Established in 1995, PCHR functions independently in Gaza and enjoys "Consultative Status" with the UN's Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). It's also an affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists-Geneva, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) in Paris, the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network in Copenhagen, the Arab Organization for Human Rights in Cairo, and the International Legal Assistance Consortium (ILAC) in Stockholm.
The New York Times reported last week that the Bush administration considered sending in the U.S. military to arrest the so-called Lackawanna Six in 2002. Ironically, one of the worst prosecutorial overreaches by the Justice Department in the war on terror almost resulted in a temporary period of martial law.
Some in Congress are stung by charges that former Vice President Dick Cheney ran an international assassination op from the White House without telling them about it. They say he told the CIA to withhold the facts from Congress. This raises the question of how much power Cheney actually wielded---and the answer apparently is plenty.
Amidst all the hubbub regarding racism and the cops arising out of the arrest of Harvard University scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., we should at least mention the biggest outlet for racist cops: the war on drugs. As any black living in the poorer part of any community in America will attest, the drug war has long provided racist cops with the perfect excuse for harassing and abusing blacks.
China and the US have wrapped up two days of high-level strategic talks pledging closer cooperation on measures to revive the global economy and increased diplomatic efforts to rein in the nuclear programmes of Iran and North Korea.
Iran plans to put on trial 20 people accused of rioting in the unrest that followed the disputed vote that saw the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the country's president.
The internet company Yahoo has signed a ten-year partnership deal with Microsoft, a software maker, in an attempt to challenge Google's dominance in online technology.
Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, has urged Iraq's ethnic Kurds and majority Arabs to resolve their entrenched dispute over oil and land before a scheduled American troop withdrawal by 2012.
A Sudanese court has adjourned the case of a woman who was arrested and charged with dressing indecently after she was seen wearing trousers in a Khartoum cafe.
At least 15 Haitian migrants have drowned and at least 65 more are missing after their boat capsized off the Turks and Caicos islands, local police and the US coast guard have said.
PSA Peugeot Citroen, French carmaker, has reported a $1.4n loss in the first half of the year, as the global recession continues to affect the industry.
News_Alerts 
China and the US have wrapped up two days of high-level strategic talks pledging closer cooperation on measures to revive the global economy and increased diplomatic efforts to rein in the nuclear programmes of Iran and North Korea.
Iran plans to put on trial 20 people accused of rioting in the unrest that followed the disputed vote that saw the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the country's president.
