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By Gore Vidal $17.95
By Jesse Katz $16.50
$22
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 kodiax2 (CC BY-ND 2.0)
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The U.N.’s special investigator into human rights will call Thursday for a ban on “killer robots” that could attack targets without human direction, before such devices come into existence.
Posted on May 29, 2013
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By Amy Goodman — Former Guatemalan President Efrain Rios Montt was hauled off to prison last Friday. It was a historic moment, the first time in history that a former leader of a country was tried for genocide in a national court.
Posted on May 15, 2013
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 Abode of Chaos (CC BY 2.0)
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By Alexander Reed Kelly — Stéphane Hessel, the French-German author of “Indignez-vous” who died in February at age 95, is a towering figure of 20th-century resistance and an example to those who hope to create the future.
Posted on Apr 14, 2013
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 Flickr/Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
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By Chris Hedges — The ideology espoused by “humanitarian interventionists” such as Suzanne Nossel, recently appointed the executive director of PEN American Center, is used by the security and surveillance state to perpetuate war crimes, curtail civil liberties and justify pre-emptive war.
Posted on Apr 7, 2013
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 The Nation Institute and the State Department
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The Truthdig columnist was scheduled to speak at events sponsored by PEN American Center next month, but he has resigned his membership in the writers’ organization over its executive director, Suzanne Nossel, a former aide to Hillary Clinton who may have coined the term “soft power.”
Posted on Apr 1, 2013
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.jpg) AP/Patrick Semansky, File
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By Chris Hedges — His trial is not simply the persecution of a courageous whistle-blower, but a state mechanism to destroy the independence of the press and its ability to expose the power elite’s criminal activity.
Posted on Mar 3, 2013
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 AP/Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham
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By Alexander Reed Kelly — The Taliban tried to kill 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai because people listened when she said they didn’t have to bow to the intimidation of violent, ideological extremists.
Posted on Jan 5, 2013
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Pavel Constantin, Cagle Cartoons, Romania —
Posted on Nov 24, 2012
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 pbyrne (CC BY-SA 2.0)
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Up to 28,000 Syrian wives, husbands, mothers and fathers have been abducted from the streets or their homes by government forces since the country’s uprising began 19 months ago. A new film by the human rights organization Avaaz has the evidence.
Posted on Oct 18, 2012
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 Apple
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With class tensions in China running high, labor conditions under an international microscope and a new iPhone just landing in well-stitched pockets, we’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions about the significance of what’s being reported as a “brawl” at a Foxconn plant in northern China.
Posted on Sep 23, 2012
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 U.S. Embassy Pakistan (CC BY-ND 2.0)
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According to the Russian government, the U.S. is using its foreign aid organization in Moscow to secretly influence the country’s politics and elections. The U.S. Agency for International Development, known as USAID, will be expelled as part of a broad attempt to stifle the opposition movement.
Posted on Sep 19, 2012
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 Andrew Rusk (CC BY 2.0)
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Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird (right) cited Iran’s support for the Assad regime in Syria, its disputed nuclear energy program and persistent human rights violations as reasons for Canada’s ejection of Iranian diplomats from Ottawa and the closing of the Canadian Embassy in Tehran.
Posted on Sep 7, 2012
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The U.S. Justice Department ordered a “complete whitewash” of accountability in the torture and killing of prisoners in CIA custody at the end of a three-year investigation on Thursday, announcing it will not prosecute anyone involved in those cases, says Glenn Greenwald, columnist for The Guardian.
Posted on Aug 31, 2012
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 Palinopsia_Films (CC BY 2.0)
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After eight months of study, legal researchers at NYU and Fordham University this week turned out a damning review of the NYPD’s behavior in policing the Occupy Wall Street protests.
Posted on Jul 26, 2012
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 maveric2003 (CC BY 2.0)
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By Noam Chomsky, TomDispatch —
Down the road only a few generations, the millennium of Magna Carta, one of the great events in the establishment of civil and human rights, will arrive. Whether it will be celebrated, mourned, or ignored is not at all clear.
Posted on Jul 24, 2012
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 Sapphireblue (CC BY 2.0)
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A special prosecutor testifying in Mexico said that 67 journalists have been killed and 14 have vanished in the country in the last six years.
Posted on Jul 18, 2012
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 AP Photo
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By Juan Cole — The Syrian government’s resort to Alawite death squads in recent weeks has pushed former supporters into the opposition.
Posted on Jun 17, 2012
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 AP/Vahed Salemi
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Abdolfattah Soltani, a well-known Iranian lawyer who co-founded an organization that defends the rights of women, minorities and political prisoners, was sentenced to 13 years in prison for his work and for what Iran’s hard-line judiciary called spreading anti-government propaganda and endangering national security.
Posted on Jun 13, 2012
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U.N. investigators say Syrian troops are armoring their vehicles with children in order to deter enemy fire. A report on children and armed conflict also says Syrian authorities are torturing children and the opposition may be recruiting minors.
Posted on Jun 12, 2012
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 (CC-BY-SA)
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The State Department is once again giving China a hard time about its human rights record, a worthy cause to be sure, though the United States makes for an odd champion. What’s the saying? Those who torture should not throw stones, maybe.
Posted on Jun 3, 2012
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By Patrick Chappatte, The International Herald Tribune —
Posted on May 6, 2012
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 Felipe Neves (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
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Terrorized by gunmen, loggers, drug traffickers and encroaching farmers, the 355 surviving members of the Amazonian Awá tribe face extinction if the Brazilian government and the international community fail to protect them from what a Brazilian judge termed “a real genocide.”
