Saturday, April 13, 2024


Maine governor signs bill restricting paramilitary training in response to neo-Nazi’s plan

By David Sharp, The Associated Press

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) — A bill to restrict paramilitary training in Maine in response to a neo-Nazi who wanted to create a training center for a “blood tribe” was signed into law by Democratic Gov. Janet Mills on Friday.

The law, which the governor signed without public comment, allows the attorney general to file for a court injunction to stop paramilitary training that’s intended to sow civil disorder — and to bring charges that carry a penalty of up to a year in jail.

Rep. Laurie Osher of Orono introduced the bill after a prominent neo-Nazi and white supremacist, Christopher Pohlhaus, sought to set up a training center on property that he ultimately sold before carrying out the plan.

“I welcome people to come to Maine and live here and work hard and make Maine a better place. But I’m not welcoming of people who want to make Maine a white ethno-state,” Osher, a Democrat, said Friday evening. “This bill is making it clear that anyone who has that intent is not welcome to do that here.”

Opponents argued that the measure could trample on constitutional rights, while supporters said it aims to prevent the creation of shadow military forces for purposes of creating civil unrest.

Osher said many constituents told her lawmakers had to do something with a rise in harassment and intolerance of a growing diversity in the state. But the law doesn’t target any specific group, she said.

Attorney General Aaron Frey said militias that don’t follow the orders of civilian leaders were already prohibited by the Maine Constitution, but that applies specifically to groups parading with guns in public or outfitted in clothing that looks like real military uniforms.

Without the new law, he said previously, he had no way to bring a criminal case against someone using military training to create civil disorder, as authorities say Pohlhaus sought to do.

Pohlhaus has hinted that if he were to try again to establish a training facility, he’d be careful to ensure the property was not in his name to avoid arousing suspicions.

Vermont took a similar action last year by banning people from owning and running paramilitary training camps. That bill came in response to a firearms training facility built without permits that neighbors called a nuisance.

The Vermont law, which came in response to a property known as Slate Ridge, prohibits people from teaching, training or demonstrating to others how to make or use firearms, explosives or incendiary devices to cause civil disorder.

It does not apply to law enforcement or educational institutions like Norwich University. Violators face up to five years in prison, a fine of up to $50,000 or both.

David Sharp, The Associated Press

 

Eleanor Coppola, matriarch of a filmmaking family, dies aged 87

13 April 2024, 02:24

Obit Eleanor Coppola
Obit Eleanor Coppola. Picture: PA

She documented the making of some of her husband Francis Ford Coppola’s best-known films, including Apocalypse Now.

Eleanor Coppola, who documented the making of some of her husband Francis Ford Coppola’s best-known films and who raised a family of filmmakers, has died aged 87.

She died on Friday surrounded by family at home in Rutherford, California, her family announced in a statement. No cause of death was given.

Eleanor, who grew up in Orange County, California, met Francis while working as an assistant art director on his directorial debut, the Roger Corman-produced 1963 horror film Dementia 13, after had studied design at UCLA.

Within months of dating, Eleanor became pregnant and the couple were wed in Las Vegas in February 1963.

Obit Eleanor Coppola
Francis and Eleanor Coppola in 1991 in Los Angeles (AP)

Their first-born, Gian-Carlo, quickly became a regular presence in his father’s films, as did their subsequent children, Roman (born in 1965) and Sofia (born in 1971). After acting in their father’s films and growing up on sets, all would go into the movies.

Gian-Carlo, who is seen in the background of many of his father’s films and had begun doing second-unit photography, died at the age of 22 in a 1986 boating accident. He was killed while riding in a boat piloted by Griffin O’Neal, son of Ryan O’Neal, who was found guilty of negligence.

Roman directed several movies of his own and regularly collaborates with Wes Anderson. He is president of his father’s San Francisco-based film company, American Zoetrope.

Sofia became one of the most acclaimed filmmakers of her generation as the writer-director of films including “Lost in Translation” and the 2023 release “Priscilla.” Sofia dedicated that film to her mother.

Beginning on 1979’s Apocalypse Now, Eleanor frequently documented the behind-the-scenes life of Francis’ films.

