Obama Administration and Mexico: Compliance with International Law?

John B. Bellinger III writes:

PRESIDENT OBAMA has rightly emphasized America’s commitment to complying with international law. It is surprising, then, that he has so far taken no steps to comply with decisions of the International Court of Justice requiring the United States to review the cases of 51 Mexicans convicted of murder in state courts who had been denied access to Mexican consular officials, in violation of American treaty obligations.

In contrast to its mishandling of detainees, the Bush administration worked conscientiously in its second term to comply with these rulings, even taking the step of ordering the states to revisit the Mexican cases, a move the Supreme Court invalidated last year. The Obama administration should support federal legislation that would enable the president to ensure that the United States lives up to its international obligations.

link: Op-Ed Contributor - Lawlessness North of the Border - NYTimes.com

Square America: On the Limits of Memory

On The Limits Of Memory- About 70 (45 new to the site) optically distorted photos. Dreamy and strange, they are the product of cheap cameras and damaged negatives- no photoshop necessary.

link: Square America Snapshots & Vernacular Photography

Michael Kenna, Photographer

Michael Kenna, via La Main Gauche

Fidel Castro's Reflections on Honduras

Reflections of Fidel Castro

What must be demanded of the United States

(Taken from CubaDebate)

THE meeting in Costa Rica did not lead and could not lead to peace. The people of Honduras are not at war; only the coup perpetrators are using weapons against them. They should be called on to end their war on the people. Such a meeting between Zelaya and the coup leaders would only serve to demoralize the constitutional president and wear down the energies of the Honduran people.

World public opinion knows what has taken place in that country via footage circulated by international television, fundamentally Telesur which, without losing a second, faithfully transmitted each and every one of the events that took place in Honduras, the speeches given and the unanimous agreements against the coup by international agencies.

The world was able to see the blows rained down on men and women, the thousands of teargas grenades fired on the crowds, the gross gestures with weapons of war and live rounds to intimidate, wound or kill citizens.

The idea that Hugo Llorens, the U.S. ambassador in Tegucigalpa, was unaware of or discouraged the coup is absolutely untrue. He knew about it, as did the U.S. military advisors, who didn’t stop their training of Honduran troops for one minute.

It is now known that idea of promoting a peace move initiated in Costa Rica emerged from the offices of the State Department in order to contribute to the consolidation of the military coup.

The coup was conceived of and organized by unscrupulous individuals on the extreme right, dependable officials of George W. Bush and promoted by him.

All of them, without exception, have a bulky file of anti-Cuba activities. Hugo Llorens, the ambassador in Honduras since mid-2008, is a Cuban-American. He is part of a group of aggressive U.S. ambassadors in Central America comprising Robert Blau, ambassador in El Salvador; Stephen McFarland in Guatemala; and Robert Callahan in Nicaragua, all appointed by Bush in the months of July and August of 2008.

The four are continuing the line of Otto Reich and John Negroponte who, together with Oliver North, were responsible for the dirty war in Nicaragua and the death squads in Central America, which cost the peoples of the region tens of thousands of lives.

Negroponte was Bush’s representative at the United Nations, czar of U.S. intelligence and finally assistant secretary of state. In distinct ways, both of them were behind the Honduras coup.

The Soto Cano base in that country, headquarters of the Joint Task Force Bravo belonging to the Armed Forces of the United States, is the central support point of the coup d’état in Honduras.

The United States has the sinister plan of creating five further military bases around Venezuela, on the pretext of replacing the Manta one in Ecuador.

The ridiculous adventure of the coup d’état in Honduras has created a really complicated situation in Central America, which will not be resolved by traps, deceptions and lies.

Every day, new details are emerging of the implication of the United States in that action, which will also have serious repercussions in all of Latin America.

The idea of a peace initiative based in Costa Rica was transmitted to the president of that country from the State Department, when Obama was in Moscow and when he stated, in a Russian university, that the only president of Honduras was Manuel Zelaya.

