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AMENDMENT V

[ This is the text of the Fifth Amendment. For an explanatory article, see our Wex page]

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

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WWH/CJE – Citizen journalists Exchange ( CJE ) is looking for Citizen Reporters,Bloggers, Activists, Entertainers contributors from the community as well as part/full time volunteers..

Since this site was started 3 years ago it has grown tremendously in popularity and relevance. It is new and immediate , not only in its news coverage but in providing a powerful outlet for Independent Media.

This is a worldwide community news and media site  We need eyes and ears around the world letting us know what’s going on, as well as support staff.  Contributions can be news stories,news and entertainment videos, notices of upcoming events or blogs. Ideally, for blogs, we would like consistent contributions. Stories and photographs are also welcome.

Want to work behind the scene? We are looking for editors (video and text), public relations and promotion personnel, webmasters and sales persons.

Before the Internet, only professional journalists had access to the technology and organizational infrastructure to publish their work to a large audience. If the average citizen wanted to contribute to the news cycle, he or she could write a letter to the editor or circulate a homemade newspaper or “zine” through the mail. But today, armed with a computer,smart phone,high-speed Internet connection and digital camera absolutely anyone can share newsworthy information and opinions with a worldwide audience.

Make a move from observer to activist. Sign up or find out more today!

This is the face of an evil man.

by KERRY PICKET,breitbart.com -

An obscure November 2012 Wikileaks email dump points to former White House counterterrorism adviser and now-CIA chief John Brennan as the person behind the “witch hunt” of journalists who reported unflattering Obama administration leaks.

A little over a week after President Barack Obama’s reelection, Wikileaks released an email dump of global intelligence files from the private intelligence company Stratfor. One particular email, dated September 21, 2010 discussed President Obama’s “Leak Investigations.”

The Massachusetts ACLU tweeted out a link that referenced the email and the president’s “war on whistleblowers” on November 15, 2012. The tweet only received two re-tweets after sitting online for seven months. Stratfor’s VP for Intelligence, Fred Burton, declined to comment for this story. Read more…

By Dr Tommy J Curry, Racism Review

As an historical entity, the Black press has not only offered critical commentaries and political critiques of the sempiternal racism of the modern world, but  correctives as to how white newspapers, opinion-makers, legislators, and most importantly the white public sought to justify their complacency towards and support for anti-Black racism and the sexual brutalization of Black men, women, and children. Today, however, the post-Obama lullabies of racial détente and the progressive liberal passivity of Black intellectuals have allowed the structural and ideological manifestations of white supremacy to remain unquestioned despite their persistence alongside the growing realities of Black death. For example, when Trayvon Martin was killed, Melissa Harris Perry thought it prudent to use the tragedy as a moment to teach white folks “how to talk about Black death”—she literally created a checklist for whites rather than deal with the horrors facing young Black men and boys in their communities.

Currently, the post-racial idea has contoured Black news into a narrow politically progressive ideology. This ideology is thematically geared towards convincing the Black public that the symbols of racial progress are in fact actual progress. This contest over “symbols,” rather than exposing the propaganda of the liberal endeavor, allows Black academics to retreat into their own ideologically predetermined blog’s rendering of “Black” events, so that their views, be it feminist, leftist, or progressive, are legitimized. Meanwhile, the Black public remains victimized by the political interests of multiple entities; each with their agenda rooted in de-radicalizing Black consensus and normalizing Black deaths, specifically the death of Black men, as having nothing to do with racism, merely accidental rather than systemic. As I have argued previously, Black academics and news personalities are rewarded for pimping out “the delusion of hope” to Black people while racism increases alongside the normalization of their death, incarceration, and poverty.

Has the Black Press Lost Its Way?

Since slavery, Black abolitionists, ministers, and revolutionaries understood the need for “Black perspectives,” on the racist evil that plagues America. The Christian theology that justified the horrors of slavery was indicted, and the white Christian, the earliest imperialist, was not held to be the savior of civilization but its greatest detractor whose abuse and degradation of Blacks was rooted in their imperial lust for power and profit. As David Walker says in Article I of The Appeal:

“I have been for years troubling the pages of historians, to find out what our fathers have done to the white Christians of America, to merit such condign punishment as they have inflicted on them, and do continue to inflict on us their children. But I must aver, that my researches have hitherto been to no effect. I have therefore, come to the immoveable conclusion, that they (Americans) have, and do continue to punish us for nothing else, but for enriching them and their country. For I cannot conceive of anything else”