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“This American Life” host Ira Glass gave monologist Mike Daisey every opportunity to explain the lies in his “The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs” performance, which became the basis for one of the radio show’s most popular and talked about episodes. Daisey’s rationalization for lying turns out to be, like much of his show, bullshit.
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Nate Beeler, The Washington Examiner —
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 mayu** (CC-BY)
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Chinese authorities demonstrated their continued disregard for free speech and human rights as they sentenced a democratic dissident to seven years in jail for sending a poem he had written and other messages over the Internet, the man’s son told reporters. The verdict cited Zhu Yufu’s online calls for a democratic political movement, the son said.
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 AP / Muzaffar Salman
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By Ivo Mijnssen — The Kremlin risks international isolation with its uncompromising stance on Syria, but Russia has powerful incentives to protect Bashar al-Assad.
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 totaloutnow (CC-BY)
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Washington is pleased with Burma. The military-backed government instituted a series of human rights reforms, including a cease-fire with ethnic rebels and the release of allegedly hundreds of political prisoners, that allows the U.S. to do business with the strategically situated Asian country with reduced criticism.
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 AP / Ahmed Ali
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By Lauren Unger-Geoffroy — National law gives the executive authorities overly broad discretion to forbid groups to do anything that authorities might see as “threatening national unity” or “violating public order or morals,” vague terminology that lays the law open to abuse and has served as a basis for the denial of registration to some NGOs.
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Osama Hajjaj, Cagle Cartoons, Abu Mahjoob Creative Productions —
Posted on Nov 22, 2011
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 Flickr / gademocrats (CC-BY)
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One day before this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner is to be announced, President and Nobel laureate Jimmy Carter said that he still hopes President Obama will make good on the promises he made that ultimately won him the prize two years ago.
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 AP / Hassan Ammar
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Only 118 years after New Zealand kicked off this dangerous trend, King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia has decided to allow women to vote and run in municipal elections as soon as 2015. (more)
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 AP / Hussein Malla
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By Robert Fisk — It all depends, I think, on whether criminals are our friends (Stalin at the time) or our enemies (Hitler and his fellow Nazis), whether they have their future uses (the Japanese emperor) or whether we’ll get their wealth more easily if they are out of the way (Saddam and Gadhafi).
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Nate Beeler, Cagle Cartoons, The Washington Examiner —
Posted on Aug 23, 2011
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 Flickr / Defence Images
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Pakistani lawyer and human rights champion Mirza Shahzad Akbar, who has aided the U.S. government in legal counterterrorism efforts, was banned from traveling to the States to speak at Columbia Law School after suing the CIA about drone strikes that have killed civilians in his country. (more)
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The number of detainees held at a Guantanamo-like military detention center in Afghanistan has almost tripled in the three years since President Obama took office. (more)
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 Flickr / Al-Jazeera English
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Just days after the British government pledged $181 million in grants and loans to foster economically viable democratic transitions in Egypt and Tunisia, a Freedom of Information Act report confirmed that British military personnel are training the same Saudi security forces that were used to crush recent popular uprisings in Bahrain. (more)
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Syrian authorities are busy proving Julian Assange right as they use what he called “the most appalling spying machine that has ever been invented” to keep tabs on their country’s digital dissidents. (more)
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 Photo illustration from an image by Colin Grey
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On this week’s show we hear from Reagan Assistant Secretary of Defense Lawrence Korb on our imperial military budget, and James Peck tells us how the U.S. co-opted human rights. And we send Reese Erlich to Cuba to find out how Raul Castro’s economic reforms are affecting the island’s world-famous music scene.
Posted on May 11, 2011
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On this week’s show we hear from Reagan Assistant Secretary of Defense Lawrence Korb on our imperial military budget, and James Peck tells us how the U.S. co-opted human rights. And we send Reese Erlich to Cuba to find out how Raul Castro’s economic reforms are affecting the island’s world-famous music scene. Update: Full transcript.
Posted on May 11, 2011
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 State Department
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Secretary of State Hillary Clinton tells The Atlantic that China’s “deplorable human rights record” is “a fool’s errand” to “stop history.” That’s some tough talk from the global representative of a country that throws its enemies in an island gulag when it isn’t remotely executing them.
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 Wikimedia Commons
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The U.S. and China are bickering again over human rights after the U.S. condemned the arrest of Chinese dissidents. Beijing dismissed Washington’s latest criticism and said the U.S. is beset by violence, racism and torture and thus has no authority to condemn the actions of other governments. Above, Ai Weiwei, a jailed activist.
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Amy Goodman reports on Dr. John Leso, a psychologist who allegedly participated in the torture (or “harsh interrogation,” his defenders might say) of Guantanamo detainees and now faces trial in New York.
Posted on Apr 6, 2011
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Daryl Cagle, Cagle Cartoons, MSNBC.com —
Posted on Mar 27, 2011
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 Wikimedia Commons / World Economic Forum
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Although his political future looked dim only weeks ago, Thailand Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva has survived a no-confidence vote brought against his administration by opposition party members.
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 AP / Tim Freccia
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New fighting erupted in Sudan’s recently declared autonomous southern half when rebel forces staged an attack on the city of Malakal. The battle comes as South Sudan counts down to its official secession on July 9.
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 Wikimedia Commons / World Economic Forum
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Thailand’s prime minister may be in some hot water. Abhisit Vejjajiva acknowledged that he holds British citizenship, an admission that may make him vulnerable to prosecution for the deaths of around 90 people in anti-government demonstrations back in 2008.
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 AP via Los Angeles Times
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This week’s challenge for President Obama: diplomacy in the face of possible adversity, on both the domestic and international fronts. As the House of Representatives was considering a repeal of his hard-won health care reform law on Wednesday ...
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