The US admitted openly for the first time Thursday that it was actively working to undermine Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s president. Although officially Washington does not support regime change, a US State Dept. report acknowledged that it was backing opposition politicians and others critical of Mugabe. The State Dept. also admitted sponsoring events aimed at "discrediting" statements made by Mugabe's government. Washington has specifically backed opposition leader Morgan Tsvangarai, who government agents beat severely last month.
Main Source: The Guardian

The North Carolina Senate apologized Thursday for the Legislature's role in promoting slavery and Jim Crow laws that denied basic human rights to the state's black citizens. The Senate unanimously backed a resolution acknowledging its "profound contrition for the official acts that sanctioned and perpetuated” the long-overturned policies. Black members of the Senate said their fellow lawmakers also need to help improve the quality of life of blacks who still suffer from the slavery’s legacy.
Main Source: USA Today

European diplomats said Thursday that they were investigating whether Ethiopian and Somali government forces committed war crimes last week during heavy fighting that killed more than 300 civilians. In some of the country’s bloodiest fighting of the past 15 years, Ethiopian and Somali forces clashed with bands of rebels. It reduced blocks of buildings in Mogadishu to smoldering rubble. Many residents have complained to human-rights groups, saying the government used excessive force and indiscriminately shelled their neighborhoods.

In the past week, human rights groups have been urging someone to look into the issue of civilian casualties. The Somali Diaspora Network, an American-based advocacy group, accused the transitional government and Ethiopian forces of “collective punishment” and genocide. Several analysts said they believed Ethiopian forces overreacted in the fighting last week.

A war crimes case could fracture the thin veneer of legitimacy bestowed upon Somalia’s interim government by the United Nations and African Union. Ever since the provisional authority took control of Mogadishu with Ethiopian and US help in late December, it has struggled to pacify the city and win popular support. But so far, the government has failed to deliver the same level of stability that an Islamist administration brought during its brief reign last year.

Main Source: New York Times

Weeks have passed since pets started dying after eating tainted pet food, and animal lovers want to know why it's taking so long to figure out why. The answer they're getting – that it takes time – is not what they want to hear. But experts say that identifying an obscure contaminant in food is the scientific equivalent of looking for a needle in a haystack. Although one culprit is now the focus, scientists don't know how the fairly non-toxic chemical led to kidney failure in reportedly hundreds or thousands of pets in what is one of, if not th
Main Source: USA Today

Also...

» 22 brands of dog biscuits added to pet-food recall  (New York Times)

Immigration is helping to keep America's big cities vibrant and alive, buffering major metropolitan areas from a slow drain in population as longtime residents move out, new data released yesterday by the US Census Bureau shows. The trend also holds true for smaller centers, with new arrivals compensating for a shift in population away from the cities and towns of the Midwest and Northeast towards the South. While overall, many areas are still losing population, without immigration the decline would have been far worse.

New York and its suburbs absorbed one million immigrants from 2000 to 2006, the census data shows. Without them the region would have shrunk by nearly 600,000 people. Immigration to Los Angeles prevented an expected decline of 200,000. The greater Boston area took in 163,000 immigrants, saving it from negative population growth.

By the middle of this century, these patterns of movement will put a very different face on the average city. The majority population will be members of ethnic minority groups. In some of the fastest-growing cities, such as the Dallas Fort Worth area, immigrants accounted for nearly 80% of population growth over the last 6 years.

Main Source: The Guardian

Captured Iraqi documents and intelligence interrogations of Saddam Hussein and two former aides "all confirmed" that Hussein's regime was not directly cooperating with Al-Qaeda before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, according to a declassified Defense Department report released Thursday. But the report also exposes new details about the intelligence community's pre-war consensus that the Iraqi government and Al-Qaeda figures had only limited contacts, and reports of deeper links were based on dubious or unconfirmed information.
Main Source: Washington Post

Police have arrested an activist for feeding the homeless in downtown Orlando, Florida. Eric Montanez, 21, of the radical antipoverty group Food Not Bombs, became the first person charged with violating a controversial law against feeding large groups of people in the city center, police said Thursday. Police collected a vial of the stew Montanez was serving as evidence. Critics consider the law just one more way the city is trying to hide rather than address its homelessness problem.
Main Source: Reuters

Also...

