PN staff
Nepali politics, after six years of 'peace process', seems to be well and truly stuck. The country is without a parliament as the supreme court ruled in May that the constituent assembly elected in 2008 (which also functioned as a parliament) could not extend its term any further.
There is no agreement between the major parties on whether or how to hold new elections, and no agreement on the shape of the constitution.
There is enormous pressure for a new constitution to…
On 19 September, Italy's supreme criminal court, the 'court of cassation', upheld abduction and 'rendition to torture' convictions against 23 Americans, all but one CIA officers. The charges related to an Egyptian imam, Osama Mustapha Nasr, abducted from Italy to Egypt in 2003 and held for four years before being released. The court also ordered €1.5m in damages to be paid to Nasr and his wife. The Italian government may now seek extradition of the 23.
The US government is still allowed legally to detain suspected terrorists indefinitely, after a ruling by the US court of appeals on 2 October. A lower court order had earlier barred indefinite detention under the National Defense Authorization Act.
The court of appeals has allowed the US president to continue detaining indefinitely anyone 'who was a part of or substantially supported' al-Qa'eda, the Taliban or 'associated forces'.
On 20 September, four Palestinian youth, Taka Mohammad, 17, Mohammad Amir, 16, Yosouf Shtaiwi, 20, and Nadir Amer, 23, were arrested by the Israeli security forces ahead of the weekly demonstrations at the Palestinian village of Kufr Qaddoum in the West Bank.
On 21 September, four international human rights defenders were…
On 21 September, the US justice department released the names of 55 men held at the Guantánamo detention centre on Cuba, who have been cleared for release.
On the list were British residents Shaker Aamer and Ahmed Belbacha. A previous request for this was rejected in 2009, so the disclosure, while not signalling any imminent releases, is being seen as a positive step.
On 27 September, Alex Haigh, 21, became the first person to be sentenced under a new law that bans squatting in residential properties. Alex was arrested by police on 2 September, the day after section 144 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 came into force. Police battered down the door without first informing the housing association who owned the flat, which had reportedly been empty for a year.
A postgraduate course in peacemaking through sport starts this month in Spain at the Open University of Catalonia, supported by the UN cultural body, UNESCO, and FC Barcelona Foundation.
The master's degree in 'Sport as a Tool for Social Coexistence and Conflict Resolution' is designed to be useful in contexts with 'high levels of conflict'.
Back in the UK, a group called 'The Intruders' managed to gatecrash two high society events, first giving the former head of the government tax body HMRC a 'lifetime achievement award for services to corporate tax avoidance' on 27 September. Dave Hartnett was accused of being…
Over 700 boats laid 'siege' to the Kudankulam nuclear power plant in Tamil Nadu, India on 8 October, in the latest demonstration by the People's Movement Against Nuclear Energy (PMANE; for background, see PN 2550).
PMANE is demanding the withdrawal of police from local villages (police killed one protester in September), the…
The scientific establishment, including the European food safety authority, has rounded on a study published in September that appeared to show that feeding rats a popular genetically-modified (GM) corn gave them cancer (see PN 2550).
Critics have…
On 13 October, the eight-day 90-mile Drones Peace Walk reached RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire, to be met by campaigners from around the UK, all protesting against the opening of the first armed drone base on British soil.
The RAF's pilotless killer drones in Afghanistan are currently operated from a base in Nevada, USA – they will soon be operated from RAF Waddington.
The walk, which was…
On 10 October, the Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) celebrated a victory in helping to break sponsorship links between arms manufacturer Finmeccanica and London's National Gallery. The news came just days after CAAT heard that it had won a Right Livelihood Award, known as the 'alternative Nobel Prize', given by a Stockholm-based foundation.
The National Gallery ended its long-standing…
Two census resisters had their trials continued in early October, with Andy Manifold due to return to court on 19 October and Sarah Ledsom hoping to finish her trial on 23 November. Both are at Dale St magistrates' court in Liverpool.
400 people in Britain have been or are being prosecuted for failing to fill out the 2011 census.
Among them are a number of peace activists who objected to the involvement in the census of military firms Lockheed Martin (processing the data for…
An international delegation from the Robert F Kennedy (RFK) Centre for Justice and Human Rights witnessed police brutality in Western Sahara during a fact-finding mission at the end of August. Four Moroccan state agents…
Not much change here. First, Nepalis fought a bitter civil war for 10 years. Then the liberals, the communists and the Maoist guerrillas made a historic peace deal in November 2006, and kicked out the monarchy in 2008.
Then they all spent the last six years not agreeing a new constitution, and breaking all the deadlines for completing the peace process and achieving a new democratic normality.
On 20 September, the liberals, the communists, the Maoist ex-guerrillas and…