The Philippines-set shoot of Apocalypse Now lasted 238 days. A typhoon destroyed sets, lead actor Martin Sheen had a heart attack and a member of the construction crew died.

Eleanor documented much of the chaos in what would become one of the most famous making-of films about moviemaking, 1991’s Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse.

“I was just trying to keep myself occupied with something to do because we were out there for so long,” she told CNN in 1991. “They wanted five minutes for a TV promotional or something and I thought sooner of later I could get five minutes of film and then it went on to 15 minutes.

She ended up shooting 60 hours worth of footage and published Notes: On the Making of Apocalypse Now where she wrote of being a “woman isolated from my friends, my affairs and my projects” during their year in Manilla. She also frankly discusses Francis having an extra-marital affair.

They remained together and Eleanor documented several more of her husband’s films, as well as Roman’s CQ and Sofia’s Marie Antoinette. She wrote a memoir in 2008, Notes on a Life.

In 2016, at the age of 80, Eleanor made her narrative debut in Paris Can Wait, a romantic comedy starring Diane Lane. She followed that up with Love Is Love Is Love in 2020.

Eleanor died just as Francis is preparing a long-planned, self-financed epic, “Metropolis,” which is to premiere next month at the Cannes Film Festival.

By Press Association

Justice and the Red Queen Effect-Rabbi Marc Katz

EXCERPT

Like many of you, despite all the warning signs, I never thought Roe v Wade would be overturned. That battle was fought and won long before my birth. I had underestimated the forces pushing against women’s choice. It was matter of fact, a story concluded. Settled law. There could be no part two.  

Then, in what felt like a blink of an eye – though in hindsight was decades of steady erosion– that protection was gone. The hard-fought progress so many had sacrificed for was walked back. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized, I was to blame. 

Now before going on, I want to say that there are and have always been activists and voices working tirelessly to preserve reproductive rights. In the secular world we have Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and the Center for Reproductive Rights. In the Jewish world we have the National Council of Jewish Women and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, among others. They were not blindsided by this. Their battle for women’s health is a daily endeavor. They knew that the story of Roe v Wade was forever in formation. 

But they are the exception. Most people who care about abortion access have a list of other social justice issues that also keep them up at night. And in a world where so much cries out for our attention, a story that seems settled and a battle that appears won, gives us permission to turn our attention to something else.  

Part of the reason many of us paid more attention to other issues over these years was because preserving the status quo can feel unexciting, even monotonous. When I used to take kids to lobbying with the Religious Action Center it was always so much more fun to march into the office of a congressperson who didn’t agree with our position and try to change their minds than to write a heartfelt thank you to someone who already did. When the latter happened, I always thought, “I drove four hours to Washington when a simple thank you card would have sufficed.”  

What I didn’t realize at the time, and what Roe v Wade taught me, is that you often have to push harder to keep things stable in part because your status quo is the other side’s fight. To return to the story we began with, Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah weren’t stewing in anger after God’s ruling, but their male contemporaries certainly were.  

In evolutionary biology this phenomenon has a name. It’s called the Red Queen Hypothesis and it’s named after a famous scene in Lewis Caroll’s Through the Looking Glass, his sequel to Alice in Wonderland. There, Alice meets the Red Queen. As they begin running, Alice notes her surprise that she’s growing tired from running but going nowhere:  

 

"Well, in our country," said Alice, still panting a little, "you'd generally get to somewhere else—if you run very fast for a long time, as we've been doing." 

 

"A slow sort of country!" said the Queen. "Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!" 

This short scene was taken by evolutionary biologists Leigh Van Valen in 1973, to explain the idea species go extinct if they stop evolving. Since predator and prey are always trying to get an edge on one another their only way to stay in the same place is to keep changing. Standing still actually means going backward. Running forward keeps you in the same place, evolutionarily speaking. And only radical leaps forward, like humanity's growth in brain size or bipedal locomotion, actually puts one at an advantage.  

Although it’s not used in politics, I feel like the Red Queen Hypothesis is just as applicable. Most of the time, if we want things to stay the same we have to run fast. If we take our attention away from those things that matter to us, we will go backward. It may be exhausting but we can never stop moving.  

