Russel and Brandi Bellew, age 39 and 36, of Creswell, Oregon, pleaded guilty to criminally negligent homicide on Tuesday and were sentenced to five years probation after reaching a plea deal with prosecutors.
The couple, who had seven children before Austin Sprout's death, are members of the General Assembly and the Church of the First Born in nearby Pleasant Hill, which shuns modern medicine and teaches parishioners that faith healing and prayer will cure disease.
Walking free: Brandi and Russel Bellew, leave court on Tuesday after they were sentenced to five years of probation for letting their 16-year-old son died after they tried to 'pray away' his burst appendix
Excruciating: Austin Sprout, 16, died of a burst appendix after suffering appendicitis for a week. The painful disease is easily remedied by routine surgery
It was also revealed on Tuesday that Austin died in December from a burst appendix after he suffered from appendicitis for a week, the Eugene Register Guard reported.
Appendicitis, the inflammation of the appendix, often results in excruciating abdominal pain that requires heavy doses of morphine to keep under control. However, it can be easily treated with routine surgery that removes the appendix.
Left untreated, the inflamed organ can burst and spew bile into the body, which results in dangerous infections that often prove deadly.
The couple were charged with second-degree manslaughter after authorities learned the Austin's death could have been prevented if his parents had simple taken him to the hospital.
Austin's father, Anthony, died in 2007 of sepsis, after he refused to seek treatment for an infected injury to his leg.
Faith healers: The Bellews, who have six other children, are members of the General Assembly and the Church of the First Born, which shuns modern medicine in favor of prayer
His mother, Brandi, later married Russel Bellew -- who was also widowed.
At the time of Austin's death, his uncle Shawn Sprout, defended the congregation's practice of faith healing.
'We trust in God for everything. We trusted him to take care of our illnesses and heal us,' he told KVAL.
Social workers removed the other six children, who range in age from infant to 17, from the Bellews home.
It is unclear whether they will be returned to their parents, though a case worker said she believes they are 'safe' in the home.
The purpose of this event is to set a particular day as a day to support free speech, support the right to criticize and satirize religion, and to oppose any resolutions or laws, binding or otherwise, that discourage or inhibit free speech of any kind. The focus on ‘blasphemy’ is simply because it is such a salient issue, and one for which a lot of consciousness-raising is necessary.
The goal is not to promote hate or violence. While many perceive blasphemy as insulting and offensive, it isn’t about getting enjoyment out of ridiculing and insulting others.
Criticism and dissent towards opposing views is the only way in which any nation with any modicum of freedom can exist. Post and send any images, quotes and stories that are blasphemous to our Facebook page (see right) on or before that day so that we publish them on 30th.
Republicans and Democrats offer the worst of all possible worlds. Ordinary people are entirely shut out. Growing numbers reject both parties for good reason. Money power owns them.
"Are you better off" than four years ago, asked The New York Times? "There is really no reason for any hesitancy. The country is unquestionably better off than it was in 2008."
Fact check
True to form, The Times offered a litany of lies. Bankers, other corporate favorites, and war profiteers fared handsomely. They still do. America's 99% got stiff-armed. Most US households were thrown under the bus.
Virtually no jobs were created. Full-time/good pay and benefit ones are disappearing. Real unemployment approaches 23%. In the Great Depression, it reached 25%. Serious efforts were made then to reduce it. Virtually nothing is done now.
US Census figures confirm half or more of US households living in poverty or bordering on it. Record numbers need food stamps to survive. Congress plans cuts when they're more than ever needed.
Feeding America says over 50 million Americans face hunger. One in six people are affected, including over one in five children. Political Washington ignores food insecurity. Serving corporate interests and imperial warmongers alone matter.
Duplicitous political convention rhetoric was enough to make a brash brigand blush. Banality took center stage. Demagogic deception hid reactionary extremism.
Convention delegates and ordinary people inhabit worlds apart. Pre-scripted yammering was predictable. Republicans showed contempt for human needs. Phony populism hid a similar Democrat agenda.
Privilege alone matters. Ordinary folks increasingly are on their own sink or swim. Obama's first term reflected it. Betrayal and failure defined it. Another four years assures more of the same and then some.
