcast 'Serial' 


Baltimore (AFP) – A US judge on Monday threw out the conviction of a man who has served over 20 years in prison for his ex-girlfriend's murder -- a case that received worldwide attention thanks to the hit podcast "Serial."

Baltimore City Circuit Court Judge Melissa Phinn vacated the conviction of Adnan Syed, 42, who has been serving a life sentence since 2000 for the 1999 murder of Hae Min Lee.

Phinn ordered Syed, who appeared in court wearing a white shirt and a white skullcap, immediately released on his own recognizance "in the interests of justice and fairness."

Lee's body was found buried in February 1999 in a shallow grave in the woods of Baltimore, Maryland. The 18-year-old had been strangled.

Syed has steadfastly maintained his innocence but his multiple appeals had been denied, including by the US Supreme Court which declined in 2019 to hear his case.

In a surprise move last week, the Baltimore City state's attorney, Marilyn Mosby, announced that she had asked a judge to vacate Syed's conviction while a further investigation is carried out.

Assistant state's attorney Becky Feldman told the judge on Monday that the decision was prompted by the discovery of new information regarding two alternative suspects and the unreliability of cell phone data used to convict Syed.

"The state has lost confidence in the integrity of his conviction," Feldman said. "We need to make sure we hold the correct person accountable.

"We will be continuing our investigation," she said, while promising to "do everything we can to bring justice to the Lee family."

Prosecutors now have 30 days to either bring new charges or dismiss the case.

Syed's case earned worldwide attention when it was taken up by "Serial," a weekly podcast that saw a US journalist revisit his conviction and cast doubt on his guilt.

His case has also been the subject of a four-part documentary on the HBO channel called "The Case Against Adnan Syed."

The "Serial" podcast -- a mix of investigative journalism, first-person narrative and dramatic storytelling -- focused its first season on Syed's story in 12 nail-biting episodes.

Both Syed and Lee were high school honor students and children from immigrant families -- he Pakistani, she South Korean -- who had concealed their relationship from their conservative parents.

Prosecutors said during the trial that Syed was a scorned lover who felt humiliated after Lee broke up with him.

© 2022 AFP

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M IRONY
'Grand Theft Auto' maker says game code stolen

Mon, September 19, 2022 


Rockstar Games said Monday that data from the next installment in its blockbuster "Grand Theft Auto" franchise was stolen, as glimpses of play spread on social media.

The normally tight-lipped video game maker's comment came after a trove of data that a hacker said was from a "Grand Theft Auto 6" title in the works was shared online, along with word that source code was also swiped from Rockstar.

"We recently suffered a network intrusion in which an unauthorized third party illegally accessed and downloaded confidential information from our systems, including early development footage for the next 'Grand Theft Auto,'" Rockstar said in a tweet from its official account.

"We are extremely disappointed to have any details of our next game shared with you in this way."

Rockstar added that it did not expect the hack to disrupt any of its projects or online play of its games, and that work on the next "Grand Theft Auto" game will continue as planned.

More than 230 million copies of "Grand Theft Auto," referred to as "GTA," have been sold overall.

"We have already taken steps to isolate and contain this incident," Rockstar parent Take-Two Interactive said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing about the hack.

The GTA franchise, in which players take on the role of a criminal, has been criticized for glorifying law-breaking, violence and abuse of women.

The maker of the notorious video game franchise announced in February that a new edition is under development, confirming long-bubbling speculation.

New York-based Rockstar Games did not say when GTA 6 will hit the street or how it will be different from the previous edition of the game released in 2013 to blockbuster sales.

"We watched GTA 6 leak and Rockstar Games - the most secretive company in the video game industry - get hacked in real time," said a late Sunday tweet from the Gaming Detective account that included an apparent image of the title art.

"Let it be known we were here to witness history."

gc/wd

UN Human Rights Council warns of more 'atrocity crimes' in Ethiopia

FRANCE 24 

UN investigators said Monday they believed Ethiopia's government was behind ongoing crimes against humanity in the Tigray region, and warned that the resumption of the conflict there increased the risk of "further atrocity crimes".


© AFP, Amanuel Sileshi

In its first report, the Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia said it had found evidence of a wide range of violations in the country by all sides since fighting erupted in the northern Tigray region in November 2020.

The commission, created by the UN Human Rights Council last year and made up of three independent rights experts, said it had "reasonable grounds to believe that, in several instances, these violations amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity".

The experts highlighted the horrifying situation in Tigray, where the government and its allies have denied around six million people access to basic services, including the internet and banking, for over a year, and where severe restrictions on humanitarian access have left 90 percent of the population in dire need of assistance.