With the rise of Freedom’s Journal, the Black press took on the radical mission of liberation that up to that point was confined to pamphlets, and the now revered slave narrative. The Black press, its editors and writers, were among the most notable Black thinkers of the 1800’s and beyond. T.Thomas Fortune’s (1856-1928) The New York Age was the training ground for no less an intellectual than W.E.B. DuBois. It was a publication where Fortune’s radicalism which advocated for Black self-determination and security, even by armed resistance if necessary, was center stage. It not only gained him notoriety among Black journalists but earned him the admiration of the young Ida B. Wells-Barnett (1862-1931) who would continue to develop his political philosophy of agitation and help build the first civil rights organization for Black rights; the Afro-American League. This radicality was present in most of the Black journalists at the turn of the century. Henry McNeal Turner and John Edward Bruce exemplified a political tone that was only matched by the radicality of the 1960’s and 1970’s in the founding and growth of the Black Panther Party and the journalistic accounts of the Black Power Movement. As my student, Ms. Judith Bohr, points out in her master’s thesis “A People’s History of Philosophy: The Development and Ideological Segregation of Black Nationalism,” the violence against Blacks in society, be it at the hands of police state militarism or the prison industrial complex, necessitates a compliant and complacent account of reality. As she states,

“The media assists in this erasure of police violence through their portrayals of African Americans as a danger to society…Whites’ fear, however, is for their privilege and not for their safety…Propaganda in the media functions through erasure and through distortions of the state’s as well as the public’s motivations for racial violence” (Bohr 2011, 30).

Thus, the de-radicalization of Black news and the complacency of the Black journalistic endeavor—its commodification into  predetermined categories, that ironically have academic currency despite being driven by political interests—does little to inform, much less improve, the conditions of Black people. The silence of mainstream Black news on the systemic political and economic divisions, divisions made necessary by the militaristic racist endeavors of the U.S. government, even under a Black Obama administration, is imperative in preventing the Black public from engaging the concrete American condition confronting Blacks, immigrants, and the poor. Read more…

The oversized and profusely illustrated volume by Lucianne Lavin is subtitled, “What Archeology, History, and Oral Traditions Teach us About Their Communities and Cultures.”
The author is the director of research and collections at the Institute for American Indian Studies and co-director of the Connecticut Native American exhibition at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History.

The book goes back in time more than 10,000 years to the first people who settled in Connecticut and follows Native American history in the state to the present day. Lavin, who lives in Torrington, said the book is a much-expanded version of the guide she wrote to accompany the opening of a 50th anniversary celebration of the Archaeological Society of Connecticut in 1984. More…

Native American Tribal leaders gather
Niagara Falls, NY– the United South and Eastern Tribes Inc. will be hosting their annual meeting at the Seneca Niagara Casino and Hotel.

Tribal leaders will focus on improving Indian country, while enjoying a stay at the Seneca Nation casino. According to a press release, More than 400 Native American representatives from 28 member tribes are expected to attend the three-day conference. More…

Randall Rasmussen

KENT: Native children belong in Native homes
I could fill volumes with the tripe I receive whenever I write about a Native American issue; and usually from the same select herd of Einsteins (no offense intended to my friends who raise bovines).

Notwithstanding, the issues are what the issues are and they do tend to keep coming down the pike.

Yeah, those Lakota – “always causing a brouhaha about something.” I believe it’s called “standing up for your rights.”

Case in point: the South Dakota Department of Social Services. I’ve heard complaints about DSS since I began covering Indian Country here some 20 years ago. I’ve written about the Indian Child Welfare Act numerous times and interviewed its author, former U.S. Sen. James Abourezk, D-S.D.

The requirements for ICWA implementation are no different now than they were when the legislation was written in 1978. There are no grey areas. The tribe has exclusive rights over Native American children taken out of their homes; state courts must defer to tribal courts in the adoption or custody of Indian children residing within their own tribal reservation. More…

Cat Power.

Cat Power vows to quit America in bizarre rant
Cat Power has vowed to quit the US in a bizarre rant posted to her Instagram account.

The musician, whose real name is Chan Marshall, railed against the “powers that be” in the all-caps post.

She promised to leave the US until those powers took responsibility for “lies, protection of wealth and vicious slayings and inhumane private contracted militaries”.

Marshall went on to demand a “tri-partisan” and a Native American vote.

The post ended with her urging followers to spread the “message of solidarity” and tagging celebrities including Kim Kardashian, Bono, Oprah and James Franco.

The full post reads:

“THANK YOU FOR THE HOPE IN YOUR SYMBOLISM. BUT I HAVE TO LEAVE, AMERICA. I WILL COME BACK TO LIVE, FOR YOU, LIBERTY, WHEN THOSE POWERS THAT BE, TAKE RESPONSIBILITY IN HEARING THE MAJORITY VOICE OF THE PEOPLES OF THE UNITED AMERICAN STATES More…

The mysterious Dr Glidden: Callous actions of archaeologist who raided hundreds of Native American graves to set up macabre museum remembered in California
A Santa Catalina Island museum has opened an exhibit on a self-styled archaeologist who dug up hundreds of local American Indian graves and made a tourist trap out of their bones
The exhibit on Ralph Glidden says he, through his unscientific plundering, disregarded ‘the sanctity of human remains’ and inflicted ‘near-permanent damage’ on research into local Native American life
The exhibit includes necklaces and other artifacts of the Tongva Indians who once lived on Catalina and the other Channel Islands

Laying out what visitors can expect, the museum’s Executive Director Michael De Marsche compared the exhibition to those at Holocaust museum’s in Europe saying they explore, ‘similar issues: the genocide of a people, the desecration of their graves and the lack of respect for the sacredness of their remains.’