» Archived: Orlando’s Homelessness Fight Continues  (The NewStandard)

» Archived: Bans on Feeding Homeless Spread, Face Challenges  (The NewStandard)

Fifteen British sailors freed by Iran called their ordeal "very difficult" after they flew home Thursday to end a tense stand-off that Britain insisted had been resolved without any trade-off. But there were questions amid the celebrations, after Tehran said it had received an apology from Britain, a key demand it made for releasing the 7 marines and 8 sailors.

In a television interview given before their capture but only released Thursday, one of the captured sailors acknowledged gathering intelligence on Iranian activities in the Gulf area. Filmed while boarding an Iraqi fishing vessel, Royal Marine Cpt. Chris Air said they often pumped the fishermen for information, "whether it's about any piracy or any sort of Iranian activity in the area, because obviously we're right near the buffer zone with Iran." Rupert Murdoch’s British holding Sky TV withheld the tape to prevent Air and his comrades from looking guiltier.

Main Source: Agence France-Presse

The US is lagging well behind other countries in planning for the impact of climate change. Only a handful of cities or states have begun projects or adopted regulations to accommodate higher temperatures, changing precipitation patterns, sea-level rise, and longer growing seasons.

There has been little discussion of climate-change adaptation in the US, mainly because the government until recently refused to even acknowledge manmade warming. Environmentalists, too, have shied away from the subject of adaptation, believing it would weaken the focus on the need to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

While the federal government has no national adaptation policy, some initiatives are underway. For example, California has launched a major effort to understand its vulnerability to climate change and help it plan for such possibilities as the intrusion of saltwater into seaside power plants.

Main Source: Boston Globe

TXU Corp., the largest utility in Texas, threatened to shut down some power plants if it can't come to terms with state regulators over accusations that the company manipulated the wholesale market. The head of TXU Wholesale wrote to the Public Utility Commission that the accusations – which TXU rejects – and the proposed penalty of $210 million leave him uncertain whether he could operate older natural-gas plants profitably. Commission staff said TXU's alleged withholding of gas from the market had cost the about $70 million wholesale.
Main Source: Dallas Morning News

The world’s youth will increasingly bear the brunt of global warming, a report by Save the Children said on Friday, with up to 175 million kids affected every year for the next decade. The report said that was 50 million a year more than in the 10 years to 2005. Among societies’ most-vulnerable members, children would be hurt disproportionately, and millions more would be killed, forced from their homes or hit by hunger and disease.
Main Source: Reuters

Discovery Communications plans to start a 24-hour channel focused on eco-friendly living, as part of a push into the rising environmental movement. The company will next year rebrand its Discovery Home Channel, carried in 50 million homes, with a name that will reflect its position as the centerpiece of an initiative called PlanetGreen. In addition to the cable channel, other Discovery outlets including its flagship Discovery Channel will carry documentaries and other programming highlighting green lifestyle efforts.
Main Source: New York Times

Most Florida felons will regain voting and other civil rights more quickly after completing their sentences under changes approved Thursday by the governor and the state clemency board. All but the most violent felons can now avoid waiting for a board hearing to begin voting in elections, serving on juries, or obtaining certain professional licenses, a process that sometimes takes years. The change, which takes effect immediately, was approved by a 3–1 vote of the Republican-dominated committee.
Main Source: Associated Press

Pres. Bush took advantage of Congress’s Easter break on Wednesday to defy Democratic lawmakers and appoint 3 officials who have already drawn heavy criticism on Capitol Hill. Naming the 3 while Congress is in recess allows Bush to avoid the Senate confirmation process. The appointments allow the 3 to remain in their posts until the end of 2008, virtually the end of Bush’s second term.