I worry that as it relates to Roe v Wade, our collective mistake was that we stopped running. 

And I worry, that if I don’t take to heart what I’ve learned here, some other hard-fought battles that also feel settled will go the same way. 

There is little questions LGBTQ rights could be next. Although I got to New Jersey well after same sex marriage became legal in 2013, I’ve heard stories about how galvanized the TNT community was about it. Cantor Greenberg has told me with pride what it meant to her to travel down to Trenton, often multiple times a month, to lobby and give testimony. We were the daughters of Zelophehad, marching into the halls of power and demanding change. We were organized, thoughtful, passionate. And then we won. 

And although we have had no shortage of LBGTQ themed events, services, and speakers, whenever I have been in a room brainstorming about what issues we should add to our social justice agenda, which topics need our finger on the scale in order to effect change, no one has suggested getting involved in LGBTQ advocacy. It feels like a finished fight.  

But like reproductive rights, it is not. After Roe v Wade fell, many in this country made it clear that their next battle would be walking back wins by the LGBTQ community. And I promise, they are organizing with the fervor and passion that we did a decade ago.  

The same is true for countless other issues. Whether it’s voting rights, which seemed settled in the 1960s or the clean air act of the 1970s, or even Holocaust education which is mandated in school but enforced less today than when it first passed, there are plenty of examples of times where it is at our peril to stand still.  

Even segregation is beginning to creep back in. In recent years, New Jersey has quietly found itself with the 6th most segregated schools in the nation. In 1989, 4.8% of schools were considered highly segregated meaning 90% white or conversely 90% non-white. By 2010 that number was 8%. Now some estimates put it upwards of 20%. In some locales this change is an accident of demographic changes but in others it is a product of deliberate decisions on the part of the leadership to split towns into smaller units keeping their locales as homogeneous as possible.  

It is easy for long past advances to slip away. But I want to suggest a few tools to protect those things that matter most to you, whatever they are. If we are deliberate in our actions, we won’t lose sight today of how to protect the status quo. 

First, if there is an issue that matters to you and you do not want to see it change, you have to find a way to keep it fresh in the minds of others. There is something fun about being involved in change. Marches, rallies, phone banking are galvanizing. So why not keep doing them even after achieving your goal. But now instead of marches and rallies being about what you want to win, they become reminders of what it might mean to lose your gains. 


Ecuadorian tribunal deems arrest of former Vice President Glas illegal

But the three-member panel also upheld his ongoing imprisonment, arguing it could not ‘modify’ his sentence.

Francisco Hidalgo, who submitted a writ of habeas corpus on Jorge Glas's behalf, celebrates the tribunal's ruling on April 12
 [Karen Toro/Reuters]

Published On 13 Apr 2024

The defence team for former Ecuadorian Vice President Jorge Glas has hailed a decision declaring his arrest inside Mexico’s embassy in Quito illegal.

Still, on Friday, lawyer Sonia Vera Garcia pledged to appeal the ruling, which upheld her client’s continued detention.

Latin American countries condemn Ecuador raid on Mexico embassy

Mexico cuts ties with Ecuador after police raid embassy

“We thank the international community,” she wrote on the social media platform X. “Its support led to the detention being declared arbitrary, a step forward.”

“However, Jorge remains detained. We will appeal until we achieve his freedom.”

The ruling comes after Francisco Hidalgo — a member of Glas’s left-wing political party, Citizen Revolution — submitted a writ of habeas corpus earlier this week on the former vice president’s behalf, arguing he had been unlawfully detained.Protesters call for the release of former Vice President Jorge Glas in Quito, Ecuador, on April 12 [Karen Toro/Reuters]

Glas’s arrest had been the subject of ongoing international tensions. On April 5, Ecuadorian police stormed the Mexican embassy, scaling its fence and pointing a gun at a top diplomat who sought to bar their entrance.

In its ruling on Friday, a three-member tribunal in Ecuador found that the arrest on embassy grounds had indeed been “illegal and arbitrary”.

