PALESTINE: Israeli soldiers fire on ambulance
On August 10, Palestinian Medical Relief Society ambulance staff, including five doctors and two nurses, were attacked while they distributed first aid kits to homeless residents of Rafah. According to the staff, firing came from Israeli soldiers based in settlements towers in the Tal al Sultan neighbourhood. While they first assumed it was random shooting, when some bullets were only 50 centimetres away they realised they were being intentionally targeted. All staff were wearing PMRS vests that clearly indicated that they were medical personnel. For more Palestine News, visit .
ASIA: Global warming shrinking glaciers
A senior Chinese Academy of the Sciences researcher, Yao Tandong, revealed on August 11 that two-thirds of Asia's 46,000 highland glaciers, including Mount Everest, had begun shrinking in the 1950s or 1960s. This shrinkage, he explained, had accelerated and widened considerably from the 1980s onward. The Dadongkemadi Glacier in Tibet, for example, shrank 4.56 metres between 1994 and 2001.
COLOMBIA: Army kills trade unionists
On August 5, the Colombian army shot and killed Arauca peasants association president Hector Alirio Martinez, president of the Arauca health workers' union Jorge Eduardo Prieto Chamusero and Leonel Goyeneche, who is a member of the Colombian Trade Union Federation (CUT). All three were well-known human rights and union campaigners. CUT has described the killings as "assassinations". On the same day, two leading union members in Tulia were shot by unknown assailants, one subsequently died from his injuries. For more labour rights news, visit .
ZIMBABWE: Unionists released on bail
The four trade union leaders arrested on August 5 for creating a public disturbance by holding a union seminar were released on bail on August 9. All four will stand trial for contravening the Public Order and Security Act. One has also been charged with, "uttering words which are likely to cause despondence and influence the overthrow of a legitimately elected government".
BRITAIN: Home Office tells refugee to bribe officials
On August 5, Britain's Coventry Observer revealed that the Home Office had rejected the asylum claim of a gay Iranian refugee, because he could "relocate and bribe his way out of trouble". The comments were made by the independent adjudicator who recommended the application be denied. The adjudicator also said that the asylum seeker had failed to prove "homosexual behaviour", noting that the Iranian court record of the refugee's sodomy conviction had been ignored because it arrived too late. A Home Office spokesperson told the Observer that the comments had been included in the letter to explain the adjudicator's position, but the office did not endorse bribery. For more anti-racist news from Britain, visit .
UNITED STATES: Governor comes out, resigns
New Jersey Democrat Governor James McGreevey resigned on August 12, after it was revealed that he had an affair with another man. Explaining that speculation about his sexuality may "hurt the office", McGreevey said: "I am a gay American. Shamefully, I engaged in an adult consensual affair with another man, which violates my bonds of matrimony. It was wrong, it was foolish, it was inexcusable." McGreevey is, briefly, the highest ranking openly gay US politician ever. The Monmouth County Republican chairperson demanded McGreevey make the resignation immediate, saying: "Each of us must start today to rebuild our state's reputation for a moral and ethical government." McGreevey was facing a corruption and possible sexual harassment scandal.
HONDURAS: Prison warden charged over 106 deaths
The Honduran interior minister is pressing charges against former warden of the northern locality of San Pedro Sula s jail, Jose Elias Canaca, for the deaths of 106 inmates who died after the warden refused to let them out of their cells during an electrical fire on May 17. All the victims belonged to the same gang, known as Maras Salvatrucha. Parallels are being drawn to an April 2003 tragedy in a La Cieba jail, in which 69 inmates, 61 members of the Mara 18 gang, were killed. Autopsies in that case revealed that prison guards shot prisoners escaping the fire.
UNITED STATES: Anti-war activists fight for right to protest
The National Council of Arab Americans and the anti-war group ANSWER filed a lawsuit on August 13 to force the New York government to grant them a permit to protest in Central Park on August 28, two days before the Republican National Convention begins nearby. August 28 is the 41st anniversary of the historic civil rights march on Washington, and the groups plan to protest racism and the occupation of Iraq. United for Peace and Justice has also been denied a permit to protest in the park on August 29. The New York City administration denied the permit because the expected crowds were "too large" not to seriously damage the grass. However, the lawsuit noted that 100,000 people had gathered there for a papal mass in 1995, and 200,000 for an anti-nuclear protest in 1982.
From Â鶹´«Ã½ Weekly, August 18, 2004.
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