More uncounted deaths in Iraq:

The United States launched many more failed airstrikes on a far broader array of senior Iraqi leaders during the early days of the war last year than has previously been acknowledged, and some caused significant civilian casualties, according to senior military and intelligence officials. Only a few of the 50 airstrikes have been described in public. All were unsuccessful, and many, including the two well-known raids on Saddam Hussein and his sons, appear to have been undercut by poor intelligence, current and former government officials said.

The chief of Florida’s elections division resigns in the face of pressure to strip the voting rights of more Black men:

The head of Florida’s elections division resigned Monday amid reports he was feeling political heat over a push to purge thousands of suspected felons from the state’s voter rolls. Ed Kast, who has worked for the state elections division for more than a decade, said only that he was resigning to “pursue other opportunities.”was resigning to “pursue other opportunities.” But Kast has told a handful of associates that he was uncomfortable with growing pressure to trim felons from voter rolls in time for the fall election, friends say.

“I’ve known him for 20 years, and I believe he has acted because under the circumstances it’s the only thing he could do,” said Leon County Election Supervisor Ion Sancho, past president of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections. “Ed had made a number of comments that the nature and timing of this felons list was not something he was responsible for. I think he felt in good conscience he could no longer be involved in the operations.”

Hours earlier, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson joined a lawsuit to force state election officials to reveal the names of 47,000 suspected felons who could be dropped from voting lists, saying he wanted to be sure mistakes in 2000 are not repeated.

Florida’s head election officer resigns in the face of pressure to purge more Black men:

The head of Florida’s elections division resigned Monday amid reports he was feeling political heat over a push to purge thousands of suspected felons from the state’s voter rolls. Ed Kast, who has worked for the state elections division for more than a decade, said only that he was resigning to “pursue other opportunities.” But Kast has told a handful of associates that he was uncomfortable with growing pressure to trim felons from voter rolls in time for the fall election, friends say.

“I’ve known him for 20 years, and I believe he has acted because under the circumstances it’s the only thing he could do,” said Leon County Election Supervisor Ion Sancho, past president of the Florida State Association of Supervisors of Elections. “Ed had made a number of comments that the nature and timing of this felons list was not something he was responsible for. I think he felt in good conscience he could no longer be involved in the operations.” Hours earlier, U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson joined a lawsuit to force state election officials to reveal the names of 47,000 suspected felons who could be dropped from voting lists, saying he wanted to be sure mistakes in 2000 are not repeated.

South Korea’s Electrical Union succeeds in their campaign to keep the industry public:

A South Korean commission composed of government, academics and labour activists has rejected a plan for national energy privatization in its recent final report. The president of South Korea is expected to accept the report’s conclusions, putting an end to deregulation of the country’s energy sector. The Korean National Electrical Workers Union spearheaded a massive campaign to stop privatization. Earlier this year a delegation from the union visited Canada, meeting with CUPE to learn from the experience of the Ontario campaign to protect public power. That visit proved to be a “critical turning point” in the campaign, says union spokesperson Yong Choi. Canada’s experience, along with examples of the deregulation and privatization failures in the UK and the US provided a strong boost to the Korean campaign, helping bridge the gap between the Korean labour movement and the public. As public support fuelled mass rallies, public hearings and workshops, the government agreed to set up a commission to study issues involved in the privatization plan. “Some say it may become a model in Korean society for dealing with social conflict,” says Choi. “It is a historic moment. For the first time in our history, government policy was defeated by a non-government organization. We won!”

Our New Haven congresswoman takes a stand against government-subsidized corporate tax evasion:

A House of Representatives committee approved a proposal that would block Accenture from securing a $10bn Homeland Security contract because of its Bermuda incorporation. The House appropriations committee voted 35-16 to amend the $32bn budget bill for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to nullify Accenture’s recent gaining of a contract to create a virtual border system with better information on foreign visitors. The amendment seeks to prevent companies based in tax-havens from winning homeland security contracts. “It is outrageous and wrong to reward these companies for abandoning our country, particularly from the very department charged with safeguarding our homeland security as we work to pay for the ongoing war on terrorism,” said Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut democrat and the amendment’s sponsor. “The United States government should not be doing business with those who want all the benefits of citizenship without any of the responsibilities that come along with it,” she said.