Judge Monica Heredia wrote that “without authorisation from the head of the Foreign Ministry and political affairs at the Mexican embassy in Ecuador, the detention became illegal”.

International law protects embassies and consulates from the interference of local law enforcement. This “rule of inviolability” theoretically allows diplomats to conduct sensitive work without fear of reprisal from their host country.

But embattled public figures like Glas have also turned to embassies to seek temporary refuge from arrest, knowing that local police are not supposed to enter without permission.

Glas was twice convicted on corruption-related charges. He was sentenced to six years in prison in 2017 and eight years in 2020.

In the hours before his arrest, Mexico’s Foreign Ministry announced it had granted political asylum to Glas, who had been sheltering in its embassy in Quito since December.
Demonstrators show support for former Vice President Jorge Glas on April 12
 [Karen Toro/Reuters]

But the embassy raid ignited a full-blown spat between Mexico and Ecuador.

In its wake, Mexico severed diplomatic ties and recalled its embassy staff from Ecuador. Countries around Latin America, as well as the Organization of American States (OAS), have also denounced the police raid.

But the government of Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa has sought to defend the raid as authorised by executive decree.

In addition, it argued that Glas should not be eligible for political asylum, as his convictions were not the result of persecution.

But the three-member tribunal on Friday said the government’s defence of the raid “lacks legal basis”.

Still, while the tribunal ruled that the arrest itself was illegal, it decided Glas should remain behind bars, given his prior convictions.

“This tribunal cannot modify the sentence,” Judge Heredia said.

Glas is currently serving his prison term in Guayaquil, where he is conducting a hunger strike in protest. He was hospitalised earlier this week.

On Thursday, Mexico filed a complaint with the International Court of Justice to expel Ecuador from the United Nations over the embassy raid — at least until the country delivers a formal apology for its violations of international law.


SOURCE: AL JAZEERA AND NEWS AGENCIES
Israel says it’s boosting Gaza aid, but UN says little has changed

Louisa Loveluck, Claire Parker and Loveday Morris | The Washington Post


HUMANITARIAN AID: Trucks carrying humanitarian aid for the Gaza Strip pass through the Kerem Shalom Crossing in southern Israel in March, 2024. 
Heidi Levine for The Washington Post

JERUSALEM - In the week since President Biden warned Israel to swiftly address civilian suffering in Gaza - or risk future U.S. support - Israeli officials have touted what they say is a record number of aid trucks entering the territory, one of several new measures that the government maintains will help alleviate the crisis.

But according to U.N. and other aid officials, as well as relief workers inside Gaza, little has actually changed on the ground - and aid access remains as complicated and risky as ever, even as much of the population hurtles toward famine.

Despite Israel’s emphasis on truck numbers - it says more than 1,200 trucks have crossed into Gaza over the last three days - the volume of aid hasn’t significantly increased, nor is it reaching those most in need. The government’s most concrete promises of reopening a crossing in northern Gaza, bringing bakeries back online and establishing clear channels to coordinate with aid workers also have yet to yield results.

‘Under pressure’

“The proof in the pudding will be when it actually happens beyond words,” Jamie McGoldrick, the interim U.N. humanitarian coordinator for the Palestinian territories, said of the steps Israel pledged to take. “They are under pressure to deliver something.”

Biden’s ultimatum to Israel last week, delivered in a phone call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was spurred by the killing of seven World Central Kitchen workers by Israeli forces April 1, a reminder of the perilous environment in which relief agencies operate.

Six months into the conflict, which began when Hamas militants killed around 1,200 people in Israel and took 253 others hostage Oct. 7, the stakes for getting more food, medicine and other relief to Palestinians are those of life and death. More than 33,500 people have already been killed and over 76,000 injured, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants but says the majority of the casualties are women and children.

Ninety-five percent of the population of 2.2 million is estimated to be experiencing crisis levels of hunger, and health authorities say at least 32 people had died of malnutrition or dehydration by early April. In northern Gaza, which the Israeli military has isolated from the rest of the enclave, famine may already be underway, the world’s leading body on food crises said last month.

