News

Ten Young Mexican Students Killed at Drug Cartel Checkpoint

Israel to Allow First Shipment of Clothes to Gaza in Nearly Three Years

Lawsuit Filed over Secretive Prison Units

GOP Spent Nearly $2,000 in Party Funds at Bondage-Themed Nightclub”

Details Emerge about 2002 Death in CIA Secret Prison

Ten Young Mexican Students Killed at Drug Cartel Checkpoint

Ten Mexican students were killed on Sunday after stopping at a checkpoint run by drug traffickers in the state of Durango. The dead included three girls, ages eight, eleven and thirteen; the rest were all teenagers except for a twenty-one-year-old. The students were on their way to receive government scholarships as part of a federal program called “Opportunities” that supports low-income students. The killings are believed to have been carried out by the Zetas, one of the largest drug cartels in Mexico. The Zetas was formed by former Mexican soldiers who were trained by the United States in the mid-1990s at the School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Georgia.

Israel to Allow First Shipment of Clothes to Gaza in Nearly Three Years

For the first time in almost three years, Israel will soon allow a shipment of clothes and shoes to be delivered to Palestinians living in Gaza. Palestinian officials said ten truckloads are scheduled to arrive on Thursday. Israel has imposed a severe blockade on Gaza since June 2007 in defiance of the international community. Human rights groups have described the blockade as a form of collective punishment.

Lawsuit Filed over Secretive Prison Units

The Center for Constitutional Rights is filing a lawsuit today challenging the legality of the government’s use of secretive prison units known as Communication Management Units, or CMUs. The units are designed to severely restrict prisoner communication with family members, the media and the outside world. Alexis Agathocleous is an attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights.

Alexis Agathocleous: “In 2006 and ’07, the Federal Bureau of Prisons secretly opened two experimental prison units which impose extraordinary restrictions on communications. For example, there is a categorical ban on any physical contact with family during family visits, including with young children. CMU prisoners aren’t told what led to their transfers to the CMU, nor do they have any meaningful review process. And predictably, this secrecy has led to an unchecked pattern a designations that have no basis in real evidence, but instead are discriminatory and retaliatory. So two-thirds of the prisoners at the CMU are Muslim. That’s a thousand percent overrepresentation over the national average, while others simply have unpopular political views.”

GOP Spent Nearly $2,000 in Party Funds at Bondage-Themed Nightclub

In political news, the Republican National Committee is coming under intense scrutiny after it was revealed the RNC had spent nearly $2,000 in party funds at a topless bondage-themed nightclub in West Hollywood. The money was spent at a club called Voyeur, where scantily clad performers are said to play out bondage and sadomasochistic scenes. The conservative Christian group Concerned Women for America said it was dismayed. In a statement, the group’s leader Penny Nance asked Republicans, “Did you really swill drinks, ogle young girls and plan party business at this kind of establishment? Please explain!”

Details Emerge about 2002 Death in CIA Secret Prison

The Associated Press has uncovered new details about an Afghan man who died while in a secret CIA prison known as the Salt Pit. The man, Gul Rahman, died three weeks after being detained in Afghanistan. He was found dead on November 20, 2002, after being left in his cold cell shackled and half-naked. It remains uncertain whether any intelligence officers have been punished as a result of Rahman’s death. The CIA’s then-station chief in Afghanistan was promoted after Rahman’s death, and the officer who ran the prison went on to other assignments, including one overseas. Rahman’s family repeatedly pressed International Red Cross officials about his fate, but the US never disclosed information about his death.