The coup perpetrators were in a difficult situation. The initiative transmitted to Costa Rica sought the objective of saving them. It is obvious that every day of delay has a cost for the constitutional president and tends to dilute the exceptional international support that he has received.

The Yankee maneuver does not increment the possibilities of peace, but exactly the opposite, it reduces them and the danger of violence is growing, given that the peoples of our America will never resign themselves to the fate programmed for them.

When Micheletti, the de facto president, proclaimed yesterday that he is prepared to resign from his post if Zelaya resigns, I knew that the State Department and the military coup leaders had agreed to replace him and send him back to Congress as part of the maneuver.

The only correct thing to do at this point is to demand that the government of the United States ends its intervention, stops lending military support to the coup perpetrators and withdraws its Task Force from Honduras.

What is being demanded of the Honduran people, in the name of peace, is the negation of all the principles that have been fought for by all the nations of this hemisphere.

"Respect for the right of others is peace, said [Benito] Juárez.

Fidel Castro Ruz July 16, 2009 1:12 p.m.

link: Pan-African News Wire: Fidel Castro on What Must Be Demanded of the United States

Photo: Biertan, Romania

Street scene in Biertan, Romania. June 2007

link: File:Street Scene - Biertan - Romania.jpg - Wikimedia Commons

Ancient Map of America Genuine, but Still a Mystery

John Acher writes:

The 15th century Vinland Map, the first known map to show part of America before explorer Christopher Columbus landed on the continent, is almost certainly genuine, a Danish expert said Friday.

Controversy has swirled around the map since it came to light in the 1950s, many scholars suspecting it was a hoax meant to prove that Vikings were the first Europeans to land in North America -- a claim confirmed by a 1960 archaeological find.

Doubts about the map lingered even after the use of carbon dating as a way of establishing the age of an object.

"All the tests that we have done over the past five years -- on the materials and other aspects -- do not show any signs of forgery," Rene Larsen, rector of the School of Conservation under the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, told Reuters. . .

The Vinland Map is not a "Viking map" and does not alter the historical understanding of who first sailed to North America. But if it is genuine, it shows that the New World was known not only to Norsemen but also to other Europeans at least half a century before Columbus's voyage.

It was bought from a Swiss dealer by an American after the British Museum turned it down in 1957.

It was subsequently bought for Yale University by a wealthy Yale alumnus, Paul Mellon, and published with fanfare in 1965.

The lack of a provenance has caused much of the controversy. Where the map came from and how it came into the hands of the Swiss dealer after World War Two remain a mystery.

link: Vinland Map of America no forgery, expert says | Science | Reuters

San Diego: Attack of the Not-Quite-Giant Squid

Scuba divers off the Californian city of San Diego are being menaced by large numbers of jumbo squid.

The beaked Humboldt squid, which grow up to 5ft (1.5 metres) long, arrived off the city's shores last week.

Divers have reported unnerving encounters with the creatures, which are carnivorous and can be aggressive.

One diver described how one of the rust-coloured creatures ripped the buoyancy aid and light from her chest, and grabbed her with its tentacles.

"I just kicked like crazy," diver Shanda Magill told the Associated Press news agency.

"The first thing you think of is: 'Oh my gosh, I don't know if I'm going to survive this.' If that squid wanted to hurt me, it would have."

link: BBC NEWS | Americas | San Diego menaced by jumbo squid

Feather Lizard

Matt Walker writes:

A tiny species of lizard is so light that it falls to the ground like a feather, scientists have discovered.

Outwardly, little of the animal's body seems adapted to flying, gliding or moving through the air in any way.

But a slow-motion camera has revealed that when the lizard jumps from a height, it can slow the rate of its descent and land gently on the ground.

