The regime of Saddam Hussein fell on April 9, 2003; four years ago today. The anniversary was marked with peaceful protests calling for US forces to abandon their "occupation" of Iraq. The most vocal protests were affiliated with Muqtada al-Sadr, a powerful Shi'ite cleric. Al-Sadr's supporters made varying statements calling for US withdraw and expressing […]
I want to send you to my colleague Bonnie Boyd's terrific article on climate change in Central Asia. Bonnie is the FPA's blogger on Central Asia and has got some really interesting posts going up.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its second report of the year yesterday in Brussels. (I referenced this in "Headlines" below on April 3.) The IPCC Report is titled "Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability" , that's a mouthful. Go to the IPCC website for all the material relevant to this including the […]
Memorials regarding the 13th anniversary of the massacres in Rwanda have commenced this week. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon issued a statement earlier this week reflecting on "one of humankind's darkest chapters." The Secretary General made comments that it is important to "never forget" and "never stop working to prevent another genocide." He highlighted measures […]
I've been looking at renewable energy , we used to call it alternative energy , for a long time. When I went, as a high schooler, to the first Earth Day in 1970, I said, "Yeah, great. This is the future." When I read Barry Commoner's The Politics of Energy, published in 1979, I said […]
Fifteen British Royal Naval officers have been returned after nearly two weeks of captivity in Iran. The sailors were detained by Iranians after an encounter in which British vessels were searching the area for smuggled goods. The Iranians contest that British vessels had wandered into Iranian waters, while the British maintain they were within Iraqi […]
No child should ever fight the wars of their countries, nor should they ever have to live in such fear. But the truth is that millions are doing just that every day, there lives are lost and their innocence is never returned. Children, who never had a doll or a video game, but know how […]
(AP) SAN FRANCISCO The lawyer and parents of John Walker Lindh, the American-born Taliban soldier serving 20 years in prison after his capture in Afghanistan, called on President Bush on Wednesday to commute his sentence and set him free.
THE HAGUE (Reuters) – Former Bosnian Serb policeman Dragan Zelenovic was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment by the U.N. war crimes tribunal on Wednesday, after he pleaded guilty to the rape and torture of Bosnian Muslims in the 1992-1995 war. Zelenovic, a 46-year-old former paramilitary leader, was indicted in 1996 for atrocities committed against non-Serbs […]
Supreme Court – As of noon Eastern time today, Google listed 1,127 news articles reporting on yesterday's U.S. Supreme Court decision, 5-4, in favor of the plaintiffs in probably the most important climate change case to be adjudicated anywhere in the world. Here's the story from "The Guardian" and from "The Online NewsHour." See this excellent analysis […]
The Associated Press: April 3, 2007 THE HAGUE, Netherlands: An appeals court of the U.N. Yugoslav tribunal on Tuesday cut two years from the 32-year prison sentence of a Bosnian Serb political leader, upholding all but a few clauses of his conviction for pursuing a campaign of ethnic cleansing in northwest Bosnia. Radislav Brdjanin, 59, […]
Children's rights are not always what you think they are, no one needs to tell you that sexual exploitation, slavery, rape, etc. are crimes against children and that these crimes infringe on a child's rights. Issues such as poverty, nutrition, education, literacy, and other such issues areas are also part of children's rights, these are […]
The Supreme Court today denied appeals from several cases filed by detainees held in the US detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Court stated that detainees no longer have the right to file a habeas petition. The Military Commissions Act (MCA) of 2006 stripped access to the Great Writ. The Court passed in order […]
Five African Union (AU) soldiers participating in the peacekeeping effort in Darfur were killed near the border with Chad today. It is unclear which group was responsible for the attack. It is the heaviest lose for the AU since being deployed to the region in 2004. More reporting on this issue as it develops. BBC […]
1 Plato, "Symposium"
2 Young Edward (Drummer Boy of Waterloo).
3 Protocol I: Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts, 8 June 1977
4 Cape Town Principles and Best Practices, April 1997. http://www.unicef.org/emerg/files/Cape_Town_Principles(1).pdf
5 Paris conference on child soldiers concludes with commitment to stop the recruitment of children. http://www.unicef.org/media/media_38231.html
6 Peter W. Singer. Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies Director, 21st Century Defense Initiative. Personal correspondence.
7 Child Soldiers still recruited 10 years after pact. Reuters. March 20, 2007. http://uk.reuters.com/article/reutersEdge/idUKZWE06965320070320
8 "Bombers Blow Up 2 Children After Using Them as Decoys" , Semple, Kirk. The New York Times, March 21, 2007, A8
9 Francis Orr's photoessay on the atrocities in Uganda may be found at http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-uganda5jun05-splash,0,70542.story
0 Child Soldiers of the Lord's Resistance Army. National Public Radio, August 9th, 2005. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4791635
11 For more information on Red Hand Day, visit www.redhandday.org.