The man promising hope and change broke every major pledge made. Four demagogic years did Lincoln one better. He fooled most people enough to matter. He's beholden to big money. He never cared about ordinary people and doesn't now.
"Yes we can" conceals his dark side. No pun intended. He's a consummate con man. It's easy to know when he's lying, just watch his lips move.
Throughout his political career, he's been pro-corporate, pro-war, pro-Israel, anti-populist, anti-civil and human rights, and anti all values real democrats support.
He put Wall Street crooks in charge of looting the nation's wealth. He furthered the greatest wealth transfer in history. Rules, regulations, legal restraints with teeth, and taxes were slashed to help them. Plans are on track to make America resemble Guatemala.
Full-time/high pay/good benefit jobs are disappearing. So are social services. They're on the chopping block for elimination. The nation's middle class is targeted for destruction. A huge underclass is replacing it. America's more than ever militarized to control it.
Police state laws threaten freedom. Big Brother spying is policy. Privacy is a figure of speech. First Amendment rights and dissent are endangered. Tyranny, torture, corporate empowerment, and permanent wars define Obama's agenda.
He exceeded the worst of George Bush's harshness, lawlessness, and belligerency. Imagine what he plans if reelected. He waged war on Islam, Latino immigrants, animal and environmental rights activists, whistleblowers, people of color, the poor, anyone challenging state power, and civil rights lawyers who defend them too vigorously.
In Obama's America, only the privileged matter. Growing numbers of others are on their own hungry, homeless, and jobless.
He looted the nation's wealth, wrecked the economy, ravaged one nation after another, and continues waging war on humanity.
He executed two Latin American coups. Honduras' democratically elected president was ousted. So was Paraguay's. He militarized Haiti, opened the country for business, occupied it for plunder, rigged its election, installed a pro-Western stooge, and increased the growing burden of impoverished Haitians who deserve better.
He supports the world's worst despots. He sucks up shamelessly to Israel. He spurns long denied Palestinian rights. He plans war on Syria and Iran. Neither nation threatens anyone. America and Israel menace humanity.
He presides over a bogus democracy under a repressive police state apparatus. Habeas rights, due process, judicial fairness, and other civil liberty protections are quaint artifacts increasingly discarded.
Torture is official policy. So is Murder, Inc. Death squads operate in over 120 countries. Special forces and CIA operatives are licensed to kill. US citizens may be targeted at home or abroad. No one anywhere is safe.
Summary judgment means no arrests. No Miranda rights. No due process. No trial. Just a bullet, bomb or slit throat. It's official Obama policy. Diktat authority affords justice to no one ordered killed.
It also lets Obama order US citizens arrested and indefinitely held without charge or trial. No proof is needed, just suspicions that those detained pose threats. Constitutional protections no longer apply.
US military personnel may arrest and indefinitely detain anyone globally. No one anywhere is safe. Tyranny is policy. Obama seized virtual dictatorial powers. Anyone designated a potential enemy of the state, true or false, is targeted.
Political prisoners fill America's gulag. It’s the world’s largest by far and one of the worst. Muslims and people of color are most at risk. America's super-rich and corporate crooks are free to do what they please. Bad as things are now, expect worse.
War rages against labor. Budget-strapped states get little help. Welfare is being cut. So are Medicare for seniors, Medicaid for the needy, and other New Deal/Great Society programs.
Public education is being commodified. Plans call for making it another business profit center and ending government's responsibility. Health care is being rationed. Only those who can afford it will get help when they need it.
Food and drug safety don't matter. Nor do clean clean air or water. Small farms and businesses are being destroyed. Large ones are bigger and more dominant than ever.
Wall Street ones are up to one-fourth larger today than four years ago. They're double their size a decade ago relative to the economy. Ordinary Americans are much poorer and more deprived.
Financial reform was fraudulent. Institutionalized grand theft is policy. Business as usual lets Wall Street run the country. Consumer protections don't exist.
The worst of bad practices continue. Rules either don't exist or are made to be broken. Bankers get what they want. Ordinary people get scammed.
Obama promised "change you can believe in." He delivered betrayal instead. He's anti-progressive, hard-right, reactionary, belligerent, pro-corporate, and anti-populist. He's heartless, merciless, morally corrupt, and soulless.