The ‘disturbing and troubling exhibition’ was put together after museum curator discovered boxes of Glidden’s journals, letters and photographs that document how he went about his dubious methods.More…

WS – One in nine of the nation’s bridges are rated as structurally deficient, while the average age of the nation’s 607,380 bridges is currently 42 years. According to The Federal Highway Administration. The The Federal Highway Administration has changed the standards (for the rating ,,,structurally deficient) several times since 2001. So the real number of fucked up bridges are much higher. Fast facts; 

With $656 billion—the direct cost of the war in Iraq since 2003—we could have:

• Brought to “good condition” all of America’s deteriorating public structures—bridges and roads, airports and railroads, schools and parks, water and sewer systems; [American Society of Civil Engineers] or
• Paid for a college education for every high school graduate over the next decade; [U.S. Department of Education] or
• Eliminated hunger worldwide. [Reuters]

Miracle is the word that comes to Dan Sligh’s mind after he and his wife Sally survived a plunge off a highway bridge in Washington State Thursday evening.

Sligh tells The Seattle Times that they were driving on Interstate-5 near Mount Vernon, Wash., around 7 p.m. local time when he saw a truck carrying a heavy load strike the southbound side of a bridge over the Skagit River. Moments later, a long chunk of the bridge began collapsed into the river.

“Forward momentum just carried us right over and … we saw the water approaching,” Sligh told the Times. “You just hold on as tight as you can. Then just a white flash and cold water.”

Judging from photos taken at the scene, they fell at least a couple stories. The Slighs were in a pickup.

As we reported earlier Friday, authorities say no one was killed. At least two vehicles went into the river. Three people, including the Slighs, were rescued from the water and are said to be in stable condition at area hospitals. More…

Today is “Rain On My Back Day” – What a wonderful speech the President made yesterday.

Boy Scouts End Longtime Ban on Openly Gay Youths

WS – What bullshit! – The new policy states that when they turn 18, they cannot be associated with the Scouts. The “New” policy is really a way of identifying gays so they cannot be future Scout leaders.

The Boy Scouts of America on Thursday ended its longstanding policy of forbidding openly gay youths to participate in its activities, a step its chief executive called “compassionate, caring and kind.”

The decision, which came after years of resistance and wrenching internal debate, was widely seen as a milestone for the Boy Scouts, a symbol of traditional America. More than 1,400 volunteer leaders from across the country voted, with more than 60 percent approving a measure that said no youth may be denied membership “on the basis of sexual orientation or preference alone.”

The top national leaders of the Boy Scouts, who pledge fealty to God and country, had urged the change in the face of vehement opposition from conservative parents and volunteers, some of whom said they would quit the organization. But the vote put the Scouts more in line with the swift rise in public acceptance of homosexuality, especially among younger parents who are essential to the future of an institution that has been losing members for decades. More…

Japan Radiation Widely Contaminates Pacific Marine Life

WS – Let’s talk about the political and media “contamination” of telling the truth about this. Thats what’s really deadly.

Traces of radioactive cesium from Japan’s crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant have been found in water and plankton collected from all 10 points monitored across a vast stretch of the western Pacific.
The isotopes cesium-134 and cesium-137 were found in the tiny plantlike creatures from the coast of Japan’s Hokkaido Island to Guam.

The samples were taken early last year, less than a year after the tsunami that overwhelmed the plant, but the findings were just announced at a meeting of the Japan Geoscience Union.

Cesium-134 has a half-life of two years while it takes 30 years for cesium-137 to decay by half.

Scientists say the isotopes were being dispersed across the Pacific in plankton, and were accumulating up the food chain as the tiny creatures were eaten by larger marine life. More…

HRW: More Afghan Women Jailed For ‘Moral Crimes’

WS – Back in America moral crimes are a prerequisite for public office.

Human Rights Watch says the number of Afghan women and girls jailed for “moral crimes” has risen by 50 percent in the past 18 months.

The international rights group says the increase suggests that Afghan authorities may feel they no longer need to support women’s rights as international troops prepare to withdraw from Afghanistan next year.

The group presented its findings at a press conference in Kabul on May 21. It said 600 women are now imprisoned in Afghanistan for “moral crimes.”

It said most of them were victims of sexual assault and family violence who had run away from their attackers. More…

Mayor Rahm Emanuel really is a corrupt Mayor.

The Axe Falls on 50 Chicago Public Schools

WS – Watch the money from Obama flow into Chicago for private, corporate run charter schools. Follow the money folks.