The report said there were "reasonable grounds to believe that the Federal Government and allied regional State governments have committed and continue to commit the crimes against humanity of persecution on ethnic grounds and other inhumane acts."

They were "intentionally causing great suffering or serious injury to body or to mental or physical health based on their ongoing denial and obstruction of humanitarian assistance to Tigray," the report said.

Related video: Fighting intensifies in Ethiopia's Tigray conflict

Duration 12:13   View on Watch

In a statement, commission chair Kaari Betty Murungi described the humanitarian crisis in Tigray as "shocking, both in terms of scale and duration."

"The widespread denial and obstruction of access to basic services, food, healthcare, and humanitarian assistance is having a devastating impact on the civilian population, and we have reasonable grounds to believe it amounts to a crime against humanity," she said.

"We also have reasonable grounds to believe that the Federal Government is using starvation as a method of warfare," she added, calling on the government to "immediately restore basic services and ensure full and unfettered humanitarian access."

Murungi also called on Tigrayan forces to "ensure that humanitarian agencies are able to operate without impediment."

Tigray has been bombed several times since fighting resumed in late August between government forces and their allies, and rebels led by the TPLF, which ruled Ethiopia for decades before Abiy took office in 2018.

The return to combat shattered a March truce and dashed hopes of peacefully resolving the war, which has killed untold numbers of civilians and triggered a humanitarian crisis in northern Ethiopia.

"With a resumption of hostilities in northern Ethiopia, there is a very real risk of further civilian suffering and further atrocity crimes," Murungi warned.

"The international community should not turn a blind eye, and instead increase efforts to secure a cessation of hostilities and the restoration of humanitarian aid and services to Tigray," she said.

"Failure to do so would be catastrophic for the Ethiopian people, and has wider implications for peace and stability in the region."

(AFP)

UN report warns of crimes against humanity in Ethiopia

UN investigators said Monday they believed Ethiopia's government was behind ongoing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Tigray, and warned the resumption of the conflict there increased the risk of "further atrocity crimes".

Lebanon's past echoes its grim present in exhibition

Hashem Osseiran
Mon, September 19, 2022


In a war-scarred Beirut heritage house turned museum, archives of Lebanon's troubled past fuse with artistic depictions of its grim present to portray a country seemingly in perpetual turmoil.

Newspaper clippings, film negatives and diary entries from the years before Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war tell a story of government corruption, public sector strikes and student protests.

They are shown alongside contemporary pictures, video footage and art installations illustrating today's Lebanon, in the grip of political paralysis and its worst ever economic crisis.

"Allo, Beirut?", which premiered Thursday and runs until 2023, seeks to map out the decades-old rot at the heart of Lebanon's downward spiral, said the exhibition's director Delphine Abirached Darmency.

"It's strange sometimes to explain what we are experiencing without knowing what happened in the past," she said.


"Beirut is suffering, we are suffering," she added, arguing that much of Lebanon's misery is rooted in the problems of a bygone era.

The exhibit was born in part from the discovery of the archives of late billionaire Jean Prosper Gay-Para, who owned the once-famous Les Caves du Roy nightclub and is widely regarded as a symbol of Lebanon's pre-civil war golden era.

"Those sick minds, obsessed with making money," Gay-Para writes about the country's political elite, in a text on display.

That sentiment is still widely shared by a population battered by the unprecedented economic crisis that is widely blamed on the country's business and political barons.

Gay-Para "was talking in the 1960s about what we are living today", Darmency said.

- 'Condition of loss' -

More than three decades after the devastating civil war, Lebanon is reeling from a financial crisis that has seen poverty spike as the currency has lost more than 90 percent of its value on the black market.

Beirut also remains scarred by the huge 2020 portside blast of a pile of ammonium nitrate that killed more than 200 people and compounded a population exodus of a similar scale to that of the civil war period.

In addition to the archive material, the show features installations by young Lebanese artists who were asked to express their feelings about their city.

Rawane Nassif made a short documentary about the Beirut neighbourhood she grew up in, and to which she returned this year after two decades away to take care of her sick parents, both of whom have since died.

"The movie depicts the condition of loss," the 38-year-old anthropologist and filmmaker told AFP. "Beirut is in mourning. It is mourning the death of its people and the death of all the chances it once had."

Visual artist Raoul Mallat, 28, also explored the theme of grief, in a short film combining archive family footage from his childhood with recent shots of Beirut.

"This project helped me a lot in grieving some aspects of my city that I will not find again," he said.

- 'Built on rubble' -

The venue for the exhibit is itself a testament to Lebanon's complicated past. The three-storey Beit Beirut, known as the Yellow House, was built in the 1920s by renowned architect Youssef Bey Aftimos.