Austerity is policy when help is needed. Draconian cuts were enacted. Many more are planned. Eliminating trillions of dollars in social service spending is policy. Democrats are in lock step with Republicans.
Corporate handouts, tax cuts for the rich, and Pentagon spending remain virtually untouched. Bad as things are now, imagine America in four years under either party.
Obama plans more of the same and then some. Romney is a religious extremist/corporate crook/socially destructive/imperial rogue.
He and Ryan plan exceeding the worst of Obama. Both are unapologetic. They're indifferent to human need and welfare. They represent everything wrong with a broken system. It's too corrupted, dysfunctional, and rotten to fix.
They're frontmen for financialized America, super-rich privilege, and imperial lawlessness. They guarantee worse wide awake nightmares than Obama.
America's choice in November is none. Bad as things are now expect worse. Bipartisan complicity assures it.
Source: mathaba.net - Author: Stephen Lendman; he lives in Chicago.
"Daddy, I'm going to get mommy out of jail with a bulldozer."
That's four-year-old Gera speaking about her plan to free her mother Nadya, one of the imprisoned members of Pussy Riot.
As an Amnesty activist, you know we don't need a bulldozer to free a prisoner – just the power of our voices. And we need your voice more than ever as Pussy Riot faces an appeal hearing on October 1st.
Nadya and the other members of Pussy Riot went to the cathedral to give Russia – and the rest of the world – a wake-up call. They felt it was their civic duty to expose the corruption and repression they saw.
Pussy Riot stood up for their ideals. As artistic expression. Nonviolently. Legally.
Except, of course, in Putin's Russia, where their dissent was stifled and condemned as "hooliganism."
But there is hope. The world is watching. Last week, Pyotr Verzilov travelled with his daughter Gera to the United States to work with Amnesty to raise awareness for his wife's case. During the Amnesty International Youth Town Hall, Aung San Suu Kyi met with Pyotr and Gera and called for the release of the women. With Amnesty at her side, Yoko Ono gave the band the LennonOno Grant for Peace to honor their courage.
During their visit, Pyotr expressed how moved he was by your advocacy on behalf of his wife and the other courageous women imprisoned for expressing their opinions peacefully:
“We are grateful to Amnesty International for your work on the case and all of your support. The most important thing you can do is rally people. We need your voices.”
The people are coming, and there is nothing they can do about it! The People will not be Defeated! We all stand with our Spanish Brother and Sisters . . . You cannot stop an idea who's time has come!
Thousands have turned up on the doorstep of Parliament in Spain to take back control from the ruthless elite. Violence continue between protesters and riot police in Madrid, with cops firing rubber bullets and tear gas at the crowd. Fourteen people have been injured and 22 arrested, local media report.
Riot Police belted protesters, dragging some them by the arms and legs.
FAIR USE NOTICE: This video has been posted to further advance our understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, Technological, democratic, scientific, and social justice issues which constitutes a "fair use" of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 for research and educational purposes.
Al Haq's new report provides more evidence. Titled "Pillage of the Dead Sea: Israel's Unlawful Exploitation of Natural Resources in the Occupied Palestinian Territory," it details grand theft and war crimes. They benefit Jews by harming Palestinians. More on it below.
Yesh Din defends Palestinian human rights. It exposes Israeli abuses. It champions long denied accountability.
In March 2009, it petitioned Israel's High Court of Justice (HCJ). It wants lawless West Bank mining operations stopped. Israel and 11 Israeli corporations steal Palestinian resources rightfully theirs. It demanded all quarrying and mining activities cease.
It argued that Israeli companies pillage Palestinian resources for profit and Israel's benefit. Doing so also violates fundamental international law. As an occupying power, Israel is obligated to protect, not exploit, Palestinian rights.
On December 26, 2011, the HCJ rejected Yesh Din's petition. It sanctioned lawless pillage. On January 10, 2012, Yesh Din requested another hearing before a broader panel of judges.
Seven distinguished Israeli legal experts stood with Yesh Din. They took issue with the Court's ruling. Their collective opinion matters. It provides greater impact.
On July 25, 2012, the HCJ spurned Yesh Din again. In his decision, retired Deputy President Judge Eliezer Rivlin said the December 2011 ruling rejected Yesh Din's petition mainly because Israel and the Palestinian Authority addressed the issue earlier. They agreed to an interim 1995 deal.
