Fredericton Peace Coalition

“Starting from this 6th Summit ALBA will be called the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America or “The People’s Trade Agreement” (ALBA or TCP in Spanish), a sign of its growth and strength.”

“President Obama has taken us into an expansion of Bush’s war on terror … [b]ut the methods used by U.S. and Pakistani military forces, expelling millions of people from their homes, failing to provide food and shelter for those who are displaced, and using overwhelmingly superior weapon technology to attack innocent civilians, — these methods will continue creating terrorist resisters, not defeating them.”

Also see: US Unmanned Planes Kill 83 Pakistanis | Prensa Latina

“US unmanned planes launched missiles against Pakistanis settlers attending a funeral in southern Waziristan tribal conflictive region … The first missile hit those attending the funereal and the second one hit a vehicles running away from the place after the explosion.”

“Japan’s parliament has passed a law allowing the nation’s forces to open fire on pirates operating off the coast of Somalia. Opposing parliament members said the move could erode the nation’s pacifist constitution.”

Five Kenyan independence fighters who are now in their 70s and 80s have launched a compensation claim for human rights abuses under British colonial rule. The Mau Mau, which started as a grassroots Kikuyu movement to recover arable land appropriated by British settlers, evolved into a fully-fledged rebellion in 1952 that demanded Kenyan independence.

The Kenya Human Rights Commission has said 90,000 Kenyans were executed, tortured or maimed during the British crackdown, and 160,000 were detained in appalling conditions.

Israeli troops kidnapped two children and two adults during an invasion targeting the village of Bil’in in the central West Bank on Monday night and Tuesday morning.

“[T]he strike could be the deadliest since the United States began using the aircraft to fire remotely guided missiles at members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the tribal areas of Pakistan. The United States carried out 22 previous drone strikes this year, as the Obama administration has intensified a policy inherited from the Bush administration.”

Also see: FACTBOX – U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan | Reuters

“The United States has shrugged off Pakistani protests. It says the missile strikes are carried out under an agreement with Islamabad which allows Pakistani leaders to decry the attacks in public.”

“Abd Al Rahim Abdul Rassak is a Syrian national who was tortured by al-Qaeda who suspected him of being a Western spy. He was held in an Afghan prison controlled by the Taliban for 18 months before being captured by American forces in 2002 [and sent to Guantanamo]. … the government and the US media initially mistook Rassak as one of a number of would-be suicide bombers based on videotapes captured at an al-Qaeda safe house. But further investigations showed that the tapes actually showed al-Qaeda members torturing him.”

Abdul Rassak was captured by the Americans while rotting away in an Afghan prison, after which he was sent to Guantanamo to be tortured again; the United States’ penchant for malevolence is boundless.

The Court concludes that the search of Mr. Harkat’s residence conducted on May 12, 2009, infringed Mr. Harkat’s rights under section 8 of the Charter. The Court therefore orders that all information, items and records seized by the Canadian Border Services Agency be returned to Mr. Harkat forthwith.

–An interesting analysis of what is going on in Iran.

“American forces leave behind a country which is a barely floating wreck. Its society, economy and very landscape have been torn apart by 30 years of war, sanctions and occupation.”