Riddled with bullet holes and other civil war damage, it stands alongside what used to be known as the "Green Line" that separated Beirut's Muslim and Christian districts during the conflict.


It was renovated and turned into a museum and cultural space that temporarily opened in 2017. It closed again due to difficulties, but the new exhibit has once more opened it to the public.

Holes in the walls once used by wartime gunmen have been fitted with screens showing footage of the unprecedented protest movement of 2019 that demanded sweeping political change before it ran out of steam.

One of the rooms is decorated with worn-out furniture and destroyed objects collected from the now-abandoned Les Caves du Roy nightclub in an attempt to recreate the space from Beirut's heyday.

The installation by Lebanese artists Rola Abu Darwish and Rana Abbout aims to make a symbolic statement about rubble and Lebanon's tumultuous existence.

"Beirut is built on rubble," said Abu Darwish, 38. "One of the main elements of Beirut to me is rubble.

"It's part of where we live, how we live, and who we are. And I feel that in the direction we're going, we are going to be making more rubble."

ho/jmm/hc/fz/it

CLIMATE CRISIS

Drought decimates Texas' key cotton crop

Ulysse BELLIER
Mon, September 19, 2022 


On Sutton Page's ravaged cotton fields, there is almost nothing left to pick. The Texas farmer managed to salvage maybe a fifth of his crop, but the rest was lost to the severe drought that has taken a steep toll across the region.

This year, his harvest is "not well," he says, but in reality, the drought in northern Texas has proven to be a disaster, with most of Page's neighbors not even bothering to harvest their crop, leaving "bare, bare fields."

Texas produces almost half of America's cotton, and the United States is the world's third largest supplier, behind India and China.

This year, national production will hit its lowest level since 2015, down 21 percent year-on-year, and Texas will suffer a 58 percent drop, the US Department of Agriculture estimates.

In the northwest of the state, where cotton is the lifeline of the local economy and water is scarce, the 2022 harvest "could be one of the worst in 30 years," worries Darren Hudson, professor of agricultural economics at Texas Tech University.

With the cascading consequences for the global textile industry, in an economy already reeling from the pandemic, Hudson put the likely economic impact for the region at $2 billion.

Landon Orman, 30, works on 2,000 acres of cotton near Abilene, three hours west of Dallas. His non-irrigated cotton did not even sprout, while his partially watered crop grew but its yield will be slashed by half.

In total, he predicts an 85 percent drop in production compared to a normal year. Like so many others, he has crop insurance, so "financially we're not really doing that bad. But as a farmer, it sucks pretty bad that we can't grow stuff sometimes."

- Depressing -

In Lubbock, the region's cotton hub, rainfall over the past 12 months has roughly been half its normal volume, and what little fell came too late to save the crop.

"Starting in January, all the way to the month of May, no, no literally no rain," said Sutton Page, 48. And from May "we started having 100 degree days and 30 mile an hour winds and it just dried everything out."

He had to plow 80 percent of his dying crop back into the ground to stop the land drying out. Of the few small plants that actually grew, it may not even be economical to harvest them.

"It's a little depressing to some degree, because you work hard all year and you get to get the farms ready and you fertilize and, and and your crop doesn't come up," he said.

- Frequency -

Cotton farmers in the plains of Texas know there will always be bad years, but the drought of 2022 could be the worst yet. And some worry there could be more on the way.

The region is "seeing worse conditions than this time last year," and these are settling in over time, notes Curtis Riganti, a climatologist specializing in drought.

"In the past 10 years, we saw maybe five or six of those years where we saw drought. Maybe one or two of those years we saw a very catastrophic drought," said Kody Bessent, director of one of the region's cotton growers' associations.

These farmers in Texas, a state where climate skepticism abounds, prefer to see unpredictable weather cycles repeating themselves rather than the effects of global warming, which makes extreme weather events more common.

While waiting for answers, everyone is trying their best just to maintain humidity in their soil.

ube/seb/jh/md

Misinformation shrouds Philippine martial law era horrors

Lucille SODIPE
Mon, September 19, 2022


American lawyer Thomas Jones still remembers the scars of Philippine torture victims he interviewed for Amnesty International inside the country's detention centres in 1975 during the rule of late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

But Marcos, who presided over widespread abuses and corruption during his 20 years in power, denied the lawyer's visit to the Philippines ever happened.

Decades later the dictator's claim -- debunked by AFP and others -- has resurfaced on social media sites popular among Filipinos.

Amnesty estimates thousands of people were killed and tens of thousands tortured and imprisoned after Marcos imposed martial law on September 21, 1972.