Israeli officials have said they don’t want responsibility for Gaza and want to focus instead on the military campaign to eliminate Hamas. But growing U.S. pressure on Netanyahu to halt the worsening calamity prompted the prime minister to change course, according to an Israeli official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the high-level decision-making.

‘Concrete tangible steps’

The White House last week said it would be watching for Israel to take “concrete, tangible steps” to significantly improve humanitarian access, with Biden describing the crisis in Gaza as “unacceptable.”

In response, McGoldrick’s office said Saturday, Israel committed to reopening the Erez Crossing in northern Gaza, restarting about 20 bakeries and repairing a major water line.

By Thursday, aid officials said, those plans had been discussed but were mostly not nearing fruition. Appearing to reverse course on opening Erez, which was heavily damaged in the Oct. 7 attack and only ever designed for foot passengers, Israel announced instead that it was building a new crossing to bring aid to the north.

This will help “gradually” boost the number of trucks entering Gaza overall to around 500 per day, said Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, an Israeli military spokesman. That is the same number that sustained the enclave before the war, though swaths of Gaza’s agricultural land and farming capacity have been wiped out since then.

It was unclear when the new crossing would be built.

“Israel is surging aid into Gaza, with over 1200 trucks entering in 3 days (avg 400/day),” the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) posted Wednesday on X, formerly Twitter.

‘Not doing their jobs’

The agency, a branch of the Israeli military that coordinates aid in Gaza, was promoting the rising number of trucks that it says it inspects each day to enter the enclave’s border crossings. It blames the delays in aid distribution on the United Nations and other international agencies operating in Gaza. Israel has cited photographs of crateloads of aid apparently waiting to be distributed as evidence that humanitarian groups are not doing their jobs.

But the United Nations records only the trucks that physically enter Gaza in its database, and UNRWA, the U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees, tallied a lower figure for the same three-day period this week, at an average of 168 humanitarian trucks each day through the Rafah and Kerem Shalom crossings in the south.

Relief workers say Israeli regulations around access to the crossings mean they do not often have permission to reach the supplies that await them. COGAT did not respond to requests for comment on how it was addressing the obstacles cited by aid groups.

“It does not mean we have unfettered access to collect it,” an aid worker engaged in operations at the crossing said, speaking on the condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue. “Sometimes we only get partial access in the afternoon. Sometimes we only get a stab to collect the bulk of the aid in the morning. Sometimes, if there is fog or poor visibility in the corridor, we do not get access at all.”

At the same time, the inspection process remains onerous and opaque, officials say, and agencies often don’t know what type of aid they’re picking up until they reach the Gaza side of the terminal.

‘No visibility’

“Let’s say UNICEF has 10 trucks of medicine, 10 trucks of nutrition treatments. Once they’re in screening, we lose visibility,” said Tess Ingram, a spokeswoman for the U.N. children’s agency. “When we get to the receiving end, there might be one truck of medicine and one truck of nutrition, and then the next day maybe three trucks of something. It’s very difficult for us to plan on the other end because we have no visibility of what’s going to be spat out when.”

Trucks that enter Gaza from Egypt are sometimes only half-filled or have a smaller capacity than those used by the United Nations to collect and distribute aid - another reason the figures collected by aid groups and Israel’s military are often different.

“They might send in 300-plus trucks in a day, but we can’t get 300-plus trucks processed and out,” McGoldrick said.

Then aid groups must coordinate with the Israeli military for safe access to areas where civilians are most in need.

Food convoys traveling north are three times more likely to be denied permissions by Israel than any other humanitarian convoy, Jens Laerke, spokesman for the U.N. humanitarian office, said in a briefing Tuesday.

“When you put up statistics with numbers of truck going in saying, ‘Look at all these hundreds of trucks coming in,’ and you put it against how few trucks have actually moved around - well, it’s kind of an own goal, isn’t it?” he said. “Half of the convoys that we were trying to send to the north with food were denied by the very same Israeli authorities.”

McGoldrick said he was due to meet with representatives of the Israeli military’s Southern Command on Wednesday to discuss the establishment of a coordination cell that can deconflict movements of humanitarians on the battlefield and avoid further tragedies like the deaths of the WCK workers - one of Israel’s promises in the wake of the Biden call.