The president used the recess appointments to install Sam Fox, a major Republican donor from Missouri, to be ambassador to Belgium; Andrew G. Biggs of New York to be deputy commissioner of Social Security; and Susan E. Dudley of Virginia to be administrator of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at the office of Management and Budget.

Fox’s appointment is considered especially egregious, as he was under heavy scrutiny as a major GOP donor who gave $50,000 to the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, which during the 2004 election campaigns produced ads criticizing Sen. John Kerry’s military service.

Dudley’s appointment, too, has come under heavy fire for putting an industry advocate in charge of the obscure-but-powerful regulatory office.

Main Source: New York Times

Also...

» Archived: Free-market champ tapped to head regulatory office  (The NewStandard)

The US military has finally complied with international law by allowing the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit 5 Iranian officials it has detained in Iraq for nearly 3 months on suspicion of plotting against US and Iraqi forces. A Red Cross delegation that included one Iranian citizen visited the detainees, and a request for a formal consular visit with them is "being assessed at this time" by the US military, said the top military spokesperson in Iraq.

News of the visit came a day after the Iraqi government confirmed that an Iranian diplomat, Jalal Sharafi, who was abducted Feb. 4 in downtown Baghdad by people dressed in military uniforms, had been freed. The back-to-back developments raised questions about whether they were connected to the diplomatic crisis involving Britain and Iran. US and Iraqi officials denied that Sharafi's release was related.

Main Source: Washington Post

Eritrea has banned female circumcision, a life-threatening tradition that aid groups say is committed against some 90% of the country's women. A brief statement posted on a government Web site on Thursday said anyone who requests, takes part in or promotes the practice faces a fine or jail sentence. Female circumcision, also called female genital mutilation, is widespread in the Horn of Africa and involves cutting off the clitoris and other parts of the female genitalia, with an estimated 3 million subjected to the practice each year worldwide.
Main Source: Reuters

The parents of John Walker Lindh, who is serving a 20-year sentence in the country's toughest federal prison, stepped up their request for his release Wednesday by noting that the first US war-crimes tribunal in Guantánamo Bay recently resulted in a sentence of 9 months for an Australian detainee held in US custody since late 2001. Lindh's lead lawyer called the effort "a simple cry for justice." In a plea deal in 2002, all terrorism charges against Lindh were dropped, and he pleaded guilty to being a Taliban soldier and carrying weapons.
Main Source: LA Times

Clashes between foreign militants allegedly tied to Al-Qaeda and local militias left 58 dead and scores wounded Wednesday in Pakistan’s restive South Waziristan region, officials said. The fighting reportedly erupted after armed tribal volunteers backed by paramilitary forces and even a pro-Taliban group attacked the positions of Uzbek militants in an area bordering Afghanistan. The fighting reportedly killed 44 of the Uzbeks and local supporters, as well as 10 members of local militias, 3 paramilitary fighters and a Pakistani soldier.
Main Source: LA Times

Aid agencies warned Thursday of a "race against time" to get help to thousands of victims of the Solomons tsunami, as an outbreak of disease raised fears of a humanitarian crisis. The first emergency supplies began reaching camps where almost 5,500 survivors are sleeping out in the remote western region of the impoverished South Pacific archipelago. Government officials said they expected to reach most of the stricken areas by the weekend but admitted problems were holding up aid distribution, especially to the most-isolated areas.
Main Source: Agence France-Presse

Also...