The move is the latest attempt in Congress to punish US-based companies incorporated in tax-havens by blocking them from homeland security spending. In 2002, the full House voted overwhelmingly to deny DHS contracts to the ex-patriot companies. The Senate has twice passed similar proposals – only to see them later blocked. House republican leadership has been instrumental in eventually derailing such proposals to keep them from becoming law.

Human Rights Watch calls on China to release the Doctor who blew the whistle on SARS:

Chinese authorities should immediately release Dr. Jiang Yanyong, a government critic who exposed the government’s cover-up of last year’s SARS epidemic, Human Rights Watch said today. Dr. Jiang, 72 years old, and his wife Dr. Hua Zhongwei, have been heard from only once since government agents arbitrarily detained them on June 1 while en route to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing to obtain a visa. Dr. Jiang’s detention appears to have been part of the government’s crackdown on critics ahead of the fifteenth anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre on June 4, 1989. He had publicly called for a reexamination of the events surrounding the massacre. Several dissidents were harassed and effectively subjected to house arrest.

On June 1, Drs. Jiang and Hua left their home in an official hospital car and were expected back in two hours. They have not been seen since. On June 4 one of the couple’s children received a note from Dr. Hua saying they were fine, but suggesting that the family not plan for their usual summer vacation. On June 8 officials notified their son he should deliver some of his father’s personal belongings to Chinese authorities. Such requests generally signal a release is not imminent. No criminal charges have been filed against Dr. Jiang and his wife. “When a courageous doctor points out the Chinese government’s abusive practices, he should be honored,” said Sam Zarifi, deputy director of Human Rights Watch’s Asia Division. “Instead, the government has detained Dr. Jiang and held him incommunicado.”

Christian Ahlert on the absolute power of the ISPs:

As part of a recent research project, I posted a section of Mill’s On Liberty on the internet (which is clearly in the public domain), then issued unfounded copyright complaints against it (1). One internet service provider (ISP) removed the chapter almost immediately. This illustrates the problem with self-censorship procedures, which rely on hidden judgements being made by unaccountable bodies.

The St. Petersburg Times asks why a Saudi Royal was helped out of the country by way of the airport here in Tampa while the rest of us were still being told that all flights were grounded:

Two days after the Sept. 11 attacks, with most of the nation’s air traffic still grounded, a small jet landed at Tampa International Airport, picked up three young Saudi men and left. The men, one of them thought to be a member of the Saudi royal family, were accompanied by a former FBI agent and a former Tampa police officer on the flight to Lexington, Ky. The Saudis then took another flight out of the country. The two ex-officers returned to TIA a few hours later on the same plane.

For nearly three years, White House, aviation and law enforcement officials have insisted the flight never took place and have denied published reports and widespread Internet speculation about its purpose. But now, at the request of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, TIA officials have confirmed that the flight did take place and have supplied details.

Another, too infrequently discussed reason we need a regime change in Washington:

In what could be a body blow to the United Auto Workers and other unions, the Republican-dominated National Labor Relations Board will decide soon whether to curtail a union’s ability to organize workers though so-called neutrality and card-check agreements…in a case brought by a non-union group known as the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, the NLRB voted late Monday along party lines to examine whether employees have the right to challenge a company’s recognition of a union as bargaining representative under such agreements. The case won’t be decided until sometime in 2005, and the outcome of this November’s presidential election could have a major impact. The party that controls the White House gets to appoint three of the five members of the board, and the current 3-to-2 Republican majority would swing back to a more union-friendly Democratic control should U.S. Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the presumptive Democratic nominee, win the presidency.

No transparency, no peace:

Attorney General John D. Ashcroft told Congress yesterday that he would not release a 2002 policy memo on the degree of pain and suffering legally permitted during enemy interrogations, but said he knows of no presidential order that would allow al Qaeda suspects to be tortured by U.S. personnel. Angry Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee called on Ashcroft to provide the document. They said portions that have appeared in news reports suggest the Bush administration is reinterpreting U.S. law and the Geneva Conventions prohibiting torture.

…Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said the memo on interrogation techniques permissible for the CIA to use on suspected al Qaeda operatives “appears to be an effort to redefine torture and narrow prohibitions against it.” The document was prepared by the Justice Department’s office of legal counsel for the CIA and addressed to White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales. The 50-page Justice Department memo said inflicting physical or psychological pain might be justified in the war on terrorism “to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al Qaeda terrorist network.” It added that “necessity and self defense could provide justifications that would eliminate any criminal liability.”