He failed to explain its terms. It explicitly said "quarries must be transferred to the Palestinian side within 18 months." Israel still controls them. The Court's ruling OK'd its right to steal.
Seven leading international law experts disagree. They unequivocally call Israel's mining operations lawless. In their judgment, the Court's ruling was troublesome. Judge Rivlin addressed their opinion, saying:
"I did not ignore the opinion of the experts on international law submitted in support of the petitioner's argument. The learned opinion raises important questions and analyzes them most skillfully and eruditely."
"However, in the concrete circumstances of this case, since no precedent was set in the decision that would justify a further hearing, there is no need to discuss them at this stage."
In response, Yesh Din attorney Shlomy Zachary said:
"This decision by the High Court of Justice recognizes the serious flaws of the court's decision on the original petition, and mutes its conclusions."
"The court is also aware that the decision's determinations must be decided in the future, and therefore the decision on the concrete matter cannot serve as a binding precedent."
"The opinion of the leading experts from Israel's universities, submitted as part of this case, added another level that reinforced the need to minimize the determinations about this matter, and we welcome that."
Israel's High Court tried having it both ways. In initially rejecting Yesh Din's petition, HCJ President Dorit Beinisch said:
"The belligerent occupation of Israel in the area has some unique characteristics, primarily the duration of the occupation period that requires the adjustment of the law to the reality on the ground, which imposes a duty upon Israel to ensure normal life for a period, which…is certainly long-term."
At the same time, the Court spurned international law. It also dismissed the opinion of seven distinguished Israeli legal experts.
Their judgment is indisputable. Rule of law principles back it. It carries weight. It concluded saying "the license granted to Israeli corporations to mine exhaustible natural minerals in territory under belligerent occupation is illegal."
High Court judges know it but ignored them and fundamental international law anyway. Their ruling was not only dishonest, it was convoluted.
Outrageously, the Court said militarized occupation and Israeli Civil Administration operations benefit Palestinians. In other words, controlling them at the point of a gun and pillaging their resources helps. How, the Court didn't explain. It merely said:
"Royalties paid to the Civil Administration by the operators of the quarries are used to finance the operations of the military administration, which promotes various kinds of projects aimed to benefit the interests of the area."
Stealing what's theirs doesn't help. Military occupation spurns their rights. Employment for small numbers of Palestinians at slave wages neither benefits them or the collective population.
Virtually all resources mined help Israel and its settlements. Mining fees, levies, and royalties flow straight to Israeli state coffers. Palestinians are denied what's rightfully theirs.
Al Haq's report offers more proof. Black's Law Dictionary calls pillage "the forcible taking of private property by an invading or conquering army from the enemy's subjects."
The 1907 Hague Regulations, Fourth Geneva, and other international laws prohibit doing so under all circumstances. The Statute of International Criminal Court calls "pillaging a town or place, even when taken by assault," a war crime.
Various military manuals prohibit pillage/plunder. The UN and other international organizations condemn it. Looting is absolutely forbidden. It's punishable under international, military, and general statute laws.
Israel spurns rule of law principles in all forms. Al Haq calls exploiting West Bank resources "the war crime of pillage." Its report examines Israeli Dead Sea area operations.
It's "prohibited from exploiting them in a way that undermines their capital and results in economic benefits for Israeli citizens, including settlers, or for its national economy."
The Dead Sea borders Jordan and Israel to the east and the West Bank to the west. It's in the Jordan Rift Valley. It lies over 400 meters below sea level.
It's 67 km long, 377 meters deep, and 18 km across at its widest point. With 33.7% salinity, it's one of the world's saltiest water bodies.
In 1967, Israel seized control. Jordan previously controlled the area. Oslo granted Israel military and administrative control. Vast land areas became closed military zones. Palestinians are denied entry to land rightfully theirs.
Since 1967, pillage accompanied occupation. Palestinians were dispossessed from their own land and resources. Israel stole and exploited the Dead Sea and surrounding areas by declaring them "State land." No legal basis whatever permits doing so.
Numerous military orders violate international law. It's been twisted, inverted, manipulated, distorted, undermined, and spurned to justify the unjustifiable.