Under legislation signed in 2013 by former president Benigno Aquino, 11,103 victims of torture, killings, enforced disappearances and other abuses have been officially recognised and compensated.

In the run-up to Wednesday's 50th anniversary of the start of martial law, pro-Marcos posts have flooded Facebook and TikTok with false and misleading claims that cast doubt on Amnesty's findings and downplay the abuses.

AFP has fact-checked multiple posts that carried footage of Marcos addressing US media in 1982.

Marcos -- father of current Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr who has defended martial law -- accused Amnesty of relying on "hearsay" for their findings. And he falsely claimed the rights group "never" visited the country.

The clip resurfaced on TikTok in March after an anti-Marcos Senate candidate running in May 9 elections cited Amnesty for figures showing the horrors of martial law.

"Amnesty International (said) 3,257 were killed during Marcos's time, 35,000 were tortured... 70,000 were imprisoned. It's a matter of record," Luke Espiritu said in a debate.

Within hours of that livestreamed event, the Marcos footage had been stitched with the Espiritu video and circulated on TikTok and Facebook.

It received more than 900,000 views, according to analysis by AFP's Fact Check team.

One post drew more than 3,000 comments that questioned Amnesty's numbers and described the dictator as "a great leader destroyed by black propaganda".


Jones said Marcos lied about the Amnesty visit and martial law abuses, and decades later Filipinos were being deceived by his son.

"People of the Philippines, they still don't know the facts," the 81-year-old told AFP from his home in Wisconsin.

Jones and a colleague interviewed Marcos, members of his cabinet and 107 detainees during their visit.

Marcos admitted about 50,000 people had been arrested in the first few years of martial law, while 71 detainees told them they had been tortured, Jones said.

Amnesty published their findings in 1976, with their conclusion that "torture was used freely and with extreme cruelty, often over long periods".

The Marcos government denied torture was "widely used" and said Amnesty's report was "based on fabrications, biased, and without factual foundations".

- 'Short memories' -

Josefina Forcadilla, 66, one of the detainees mentioned in the Amnesty report, remembers being interviewed by Jones and his colleague while she was imprisoned.

"I was hesitant to talk to them at first, until they said they wanted to document what my family went through at the time," she told AFP.

Forcadilla was 17 when police raided their house in search of her elder brother in April 1973.

She said an officer boxed her ears, fondled her breasts and played Russian roulette with a gun while interrogating her about his whereabouts.

"I was in shock. I couldn't cry. I knew then that their purpose was really to kill," she said.

She and three other siblings were eventually arrested.

Her elder sister was assaulted and died in detention, while her brother was tortured and another sister gave birth in prison.

"My family can't help but ask, why do Filipinos have short memories?" she said.

Amnesty visited the Philippines again in 1981 to document abuses that took place from 1976 onwards.

In a 2018 statement, Amnesty said: "From 1972 to 1981, some 70,000 people were imprisoned and 34,000 were tortured; over 3,200 people were killed."

Marcos was toppled from power in 1986.

Rachel Chhoa-Howard, Amnesty researcher for Southeast Asia, defended the rights group's estimates, saying they were "based on our own field missions and documentation during the 80s and cross-referenced with other research at the time".

But she said the true scale of the abuses may never be known "given the immensity and pervasiveness of violations during that time".

- Denying atrocities -

Yet, the truth about what is known is itself under attack.

Filipinos worried about martial law violence being whitewashed or erased by the new Marcos administration have been digitising books, films and articles documenting the brutality.


One group is Project Gunita, which has been scanning and posting old newspaper and magazine reports on social media to educate users influenced by pro-Marcos misinformation.

"It's pointless to have our Google drives, it's pointless to have this database of information if it doesn't get to those people who need to read them," said co-founder Sarah Gomez.

Joel Ariate, a member of the University of the Philippines' Marcos Regime Research group, said denying Marcos atrocities "has become like a bloodsport online".

He said the key to fighting misinformation about martial law was to repeat the truth "as much as the lies".

Marcos Jr, who said earlier this year he had not seen Amnesty's figures and did not know how they were generated, last week acknowledged there had been "abuses" under martial law, "like in any war".

But martial law had been "necessary" to defend the country against communist and Muslim insurgencies, he told a local celebrity talk show host.

Carmelo Crisanto of the Human Rights Violations Victims' Memorial Commission, an independent government body, said in August the real number of victims could be much higher than the official figure.

"Many people in the fringes of our society -- Muslims, farmers, fisherfolk -- they didn't even hear that there was a process for filing claims," Crisanto said.

"So the effects of the regime could have touched them but they are not recorded."

ls/amj/it/axn/dhc