April 2008 archive

While the protesters were being thwarted by Mayor Gavin Newsom’s high speed game of wack-a-mole with the Olympic torch through the streets of San Francisco, the Dalai Lama was en route to Tokyo and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was giving one of the most important speeches of his diplomatic career.

First to the Dalai Lama. In remarks this morning in Tokyo, His Holiness defended the right of protesters to voice their dissent, while returning to his calls for nonviolence:

Diarists’s note on the above YouTube: The Dalai Lama’s remarks this morning come immediately after the short clip of Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The final part of this YouTube contains a photo that has raised no small amount of controversy on the web. I include this YouTube because it was the only one I could find with His Holiness’s remarks in English. I have no thoughts regarding the veracity – or lack thereof – of the claims surrounding the last photograph other than to say that this is just one example of why an impartial, international investigation into the riots in Lhasa needs to be held, so that the truth around these events can be discovered.

The New York Times this morning is reporting that Afghanistan is holding secret trials for dozens of Afghan men who were formerly detained by the US in Gitmo and Baghram:

Dozens of Afghan men who were previously held by the United States at Bagram Air Base and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, are now being tried [in Afghanistan] in secretive Afghan criminal proceedings based mainly on allegations forwarded by the American military.

The prisoners are being convicted and sentenced to as much as 20 years’ confinement in trials that typically run between half an hour and an hour, said human rights investigators who have observed them. One early trial was reported to have lasted barely 10 minutes, an investigator said. /snip

Witnesses do not appear in court and cannot be cross-examined. There are no sworn statements of their testimony.

Instead, the trials appear to be based almost entirely on terse summaries of allegations that are forwarded to the Afghan authorities by the United States military. Afghan security agents add what evidence they can, but the cases generally center on events that sometimes occurred years ago in war zones that the authorities may now be unable to reach.

“These are no-witness paper trials that deny the defendants a fundamental fair-trial right to challenge the evidence and mount a defense,” said Sahr MuhammedAlly, a lawyer for the advocacy group Human Rights First who has studied the proceedings. “So any convictions you get are fundamentally flawed.”

Join me below.

crossposted from dailykos at the suggestion of Jay Elias

The second paragraph of Nick Kristof’s piece, after recognizing Condoleeza Rice’s correct observation that we cannot simply invade a 3rd Muslim country, reads as follows:

But this week marks the 14th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide – the last time we said “never again.” And while Ms. Rice is right that we can’t send in American ground troops, there are concrete steps that President Bush can take if he wants to end his shameful passivity

I am no expert in this part of the world, nor in military and diplomatic affairs.  I am also a Quaker, and prefer the use of diplomacy to that of force.  But I also refuse to stand silently by in the face of slaughter.  And I think Kristof’s Memo to Bush on Darfur should be mandatory reading, and the starting point of serious discussions.   Let me explain why.

The National Lawyers Guild has issued a press release calling for University of California at Berkeley’s Boalt Hall law school to fire Professor John Yoo. The NLG calls for the rescission of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 provisions that allow immunity and the prosecution of Yoo as a war criminal. Meanwhile, yesterday, Judiciary Chairman John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) threatened to subpoena John Yoo to testify about the memo at a May 6 hearing of the House Judiciary Committee.

The declassification and release of Yoo’s memorandum to William Haynes, General Counsel of the Department of Defense, written in March 2003, has caused a firestorm in the press. Yoo’s memo is the smoking gun for those looking for evidence of how the Bush Administration flouted basic human rights law, the UN Convention Against Torture, and the U.S. War Crimes Act to initiate a campaign of torture against detainees swept up in the aggressive U.S. military and covert campaigns that followed 9/11.

New York has a new budget:

After reaching an agreement late Tuesday with Gov. David A. Paterson on the last unresolved pieces of the state budget, the Legislature passed the bills on Wednesday that will complete New York’s $122 billion spending plan for the next year.

The new budget, which relies on an array of taxes and fees for smokers, banks, hair salon patrons and others to keep the state’s 200,000-person government running, comes as New York faces one of the most uncertain economic outlooks in recent years.

Among the taxes and fees New Yorkers will have to pay are a $1.25 increase in the state cigarette tax. The new budget also closes a loophole in the state’s tax law that allowed online retailers like Amazon.com to avoid charging New York State sales tax on purchases.

A plan to raise income taxes on New Yorkers who earn more than $1 million a year was not included.

Meanwhile:

Millions of dollars worth of counterfeit tax stamps were seized and a Jordanian man arrested as part of a major undercover investigation into tobacco smuggling in New York, authorities announced Wednesday.

The arrest comes as some authorities voice concern about whether New York state’s planned $1.25-per-pack hike in tobacco taxes, taking the price of a pack in the city to about $9, will fuel demand for contraband cigarettes.

Health surveys have found that more than a third of New York state smokers already regularly buy cigarettes from untaxed sources.

State Department of Taxation and Finance Commissioner Robert L. Megna said his agency has stepped up its campaign against contraband cigarette trafficking over the past year.

Stupid is as stupid does.

The second season starts tonight.  

6 weeks of intense, all out, hard hitting (but no fighting), super fast competition for the oldest, most venerated trophy in professional sports.

Matchups:

Eastern Conference

1 Montreal Canadiens

8 Boston Bruins

2 Pittsburgh Penguins

7 Ottawa Senators

3 Washington Capitals

6 Philadelphia Flyers

4 NJ Devils

5 NY Rangers

Western Conference

1 Detroit Red Wings

8 Nashville Predators

2 San Jose Sharks

7 Calgary Flames

3 Minnesota Wild

6 Colorado Avalanche

4 Anaheim Ducks

5 Dallas Stars

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Tonight’s Games

Senators v. Penguins  

7:00 PM ET

Rangers v. Devils

7:00 PM ET

Avalanche v. Wild

9:00 PM ET

Flames v. Sharks

10:00 PM ET

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HockeyDharmites have already started making their picks.

(Not too late to make yours if you haven’t already done so.)

I’m picking the Sharks to win the whole thing, and incurring the eternal wrath of 73’s entire family by predicting that both the Flyers and the Wild will not get past the first round.

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And remember, a hot goalie can take a team a long way…

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Update:

Pens shutout Sens 4-0

Rangers beat Devils 4-1 (a lot closer game than the score shows)

Update 2:

Avs over Wild in OT 3-2

Flames burn Sharks 3-2 (ucc is looking like a genius right now).

The Olympic Games have been the scene of several high-profile political statements over the past three-quarters of a century. Take a look at these photos and see which ones made an impact: