UPDATED: Class-Related News of the Day

• NATO, U.S. neglect "psychological warfare": report - Yahoo! News
• Panel hears climate 'spin' allegations - Yahoo! News
• UPDATED: Regarding Homeland Security, hoaxes and bridges...

More than 10 blinking electronic devices planted at bridges and other spots in Boston threw a scare into the city Wednesday in what turned out to be a publicity campaign for a late-night cable cartoon... Highways, bridges and a section of the Charles River were shut down and bomb squads were sent in before authorities declared the devices were harmless... (more at Boston cops make arrest in devices ploy - Yahoo! News)

And from last night's discussion... My bad, there were only 6 imams thrown off the plane: 6 imams removed from Twin Cities flight - Boston.com

In the News: A Harrowing Story...

"...Ricky's story echoes those of many residents of a children's asylum-seeker hostel in Hillingdon in west London. As well as looking after him, Hillingdon Council cares for around 1,130 children and young people found wandering abandoned in the world's biggest airport, Heathrow...

Many come to Britain alone, some as young as eight or nine, or in small groups of siblings. Often orphans of war, they come from all over the world, having scraped together money to pay agents or people-traffickers, who then abandon them and disappear. They have no papers, no belongings, and no idea what life holds for them now. 'At times they come in at a rate of between 20 and 30 a month," said Teresa Bateman, a team manager at Hillingdon's education and children's services...'"

More at Building a future for Heathrow's lost children - Yahoo! News

Ask Amnesty: An Online Discussion on Human Trafficking

Ask Amnesty: An Online Discussion on Human Trafficking in Montenegro with Ljiljana Raicevic

Trafficking of persons is a global human rights problem. Victims are trafficked into a range of forced labor situations including farm work, sweatshops, domestic servitude, and sexual slavery.
Victims of trafficking are subjected to sexual abuse and other forms of violence. Trafficking involves transporting people away from the communities they live in by the threat or use of violence, deception, or coercion for the purpose of exploitation as forced or enslaved workers.

Please join us for an online discussion on tomorrow (May 10th) from 1:00-2:00 PM Eastern with the 2006 Amnesty International USA Ginetta Sagan Fund award-winner, Ljiljana Raicevic of Montenegro. Raicevic is the founder and Executive Director of the Women's Safe House in Podgorica, where she has worked to end all forms of trafficking in women and girls in Montenegro and to ensure that political officials accused of supporting trafficking were removed from office.» Submit a question in advance

Interesting... Bloggers force Media to stand up and take notice!

You don't have to approve of Stephen Colbert's utterly scathing performance at this past weekend's White House Press Correspondents Association Dinner (video here), but what's very interesting (at least from the media conglomorate perspective) was the nearly complete silence about the whole thing in mainstream media.

That is, until the "blogstorm," both for and against the performance, forced it to appear finally in the New York Times...

What do you think? Whether you approve of Colbert's lambasting of the President or not, was it newsworthy? Should mainstream media have reported more about the heated reactions from all sides sooner than four days later, do you think??

(Humor is a longstanding tradition at this dinner of White House journalists... And so, either way, I have to admit that the hands-down funniest routine was maybe actually that with Bush himself, together with a comedian imitating him and his inner thought processes ... That's the real Bush on the left! Enjoy!!)

FYI: University of Minnesota Human Rights Library

University of Minnesota Human Rights Library

Ask Amnesty Online Discussion Series: Globalizing Justice

Join us on for a discussion with Special Counsel for Human Rights Watch, Reed Brody, on efforts to bring Chad's exiled former president, Hissène Habré (pictured), to justice.

Ask Amnesty Online Discussion Series: Globalizing Justice
The "Globalizing Justice" series continues next Tuesday, April 11 from 1:00-2:00 PM Eastern with Reed Brody, Special Counsel for Human Rights Watch, who will discuss efforts to bring Chad's exiled former president, Hissène Habré, to justice. Brody coordinated HRW's intervention in the case of Augusto Pinochet in Britain's House of Lords, and initiated and coordinates the prosecution of Habré.

Victims of the human rights abuses committed while Mr. Habré was in power have been waiting for more than a decade to bring him to trial. In September 2005, a Belgian judge issued an international arrest warrant charging Mr. Habré with crimes against humanity, war crimes and torture committed during his 1982-90 rule. Mr. Habré lives in exile in Senegal, where he was indicted in 2000 before courts ruled that he could not be tried there. Pursuant to the arrest warrant and a Belgian extradition request, Senegalese authorities arrested Mr. Habré on November 15, 2005. After a Senegalese court refused to rule on the extradition request, Senegal announced that it had asked the January 2006 summit of the African Union to recommend "the competent jurisdiction" for the trial of Hissène Habré. That summit set up a Committee of Eminent African Jurists to consider the options for Habré's trial and to report back at the July 2006 summit.
Featured Guest: Reed Brody
From our featured guest: "I look forward to speaking to you on April 11th."

» Submit a question in advance

FYI: Coming up on the History Channel: The other Holocaust - Dwarfs at Auschwitz...

Coming up on the History Channel: The other Holocaust - Dwarfs at Auschwitz...

FYI::"Common products of forced labor"

From the Hands of Slaves...