The lizard's surprising aerial ability might help explain how some animals became true gliders.

link: BBC - Earth News - Tiny lizard falls like a feather

Mysterious Matisse: New Study

“The popular view of Matisse is still that he is an artist of color and light and hedonism,” Mr. Elderfield said. “And this Matisse, the one between 1913 and 1917, is a different artist. He’s more austere, more anxious, more radical in many ways than the artist he popularly became. It was during this amazing five-year period that he became the artist of geometry and synthesis.”

Not only has this new study of “Bathers” revealed much about the artist’s methods — how he painted and repainted a canvas — but Ms. D’Alessandro and Mr. Elderfield also found unexpected connections between that work and several others, particularly two in MoMA’s collection, “The Moroccans,” from 1915-16, and “The Piano Lesson” from 1916.

link: Inside Art - Exploring Mysteries of Matisse’s ‘Bathers by a River’ - NYTimes.com

Kennedy Absent for Debate Close to his Heart: Health Care

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, who is battling brain cancer, has not been on Capitol Hill since April. Colleagues routinely lament his absence, which has been especially painful to Mr. Kennedy, the committee chairman, who has spent much of his career trying to expand health coverage. People close to Mr. Kennedy marvel at how his fight for his life could coincide so dramatically with what may be the culminating summer of his life’s cause. “It’s been a miraculous story,” said Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut.

link: Kennedy’s Absent Voice on Health Bill Resonates - NYTimes.com

Unpave Paradise: Resurrecting Obliterated Waterways

Cities from Singapore to San Antonio have been resuscitating rivers and turning storm drains into streams. In Los Angeles, residents’ groups and some elected officials are looking anew at buried or concrete-lined creeks as assets instead of inconveniences, inspired partly by Seoul’s example. By building green corridors around the exposed waters, cities hope to attract affluent and educated workers and residents who appreciate the feel of a natural environment in an urban setting. Environmentalists point out other benefits. Open watercourses handle flooding rains better than buried sewers do, a big consideration as global warming leads to heavier downpours. The streams also tend to cool areas overheated by sun-baked asphalt and to nourish greenery that lures wildlife as well as pedestrians.

link: Cities Like Seoul Rediscover Waterways They Paved Over - NYTimes.com

Since its opening in 2005, hundreds of thousands of people have visited the Cheonggyecheon stream in Seoul, South Korea, with friends and family.

License to Kill

When the state wants to kill someone, it has to come up with a rationale for describing that killing as something other than assassination. There are effectively three rules the U.S. government must follow in order to be able to argue that a killing is in accordance with both domestic and international law, and is not an "assassination." First, the killing must be a military act, an act of war. Second, the target must be definable as military or a civilian engaging in hostile acts against the United States. Third, if the killing takes place within a state with which the U.S. is not at war, the U.S. must have the permission of that country's government to carry out the hit. The U.S. pursuit of Taliban and al-Qaida targets follows those rules -- for the most part -- and is compliant with domestic and international law -- in theory.

link: Who is the CIA allowed to kill? | Salon News

If You're Looking for a Cat, Look in the Henhouse: Rare Colocolo Cat Found in Chile

A rare Colocolo cat, which is native to west-central South America and had not been seen for a decade in Chile, was found at a home in the west-central Chilean town of Quilpue, officials said. A resident of that town near the port of Valparaiso, some 120 kilometers (75 miles) west of Santiago, discovered the small striped cat, whose scientific name is Leopardus Colocolo, inside his henhouse

link: Latin American Herald Tribune - Rare Cat Found in Chile

Brazil: Police Kill Mentally Ill Man

Three police officers in Belem, the capital of the northern Brazilian state of Para, shot and killed a mentally ill man after mistaking the radio he was carrying for a weapon, the press reported Thursday.

Eyewitnesses told the daily O Globo that the 37-year-old victim, whose family said was a schizophrenic, was walking down the street when he was stopped by three officers, who tried to cover up what happened as soon as they realized their mistake.

“Two witnesses said the victim was not armed and that the officers had thought that he was trying to pull out a revolver when his hand went to his waist,” Belem police commissioner Fernando Silva told O Globo.

