Taipei, Aug. 9 (CNA) About 30 Pingpu tribespeople gathered in front of the Presidential Office on the United Nations' International Day of the World's Indigenous People Monday, calling on President Ma Ying-jeou to recognize Pingpu people as aboriginals.
Escorted by police officers, 10 of the protesters entered the Presidential Office to deliver a petition to President Ma Ying-jeou after participating in an ancestor worship ceremony at Ketagalan Boulevard in front of the presidential building.
Historian Lin Sheng-yi, who heads the Ketagalan of Taiwan Indigenous Culture Alliance, said that in addition to petitioning for official recognition of the tribes, they also demanded the restoration of a 4,400-year-old Ketagalan historical site in Gongliao in Taipei County and an investigation into the destruction of the site.
Ketagalan are a Taiwanese aboriginal tribe originating in what is now the Taipei Basin.
Thursday, August 12, 2010
Pingpu tribes demand recognition on UN indigenous day
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
No Right Turn: Utterly shameful
But the real reason, apparently, is that the government was concerned that granting compensation might 'open the floodgates' and cause other victims to come forward. Well, we can't have that now, can we? It might make the police look bad! It might cost money which could be spent on tax cuts for the rich! So instead, the government has to deny justice - and reality.
With this decision, National has shown that it does not care about women, and it does not care about justice. Neither attitude is acceptable from our government."
Solitary Confinement Is a “Challenge for Medical Ethics” � Solitary Watch
Several professional organizations and activist groups made up of medical and mental health practitioners have condemned the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo and elsewhere in the so-called war on terror. In particular, they have denounced the idea that members of their professions should play any role in that treatment. But as Metzner and Fellner point out, there has been “scant professional or academic attention to the unique ethics-related quandary of physicians and other health-care professionals when prisons isolate inmates with mental illness.” This despite the fact that for some prisoners, “isolation can be as clinically distressing as physical torture.”"
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Palestinian female inmates appeal to the Red Cross to close Al-Damon prison
MEMO, August 9, 2010
The female Palestinian prisoners of Al-Damon prison have called on the International Red Cross to put pressure on the Israeli authorities to close the "the worst jail ever," as they "experience tragic conditions in Al-Damon."
In a statement issued by the Palestinian Prisoners Club (PPC) on Sunday August 8, it stressed that the circumstances and conditions faced by detainees in Israeli prisons and detention centres are "very difficult", particularly in light of the abusive policies exercised by the prison services "keeping Al-Damon prisoners in a small department that is cold in the winter, hot in summer, and full of insects."
The PPC drew attention to the policy of "medical neglect" being applied by the Israeli prisons authorities against Palestinian prisoners of both genders. The statement claimed that authorities prevent external doctors from coming into prisons to treat prisoners. Al-Damon contains a large number of those who suffer from acute and chronic illnesses such as joint pain, acute shortness of breath, toothache, allergies, tonsil infections, acute weight loss, and other chronic diseases "which require surgery or specialists counselling."
The captive women’s movement in Al-Damon renewed its invitation to the Red Cross to visit the prison and witness the physical and psychological condition the female prisoners are forced to live in under the tightening policies imposed on them by the Occupation Authorities.
Monday, August 09, 2010
Liberal television host Rachel Maddow solidarizes herself with US military in Afghanistan
[wsws.org] The visit by MSNBC news program host Rachel Maddow to Afghanistan in early July was as revealing as it was repugnant. Maddow is a principal voice of the liberal-left in the American media mainstream. When her program first aired in September 2008, the press made much of the fact that the she was the first “openly gay anchor” to host a prime-time news program in the US.
Maddow spent several days in Afghanistan this month, interviewing American officers and soldiers, touring Kandahar and Kabul, discussing counter-insurgency strategy and the overall state of the US military occupation. Whatever misgivings she might have about the ultimate fate of the American and allied effort in Afghanistan, Maddow solidarized herself fully with the occupation and the US military, endorsing the bloody suppression of the insurgency.