Israel invents its own version of reality. Orwellian doublespeak defines it. Fundamental occupying power obligations are violated. State authorities and settlers reap benefits.
At the same time, unsustainable water extraction and mining methods let water levels decrease significantly.
Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories was licensed to steal. It mines Dead Sea mud. It's used for company products. Al Haq's General Director, Shawan Jabarin, said:
"The Israeli authorities are denying Palestinians access to their natural resources all across the OPT, but this practice is particularly evident in the occupied Dead Sea area. This also clearly demonstrates how Israel is benefiting economically from the occupation."
"Given that the settlers in the area and Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories directly profit from the appropriation of the Dead Sea natural resources and from the trade of the products extracted and processed in this region, they should be considered as primary perpetrators of the war crime of pillage."
Consumers have a right to know that Ahava operates illegally. Its products use stolen Palestinian resources. Doing so costs them nearly $150 million annually.
Ahava's based in Mitzpe Shalem settlement. It lies on the Dead Sea's western shore. It's Israel's only company licensed to mine area mud, silt, sand, gravel, and other minerals.
It operates subsidiaries in America, Britain and Germany. Its products have unique cosmetic qualities. They're used for various skin disorders. Exports provide about 60% of its revenue. The remaining 40% comes from Israel and tourism.
The Dead Sea has unique geographical, mineral, climatic, and archeological features. Its natural resource riches include ground and surface water, springs, and minerals. It's a potential world heritage site.
Its landscapes are stunning. Its climate is mild. Its potential for economic development is significant. Its tourism, industry, and agriculture thrive.
Israeli development plans include hotels, water parks, shopping malls, and urban facilities. Enhanced mineral and water extraction are also planned. Palestinians are entirely deprived of what's rightfully theirs.
The area is also environmentally vulnerable. Its ecosystem is endangered. At issue is over-extraction and other abuses. The Jordan River Basin's water system is affected. Large sinkholes emerged. As many as 3,000 exist. Dead Sea shrinkage is worrisome. It's divided into two lakes.
Upstream water diversion projects and southern Dead Sea mining caused serious sea level erosion. Over-exploitation is destroying the area. Domestic, agricultural, and industrial wastewater flows directly into the Dead Sea. Surrounding land areas are affected.
In 2004, Ahava got illegal mining rights. Authority granting them must cease and desist. Third-party states must demand it. Pressuring Israel to stop violating international law is vital. Aiding and abetting lawlessness can't be tolerated.
Relations with Ahava and other Israeli companies profiteering from pillage must cease. Importing their products is illegal. Everything originating from settlements should be barred. Failure to do so constitutes complicity with grand theft and war crimes. Israel is a serial abuser.
Launching a lawsuit against the very company that is responsible for a farmer suicide every 30 minutes, 5 million farmers are now suing Monsanto for as much as 6.2 billion euros (around 7.7 billion US dollars). The reason? As with many other cases, such as the ones that led certain farming regions to be known as the ‘suicide belt’, Monsanto has been reportedly taxing the farmers to financial shambles with ridiculous royalty charges. The farmers state that Monsanto has been unfairly gathering exorbitant profits each year on a global scale from “renewal” seed harvests, which are crops planted using seed from the previous year’s harvest.
The practice of using renewal seeds dates back to ancient times, but Monsanto seeks to collect massive royalties and put an end to the practice. Why? Because Monsanto owns the very patent to the genetically modified seed, and is charging the farmers not only for the original crops, but the later harvests as well. Eventually, the royalties compound and many farmers begin to struggle with even keeping their farm afloat. It is for this reason that India slammed Monsanto with groundbreaking ‘biopiracy’ charges in an effort to stop Monsanto from ‘patenting life’.
Jane Berwanger, a lawyer for the farmers who went on record regarding the case, told the Associated Press:
“Monsanto gets paid when it sell the seeds. The law gives producers the right to multiply the seeds they buy and nowhere in the world is there a requirement to pay (again). Producers are in effect paying a private tax on production.”
