Month: June 2018

Photo courtesy of Rutahsa Adventures www.rutahsa.com – published with permission by Leonard G. on Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 1.0). (GV) – During the Inca empire, also known as Tawantinsuyo, ancient Peruvians developed a broad network of roads and bridges so the extensive territory could communicate. Of all the bridges that existed back then, the only one that remains today is the Q’eswachaka or Queshuachaca (literally, “rope bridge” in the Quechua language), which spans a narrow pass over the Apurímac River in the province of Canas, located in the southern region of Cusco. Ultimo puente…

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The US cited for its decision the council’s perceived bias toward Israel and a lack of institutional credibility. But the departure symbolizes a retreat from leadership on human rights abroad as human rights conditions at home have come under sharp criticism. The decision came just days after the UN high commissioner for human rights denounced the US practice of forcibly separating children from their migrant and asylum seeker parents at the US border. The US has also sought to increase the number of immigrants detained by requesting additional funding to…

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(Sputnik) – The cross-party Intelligence and Security Committee of the British House of Commons has issued two reports conceding that the country’s intelligence agencies were complicit in the abduction, detention and torture of terrorism suspects to far greater degree than has previously been known. The reports dealt with the decade following the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the United States. Panel members led by former Conservative attorney general Dominic Grieve pored over more than 40,000 declassified documents and received the testimony of both former detainees and employees of MI5 in the course of its investigation. In a press release accompanying the reports’ publication, the committee members claimed…

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(Garrison) – Well, here we go again. On June 27, US Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy announced his retirement, effective July 31. Cue crisis, as defined by President John F. Kennedy’s inaccurate characterization of the Chinese analog: “Two characters, one representing danger and the other, opportunity.” Democrats and Republicans have, for 30 years, alternated between anticipation and fear, depending on which party was in position to choose Kennedy’s successor. As a “swing vote” — reliably tied to neither party’s policy agenda — since the day he donned the robe in…

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(HRW) – As US President Donald Trump ended his appalling mass family separation policy on the US southern border, he claimed a false choice: the US government either needs to separate families that cross the US border or detain them together. But family detention is not the best or only alternative to family separation – other approaches exist that are both just and fair. They are also much cheaper than detention. A problem the US faces is the high rates of no-shows at immigration court for  asylum seekers released without…

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