by Janine - streetnewz@islandnet.com

david johnston and the tent city campers were in separate court rooms this week.

i just contacted cathy boies parker, the campers' defense lawyer, who spoke for a long time in the supreme court yesterday about human rights law in canada's charter, and about the un's document on human rights and the international covenant on economic and social rights, which canada has signed onto. since we have the right to life, liberty, and security of person, and since adequate housing is necessary to ensure that, it's unjust to punish the campers for something that is not an autonomous choice (because there's inadequate shelter space) and it's offensive to punish them without providing another option.

ALL MEN need to work on issues of patriarchy, sexism and
misogyny... (T)his questionnaire may point out to you areas of particular focus or concentration for your own anti-patriarchal/sexist/misogynist process and development.

Cops and Students Battle at Quebec National Assembly

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Riot police fired tear gas at rebellious students in front of the Quebec National Assembly (provincial legislature) yesterday.

Robert Davis, a 64-year-old retired teacher, suffered injuries during (an) incident on the night of Oct. 8 in New Orleans. He's scheduled to go on trial with charges that include resisting arrest and battery on one of the police officers who beat him....Ordinarily, there's no evidence to dispute the accounts provided by police officers after such violence occurs. The news media and the legal system are oriented to accept the word of uniformed authorities and discount the claims of defendants. For journalists and judges, the official story becomes The Story....Davis' ordeal was unusual, and caused a national uproar, because an Associated Press Television News crew happened to be near. But for every exceptional incident that exposes official misconduct to national view, there are countless deplorable events that never see the light of media day.

Shocking images from Afghanistan have again exposed the racist barbarism of the U.S. "war on terror"....Last week, U.S. soldiers were caught on videotape burning the bodies of two dead Taliban fighters--something forbidden under Islamic law--in Gonbaz, a village in southern Afghanistan.

What is happening right now in Haiti is probably Canada's worst foreign policy crime in the last 50 years. The Canadian government helped plan and carry out the destabilization of Haiti's elected government, culminating in the February 2004 coup d'état/kidnapping of President Jean Bertrand Aristide by U.S. Marines and Canada's Joint Task Force 2. Since then, the coup-installed government and its death squad allies have waged an all-out war against Aristide's Lavalas movement and its supporters with the full and enthusiastic backing of Paul Martin's Liberal government.

By Dr. Mercola

Since Rumsfeld holds major portions of stock in Gilead, he will handsomely profit from the scare tactics of the government that is being used to justify the purchase of $2 billion of Tamiflu.

Wildcat Annie - Eugene Cascadia Network

Here's a quick report on the forest defense actions around the Pacific Northwest of North America after having returned on a Cascadian bioregional tour.

Direct action battles against logging of the lush ancient rainforests of the Pacific Northwest are still being kept alive by heroic forest defenders.

Mrs. Parks, an active member of the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, was riding on a city bus Dec. 1, 1955, when a white man demanded her seat.

To understand just how tenuous the U.S. position in Iraq is at the moment, we have only to look at the way Basra, Iraq's second largest city, in the solidly Shiite South slipped out of the control of occupation forces last month.

The documents released today include 44 autopsies and death reports as well as a summary of autopsy reports of individuals apprehended in Iraq and Afghanistan. The documents show that detainees died during or after interrogations by Navy Seals, Military Intelligence and “OGA” (Other Governmental Agency) -- a term, according to the ACLU, that is commonly used to refer to the CIA.

According to the documents, 21 of the 44 deaths were homicides.

The Province | October 23, 2005

The annual Parade of Lost Souls is dead this year; it was cancelled due to the high cost of the policing which the Vancouver Police Department deems necessary to supervise this family event.

Inmates at a prison hospital in Kyrgyzstan have killed a parliamentarian and two other people after taking his entourage hostage.

Two other members of his entourage were killed and the head of the prisons service, Imatulla Polotov, was taken to hospital with serious injuries. His fate was unclear with conflicting statements about his condition.