PM ignoring Khadr because he's 'brown-skinned': Elmasry
CBC, July 21, 2008.

The leader of one of Canada's largest Islamic groups accused Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Monday of being indifferent to Omar Khadr's plight because he's "brown-skinned" and a Muslim.

In an opinion piece released to the media, Mohamed Elmasry, national president of the Canadian Islamic Congress, wrote that Harper is "callously" unconcerned about the 21-year-old Khadr, who faces trial before a U.S. military tribunal at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in October.

'It's impossible to conquer the Afghans'
by Paul Koring, Globe & Mail, July 12, 2008.

MOSCOW — Head bowed, exhausted, the statue of a young soldier back from Afghanistan's killing fields is flanked by long, grim, lists of his dead comrades. It's a cautionary monument for Western politicians and generals who boldly boast they will succeed where the Soviets failed.

In Russia, a country chock full of heroic memorials to enormous military sacrifice, the uniquely dejected pose of the helmetless Afghan combat veteran in the Ural city of Yekaterinburg is a sobering reminder that great powers have an unhappy history of overreaching and then being driven ignominiously from Afghanistan.

John Moore Struggling Against Racist Wrongful Conviction
BY MARIE LITALIEN, Northern Life, July 2008.

Almost a year after the Ontario Court of Appeal acquitted Steven
Truscott of the 1959 rape and murder of 12-year-old Lynne Harper, the
Ontario government announced this week it will pay him $6.5 million for
the injustices he faced.

“$6.5 million still won’t be enough for what he lost, for what he’s up
against. There is not enough on this planet to give,” said John Moore, a
Greater Sudbury man on his own quest to have a conviction overturned.

“He (Truscott) was just a kid. That is a very heavy thing on a kid’s
head ... and he was innocent.”

Moore, originally from Serpent River, was convicted of second degree
murder by a law that was ruled as unconstitutional years later.

Stop the Imminent Deportation of US War Resisters: Cross Canada Actions
via Chris Web, Canadian Dimension blogs, July 10, 2008.

This from the Canadian War Resisters Support Campaign

War Resister Robin Long is being held in jail in Nelson, B.C. and is threatened with deportation to the United States on Monday, July 14.

Canadian Border Services Agency (CBSA) has told Long they intend to deport him as early as next Monday. This was a shocking revelation to Mr. Long and his counsel. At what was expected to be a routine detention hearing, it was revealed that a negative decision had been issued on his Pre-Removal Risk Assessment in early May; however, it was never communicated to either Long or his lawyer.

Canada's War Resisters
by Will Di Novi, The Nation, July 7, 2008.

Former Private Kimberly Rivera is a long way from home.

Since moving to Toronto with her family a year and a half ago, the 26-year-old Iraq War veteran and mother of two has confronted struggles both personal and political: estrangement from her family back in Texas, long periods of unemployment and, above all, the imminent threat of deportation.

Kimberly would not have it any other way. To Canada's first female defector from the United States military, her adopted home is a "peaceful environment, somewhere I can raise my family, somewhere I can be me".

The American military calls people like Kimberly "deserters". To their supporters in Canada and the US, they are "war resisters."

Apologies aren't enough: Group calls for justice, land claim settlements
By Angela Scappatura, The Sudbury Star

Indigenous and non-indigenous people gathered at Victoria Park to assert their support for the struggles of aboriginals in Canada on Saturday.

Heavy rain did not prevent more than a dozen people from attending the day-long event, which included a drumming workshop, personal stories and musical performances.

The event was organized by Sudbury Against War and Occupation and was designed to raise awareness of aboriginal issues.

Gary Kinsman is a member of Sudbury Against War and Occupation and said the inaugural event displays solidarity between both indigenous and non-indigenous people.

"I think it's important because what we're showing is that the government's apology around residential schools was not enough," he said while standing beneath a tarp protecting a barbeque and food from the rain.

The server that hosts the Sudbury Against War and Occupation site has been having some problems. The site has been down for most of the last several days, and all posts added in the last month or so have disappeared from the site. It may be possible to restore some of them...we'll be working on that over the next few days. In the meantime, please be patient!

OPP back off! Free all First Nations Political Prisoners Now!

War in Heaven
March 20, 2008 By Jim Miles
Original Source: Palestine Chronicle

War in Heaven – The Arms Race in Outer Space.
Helen Caldicott and Craig Eisendrath.
New Press, N.Y., 2007.

In this short volume, Helen Caldicott and Craig Eisendrath provide a sharp and concise analysis of the American nuclear weapons industry and its many ramifications for society and the peoples of the world in general. While they see the big picture, they ably document the details of theory and practice of the (mostly) American push towards bigger and better (deadlier and more accurate) nuclear armaments that accompany the American push towards global dominance.

IRAQ: Five Years, And Counting
Analysis by Dahr Jamail

WASHINGTON, Mar 18 (IPS) - Devastation on the ground and largely held Iraqi opinion contradicts claims by U.S. officials that the situation in Iraq has improved towards the fifth anniversary of the invasion Mar. 20.

U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney, during a surprise visit to Iraq on Monday declared the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq a "successful endeavour".

According to the group Just Foreign Policy, more than a million Iraqis have died as a result of the invasion and occupation, now entering its sixth year. A survey by British polling agency ORB estimates the number of dead at more than 1.2 million.

New allegations, same old secret trials
by Matthew Behrens, republished from Rabble.CA
February 26, 2008

In typical government style, a series of rehashed ancient suspicions, new unfounded allegations, and outright lies against secret trial detainees Mahmoud Jaballah, Mohammad Mahjoub, Hassan Almrei, Mohamed Harkat, and Adil Charkaoui were "released" last Friday afternoon. Conveniently, there was little or no opportunity for informed journalists to put things into perspective and get beyond the fear mongering the allegations are meant to inspire.

A voice for missing women; Thursday ceremony spotlights hundreds of murdered natives
By Rachel Punch, The Sudbury Star

Savannah Trudeau often doesn't feel safe when she's alone and, as a young aboriginal woman, those feelings are justified.

Hundreds of First Nations women - including about 30 in Ontario - have been murdered or simply vanished in the last few decades.

The following statement was delivered by a member of Sudbury Against War and Occupation at a recent event in Sudbury honouring the memory of indigenous women murdered and gone missing in Canada.

Good afternoon.

My name is Clarissa Lassaline and I’m involved with a group of Sudbury folks firmly opposed to war and occupation. The fact that Canada exists as an occupation of First Nations Lands has become increasingly important to our thinking about indigenous struggles and white settler solidarity and responsibility.

http://www.sudbury24.ca/media/1064/Group_gathers_to_pay_respects_to_miss...

Sudbury residents pay their respects to missing, murdered Indigenous women

BY LAUREL MYERS