“We need a system that works,” McGoldrick said.

But 10 days after the WCK strike, aid workers themselves still fear being targeted. Around 200 relief workers have been killed in Gaza over the past six months.

UNICEF said one of its convoys was awaiting entry to northern Gaza on Tuesday when it was hit by gunfire that appeared to have originated from Israeli forces.

The convoy was carrying 10,000 liters of fuel to power water and sanitation points, as well as nutrition and medical supplies intended for Kamal Adwan Hospital, which has reported that children there are dying of malnutrition and dehydration.

The agency’s armored car was hit three times as the group waited at a designated U.N. holding point along a route coordinated with Israeli forces, said Ingram, who was traveling with the convoy.

“We got three bullets in our car - two on my passenger door and one on the bonnet,” Ingram said.

After the shooting stopped, the group communicated what had happened to Israeli forces via UNRWA security personnel, she said. The Israeli military did not respond for request for comment about the incident.

“It’s clear that eight days after the World Central Kitchen tragedy, measures weren’t in place to prevent something like this from happening,” Ingram said.
Haiti sets up transitional council to choose next PM in bid to quell crisis

BONAPARTISM NOT DEMOCRACY

By Evens Sanon And Dánica Coto 
 The Associated Press
Posted April 12, 2024 

Haiti crisis: Surge in gang violence, food insecurity envelopes nation – Mar 29, 2024

A transitional council tasked with choosing Haiti’s next prime minister and Cabinet was established Friday in a move supporters hope will help quell turmoil in the troubled Caribbean country where most of the capital remains under the grip of criminal gangs.

The formation of the council, announced in a decree published Friday in a Haitian government gazette, was expected to soon trigger the resignation of Prime Minister Ariel Henry, but a new provision said he would step down when a new premier is chosen. Henry did not immediately comment.

Those awarded a seat on the council are Petit Desalin, a party led by former senator and presidential candidate Jean-Charles Moïse; EDE/RED, a party led by former Prime Minister Claude Joseph; the Montana Accord, a group of civil society leaders, political parties and others; Fanmi Lavalas, the party of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide; the Jan. 30 Collective, which represents parties including that of former President Michel Martelly; and the private sector.

The two non-voting seats are represented by someone from Haiti’s civil society and its religious sector.

“The establishment of the…politically inclusive council signals the possibility of a new beginning for Haiti,” a Caribbean trade bloc known as Caricom, who helped form the council, said in a statement.

It said that the council “will take the troubled country through elections to the restoration of the lapsed state institutions and constitutional government.”

“It is also clear that one of the first priorities of the newly installed Presidential Council will be to urgently address the security situation so that Haitians can go about their daily lives in a normal manner; safely access food, water and medical services; children can return to school; women can move around without fear of horrific abuses; and so that businesses can reopen,” Caricom said.

The published decree acknowledged what it called “a multidimensional crisis” that has worsened since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. It said the crisis has led to a “catastrophic humanitarian situation” and that Haiti is experiencing “unprecedented institutional dysfunction, which has led to a political impasse.”
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It also noted that Henry would present his resignation once a new prime minister is appointed.

The decree, which was signed by Henry and his Cabinet, noted that no one can be a member of the council if they have been sanctioned by the U.N., oppose the deployment of a foreign armed force or plan to run in the next general election, among other conditions.

While an election date hasn’t been set, the decree stated that the president-elect must be sworn-in on Feb. 7, 2026 at the latest, and that the council will exercise presidential powers until then.


2:06 Haiti crisis: Canada begins airlift evacuations


The council also will be responsible for helping set the agenda of a new Cabinet and will appoint members to form a provisional electoral council, which is needed before elections are held. It also will establish a national security council whose responsibilities have not been decided.

The decree does not set any deadlines for choosing a new prime minister or Cabinet, stating only that the council must “quickly” do so.

The council will be based at the National Palace, and its mandate is supposed to end when a new president is sworn-in, with no possibility of extension.

The United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti posted on X that it would continue to closely follow the political process as it called for international support for Haiti’s National Police, saying it is “essential to restore security and the rule of law.”

