World rallies against Guantanamo

HUMAN RIGHTS activists led rallies across the world on 11 January to put pressure on the Bush administration and US Congress to end the detention of foreign prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay military camp.
The Bush administration justifies its detention by stating that the naval base in Guantanamo is outside US territory, so constitutional protections do not apply, an argument that has been consistently challenged by United Nations experts and human rights groups at home and abroad.
In May 2006, a UN panel that monitors compliance with the world’s anti-torture treaty urged the United States to close its prison at Guantanamo and avoid using secret detention facilities in what George W Bush and his allies call “the war on terror”.
The Bush administration dismissed those arguments, saying the UN experts lacked accurate information.
Last month, a UN investigator said he strongly suspects the Central Intelligence Agency of using torture on prisoners at Guantanamo, adding that many prisoners are probably not being prosecuted to keep the abuse from emerging at trial.

US groups sue Shell

US environmentalists took Shell Oil and several of its affiliates to court on Monday 7 January in a bid to stop pollution from a refining and chemicals plant in Texas.
The Sierra Club and Environment Texas want a federal judge to order Shell to cease alleged violations of the Clean Air Act at its 1,500-acre Deer Park complex, located 20 miles east of downtown Houston. The sprawling metropolis is home to Shell and much of the US oil industry.
The US unit of Royal Dutch Shell Group faces possible civil penalties of up to $32,500 per day for each of about 1,000 violations that the groups allege took place between 2003 and 2007.
The case seems destined to draw attention because it involves the sixth-largest US oil refinery and one of the world’s largest petro-chemical producers. The legal challenge pits Shell, an international household name, against the Sierra Club, the oldest and arguably the most prominent US environmental brand.

Iraqi soldier kills US abusers

THE killing of two American soldiers by an Iraqi colleague on patrol with them has raised questions about US military relations with the Iraqis they work with.
An Iraqi soldier opened fire on US soldiers with him in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on 26 December. He killed a captain and a sergeant, and wounded three others, including an Iraqi interpreter.
An uncle of the attacker said that his nephew saw the US soldiers beat up an Iraqi woman. When he asked them to stop, they refused, so he opened fire. A witness said the American captain began to shout at his soldiers and Iraqi women. His men then started to pull the women by their hair.
“The soldier we knew later to be Kaissar shouted at the Americans, ‘No, No,’ but the captain shouted back at the Iraqi soldier,” the witness said.
“Then the Iraqi soldier shouted, ‘Let go of the women you sons of bitches,’ and started shooting at them.” The soldier, he said, then ran off.
“Kaissar is a professional soldier who revolted against the Americans when they dragged a woman by her hair in a brutal way.
“He is a tribal man. He is an Arab with honour who would not accept such behaviour. He killed his captain and sergeant knowing that he would be executed.”

Pakistan poll opposes US attacks

AMID reports that the US administration is considering aggressive covert actions against armed Islamist forces in western Pakistan, a survey suggests that such an effort would be opposed by an overwhelming majority of Pakistanis.
The survey, which was funded by the quasi-governmental US Institute of Peace (USIP) and designed by the University of Maryland’s Programme on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), also found that a strong majority of Pakistanis consider the US military presence in Asia and neighbouring Afghanistan a much more critical threat to their country than Al-Qaeda or Pakistan’s own Taliban movement in the tribal regions along the border with Afghanistan.