“SOS Children’s Villages said at least one of the 33 youngsters, a little girl, insisted her parents were alive. … the girl [told authorities] she had believed she was being taken to a boarding school or summer camp.”

“Ten Americans were detained by Haitian police as they tried to bus 33 children across the border into the Dominican Republic … Many children in Haitian orphanages aren’t actually orphans but have been abandoned by family who cannot afford to care for them.”

See also: Americans arrested taking children out of Haiti | Reuters

“Authorities said the Americans had no documents to prove they had cleared the adoption of the 33 children — aged 2 months to 12 years — through any embassy and no papers showing they were made orphans by the quake”

“Bush administration lawyers, John C. Yoo and Jay S. Bybee, who paved the way for sleep deprivation and waterboarding of terrorism suspects exercised poor judgment but will not be referred to authorities for possible sanctions … The conclusion is likely to unsettle interest groups that have sought a reckoning for lawyers who made possible brutal interrogation, warrantless wiretapping and other Bush counterterrorism strategies.”

“Hamas has ruled [sic] Gaza since 2006, but its political leaders are also based in Damascus, Syria. There have been a number of attempts on the lives of Hamas members. Last month two Hamas officials were killed in a mysterious explosion in southern Beirut”

–The Washington Post falls to the level reached only by many in the student media.

–The analysis? The Third-Way movement in labour parties, especially if they get into power, will lead to the demise of the socialist ideals. We must fight to keep the foundation of our parties left as we struggle for a fairer society.

–Minimum wage is supposed to lift all people up to a decent wage, not lift some while others are left behind – that’s what we have now.

For some comedic relief, but also to learn something, check out this very informative rap battle.

–Solidarity with the people of Bolivia.

–The Canadian Federation of Students have put out a release highlighting new data on student debt by StatsCan.

From the Release:
According to the study well over a majority of students borrowed to finance their post-secondary education, up almost 10% from a decade earlier. The proportion of graduates with high debt loads (over $25,000) increased by more than 50% during the same period, from 17% to 27%. Recent graduates who borrowed to finance their education were significantly less likely to have savings and investments and to own their own homes. The study did not provide information on students who could not afford to complete their degrees.

“An anti-fascist was assaulted outside the central London county court on Thursday while protesting against Nazi British National Party (BNP) leader Nick Griffin…“The BNP thinks it can attack and injure people who are exercising their right to protest. If it does this in front of the press, I hate to think what it when no one is watching.””

“Paralyzed by the betrayals of the Stalinists, the European working class was unable to stop the spread of fascism and the movement toward war. Trotsky concentrated his energies on the founding of the Fourth International. “The world political situation as a whole,” he wrote in early 1938, “is chiefly characterized by a historical crisis of the leadership of the proletariat.” [6]

The Stalinists countered Trotsky’s efforts by escalating their violence against his closest co-thinkers and supporters.”

-Examines the use of revisionist Stalinist-era documents in the creation of Robert Service’s self-described character assassination of Trotsky. Explains the truthful history of Trotsky and the Great Terror of Stalin.

“An author and democracy activist who criticised Vietnam’s communist government has been sentenced to four years in jail after a trial lasting half a day.

Pham Thanh Nghien was found guilty on charges of “spreading propaganda against the state”.”

-Vietnam’s government is not communist. It is a US-backed capitalist dictatorship. (from GreenLeft)

“If I want to be remembered for anything, it’s for introducing a different way of thinking about the world, about war, about human rights, about equality, for getting more and more people to think that way, and also for getting more people to realize that power, which rests so far in the hands of people with wealth and guns, ultimately rests on people themselves, and they can use it, and at certain points in history they have used it: Black people in the South used it; people in the women’s movement used it; people in the anti-war movement used it; people in other countries who have overthrown tyrannies have used it. What I want to be remembered as is somebody who gave people a feeling of hope and power that they didn’t have before”

“Siddiqui and her three children [were] disappeared in the Pakistani port city of Karachi in 2003, where she was living at the time, her family and Pakistani human rights groups say. They believe she was held at Bagram, the main U.S. base in neighboring Afghanistan, and that she was raped and tortured, although they do not say what evidence they have for that. They say Siddiqui reappeared in July 2008 when she was arrested along with her eldest son, who is now a teenager, near an Afghan police facility in Ghazni. That son is now living with Siddiqui’s sister in Pakistan. The whereabouts of her two youngest children are unknown.”

See also: Secret ‘Taliban talks’ in Maldives | Al Jazeera English

Indeed.

There are now 2 countries in our hemisphere that are being governed undemocratically.

“The seven-month political crisis has ended in Honduras. That is, the supporters of the ousted president Manuel Zelaya, and the opponents of the 28 June military coup, have lost. … [Although] countries such as Brazil and Argentina still refuse to recognise the legitimacy of a government elected in a poll organised by a coup government [it] has garnered the critical mass of recognition – crucially, including from the United States … The new government is likely to soon pardon itself for all crimes committed during the coup [even] though dissidents are still murdered or intimidated out of the country”

Al Jazeera has learnt that a plan is being considered to pay up to $1bn to Taliban fighters to persuade them to lay down their arms.
In advance of an international conference in London to discuss Afghanistan’s future on Thursday, Japan, the United States and Britain are said to be leading the proposal.
The scheme would offer cash, jobs and other incentives to the Taliban and fighters in other armed groups.

–A comrade is lost, but he leaves a radical legacy that will inspire revolutionaries and ignite passions for an equitable world for many years to come. Condolences to his family and friends.

“Each American dollar roughly breaks down like this: 42 cents for disaster assistance, 33 cents for U.S. military aid, nine cents for food, nine cents to transport the food, five cents for paying Haitian survivors for recovery efforts, just under one cent to the Haitian government, and about half a cent to the Dominican Republic.”

“There seems to be an emerging consensus that when all is said and done, the Afghan jihadist movement — in one form or another — will be part of the government in Kabul”