A man who witnessed the incident said the victim put up his hands when ordered to do so by the officers and later tried to pull up his shirt to show he was not armed.

The man tried to run and show he was unarmed after being shot in the chest, but the officers then shot him again with a rifle, the eyewitness said.

The officers, who said they opened fire because the man pulled out a weapon, have not been arrested and remain on duty, but they have been transferred to another neighborhood.

“If some excess or lack of control is proven, the Disciplinary Council could move to dismiss the officers from the department,” internal affairs unit spokesman Lt. Helio Basbas said.

link: Latin American Herald Tribune - Brazilian Police Kill Mentally Ill Man

Today: Anniversary of the Death of Billie Holiday

The Day Lady Died
by Frank O'Hara

It is 12:20 in New York a Friday
three days after Bastille day, yes
it is 1959 and I go get a shoeshine
because I will get off the 4:19 in Easthampton
at 7:15 and then go straight to dinner
and I don’t know the people who will feed me

I walk up the muggy street beginning to sun
and have a hamburger and a malted and buy
an ugly NEW WORLD WRITING to see what the poets
in Ghana are doing these days
I go on to the bank
and Miss Stillwagon (first name Linda I once heard)
doesn’t even look up my balance for once in her life
and in the GOLDEN GRIFFIN I get a little Verlaine
for Patsy with drawings by Bonnard although I do
think of Hesiod, trans. Richmond Lattimore or
Brendan Behan’s new play or Le Balcon or Les Nègres
of Genet, but I don’t, I stick with Verlaine
after practically going to sleep with quandariness

and for Mike I just stroll into the PARK LANE
Liquor Store and ask for a bottle of Strega and
then I go back where I came from to 6th Avenue
and the tobacconist in the Ziegfeld Theatre and
casually ask for a carton of Gauloises and a carton
of Picayunes, and a NEW YORK POST with her face on it

and I am sweating a lot by now and thinking of
leaning on the john door in the 5 SPOT
while she whispered a song along the keyboard
to Mal Waldron and everyone and I stopped breathing

Exquisite Bodies Exhibition

Morbid Anatomy writes:

"Exquisite Bodies: or the Curious and Grotesque History of the Anatomical Model" running from July 30 to October 18 2009, is an exhibition which takes as subject the under-appreciated and rarely glossed history of the popular anatomical display.

link: Morbid Anatomy

Ornamental Typography: Bibliodyssey

Bibliodysses writes:

These images were scanned from a 1996 book, 'Ornamental Type' from the Pepin Press stable.

The book has almost no commentary other than to advise that the selection of ornamental letters, monograms and initials included were produced from the 15th century up to the 1930s.

link: BibliOdyssey

In Case You Didn't Believe It: Photos of Apollo Landing Site on the Moon

Lunar orbiter photographs Apollo landing sites | The Space Shot - CNET News

Karroubi Roughed Up at Prayers

niacINsight reports:

Parleman - Karroubi’s son reported that plainclothes forces made good on a threat we reported on yesterday to attack Karroubi at the Friday prayer.

“When my father was moving towards Tehran University, many people were behind him and were asking him to defend their rights by chanting slogans but suddenly the anti-riot police in front of him shot bullets in the air so Mr. Karroubi asked the people not go any farther…At this point they (riot police) put my father in a car to take him to the University but when he was getting out of the car, a group of plainclothes attacked and insulted him in such a way that his turban fell off. They started cursing and using very foul language.”

Karroubi’s son expressed his disappointment at such a behavior and said “I was not able to get inside the University because of the crowd and as I was standing outside, I saw that the commander of the plainclothes forces was praising them for a job well done over his radio.”

Regarding a violent scene he witnessed on his way back home, Karroubi's son said “I was very sad that I witnessed such scenes in the Islamic Republic.”