At times, the meeting of the Board of Education of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) on Wednesday took on the air of a mass mock trial; at others, it seemed like a public execution. On the dock were 53 elementary schools and one high school charged with underutilization of space and underperformance. The prosecutor—CPS superintendent Barbara Byrd-Bennett—charged that those crimes led to an even more grave offense: unbalancing the budget. The proposed punishment? Off with their heads, or rather, shut their doors and merge them with other schools in the largest single closing of urban public schools in U.S. history.

As they had done in rounds of community public hearings leading up to this hearing, parents, community leaders, city council members, teachers union leaders and teachers decried the closures from nearly every angle. They challenged the idea of the mass shutdown, saying the plan is unworkable at the speed and scale CPS has proposed. They noted the closures are unlikely to fulfill CPS’s stated goals of saving money or improving education. They called the plan “racist” for concentrating 90 percent of the closures in majority black neighborhoods. And they argued the closures would worsen the lives of school children—especially the most vulnerable with learning disorders or other disabilities—by disrupting them so abruptly.

And people also came to the podium to plead for their own beloved individual schools. They tried rational arguments: Our test scores are better than you think. They’re improving fast. And they’re better than our rival, which is not closing. Or they claimed the school wasn’t underutilized: It just has lots of disabled kids who by law need smaller classes. More…

Occupy Arrests Near 8,000 As Wall Street Eludes Prosecution

WS – Get up, stand up and take it to them. Yea right…  Time for some insurgency tactics. IMHO

Here’s a fact that may make your blood boil: Nearly 8,000 Occupy Wall Street protesters have been arrested in association with the activist movement, while not one banker has been prosecuted for the actions that lead up to the country’s financial meltdown.

The website OccupyArrests.com has tracked 7,736 in 122 cities nationwide since the Occupy movement began in September 2011.

On Monday, hundreds of members of Occupy Our Homes, an organization that supports homeowners facing foreclosure, protested outside of the Justice Department to speak out against homeowner abuses in the wake of the housing crisis. Seventeen former homeowners were arrested that day, according to Washington police.

“We want our attorney general, Eric Holder, to bring some accountability from the banks and put them in jail,” protester Vivian Richardson, whose home was foreclosed on in 2010, told The Huffington Post Monday.

The Department of Justice has long been a target of Occupy protesters for its unwillingness to take judicial action against those responsible for the financial crisis.

Even Attorney General Eric Holder has acknowledged that some of the nation’s largest banks have become too big to prosecute — a claim he later walked back on after it incited backlash. More…

New bird flu strain may be capable of spreading from human to human – study

WS – My dog friend Boo asks; Why do we never hear about viruses that spread from humans to animals?

The H7N9 bird flu virus may be capable of spreading from human to human and can be transmitted not only through direct contact but also through airborne exposure, researchers at the University of Hong Kong have found.

The researchers found in a study, presented at a news briefing on Friday, that three ferrets – the main animal used for research into human influenza – that were placed in close contact with ferrets injected with H7N9 contracted the virus.

One out of three that were kept in different cages became infected through airborne exposure.

The World Health Organization (WHO) has previously said it has no evidence of “sustained human to human transmission” of the virus, which has killed 36 people in China.

“The findings suggest that the possibility of this virus evolving further to form the basis of a future pandemic threat cannot be excluded,” said the research team, led by bird flu expert and microbiologist Yi Guan. More…

German Beer Purity Threatened by Fracking Say Brewers

WS – It’s the fucking tap water, stupid!

German brewers called on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government to block the tapping of shale gas by means of hydraulic fracturing, citing industry concerns that fracking could taint the purity of the country’s beer.
The Association of German Breweries, which represents companies including Anheuser-Busch InBev NV (ABI) (ABI) and Bitburger Braugruppe GmbH, rejected the government’s planned legislation on fracking until groundwater contamination can be safely excluded. They said the current proposals are inadequate to protect drinking water and hence risk infringing the country’s 500-year-old law on beer purity.
“We are concerned that fracking endangers the brewing water that more than half of Germany’s breweries take from private wells,” Marc-Oliver Huhnholz, a spokesman for the group, said today by phone from Berlin. “And that it threatens our absolutely pure beer.” The association has sent a letter voicing its concerns to six Cabinet ministers including Environment Minister Peter Altmaier, he said, confirming a report in Bild newspaper today. More…

Wily Cockroaches Find Another Survival Trick: Laying Off the Sweets

WS – That explains why the Clintons are looking slimmer lately. Just sayin.

Everyone knows that cockroaches are the ultimate survivors, with enough evolutionary tricks up their carapaces to have thrived for 350 million years and to have completely adapted to the human species.

But the nature of the adaptation that researchers in North Carolina described on Thursday in the journal Science is impressive even for such an ancient, ineradicable lineage, experts say. Some populations of cockroaches evolved a simple, highly effective defense against sweet-tasting poison baits: They switched their internal chemistry around so that glucose, a form of sugar that is a sweet come-hither to countless forms of life, tastes bitter.