» UN urges better tsunami response  (BBC)

A report by Amnesty International says conditions for detainees at the US military jail at Guantánamo Bay are deteriorating, with the majority held in solitary confinement. Amnesty said the often harsh and inhumane conditions at the camp were "pushing people to the edge." It called for the facility to be closed and for "unfair" military commission trials to be abandoned. Many of the 385 inmates have been held for 5 years or more, unable to mount a legal challenge to their detention.
Main Source: BBC

If private security contractor Blackwater USA gets its way, the tiny community of Petrero, Cali. will soon host an 824-acre military training base, replacing an erstwhile chicken ranch with 15 firing ranges and an emergency-vehicle operator’s course the length of 10 football fields. Blackwater isn’t a stranger to controversy. The families of 4 security contractors killed in Fallujah are suing the firm for information regarding the deaths. Since 9/11, the firm’s revenues have grown from $250,000 to hundreds of millions.
Main Source: Raw Story

The government proposed today relaxing its rules on labeling of irradiated foods and suggested it may allow some products zapped with radiation to be called "pasteurized." The US Food and Drug Administration said the proposed rule would require companies to label irradiated food only when the radiation treatment causes a material change to the product. Food and Water Watch said the move “would deny consumers clear information about whether they are buying food that has been exposed to high doses of ionizing radiation."
Main Source: Associated Press

Also...

» FDA plays with irradiation label  (All Headline News)

Twenty-one Shia market workers were bound and shot dead north of Iraq’s capital. The victims came from the same Baghdad market visited the previous day by Sen. John McCain, who said that the American security plan in the capital was starting to show signs of progress. McCain took a heavily guarded tour of Baghdad’s oldest market, purportedly to prove that point. Vendors denied the market was safe. It is not clear if the murdered vendors actually met McCain during the jaunt he took with Sen. Lindsey Graham and Reps. Mike Pence and Rick Renzi.
Main Source: The Times of London

Also...

» Iraqis in Baghdad reject McCain’s claims of safe market  (Associated Press)

The Central African Republic faces a growing humanitarian disaster, with the lives of a quarter of its people disrupted by civil and regional warfare, the UN children's agency UNICEF said on Wednesday. Although the UN appealed in January for richer countries to provide just $11.7 million to fund basic health, schooling and water programs, only $2.5 million has been pledged so far. The fighting is partly a spinoff of Sudan’s civil war in Darfur.

Studies have indicated that some 15 percent of the adult female population in the country’s north have been raped. Young boys are increasingly being recruited into fighting forces in the north, while overall some 450 children die each week across the Republic's northern region from malnutrition and preventable disease, UNICEF said.

Main Source: Reuters

The 15 British sailors and marines detained in Iran for nearly 2 weeks have been formally pardoned and will be released immediately, Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said today. The 14 men and one woman, detained March 23, would be released and taken to the airport as soon as his speech was over, he said, calling it a "gift" to Britain at Easter. The announcement was a distinct surprise, coming at the end of the president's hour-long address to reporters in Tehran, much of which consisted of complaints against the UK and the US.

After the press conference, Ahmadinejad met each of the captives, at least one of whom thanked the president profusely. A smiling Ahmadinejad wished the detainees luck. He had requested London not prosecute the detainees for apparently admitting they had in fact wandered into Iranian territorial waters.

In another development, Iran's official news agency said an Iranian representative was due to meet 5 Iranians detained by US forces in Irbil, Iraq, in January. Tehran says the men are diplomats; the US says they are Revolutionary Guards linked to “insurgents” in Iraq. It is not clear whether the visitation permission was granted in exchange for the release of Iran’s detainees.

Main Source: The Guardian

A videographer who spent 7 1/2 months in prison for refusing to turn over footage of a San Francisco street demonstration to a federal grand jury was released from custody Tuesday after striking a deal with prosecutors to publish his outtakes on the Web. Under the agreement, Josh Wolf, 24, will not have to testify or identify people shown in the video, which he maintains was his biggest concern. The US attorney is investigating the wounding of a police officer as well as an alleged attempt to set fire to a police car.