“On my way back home, I witnessed several plainclothes forces who had gathered around a Peugeot car…two of them were on top of the car and were destroying it and in the mean time I saw that passengers of the car were injured and blood was gushing towards the sky as if their wrists were slit and I was very sad to see this scene.”

update: the Guardian published this picture, which appears to show Karroubi after his turban was knocked off.

link: niacINsight

Account from Iran

niacINsight writes:

An eyewitness account, emailed to us from a very close friend.

Made my way down the west side of Laleh Park, large crowd was gathered around a radio listening to Rafi give the sermons, moved down to Keshavarz Blvd, where people had already started to taunt the bassijis who look like teenagers with Darth Vader helmets that was one size too big for them.

The main slogans were “Baradar’e basiji chera Baradr Koshi” (”Brother basiji, why do you kill your brother?”, the speaker after Rafi was urging people to shout “death to America” and “death to Israel” people responded in mass by shouting “death to Russia” and “death to the dictator”, things started getting messy in 16 Azar street, I never knew that you can defuse the effect of tear gas if you hold a cigarette close to your face, who cares about second hand smoke when you are fighting a dictatorship… Anyways, they chased and people ran away, they caught few poor fellows who probably are in hospital now, but overall the fear and terror seems to get less and less effective, unless they decided to bring the big guns out one day, even then I do not think they will able to defeat these people

link: niacINsight

Violence in Iran: Opposition "As Strong as Ever"

Security forces fired tear gas and plainclothes militiamen armed with batons charged at crowds of protesters gathered near Tehran University after a Friday prayer sermon delivered by the cleric and opposition supporter Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, his first appearance at the nation's weekly keynote sermon since before the election.

Rafsanjani, in a closely watched speech, lashed out at the hard-line camp supporting President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, criticized the June 12 election results and promoted several key opposition demands. However, he failed to offer a solution to what has emerged as Iran's worst political crisis in decades.

His inconclusive speech and the Muslim Sabbath clashes between security forces and supporters of opposition figure Mir-Hossein Mousavi that followed suggested the political firestorm unleashed by the marred vote would continue and that the movement it had inspired was as strong as ever.

link: Tehran's streets erupt after a key cleric speaks - Los Angeles Times

Joel Brouwer on Poetry of Hayden Carruth

It’s hard to learn how to write poems, and it’s hard to decide what to write them about. It’s hardest of all, though, to discover (or create) a good reason to write them at all. I don’t think I realized when I read Carruth’s Collected Shorter Poems in 1992 that the most crucial lesson he had to offer me was the necessity of confronting that fearful task directly and continuously, with honesty and integrity. If I’ve begun to understand that lesson in the years since, it’s in no small part thanks to the present moment of the past which lives in that book’s pages.

link: Hayden Carruth (1921-2008) : Joel Brouwer : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation

Village People Still Dopey: Freemasons Spend the Night in Stir for Witchcraft in Fiji

"A group of freemasons have had to spend a night in jail in Fiji, after local villagers complained they were practising witchcraft.

The 14 men, including eight Australians and a New Zealander, had been holding a night-time meeting on Denerau island.

The New Zealand man told reporters he had spent a "wretched" time in jail, and blamed the mix-up on the actions of "dopey village people".

Police also seized wands, compasses and a skull from the freemasons' lodge.

link: Disinfo.com - Sorcerous Freemasons Arrested in Fiji!

Digitized Fetus Images: Elephant and Dolphin

TYWKIWDBI: All creatures great and small...

Mousavi Makes Public Appearance at Rafsanjani-Led Friday Prayers

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the former Iranian president, has said that Iran is in "crisis", referring to the upheaval in the country following last month's disputed presidential election.

Delivering a sermon during Friday prayers at Tehran University, Rafsanjani, a known critic of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the current president, also called on the authorities to free those detained during the post-poll protests.

"We are all members of a family. I hope with this sermon we can pass through this period of hardships that can be called a crisis," he said.

"In the current situation it is not necessary for us to have a number of people in prisons ... we should allow them to return to their families," Rafsanjani added.