The way the roach’s senses changed, experts say, is an elegant example of quick evolutionary change in behavior, and offers the multibillion-dollar pest control industry valuable insights into enemy secrets, perhaps even revealing some clues for the fight against malaria-carrying mosquitoes, which are far more dangerous to human health than roaches. More…

By RFE/RL

The findings were published on May 23 in Amnesty International’s 2012 annual report, “The State of the World’s Human Rights.”

It reports numerous cases of torture, poor prison conditions, persecution of rights activists, and the suppression of freedom of speech.

The assessment highlights the courage of rights activists to effect change.

Amnesty International Secretary-General Salil Shetty, speaking in a video released by her organization, says abusive governments can no longer use the issue of sovereignty to justify their actions.

“Governments have been created to protect the rights of their citizens, but we then have governments who are actually doing exactly the opposite, who are actually violating the rights of their own citizens and people who are living inside their boundaries,” Shetty says. “So I think in this day and age the excuse of national sovereignty, that these are internal affairs, is simply not acceptable.”

‘Dozens Tortured, Jailed’

Amnesty International’s program director for the Middle East and North Africa, Philip Luther, spoke to RFE/RL about the many rights abuses in Iran.

Amnesty International’s Salil Shetty

“Amnesty International has been documenting waves of arrests in both 2012 and 2013 in Iran. Those arrests have targeted lawyers, students, journalists, political activists and their relatives, filmmakers, and also people with international connections, particularly to foreign media, such as BBC Persian,” Luther says. “Dozens have been tortured and jailed, among them prisoners of conscience, and many others have been banned from traveling abroad.”

The report documents a crackdown on the media after violent antigovernment protests, resulting in the suspension of licenses of 10 satellite channels.

Amnesty International’s Afghanistan researcher, Horia Mosadiq, tells RFE/RL that the situation for women is deteriorating in that country.

“The report also covers cases and issues of violence against women and it documented, only during seven months of 2012, more than 4,000 cases of violence against women, which shows a 28 percent increase compared to the previous year,” Mosadiq says.

The researchers say that there has been a suppression of freedom of expression to varying degrees in Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan.

They say that in Russia, increased peaceful political protests have prompted “repression,” including restrictive new laws and the harassment of rights activists, journalists, and lawyers.

Ethnic Discrimination

David Diaz-Jogeix, Amnesty International’s deputy program director for Europe and Central Asia, tells RFE/RL that Kyrgyz authorities were guilty of ethnic discrimination after deadly clashes between ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz three years ago.

“We have reported a pattern where ethnic Uzbeks continue to be targeted disproportionately for detention and prosecution in relation to the June 2010 events,” he says.

In Georgia, Diaz-Jogeix says the new government is dealing with a delicate political balancing act.

“The new government faces the challenge of both revamping the criminal justice system and the judiciary and addressing the wrongdoings committed under the previous administration without using the process of retribution against political rivals,” he says.

The Amnesty report calls on Belarus to abolish the death penalty, which it says has been carried out in a “cruel and inhuman” way.

It criticizes Moldova for not doing enough to prevent discrimination based on sexual orientation.

The assessment mentions the importance of new media and video-capable mobile phones.

Amnesty International says it “wants to make sure everyone has the tools to access and share information and to challenge power and sovereignty when it is abused.”

Here is a synopsis of the Amnesty report, focusing on RFE/RL’s broadcast countries: 

AFGHANISTAN

Amnesty says thousands of Afghan civilians continue to suffer from “targeted and indiscriminate attacks” by armed militant groups. Amnesty’s report quotes figures from the UN, which held militants responsible for 80 percent of the 2,700 civilians killed last year. The assessment of Afghanistan says torture remained common in detention facilities, despite government efforts to reduce ill-treatment. The report also says violence and discrimination against women and girls remained commonplace. Tougher government controls on the media were also reported.

ARMENIA

Amnesty says public hostility in Armenia remains high toward attitudes perceived as “unpatriotic.” It says people expressing such views occasionally faced violence, while police and local authorities failed to properly investigate the attacks and at times appeared to be colluding in them. The assessment also says that conditions in prisons were reported to amount to inhuman treatment. It notes that by the end of the year more than 30 men were serving prison sentences for refusing to perform military service on grounds of conscience.

AZERBAIJAN

Amnesty criticizes Azerbaijan for its continued intimidation and imprisonment of people and groups critical of the government in 2012. The assessment says President Ilham Aliyev’s government targeted human rights defenders and journalists and subjected them to intimidation, harassment, and arrest. The report highlights the case of RFE/RL correspondent Khadija Ismayilova, who was spied on, blackmailed, and threatened because of her investigative reports. The assessment notes that freedom of association continues to be targeted by the government, with NGOs working on human rights and democracy being subjected to pressure and harassment. It says public protests continued to be banned in Baku and torture and ill-treatment against activists remained widespread.