The findings echo what thousands of farmers have experienced in particularly poor nations, where many of the farmers are unable to stand up to Monsanto. Back in 2008, the Daily Mail covered what is known as the ‘GM Genocide’, which is responsible for taking the lives of over 17,683 Indian farmers in 2009 alone. After finding that their harvests were failing and they started to enter economic turmoil, the farmers began ending their own lives — oftentimes drinking the very same insecticide that Monsanto provided them with.
As the information continues to surface on Monsanto’s crimes, further lawsuits will begin to take effect. After it was ousted in January that Monsanto was running illegal ‘slave-like’ working rings, more individuals became aware of just how seriously Monsanto seems to disregard their workers — so why would they care for the health of their consumers? In April, another group of farmers sued Monsanto for ‘knowingly poisoning’ workers and causing ‘devastating birth defects’.
Will endless lawsuits from millions of seriously affected individuals be the end of Monsanto?
When testing the firm’s top brand weed killer the rats showed similar symptoms.
The French government has asked its health and safety agency to assess the study and had also sent it to the European Union's food safety agency, Reuters reports.
"Based on the conclusion…, the government will ask the European authorities to take all necessary measures to protect human and animal health, measures that could go as far as an emergency suspension of imports of NK603 maize in the European Union," the French health, environment and farm ministries said in a joint statement.
Researchers from the University of Caen found that rats fed on a diet containing NK603 – a seed variety made tolerant to amounts of Monsanto's Roundup weedkiller – or given water mixed with the product, at levels permitted in the United States – died earlier than those on a standard diet.
The research conducted by Gilles-Eric Seralini and his colleagues, said the rats suffered mammary tumors, as well as severe liver and kidney damage. The study was published in the journal of Food and Chemical Toxicology and presented at a news conference in London.
Fifty percent of male and 70 percent of female rats died prematurely, compared with only 30 percent and 20 percent in the control group, said the researchers.
Combination image of two pictures featuring rats with tumors after they were fed a diet of genetically modified (GM) maize produced by US chemical giant Monsanto (AFP Photo / Criigen)
Monsanto spokesman, Thomas Helscher, said the company would review the study thoroughly but stated that other scientific studies had proved the biotech crops’ safety.
Some scientists however criticized the French researchers’ statistical methods and the use of a particular type of rat, saying the albino Sprague-Dawley strain of animal had a tendency to develop cancers.
But despite skepticism, the study draws attention to controversy surrounding genetically modified crops and the US biotech giant Monsanto.
Michael Antoniou, a molecular biologist at King’s College London – who acted as an adviser to Seralini's team – told reporters that the study stresses the “need to test all GMO crops in two-year lifelong studies”.
“I feel this data is strong enough to withdraw the marketing approval for this variety of GMO maize temporarily, until this study is followed up and repeated with larger number of animals to get the full statistical power that we want,” he said as quoted by Reuters.
Last Friday France said it will uphold a ban on genetically modified crops produced by the Monsanto. The move came as President Francois Hollande pushed his plan to put the environment back at the top of the international agenda.
In the wake of the publication, Jose Bove, vice-chairman of the European Parliament’s commission for agriculture, called for an immediate suspension of all EU cultivation and import authorizations of genetically modified crops.
“This study finally shows we are right and that it is urgent to quickly review all GMO evaluation processes,” he said following the announcement of the research.
While being widely used in the United States, GMO crops have been less popular among European consumers, due to concerns about its impact on people’s health and the environment.
In California, opponents of genetically engineered food are fighting to have it removed from the food supply. They are also pushing to pass Proposition 37, a law that would legally require genetically modified foods to be labeled as such. Monsanto stands opposed to such a proposal and has donated over $4.2 million to lobby against it.
Agriculturalists across America have previously tried to take the biotech giant to court over charges stemming from their lab-made corn GMOs. Over 2,000 farmers have petitioned the US government to more thoroughly investigate the impact that genetically modified corn crop from Monsanto will have on the country.
As RT reported before, Monsanto wants to plant a corn variant across America’s Midwest that will be resistant to a powerful pesticide produced with 2,4-D, the same compound crucial to the make-up of the notorious Vietnam War-era killer Agent Orange. If approved, the new corn will be able to thrive as farmers douse their fields in the chemical, killing off unwanted weeds in the process, while at the same time subjecting Americans to a pesticide linked to cancer risks.
