Video shows style of extra-judicial killings in Sri Lanka
A video clip received from Journalists for Democracy in Sri Lanka (JDS) evidences the way extra-judicial killings are executed in the island. The video captured in January show the behaviour of Sri Lanka’s soldiers during the war that is claimed ‘humanitarian operation’ to rescue the Tamils, JDS reported Tuesday. The conversations of the killers are in Sinhala.
“From the casual nature of the conversations and from the fact that it is taking place in an open area in broad daylight – it can be surmised that these are not ordinary acts by rogue elements carried out without the permission from the top leadership.
Long shadow of 1929 Hebron massacre
Wednesday, 26 August: Eighty years ago, violent Arab riots against Jewish immigration gripped British-ruled Palestine. The worst violence occurred in the city of Hebron where, on the 23 and 24 August, 67 Jews were murdered. Dina Newman reports on how memories of the bloody events of 1929 still linger in Hebron today.
A small museum in the Old City of Hebron, established by the Jewish settler historian Noam Arnon, displays evidence of the massacre eight decades ago – a photograph of a girl struck over the head with a sword with her brain spilling out; a woman with bandaged hands; people with their eyes gouged out.
Gordon Brown finally breaks silence on Lockerbie to condemn Libya
August 25: Gordon Brown today broke his silence on the release of the Lockerbie bomber, saying that the UK government had done no deal with Libya and that he was “angry and repulsed” at the scenes of jubilation in Tripoli.
The Prime Minister has been under pressure to comment ever since the Scottish Justice Secretary announced last Thursday that he was releasing Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi from a Scottish jail on compassionate grounds to go home to die.
PPP to support “unanimous” resolution seeking Musharraf’s high treason trial
Islamabad, Aug.25: The Pakistan Peoples’ Party (PPP) has decided to support a resolution seeking former President General Pervez Musharraf’s trial under Article Six of the Constitution, despite having ideological differences with the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).
“PPP has ideological differences with PML-N but it would support resolution bringing dictators and breakers of constitutions to book,” the Dawn quoted Attorney General Sardar Latif Khosa, as saying.
Amnesty International calls for Peltier’s immediate release
USA: Denial of parole to Leonard Peltier after more than 32 years in prison, disappointing
21 August 2009
Amnesty International today regretted the US Parole Commission’s decision not to grant Leonard Peltier parole despite concerns about the fairness of his 1977 conviction for murder. The organization called for the immediate release on parole of the activist, who is serving two consecutive life sentences and has spent more than 32 years in prison.
A prominent member of the American Indian Movement (AIM), Leonard Peltier was convicted of the murders of two Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents, Jack Coler and Ronald Williams, during a confrontation involving AIM members on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota on 26 June 1975.
1950s U.S. murder victim found alive and living in Australia
The suspected victim of a 1950s murder in the U.S. has been found alive and living in Australia.
Katharine Farrand Dyer was thought to have been ‘Boulder Jane Doe’ – a woman found beaten to death possibly at the hands of Harvey Glatman, the so called ‘Lonely Hearts Killer’.
Soviet-Nazi pact revisited 70 years later
MOSCOW — Seventy years ago Sunday, the Soviet Union signed a pact with Nazi Germany that gave dictator Josef Stalin a free hand to take over part of Poland and the Baltic states on the eve of World War II.
Most of the world now condemns the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, but Russia has mounted a new defense of the 1939 treaty as it seeks to restore some of its now-lost sphere of influence.
Jersey carer convicted of abuse
A former worker at a Jersey children’s home has been found guilty of eight counts of indecent assault against three teenage girls in his care.
Gordon Wateridge who worked at the Haut de la Garenne home, was cleared of a further 12 charges of indecent assault.
Manson Disciple “Squeaky” Fromme Set Free
The Charles Manson follower convicted of trying to assassinate President Gerald Ford was released Friday from a Texas prison hospital after more than three decades behind bars.
Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, 60, left the Federal Medical Center Carswell in Fort Worth at about 8 a.m. EDT Friday, spokeswoman Dr. Maria Douglas said. Though a few photographers had camped out since the night before outside the facility surrounded razor wire-topped fences, Fromme slipped by the group unnoticed in one of the many cars streaming in and out of the front gate Friday morning.
Nazi war criminal jailed for life
A 90-year-old former Nazi army commander has been jailed for life by a German court for murdering 10 Italian civilians and attempting to kill another in a village in Tuscany in 1944.
After an 11-month trial, the court in Munich found Josef Scheungraber guilty of ordering the murder of the civilians in Falzano di Cortona, as a reprisal for the killing of two German soldiers by Italian partisans.
Four Italian civilians, including a 74-year-old woman, were shot dead in the street before German soldiers rounded up 11 more people and herded them into a house and blew it up.