“We reaffirm our commitment to supporting the country’s institutions in their efforts to restore democratic institutions,” María Isabel Salvador, the U.N. special envoy for Haiti, said in a statement.


1:00 Canadian military’s elite counter-terrorism unit deployed to Haiti

The council’s creation comes exactly a month and one day after Caribbean leaders announced plans to help form the nine-member panel, with seven members awarded voting powers.

Friday’s development was cheered by those who believe the council could help steer Haiti in a new direction and help quell widespread gang violence that has paralyzed swaths of the capital of Port-au-Prince for more than a month.

More than 1,550 people have been killed across Haiti and more than 820 injured from January to March 22, according to the U.N.
While gangs have long operated throughout Haiti, gunmen organized large-scale attacks starting Feb. 29. They burned police stations, opened fire on the main international airport that remains closed and raided the country’s two biggest prisons, freeing more than 4,000 inmates.

The attacks were meant to prevent the return of Henry to Haiti. At the time, he was in Kenya pushing for the U.N.-backed deployment of a police force from the East African country. He remains locked out of Haiti.

While the violence has somewhat subsided, gangs are still launching attacks throughout Port-au-Prince, especially in the downtown area, where they have seized control of Haiti’s biggest public hospital.



Marx wrote The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon between December 1851 and March 1852. The "Eighteenth Brumaire" refers to November 9, 1799 in the French ...
Chapter I · ‎Preface · ‎Chapter IV · ‎Chapter V
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon is an essay written by Karl Marx between December 1851 and March 1852, and originally published in 1852 in Die ...

Friday, April 12, 2024

 

More videos of Kiwi hostage Philip Mehrtens in Papua warn against Indonesian military air strikes

New Zealand pilot Philip Mehrtens was photographed with his rebel captors in Indonesia's Papua region.

New Zealand pilot Philip Mehrtens was photographed with his rebel captors in Indonesia's Papua region. File pic Photo: Supplied/TPNPB

More videos appear to have been released by the West Papua Liberation Army showing Kiwi hostage Phillip Mehrtens.

The New Zealander was taken hostage more than a year ago on 7 February in Paro, Papua, while providing vital air links and supplies to remote communities.

In the recent videos he is seen surrounded by armed men and delivers a statement, saying his life is at risk because of air strikes conducted by the Indonesian military.

He asks Indonesia to cease airstrikes and for foreign governments to pressure Indonesia to not conduct any aerial bombardments.

RNZ has sought comment from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Earlier this year Foreign Minister Winston Peters strongly urged those holding Mehrtens to release him immediately without harm.

Peters said his continued detention serves no-one's interests.

In the last year, a wide range of New Zealand government agencies has been working extensively with Indonesian authorities and others towards securing Mehrtens release.

The response, led by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, has also been supporting his family.

20 years later, Abu Ghraib detainees get their day in US court


 This late 2003 photo obtained by The Associated Press shows an unidentified detainee standing on a box with a bag on his head and wires attached to him in the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, Iraq. A trial scheduled to begin Monday, April 15, 2024, in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., will be the first time that survivors of Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison will bring their claims of torture to a U.S. jury. Twenty years ago, photos of abused prisoners and smiling U.S. soldiers guarding them shocked the world. 

 In this June 22, 2004, photo, a detainee in an outdoor solitary confinement cell talks with a military police officer at the Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad, Iraq. A trial scheduled to begin Monday, April 15, 2024, in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Va., will be the first time that survivors of Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison will bring their claims of torture to a U.S. jury. Twenty years ago, photos of abused prisoners and smiling U.S. soldiers guarding them shocked the world. (AP Photo/John Moore, File)

BY MATTHEW BARAKAT
April 11, 2024


ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — Twenty years ago this month, photos of abused prisoners and smiling U.S. soldiers guarding them at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison were released, shocking the world.

Now, three survivors of Abu Ghraib will finally get their day in U.S. court against the military contractor they hold responsible for their mistreatment.

