Archive - Feb 21, 2008

• Bush Pushes AFRICOM Agenda and Touts the Success of AIDS Prevention in Africa
• Armenian Election Results Lead to Mass Protests from Opposition Supporters
• Activists Launch New Strategy for Opposing the Iraq War
• New Information about the Guantanamo Detainee Trials Raises Questions about Fairness and Intent
• Second Anniversary of the Slaying of Eight Colombian Peace Community Members Marked by Continued Impunity for Perpetrators
• Food Safety Issues Examined in Wake of Massive Beef Recall
• Death Penalty Laws in California Scrutinized by State Commission

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• Pakistani Opposition Leaders to Form Coalition
• New Anti-Terrorism Legislation Passed in Canada
• Secret British Dossier on Iraq Made Public
• Texas A&M Fined for Negligence at Biolab

A former top military official says the military tribunals for Guantanamo detainees are rigged.  Colonel Morris Davis, who resigned from his post in October of last year, told The Nation Magazine that, Pentagon General Counsel William Haynes, who now heads the tribunal system, said acquittals are not an option.  An acquittal would mean the US could not justify holding the detainees for so long.  Vince Warren is Executive Director of the Center for Constitutional Rights:

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Colonel Davis has spoken out against the tribunals since he left his post last year.  The Pentagon recently announced that it would seek the death penalty for 6 detainees.  Many of the 270 detainees held at Guantanamo Bay have never been charged with a crime.

President George W Bush is wrapping up a 5-country visit to Africa.  During the tour through Benin, Tanzania, Rwanda, Ghana and Liberia, Bush focused on issues such as  oil supplies in the Gulf of Guinea and a search for an American military command, or Africom, headquarters location.  Along the way, President Bush agreed with a power-sharing solution to the crisis in Kenya, but mainly touted success stories in the fight against HIV/AIDS. From Senegal, Ndiaga Seck reports.

Earlier this week, the US Department of Agriculture issued the largest meat recall in US history –143 million pounds of beef processed over the last two years at the Westland-Hallmark Meat Company in California.  37 million pounds of that meat ended up in school lunch cafeterias across the nation.  The Human Society of the United States captured undercover video at the facility showing cows that were unable to walk being dragged, shocked and prodded with forklifts.

California 's death penalty system has been the target of intense scrutiny. Last month, California's Chief Justice Ron George said there were serious problems with the way the death penalty is implemented in the state. Yesterday the California Commission on the Fair Administration of Justice held its second of three hearings that could lead to sweeping changes in capital punishment statewide.  FSRN's Dan Fritz attended the meeting in downtown Los Angeles and files this report from KPFK.

With less than a month to go before the five-year anniversary of the US occupation in Iraq, anti-war activists and some members of congress are gearing up for their own new offensive to get troops home. The message?   In the face of the growing US recession, billions of US tax dollars are being spent on the war.  FSRN's Karen Miller has more from Washington. 

Eight members of a Peace Community in northern Colombia were brutally killed in 2005. Community members and international human rights observers attest that it was the Colombian army that did the killing.  Among the victims were 3 children. The government, however, said, at that time the victims were FARC collaborators who were killed for trying to leave the group.  From Bogotá, Nicole Karsin has more on the continued impunity of the perpetrators.