Among thousands who attended the prayers was Mir Hossein Mousavi, the defeated pro-reform presidential candidate.

It was Mousavi's first public appearance since the June 12 vote, which he says was rigged.

link: Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Rafsanjani: Iran in crisis

Obama Floats Like a Butterfly, Stings like a Bee

President Barack Obama has been ad-libbing aggressively in speeches this week, as his twin priorities — turning around the economy and overhauling health care — have run into trouble.

Straying from prepared remarks is out of character for the disciplined president, and lately he’s been doing it to deliver his most biting rhetoric — whether to take on his critics or to pressure Congress. The president even had a “bring it on” moment this week, when he veered off his text to call out Republicans, without saying he was calling out Republicans.

“Now, my administration has a job to do, as well, and that job is to get this economy back on its feet,” Obama said in Michigan, following the text scrolling on the teleprompter.

But instead of moving on to his efforts on the auto industry, as planned, Obama detoured: “And it’s a job I gladly accept,” he said sharply. “I love these folks who helped get us in this mess and then suddenly say, ‘Well, this is Obama’s economy.’ That’s fine. Give it to me.”

Emboldened by applause, Obama didn’t stop there. “My job is to solve problems, not to stand on the sidelines and carp and gripe,” he said, to more applause. “So I welcome the job. I want the responsibility.”

link: The cool-headed Barack Obama is getting feisty - Carol E. Lee - POLITICO.com

Stability Breaks Out in the West Bank

The first movie theater to operate in this Palestinian city in two decades opened its doors in late June. Palestinian policemen standing beneath new traffic lights are checking cars for seat belt violations. One-month-old parking meters are filling with the coins of shoppers. Music stores are blasting love songs into the street, and no nationalist or Islamist scold is forcing them to stop.

“You don’t appreciate the value of law and order until you lose it,” Rashid al-Sakhel, the owner of a carpet store, said as he stood in his doorway surveying the small wonder of bustling streets on a sunny morning.

“For the past eight years, a 10-year-old boy could order a strike and we would all close. Now nobody can threaten us.” For the first time since the second Palestinian uprising broke out in late 2000, leading to terrorist bombings and fierce Israeli countermeasures, a sense of personal security and economic potential is spreading across the West Bank as the Palestinian Authority’s security forces enter their second year of consolidating order.

link: Signs of Hope Emerge in the West Bank - NYTimes.com

Albanian Sex Trade Linked to Speedboats

So many women, men and children had been trafficked abroad to work as prostitutes, forced laborers or beggars that the Albanian government three years ago barred all Albanian citizens from using speedboats, the favored transportation used by traffickers to get people out of the country.

This drastic measure, coupled with stricter border controls and revenge killings of traffickers by victims’ families, had a significant effect, reducing trafficking by more than half and all but ending Albania’s role as a major transit point for people trafficked to Western Europe from eastern and southern parts of the Continent, say experts who follow trafficking. But the ban prompted loud protests from fishermen and people in the tourism industry, and in May it was reversed. Law enforcement and human rights officials are concerned that as a result, human trafficking may explode anew — at an especially difficult time.

link: On Speedboats, Legal Again, Albania’s Illicit Sex Trade Could Flare - NYTimes.com

Human Rights Watch Calls for Investigatsions in Congo for Rapes by Army Officers

The government of the Democratic Republic of Congo should urgently investigate and prosecute senior army officials allegedly involved or complicit in rampant sexual crimes against women and girls, as part of its efforts to combat sexual violence, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Human Rights Watch also called for a series of other actions to prevent sexual violence during conflict in Congo.

The 62-page report, "Soldiers Who Rape, Commanders Who Condone: Sexual Violence and Military Reform in the Democratic Republic of Congo," documents persistent sexual violence by the army, and the limited impact of government and donor efforts to address the problem.

link: allAfrica.com: Congo-Kinshasa: Hold Army Commanders Responsible for Rapes (Page 1 of 2)