BELARUS

Amnesty says Belarus has seen a serious decline in human rights since 2010. The assessment notes the country has six people in prison in connection with a demonstration against the reelection of President Alyaksandr Lukashenka in December 2010, four of whom are considered prisoners of conscience. The government is also criticized for violations of the rights of expression, association, and assembly. Minsk executed three people in 2012. The report says executions are conducted in “utmost secrecy” with neither the condemned nor their relatives being informed in advance.

BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

Amnesty says nationalist rhetoric by the main political parties in Bosnia-Herzegovina increased in 2012, while challenges to the integrity of the state intensified. The assessment says that the nationalist rhetoric, including “increasingly secessionist remarks” by Bosnian Serb leaders, weakened state-level institutions, particularly the judiciary. It says that while prosecution of  war crimes under international law continued before domestic courts, progress remained slow and impunity persisted. It says many civilian victims of the 1992-95 war were still denied access to justice and reparations.

GEORGIA

Amnesty says rampant violations of free speech took place in Georgia in 2012. The assessment cites reports of harassment, intimidation, and even beatings of opposition supporters in the run-up to the October parliamentary elections that led to Bidzina Ivanishvili’s appointment as prime minister. Amnesty says many opposition sympathizers, particularly schoolteachers, were reportedly fired from their jobs for their political views. Following the election, a number of high-ranking officials close to President Mikheil Saakashvili were charged with crimes, prompting international concerns about the possibility of selective prosecution. Amnesty also notes cases of harassment against Muslim worshippers and gay-rights activists by Orthodox Christians.

IRAN

Amnesty says Iranian authorities continued to impose “severe restrictions” on freedoms of expression, association, and assembly in 2012. It says Iranian dissidents and human rights campaigners were arbitrarily arrested, imprisoned after unfair trials, tortured, and banned from traveling abroad. Amnesty condemns what it described as discrimination against women, religious and ethnic minorities, and homosexuals. It condemns the use of judicial punishments such as flogging, amputation, and execution, and voices regret that new amendments to the Penal Code prohibited neither the death penalty for juvenile offenders nor executions by stoning. The report also criticizes the disqualification of thousands of prospective candidates from the March 2012 parliamentary elections.

IRAQ

Amnesty says authorities in Iraq detained thousands of people in 2012, sentencing hundreds to death or prison terms. It says many were convicted after unfair trials. The assessment says many defendants alleged they were tortured during interrogation in pretrial detention and forced to confess. The assessment says at least 129 prisoners were executed, more than in any year since executions resumed in 2005. Meanwhile, armed groups opposed to the government killed hundreds of civilians in suicide and bomb attacks.

KAZAKHSTAN

Amnesty says reports of torture and other ill-treatment by security forces “continued unabated.” The assessment says authorities used “excessive force” to break up strikes and public protests by oil and gas workers in southwestern Kazakhstan from May through the end of 2012. Hundreds of employees were dismissed, dozens of protesters, trade unionists, and opposition activists were detained, and at least 16 people were killed during clashes between protesters and police in December 2011. The report also says refugees were forcibly returned to China and Uzbekistan, despite international protests.

KYRGYZSTAN

Amnesty says Kyrgyzstan “failed to fairly and effectively investigate” the 2010 violence between ethnic Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbeks. The assessment says reports of torture and other ill-treatment in the aftermath of the June 2010 violence in southern Kyrgyzstan, which left hundreds dead, continued throughout 2012. The document adds that prosecutors “regularly failed to thoroughly and impartially investigate” such allegations and bring those responsible to justice. It also says lawyers defending ethnic Uzbeks “continued to be threatened and physically attacked.”

MACEDONIA

Amnesty says Macedonia has failed to provide justice to relatives of people abducted during the 2001 armed conflict between ethnic Albanian rebels and Macedonian security forces. It condemns Macedonia’s Constitutional Court for rejecting an appeal by relatives of Macedonians allegedly abducted by Albanian rebels. The court supported a parliamentary decision that terminated the investigation and prosecution of four war-crime cases, including charges relating to the disappearances. The reports notes that relations between Macedonians and ethnic Albanians further deteriorated in 2012, with a number of interethnic beatings and killings taking place. Amnesty also said conditions in Macedonian police stations fell short of minimum standards.

MOLDOVA

Amnesty calls on Moldova to do more to combat reported torture and ill-treatment of detainees and to protect citizens from discrimination. The assessment criticizes the government for responding slowly to allegations of abuse by police. There were 143 complaints filed against the police in connection with demonstrations in 2009. Only three police officers had been convicted in connection with them by the end of 2012. All were given suspended sentences. Moldova was also cited for a law mandating the chemical castration of violent child abusers.

MONTENEGRO

Amnesty criticizes Montenegro for continued intimidation and harassment of the political opposition and free media. The report notes examples of open, official criticism of nongovernmental organizations. It also highlights the case of investigative journalist Olivera Lakic, who was beaten and hospitalized after her articles resulted in the opening of criminal inquiries regarding alleged industrial fraud. The assessment says that discrimination against sexual minorities continues. It says that while war crimes prosecutions continued in 2012, verdicts in such cases were inconsistent with international law and resulted in lenient sentences or acquittals.