The video footage Wolf released Tuesday morning on did not show either incident. All along Wolf had insisted that the video did not contain anything that would be relevant to the investigation, but he also said he had a constitutional right as a journalist not to cooperate with authorities and become "an arm of law enforcement." Wolf served a longer term than any journalist in US history has served for refusing to reveal unpublished material or sources.

Main Source: LA Times

Massachusetts' governor ordered state officials to record the marriages of 26 out-of-state gay couples whose unions were blocked by his predecessor, Mitt Romney. The 26 couples affected by Gov. Deval Patrick's decision had obtained marriage licenses in 4 towns where clerks defied Romney's order not to issue marriage licenses to out-of-state gay couples. Registering the marriages won't change the status of the couples in their home states, but the governor said he made the decision because keeping the marriages out of the record was a “gimmick.”
Main Source: Associated Press

A French TGV train broke a world speed record when it hurtled down a newly built track at 574.8 km per hour in France's Champagne region. Both the president and the prime minister saluted the achievement, a morale-booster for a nation that prides itself on its technological know-how, but is grappling with high unemployment and a trade deficit. The train, called V150, is an enhanced version of trains that will run on the Paris-Strasbourg line from June 10. The previous record of 515.3kph was also set by a TGV train in 1990.
Main Source: Agencies

The US Environmental Protection Agency defended itself Tuesday after the US Supreme Court ordered it to consider greenhouse gases as pollutants. The high court told the EPA it was wrong to claim it had no jurisdiction over emissions such as carbon dioxide, which contribute to global warming. The EPA is now standing up for Bush, commending his administration for “an unparalleled financial, international and domestic commitment to reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.” Critics say Bush’s commitments have been to industry, not the environment.
Main Source: Agence France-Presse

A secret FBI intelligence unit helped detain a group of war protesters in a downtown Washington parking garage in April 2002 and interrogated some of them on videotape about their political and religious beliefs, newly uncovered documents and interviews show. For years, law enforcement authorities denied it ever happened. The FBI and DC police said they had no records of such an incident. And police told a federal court that no FBI agents were present when officers arrested more than 20 protesters that afternoon for trespassing.

Police said they viewed the activists as suspicious for milling around the parking garage entrance. The “probable cause” to arrest the protesters as they retrieved food from their parked van? They were wearing black – a color choice the FBI and police associated with anarchists, according to the police records. It is not illegal to be an anarchist in the United States.

Main Source: Washington Post

Tenants in some public-housing complexes can no longer light up in the one place that seemed safe from smoking bans: their own homes. From California to Maine, at least 36 public-housing authorities have made their apartments smoke-free, according to the Smoke-Free Environments Law Project. Such policies are not unusual in private dwellings. The trend has accelerated in government-subsidized rentals in the past year.

Housing officials say they made the change to protect non-smoking tenants from secondhand smoke, prevent cigarette fires and reduce the cost of rehabbing smokers' apartments. Smokers' rights groups and fair-housing advocates say the bans are hard on the poor, who don't have many housing options.

Main Source: USA Today

Zimbabwe's government headed by Robert Mugabe has increased police patrols and stepped up a propaganda blitz to stifle a national strike over wages. The government accuses the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions of calling the 2-day strike, which began on Tuesday, at the behest of the Movement for Democratic Change. On Wednesday, Zimbabwe riot-police squads patrolled the capital, Harare, in large numbers. The response to the strike call was mixed with offices and shops staying open, though streets in Harare remained uncharacteristically deserted.
Main Source: Aljazeera

The 2007 Atlantic hurricane season will probably be "very active" with 17 named storms, including nine hurricanes, five of them major, storm forecasters William M. Gray and Philip J. Klotzbach said Tuesday. They said there was a 74% chance that a major hurricane would strike the US coast between northern Maine and South Texas. That prediction is higher than the long-term average of 52%. Though considered the top in his field, Gray was famously wrong in predicting 2006’s season would be extraordinarily strong.
Main Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Kenya, which closed its Somalia border last year, has refused hundreds of Somali refugees fleeing clashes. Most of the stranded refugees trekked from Mogadishu and lack food, medicine and water. Diarrhea has killed 6 children as border security denied aid agencies access to the families. A human-rights group said figures from hospitals, burials and residents show 381 non-Ethiopians killed in Mogadishu since Thursday. Another 565 were wounded in the insurgents' and Ethiopian-backed troops' fighting. The UN says 56,000 have fled the capital.
Main Source: BBC

Also...