The assertions were made by Libyan opposition figures arrested by the Americans and handed over to Col. Muammar Gaddafi in the middle of the last decade when Washington was seeking rapprochement with the late Libyan dictator.
They are contained in a report by Human Rights Watch, which interviewed 14 former prisoners after the fall of Col Gaddafi. Most belonged to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group that had worked to overthrow him for 20 years.
Two out of the men interviewed said they were submitted to interrogation tactics that match previous instances of waterboarding.
After his arrest in Peshawar, Pakistan in 2003, Mohammed al-Shoroeiya said he was flown for half an hour to a location he later came to believe was in Afghanistan.
He said he was placed on a board that could rotate through 360 degrees. After a hood was put over his face, he said, “They start to pour water to the point where you feel like you are suffocating.”
When asked how many times this was done to him, he said: “A lot …a lot … it happened many times …. They pour buckets of water all over you.”
Khalid al-Sharif, who was arrested along with al-Shoroeiya, said: They gave me a different type of torture every day. Sometimes they used water, sometimes not.… Sometimes they stripped me naked and sometimes they left me clothed.”
Now head of the Libyan National Guard, Mr Sharif claimed he was held for two years in two different US-run detention centres believed to be operated by the CIA in Afghanistan.
Both men have always disavowed al-Qaeda and were never accused of sympathising with the global terror group by the Americans.
Eric Holder, the US attorney general, announced that no one would be prosecuted for the deaths of a prisoner in Afghanistan in 2002 and another in Iraq in 2003. Photo: AP
Laura Pitter, counterterrorism advisor at Human Rights Watch and author of the report, said: “Not only did the US deliver Gaddafi his enemies on a silver platter but it seems the CIA tortured many of them first,” said: “The scope of Bush administration abuse appears far broader than previously acknowledged and underscores the importance of opening up a full-scale inquiry into what happened.”
Human Rights Watch said the report demonstrated that Britain and numerous other countries were complicit in helping hand over Col Gaddafi’s opponents.
Intelligence documents discovered in Tripoli supported similar claims by Abdul Hakim Belhadj, leader of the LIFG who was a key figure in the overthrow of Col Gaddafi, and a deputy Sami Mostafa al-Saadi. The US government has stated that only three senior al-Qaeda figures were submitted to waterboarding.
When he came into office in January 2009 President Barack Obama banned the practice and ordered an investigation into all so called harsh interrogation techniques. It recently concluded that CIA officials should be charged.
Last week Eric Holder, the US attorney general, announced that no one would be prosecuted for the deaths of a prisoner in Afghanistan in 2002 and another in Iraq in 2003.
The Russia’s consumer-rights regulator Rospotrebnadzor asked scientists at the country’s Institute of Nutrition to review the study. The watchdog has also contacted to European Commission’s Directorate General for Health & Consumers to explain the EU’s position on GM corn.
The report prepared by France’s University of Caen and published last week, claimed that rats fed over a two-year period with Monsanto’s genetically modified NK603 corn, developed more tumors and other pathologies than a test group fed with regular corn. The NK603, sold under the Roundup label, is genetically engineered to withstand glyphosate weed killer.
The company criticized the study, saying it “doesn’t meet minimum acceptable standards for this type of scientific research” and the data was incomplete.
Monsanto also said Russia’s ban will have little effect on its business as the country import small volumes of corn from the US. Besides that, the Russian government doesn’t permit farmers to plant GM crops. “Russia is a net exporter of grain, so the actual impact of their temporary suspension, if any, is likely to be small,” the spokesman said in a statement.
Meanwhile, France announced it will uphold the ban on genetically modified crops in the country. It has asked the national food-security agency Anses to examine the study of Monsanto’s corn. If other countries follow the examples of Russia and France it could be a severe blow to the major US biotech.
In California, activists are fighting to have GM products removed from the food supply. They are also pushing to pass Proposition 37, a law that would legally require genetically modified foods to be labeled as such. Monsanto is opposing the law and it has donated over $4.2 million to lobby against it. Over 2,000 farmers have petitioned the US government to more thoroughly investigate the impacts of the genetically modified corn crop from Monsanto.
(p)Link
Commenti
Storico
Stampa
Feed RSS 0.91
Feed Atom 0.3