PAKISTAN

Amnesty says Pakistan’s human rights defenders and journalists face “serious risks” amid widespread rights abuses. The assessment singles out the October shooting of the teenage activist Malala Yousafzai as an example of the dangers faced by rights campaigners. The report says that armed groups and the military continue to engage in abuses in northwestern tribal areas and the southwestern Balochistan Province. It says that “enforced disappearances, abductions, torture, and unlawful killing” continued in these restive regions. Amnesty notes that attacks on health workers have a negative impact on access to medical services. The report says that religious minorities in the Muslim nation continue to suffer persecution with “targeted killings.”

RUSSIA

Amnesty says that in Russia, increased peaceful political protests have prompted “repression,” including restrictive new laws and the harassment of rights activists, journalists, and lawyers. The assessment of Russia notes that trials in Russia fall short of acceptable standards and the number of apparently politically motivated verdicts is on the rise. The situation is said to be particularly bad in the volatile North Caucasus, where Amnesty says Russia often fails to properly investigate claims of abuse by law enforcement officials. The assessment says torture and ill-treatment of detainees remain a problem.

SERBIA & KOSOVO

Amnesty criticizes Serbia for violations of the rights of ethnic and sexual minorities. It also chides Kosovar authorities for their continued failure to prosecute war crimes

allegedly committed by the Kosovo Liberation Army in 1999.

The assessment of Serbia mentions the forcible eviction of some 1,000 Belgrade Roma from their homes and the continued ban on an annual gay-pride parade in Belgrade. The report notes the start of the war-crimes trials in The Hague of former Bosnian Serb General Ratko Mladic and Croatian Serb leader Goran Hadzic and the acquittal by the same court of former Kosovo Premier Ramush Haradinaj.

It also criticizes the use of excessive force by Kosovar police.

TAJIKISTAN

Amnesty says torture and ill-treatment remain widespread in Tajikistan while impunity for perpetrators continued. The assessment says independent monitoring bodies were given “no access to detention facilities.” It notes that children, elderly people, and witnesses in criminal cases endured torture that included “the use of electric shocks, boiling water, suffocation, beatings, and burnings with cigarettes.” The report noted that suspects involved with banned Islamic groups “were at particular risk of torture.” Amnesty says that in a climate of impunity, victims of torture were afraid to lodge official complaints, fearing reprisals. The report says that Tajik authorities continued to restrict the freedom of expression of human rights activists and journalists in 2012.

TURKMENISTAN

Amnesty says harassment of the opposition and the media remain widespread in Turkmenistan, despite the adoption of a law which allows opposition parties to register. It mentions that the 2012 reelection of autocratic President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov with an overwhelming majority was criticized by international rights watchdogs, which did not send observers, citing Turkmenistan’s limited political freedom. The assessment notes that torture and other forms of ill-treatment of those suspected of criminal offenses remain widespread in Turkmenistan. It cites electric shocks, rape, and the forcible administration of psychotropic drugs among the methods employed by authorities against suspects. It said freedom of movement remained drastically restricted.

UKRAINE

Amnesty says Ukraine is plagued by failings in its criminal justice system and a lack of safeguards for detainees. The assessment of Ukraine notes that an international delegation that visited in 2011 was “inundated with allegations from detained people.” Kyiv has ignored a UN recommendation that it establish an independent body to investigate torture allegations. The AI report for 2012 notes the apparently politically motivated prosecutions of former Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko and members of her government. It also said the rights of homosexuals and transgenders are at risk because of pending legislation.

UZBEKISTAN

Amnesty says Uzbekistan has restricted freedom of expression because human rights campaigners and journalists are continually harassed. It says that in 2012, some 10 journalists and human rights defenders remained imprisoned in “cruel, inhuman, and degrading conditions.” The assessment says that authorities routinely monitor rights activists and journalists and frequently question them and place them under house arrest. Amnesty says it is concerned over the “frequent use of torture and other ill-treatment to extract confessions” against opposition figures and government critics. The report says that suspected members of banned religious groups are a particular target of ill-treatment by Uzbek authorities.

Copyright (c) 2013. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted  WWH/CJE with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

n its ruling, the court accepted a claim by prosecutors that Maria Alyokhina had systematically disobeyed prison authorities and failed to repent for her crime, Russian media reported.

Ms Alyokhina went on a hunger strike on Wednesday after being barred from the court hearing in Perm province, and she ordered her defence not to participate.

Band members Ms Alyokhina, Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, and Yekaterina Samutsevich gained worldwide notoriety last year when a Moscow court jailed them for two years for conducting a punk protest in Moscow’s main cathedral. Ms Samtusevich was later released on appeal. More…

THE 1960′S: A TIME OF WAR, INEQUALITY AND HIPPIES
Shreve Elementary students go back in time for Right-to-Read
n a quick study of the ’60s this week, Shreve Elementary School students learned how to speak, eat and play as if they lived in the decade encompassing turmoil, war, inequality and political assassinations.