The trial is scheduled to begin Monday in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, and will be the first time that Abu Ghraib survivors are able to bring their claims of torture to a U.S. jury, said Baher Azmy, a lawyer with the Center for Constitutional Rights representing the plaintiffs.

The defendant in the civil suit, CACI, supplied the interrogators who worked at the prison. The Virginia-based contractor denies any wrongdoing, and has emphasized throughout 16 years of litigation that its employees are not alleged to have inflicted any abuse on any of the plaintiffs in the case.

The plaintiffs, though, seek to hold CACI responsible for setting the conditions that resulted in the torture they endured, citing evidence in government investigations that CACI contractors instructed military police to “soften up” detainees for their interrogations.

Retired Army Gen. Antonio Taguba, who led an investigation into the Abu Ghraib scandal, is among those expected to testify. His inquiry concluded that at least one CACI interrogator should be held accountable for instructing military police to set conditions that amounted to physical abuse.

There is little dispute that the abuse was horrific. The photos released in 2004 showed naked prisoners stacked into pyramids or dragged by leashes. Some photos had a soldier smiling and giving a thumbs up while posing next to a corpse, or detainees being threatened with dogs, or hooded and attached to electrical wires.

The plaintiffs cannot be clearly identified in any of the infamous images, but their descriptions of mistreatment are unnerving.

Suhail Al Shimari has described sexual assaults and beatings during his two months at the prison. He was also electrically shocked and dragged around the prison by a rope tied around his neck. Former Al-Jazeera reporter Salah Al-Ejaili said he was subjected to stress positions that caused him to vomit black liquid. He was also deprived of sleep, forced to wear women’s underwear and threatened with dogs.

CACI, though, has said the U.S. military is the institution that bears responsibility for setting the conditions at Abu Ghraib and that its employees weren’t in a position to be giving orders to soldiers. In court papers, lawyers for the contractor group have said the “entire case is nothing more than an attempt to impose liability on CACI PT because its personnel worked in a war zone prison with a climate of activity that reeks of something foul. The law, however, does not recognize guilt by association with Abu Ghraib.”

The case has bouncedthroughthecourts since 2008, and CACI has tried roughly 20 times to have it tossed out of court. The U.S. Supreme Court in 2021 ultimately turned back CACI’s appeal efforts and sent the case back to district court for trial.

In one of CACI’s appeal arguments, the company contended that the U.S. enjoys sovereign immunity against the torture claims, and that CACI enjoys derivative immunity as a contractor doing the government’s bidding. But U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, in a first-of-its kind ruling, determined that the U.S. government can’t claim immunity when it comes to allegations that violate established international norms, like torturing prisoners, so CACI as a result can’t claim any derivative immunity.

Jurors next week are also expected to hear testimony from some of the soldiers who were convicted in military court of directly inflicting the abuse. Ivan Frederick, a former staff sergeant who was sentenced to more than eight years of confinement after a court-martial conviction on charges including assault, indecent acts and dereliction of duty, has provided deposition testimony that is expected to be played for the jury because he has refused to attend the trial voluntarily. The two sides have differed on whether his testimony establishes that soldiers were working under the direction of CACI interrogators.

The U.S. government may present a wild card in the trial, which is scheduled to last two weeks. Both the plaintiffs and CACI have complained that their cases have been hampered by government assertions that some evidence, if made public, would divulge state secrets that would harm national security.

Government lawyers will be at the trial ready to object if witnesses stray into territory they deem to be a state secret, they said at a pretrial hearing April 5.

Judge Brinkema, who has overseen complex national security cases many times, warned the government that if it asserts such a privilege at trial, “it better be a genuine state secret.”

Jason Lynch, a government lawyer, assured her, “We’re trying to stay out of the way as much as we possibly can.”

Of the three plaintiffs, only Al-Ejaili, who now lives in Sweden, is expected to testify in person. The other two will testify remotely from Iraq. Brinkema has ruled that the reasons they were sent to Abu Ghraib are irrelevant and won’t be given to jurors. All three were released after periods of detention ranging from two months to a year without ever being charged with a crime, according to court papers.

“Even if they were terrorists it doesn’t excuse the conduct that’s alleged here,” she said at the April 5 hearing.