In the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001, there were those in the US and elsewhere who were deceived into thinking that the American invasion of Afghanistan had something to do with bringing terrorists and their Taliban sponsors to justice. Nine years of the conflict—with the location and fate of Osama bin Laden largely dropped and the number of Al Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan calculated, by US officials, to be between 50 and 100—have clarified the issues.
Sunday, August 08, 2010
Huffington Post Article: The White American Media Attack First Lady Michelle Obama Because She Is A Black Woman. | GayBlackCanadianman
People, what are your thoughts on First Lady Michelle Obama's trip to Spain? Please feel free to express your opinion. Don't be afraid.
Friday, August 06, 2010
Ringing the opening bell at the Nasdaq Stock Exchange New York this morning!Suspect in teen's slaying says Detroit cops tricked him into confessing
Detroit -- A murder suspect at the center of a botched police raid claims authorities tricked him into signing a confession by taking advantage of his grief over the death of a 7-year-old girl, who was killed when officers stormed her home.
A lawyer for Chauncey Owens, 34, has filed a motion asking a judge to throw out the confession and prohibit Wayne County prosecutors from using the death of Aiyana Stanley-Jones against him by forging a link in front of a jury between the fatal police action and allegations that Owens murdered a 17-year-old high school student.
"The story of Aiyana Stanley-Jones is an unrelated incident and has nothing to do with the facts of this case," Owens' lawyer, Pamella Szydlak, wrote in court documents. "Media coverage has made it seem they are one in the same. Defense is fearful that the prosecution will follow the same path."
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Owens is in the Wayne County Jail charged with the May 14 slaying of Jerean Blake. Witnesses have testified that Owens picked a fight with Blake in the parking lot of a Mack Avenue convenience store and minutes later returned with friends and a handgun to shoot the youth.
Two days later, Aiyana was killed by a police bullet after officers threw in a stun grenade and burst through the front door of her home in the middle of the night. She had been sleeping on a sofa next to the front door. Officers arrested Owens without incident when they simultaneously raided an upstairs flat in the same building; Aiyana's family lived downstairs.
Witnesses have testified that Aiyana's father, Charles Jones, was among those who accompanied Owens at the time of Blake's shooting. Charles Jones hasn't been charged.
According to motions filed with Wayne Circuit Judge Richard Skutt, Owens was taken into custody wearing nothing but boxer shorts. He was drunk and under the influence of drugs and desperate to learn the condition of the girl, who was the niece of his fiancee.
Five African-Americans killed in knife attacks; 7 other assaults appear to be linked
Doug Guthrie and Micki Steele / The Detroit News
Flint Police are searching for a man they believe has slain five and attacked seven slightly built or vulnerable African-American men in three months, with no apparent reason other than to kill.
"He's killed five people," Flint Police Sgt. J. Leigh Golden said Thursday. "He's just killing them, not robbing them."
Police warn that the serial killer appears to be targeting smaller-framed or otherwise vulnerable victims.
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The latest victim was Arnold Minor, 49, stabbed to death early Monday on the city's south side, near Saginaw Street, where several of the assaults have occurred.
On Sunday, Minor and his sister, Stephanie Ward of Flint, had dinner at their brother's home on the north side, and later visited their mother who lives nearby.
Ward said Minor decided to stay late and sat and talked with other family members in the warm night air. Ward said she last saw her brother around 11 p.m. when she left her mother's and drove home to the south side of Flint.
Minor realized too late that city buses had stopped running, so he began the 10-mile southward journey home about 1:30 a.m. on foot, his sister said.
"When they found him, he wasn't far from home," Ward said. "He bled to death on the street. You don't know what goes through somebody's mind to do something like that."
Police believe at least 10 stabbings in the city since mid-May are the work of one man, whom they would only describe as white with light-colored hair who stands a muscular 6 feet tall or more.
Michigan State Police are coordinating an investigation of three more knife assaults in nearby Burton, Genesee Township and Flint Township that are believed to be linked.
Thursday, August 05, 2010
Cleveland moves fitfully toward making women safer: Connie Schultz | cleveland.com
Last fall, the CRCC received $600,000 in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds, and hired 11 additional staff members."
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