“But we had fun, too,” stressed librarian Marcia Hosfeld, who put together the crash course as part of Right-to-Read Week with the help of her husband, Fred, and several volunteers.

Play-Doh, Etch A Sketch, Legos, Twister and the Easy-Bake oven were all born in the ’60s; Pop Tarts and SpaghettiOs became food groups; and a musical group called the Beatles heavily influenced fashion.

“This was what a hippie looked like,” Marcia Hosfeld said, pointing to her husband, wearing a tye-died shirt and headband. More…

Summer 2013 Pop and Jazz Festivals HARD SUMMER Los Angeles State Historic Park , Aug. 3-4. Forty-eight-hour party people surge in from around the country to participate in this top-tier confab of electronic dance music. Performers include Knife Party, Justice, Bassnectar, Duck Sauce, Flying Lotus, Baauer and many more.hardsummer.com.

HOLLYWOOD BOWL June 22-Sept. 29. The lovely outdoor space is savvy enough to draw from the Tinseltown crowd that frolics around it, and as such, has one of the most reliably high-profile performer slates of any multimonth summer series. This year includes She & Him, the multitasking folk-rock duo of the singer-songwriter M. Ward and the singer-actress Zooey Deschanel (June 23), the young classical crooner Josh Groban sharing the stage with a hailstorm of pyrotechnics in his “Fireworks Spectacular” (July 2-4), the blues-guitar master Buddy Guy (Aug. 21) and the British R&B-pop savants the xx (Sept. 29). hollywoodbowl.com.

OUTSIDE LANDS Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, Aug. 9-11. Not since Buckminster Fuller conferred with the hippies during the Summer of Love has Golden Gate Park known such a union between elder statesmen and bright-eyed young idealists. Northern California’s most prominent pop-culture weekend again boasts beloved older acts atop its bill — Paul McCartney, Willie Nelson and Family, Daryl Hall and John Oates — balanced with a bumper crop of trendier independent names and reconvened cult icons: Nine Inch Nails, Vampire Weekend, Wild Belle, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Jurassic 5, Emeli Sande. Other festivals are still scrambling to compete with Outside Lands’ palate-pleasers: this site’s “Taste of the Bay Area” food hub and “Wine Lands” mobile vineyard are a rare shot of epicurean civility.sfoutsidelands.com.

MONTEREY JAZZ FESTIVAL Monterey Fairgrounds, Sept. 20-22. They did it first and did it right. Begun in 1958 with headliners Billie Holiday, Louis Armstrong , and Dizzy Gillespie (and running every year since), the famed jazz festival was an early experimenter with the multiple-stage format. It was also a pioneer of bringing charitable aims to major music events, as a substantial amount of the nonprofit organization’s proceeds are invested back into jazz education. This year, 500 artists preside on the eight stages, with highlights including Wayne Shorter Quartet, Bobby McFerrin, Diana Krall, Gregory Porter, Cedar Walton and Mary Stallings. montereyjazzfestival.org.  More…

FANTZ: Peace, love, hippies and getting laid
Dear Christy,
What’s with all the hatred with humanity? It sucks to see people in agony over things that can be helped with maybe therapy, medicine and education. I think if everybody got laid more often, our brains would be more at peace. What do you think?

–Make love

Bob Marley:

One love, man. Let’s get together and feel all right. And spank hippies.

Look, Miss Love, if we could pop kernels of you across popcorn machines worldwide, we’d toss you in a vat of salted butter in a jiffy. (Double entendres, ahoy!)

Unfortunately, each person’s brain is wired individually. Some are bred and buttered genuine, like your sweet tushy, and More…

By Sherry Pasquarello

Before I begin, just a little note to the reader that wrote to tell me that because I had misspelled words in my last article it made my statements wrong. No, it just showed that I misspelled words. Since you understood my points I’d say that the words served their purpose. So sorry I misspelled PALIN. That must have caused your blood pressure to rise. I have vision and coordination issues. YOU have a far bigger problem. You are a right winger.

On to the events round the Burgh. We had an election Tuesday. It included elections for judges and local board members AND for those that live in the city limits, two candidates for mayor had to be chosen. The Republican candidate was a lock. Given that Pittsburgh is a heavily Democratic town only one person ran for the republicans. The Democratic race was a far different matter. We even had the sitting mayor ( who isn’t running again) run attack ads against one of the candidates. That guy (who was my choice) won. I think the dirty tricks helped him to win. Maybe the tide is turning and dirty tricks will harm more than help in all elections.

It was a beautiful day weather-wise on Tuesday yet the turnout was low for all of the races. THAT was disheartening. Yes, I know it wasn’t a race for bigger offices BUT it was an important race. Townships and boroughs, these are the places we live. Judges , come on. Judges are damn important.

I can only hope that people turn out for the congresscritter elections but honestly…

Peace