Government stumbles in Holy Land trial
DALLAS — The long-awaited verdicts in one of the country’s most critical civil rights cases were revealed Oct. 22 at the Earle Cabell Federal Building downtown. The Holy Land Foundation, the largest organization providing charitable aid to beleaguered Palestinians, was effectively exonerated of “terrorism” charges.
Gore, global warming and the whole damn thing
Al Gore, former U.S. vice president and presidential candidate, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate on Climate Change, a UN-sponsored group of scientists, have jointly won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize for their work on global warming. Like most things in life, this is a mixture of good and bad, positive and negative.
Cubas wonder of the modern world: Latin American school of medicine
HAVANA — “Best decision I ever made,” said medical student Cori Marshall of Chicago characterizing her first year at Cuba’s Latin American School of Medicine (LASM). The school graduated its third class of new doctors on July 24. The 2,188 health professionals receiving diplomas at a graduation spectacular at Karl Marx Theater here included eight U.S. medical students who had finished six years of study.
Colombian scores second hung jury
The most recent trial in Washington, D.C., of Ricardo Palmera, a leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), ended in a hung jury on Oct. 4.
Iranian Americans urge dialogue, not war
In the wake of the Bush administration’s continued saber rattling against Iran, including its not-so-subtle threats to unleash U.S. bombing attacks against Iranian nuclear energy and military installations, a growing number of people and groups worldwide have called for diplomacy, not war, to resolve any disputes
The U.S. and repressive rule
According to the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, the “UN has it wrong: Africa’s problem is repressive rule.” Zimbabwe, Tanzania, the Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Togo, and Niger are cited as examples in a recent Philadelphia Inquirer commentary by Claudia Rosett.
War, peace and the Greens of Germany
BERLIN — The color green is not usually associated with anger. A fair number of leaders of the Green political party in Germany lost their cool color and turned purple with rage last month. And they are still simmering.
When a terrorist is our terrorist
Recently, a 20-year-old American, Din Dona Thin, took an American Airlines flight from Miami to La Paz, Bolivia. She declared to Bolivian customs officials that she was bringing “cheese” into the country, but a search of her luggage turned up five boxes of ammunition, each box containing 100 .45-caliber bullets.
Mining black gold, and profits, from northern sands
Imagine for a moment that you’re an American oil executive. You’re pondering the prospects for the next big oil strike overseas — and dreaming of a place where the government is stable and compliant, the royalties are low and the environmental standards minimal. Is it just a dream? Not at all. Just look north to the tar sands of central Alberta, Canada.
Heeding the call of Elvira Arellano
LOS ANGELES — Elvira Arellano stepped completely out of the shadows last week, seeking to galvanize the immigrant rights movement into emergency action. At stake is the fate of the nation’s 12 million undocumented immigrant workers and their families.
