It seems that an incredible story is brewing in South Africa over the suspected rendition of Khaled Rashid. As the European Parliament releases their investigation into the American CIA’s practice of “rendition” (i.e. kidnapping), Reuters reports that lawyers for Rashid’s family have claimed that, “Beyond a reasonable doubt this was a case of rendition. Here is a man who was kidnapped, sent to a military base and whisked away to who knows where. This is not the kind of thing that happens in a democracy.”

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The big news of today is, of course, the announcement from Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki that al-Zarqawi is dead, “killed in a U.S. air raid north of Baghdad” (MSNBC). U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad described the announcement as “a huge success for Iraq and the international war on terror.” He also claimed that al-Zarqawi was the “godfather of sectarian killings and terror in Iraq”. Tony Blair echoed these sentiments saying, “This is a very important moment for Iraq. A blow against al-Qaida in Iraq is a blow against al-Qaida everywhere.” (Guardian) But is it really a “huge success”?

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Do we think about the inhabitants of Guantanamo Bay? What does the media say about them? They pop up occasionally - a small item on page six. They have been consigned to a no man’s land from which indeed they may never return. At present many are on hunger strike, being force-fed, including British residents. No niceties in these force-feeding procedures. No sedative or anaesthetic. Just a tube stuck up your nose and into your throat. You vomit blood. This is torture. What has the British Foreign Secretary said about this? Nothing. What has the British Prime Minister said about this? Nothing. Why not? Because the United States has said: to criticise our conduct in Guantanamo Bay constitutes an unfriendly act. You’re either with us or against us. So Blair shuts up.
- Harold Pinter, 2005 winner of the Noble Prize for Literature

The prisoners of Guantanamo Bay have popped up again, this time with news that there are 89 inmates on hunger strike at the “gulag of our times” (Amnesty) or the “anomaly” (Tony Blair). A few months ago, it was admitted that several hunger strikers were being force fed in a process that Captain John S Edmondson, commander of the Guantanamo Hospital, admitted resulted in bleeding and nausea. Despite the latest news that dozens of the hunger strikers have given up their attempt, this is just another sordid chapter in the history of Guantanamo’s force feeding.
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I’ve written before about Bruce Sterling’s speech at Space in London. Finally, MAzine has put up a link to download the full speech. Worth listening to!

The Foresight institute’s Nanodot blog has posted a link to a really interesting discussion from the National Press Club’s meeting about nanotechnology (NanoWorld: Toward a Policy for the Human Future, see here for a press release). Andrew Kimbrell, director of the International Centre for Technology Assessment, gave a speech (from about an hour into the conference) where Nanodot’s blog characterised him as someone who “opposes nanotech”. Just finished listening to his talk (in fact, everyone’s speeches), and I cannot help but feel this characterization to be a terrible misrepresentation of what he was arguing. He did not “oppose nanotech” in so much as he seemed to oppose the non-transparent, corporate and military controlled, profit driven, unregulated, and patented way this technology is being developed, instead wanting to link nanotech development with values, keeping patents within the commons, pushing for transparency etc. I cannot help but agree with much of what he said, probably because he echoed a lot of my own concerns. Here’s a summary of what he spoke about (my apologies if some things aren’t transcribed properly).

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More4 (UK) screened a doc on TV the other night entitled “Tank Man”, covering the protestor who stood in front of a line of tanks at Tiannemen Square in 1989. (A homepage for the film can be found at PBS’s Frontline). The most amazing segment (for me, anyway) was when a group of Beijing university students (from one of the capital’s universities that were heavily involved in the protests at the time) were shown the infamous photo of the man against the machines of tyrrany. Not one of the students knew what it represented. China’s mastery over history appears to be complete, bringing George Orwell’s classic statement to life: “He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.” (Of course, China’s by no means unique; western democracies have learnt how to keep things quiet, too, albeit a bit differently).

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The Washington Post recently reported on US war crimes during the Korean War. In 1999, an AP story about refugees being shot by US soldiers at No Gun Ri was investigated by the Pentagon, which concluded it was “an unfortunate tragedy”, and “not a deliberate killing.” But a recently discovered memo from then-US Korean Ambassador John J. Muccio refutes this claim. Addressed to Secretary of State Dean Rusk, it states:

If refugees do appear from north of US lines they will receive warning shots, and if they then persist in advancing they will be shot.

Charming stuff. Wonder if that’ll get into the school history books.

Looks like using computer games to help hack social networks is becoming all the rage these days. Wired is reporting that an Iranian game “designed by schoolchildren belonging to the Union of Islamic Student Societies” is to be released next year:

Rugged veteran Iranian special forces hero “Commander Bahman” will soon be tackling one of his toughest missions, rescuing one of his country’s top atomic scientists captured by U.S. forces in Iraq. […] The Fars news agency said that in the game’s narrative Iranian atomic scientist “Doctor Kousha” goes on a pilgrimage to the Shi’ite Muslim holy city of Kerbala in Iraq where he is seized by U.S. troops.

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Great doc just screened on BBC called Is business the real Big Brother?

“As we move throughout cities, throughout our jobs and lives, there are technologies and devices everywhere which capture our movements, capture our activities, which are then stored on databases as evidence of what we’ve been doing.”
- Dr Kirstie Ball, Open University

You can download it here. (I just started reading Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track Your Every Move with RFID. Excellent, expect a review soon, but definitely read this book).

There’s no love lost between the US and Venezuela. The country’s leader, Hugo Chavez, was overthrown by a US-backed military coup which quickly backfired when a populist uprising returned him back into power. Chavez recently kicked out the US-based New Tribes Mission accusing them of being involved in “true imperialist infiltration, the CIA, they take away sensitive, strategic information” and “exploiting the Indians”. The US, for their part, have repeatedly warned against Chavez, with Condolezza Rice accusing him of a “Latin brand of populism that has taken countries down the drain”.

But today comes an interesting story from ZDNet, who says that US gaming company Pandemic Studios’ upcoming game Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is being denounced by Venezuelan lawmakers as “a U.S. government-inspired propaganda campaign against Chavez that could even help lay the psychological groundwork for an actual invasion”:

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