Archive - Nov 30, 2007

Former military dictator Jorge Rafael Videla and 16 other military leaders in Argentina will be prosecuted on charges of conspiring to kidnap and kill political activists in a scheme known as Plan Condor, developed by Henry Kissinger and George Bush Sr., head of the CIA at the time. Dictators in Uruguay, Chile , Paraguay, Brazil , and Argentina killed opponents in the 1970s and 80s under the plan, which was also called operation condor. Marie Trigona reports from Argentina where some 30,000 people were disappeared as result, leaving loved ones to seek justice decades later.

In lieu of FSRN's weekly political round up, we take a look at the presidential candidates' stance on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict--an issue that has been in the news this week, but hasn't been a top priority on the campaign trail.  Now that peace negotiations between Israel and Fatah-controlled Palestine are underway, the next president will likely have to engage in the process.  FSRN's Leigh Ann Caldwell takes a look at where the candidates stand on this decades-long conflict.

On the fourteenth anniversary of the U.S. military's "Don't Ask Don't Tell" policy, the Human Rights Campaign and advocates for equal rights are calling for the repeal of the discriminatory policy.  Katharine Jarmul reports.

Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi photojournalist for the Associated Press, will appear before an Iraqi court next week, though the prosecution has yet to reveal what charges he will face. Hussein, who was part of a team of AP photojournalists that won a Pulitzer Prize in 2005, was seized from his Ramadi apartment by the US military in April of last year. He has now been held for 19 months without charge. Erin Siegal has more.

President Musharraf has said that the state of emergency, which many consider de facto martial law, will be lifted on December 16 in the lead-up to January's elections. Students in Lahore, however, remain steadfast in their demands for Musharraf's immediate resignation, the reinstatement of ousted members of the judiciary, and a boycott of the elections by opposition parties. Student demonstrations, which started at individual campuses, have recently coalesced into a multi-campus student movement, culminating in an all-student rally today. Amber Vora reports from Lahore.