» Group says nearly 400 Mogadishus killed since Thursday  (London Times)

The US Supreme Court has dealt a setback to prisoners held for over 5 years without charges at the US military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, by refusing – for now – to hear their claim of being denied the constitutional right to habeas corpus. The Constitution says this right to challenge one’s detention "shall not be suspended" except during invasions or insurrections, but the Bush administration refuses to extend the right to foreign-born prisoners held by the US military outside the nation's borders.

The close decision against deciding this issue in the current term said prisoners had not exhausted the established appeals process. None of the current prisoners has tried that option, which their lawyers call a sham, because the appeals court already has ruled that they have no rights under the Constitution. The seemingly hopeless process means another year of incarceration for the 385 detainees held at Guántanamo.

Main Source: LA Times

Also...

» Another year in jail for military prisoners not charged  (Baltimore Sun)

Massachusetts, New York, California and 9 other states won a battle to limit global warming when the Supreme Court ruled the federal government is obligated to regulate greenhouse gases. The Bush administration argued carbon dioxide is not a pollutant the EPA must regulate. The case focused on pollution from new cars and trucks, but the implications could compel the regulation of heat-trapping gases from many sources.

Environmentalists are exultant over this and the court's broad reading in another case of the EPA’s authority over factory and power-plant emissions. They expect the Bush administration will "run out the clock" and continue to delay action on global warming for the next 2 years of its voluntary-reductions policy.

But with these rulings, the next president will have the power to regulate emissions from greenhouse gases. This threat could force Congress to pass global-warming legislation as well as compel industry to agree to limits.

Main Source: Baltimore Sun

Also...

» Environmental advocates exultant over dual court decisions  (New York Times)

At least 65 people were killed in a cross-border raid by Sudanese Janjaweed militia who burned down 2 villages in eastern Chad, driving up to 8,000 civilians from their homes, Chadian authorities have alleged. Chad's government claimed its forces killed 25 of the raiders. Early reports indicate at least 70 wounded, half of them seriously, but the toll will likely rise with casualty figures from the second village attacked.

Sudan denied any role in the weekend attacks, but the UN confirmed “at least 65 dead” just in one of the villages and reported "corpses along roadsides" after the raids. The UN cited victims' testimony that the assault was led by Janjaweed paramilitary. At least 2,000 fleeing – mostly women and children – reached a refugee camp that already shelters over 19,000 Darfur refugees, according to the UN.

Main Source: Reuters

In the most serious confrontation between Ukraine PM Viktor Yanukovych and Pres. Viktor Yushchenko since 2004, thousands of Yanukovych supporters streamed into the capital. Protests at parliament resembled the Orange Revolution that gave Yushchenko the presidency – replacing Yanukovych. Counter-rallies are planned by the president's supporters. Yushchenko has ended a political truce by announcing he will dissolve parliament and call early elections. Lawmakers responded by firing the elections commission and vowing to not fund new elections.
Main Source: Associated Press

The Army has ordered 2 units comprised of 4,500 soldiers returned to Iraq short of the normal yearlong stay at their home bases in order to fuel Pres. Bush's Baghdad escalation. Earlier in 2007, a combat brigade was rushed into Iraq after less than 11 months in the US – a fact not previously disclosed. Officials warned of the same for other units if the buildup goes into 2008. The military is increasing the deployment of other divisions and calling up more National Guard. Officials still only anonymously acknowledge the Army is "stretched."
Main Source: LA Times