Crazy that your life can go upside down for a murder you didn't commit

‘Murdered’ man reappears after 10 years: Questions raised about how police extracted confession from alleged killer

The imprisoned Zhao's brother told the local Dahe Newspaper that police had forced him to drink chili water and set off fireworks over his head to force the confession.

The imprisoned Zhao narrowly escaped being executed for the crime. His sentence was commuted from a death penalty with two years' reprieve.

While in prison, his wife left him for another man and three of his four children were given to other families for adoption, the China Daily said.

Oh, God, he even looks evil

Cringing jurors watch Duncan torture boy on tape

[Joseph Edward Duncan III] kidnapped the boy, Dylan Groene, and his sister, Shasta, in May 2005 after murdering their older brother, their mother and her fiance in the Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, area.

Eventually he shot the boy in the abdomen and then point-blank in the head, killing him in front of his sister. Dylan was 9; his sister was only 8 at the time.

A quote from the video:

'The devil is here, boy, the devil himself. The demon couldn't do what the devil sent him to do so the devil came himself. The devil likes to watch children suffer and cry.'

The jury is trying to decide whether he is eligible for the death penalty. I have doubts about the death penalty myself, but if there is anyone who needs removing from our society, it's this man.

I was a little late getting in tonight

because I helped jump a neighbour's car. Unfortunately it sounds like the starter, not the battery (the car just clicked), so that sort of sucks for them. But it was nice to help someone out, and they weren't even serial killers. :)

On to the news.

It seems to me that either Senator Larry Craig (R-Idaho) is in serious denial or he really believes he can snow constituents. Let's see--caught by police in a sting to stop sex in men's bathrooms at the Minneapolis airport, then keeping the whole thing to himself--not even getting a lawyer--and pleading guilty and receiving probation, then saying he's not guilty and not gay. Hmmm...I know from intimate sources of my youth just what goes on in men's rooms. I also know from my sociology studies (see, I'm using one of my majors!) that the majority of men who frequent the restrooms do not in acutality identify themselves as gay. There's a reason the CDC and others studying AIDS list it as MSM (men who have sex with men) rather than homosexual. Plus, all this is on top of a local newspaper's investigations of his sexuality given his attitudes towards gay rights. And for pete's sake, in the future, get a room.

Only in San Francisco would they have an 'Astrowizard' explaining the lunar eclipse. :) [Video from SF Gate; requires Quicktime]

I'm interested to see how this plays out in the courts:
Yahoo!: we did not assist torture in China

I think Yahoo! has the stronger case, because 1) when it operates in another country it is subject to that country's laws, 2) users of these sorts of companies are warned in their privacy statements that privacy ends when court-ordered, 3) the dissidents knew at the time that they used the e-mail that they were violating Chinese law and were subject to such a court order, and 4) the plaintiffs are foreign nationals attempting to sue under US court against a US company for actions taking place in a foreign jurisdiction. Now, that doesn't always protect you. Think of American countries sued for profiting from the slave labour of the Holocaust in Europe, for example.

I'm not saying I agree with the laws of China; I don't. Nor would I have handed over the files myself. But, legally speaking, I think Yahoo! has a better footing. It will be interesting to see what the courts decide.

A heartbreaking story from the Congo...and how you can help

I opened my latest issue of Glamour Magazine (of the anonymous gifting), and in between the makeup tips and materialistic mayhem, I found this. Remember the piece from Newsweek on the mountain gorillas of the Congo? Here is what is happening to the women and girls there. It has haunted me most of the evening, particularly one woman's story. This so needs to be publicised far and wide, and something must be done to save the people, land, and wildlife of the Congo--before it's too late.

Women left for dead—and the man who’s saving them

Vagina Monologues author Eve Ensler writes a moving piece on the women of East Congo who have been gang raped and tortured and the man who has pieced their bodies and minds together and given them a sanctuary at a struggling private hospital. It's a ray of hope in a barbaric conflict--the world's deadliest since WWII, with almost four million having died so far*--where cowardly thugs destroy women, children, and families as they patrol the countryside. Please read the story. At times it is very graphic, and you wonder how these men can even be human. But unfortunately the darker side of humanity can be very brutal. On the other hand, the work of Dr Mukwege shows what one person can do with dedication to bring light to that darkness.

What you can do:

The women of Eastern Congo, V-Day and UNICEF—the latter acting on behalf of United Nations Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict—are launching a new campaign to urge an end to the femicide and raise money for women’s groups in the Congo. You can…

• Write a letter addressed to His Excellency, the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Joseph Kabila Kabange; demand that he take action to stop the attacks on women. Send it to U.N. Action Against Sexual Violence in Conflict, P.O. Box 3862, New York, NY 10163, and it will be delivered to Kabila.
  
• Donate directly to Panzi Hospital through vday.org. Money donated to Panzi also goes to establish a City of Joy, a safe haven for the healed women, where they’ll learn to become political leaders.

According to Wikipedia, on

July 30, 2007, a report by Yakin Erturk, special rapporteur for the United Nations Human Rights Council on violence against women, found extreme sexual violence against women is pervasive in the DRC and local authorities do little to stop it or prosecute those responsible. Her report also found 'women are gang raped, often in front of their families and communities. In numerous cases, male relatives are forced at gun point to rape their own daughters, mothers or sisters.' Survivors told Ertuck that after rape, many women are held as slaves by the gangs and forced to eat excrement or the flesh of their murdered relatives.**

*The New York Times, "War’s Chaos Steals Congo’s Young by the Millions" By Lydia Polgreen, July 30, 2006, as referenced by the Wikipedia article on the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

**RTÉ News, "UN: Violence in Congo 'beyond rape'", June 30th, 2007,as referenced by the Wikipedia article on the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

For an Israeli video shot in Panzi Hospital, watch this:

Part I


Part II

I've been following this story for awhile and I'm glad it had a good conclusion

Bulgarian Nurses Home After Eight-Year Ordeal

Home at last, after eight years of hell in a foreign prison

For more on the HIV Trial in Libya, check out Wikipedia's article.

Jailed on charges that they had instigated a CIA- and Mossad- (the Israeli equivalent) inspired plot to infect over 400 children at a hospital in Libya (despite the fact that the epidemic started before most of them came to the country, and most were probably singled out because of their country's relations with the US and others that opposed Qaddafi's regime), these nurses and trainee doctor were sentenced to death not once but twice, allegedly tortured including by electrocution, and at least one intimated that rape had been a tactic. The doctor apparently lost an eye, one woman's face is paralysed, and another tried to commit suicide to escape the interrogations that brought false confessions. Now they have been released due to a great deal of diplomacy on the part of the European Union and various countries, pressure from international groups and organisations, and perhaps (it's somewhat controverisal) an intervention by the wife of the French President. Even Qaddafi's own son Saif al-Islam al-Qaddafi, played a vital role in the negotiations on behalf of the medics. The nurses are Bulgarian; the Aegyptian-born Palestinian doctor was granted Bulgarian citizenship last month, and all were pardoned by the Bulgarian President shortly after arriving in Sofia. So in a sense it's a happy ending, as they reunite with families. But they've had eight brutal years that have changed their lives forever. I wish them well.

Meanwhile, the devastation from that epidemic, ruled due to bad hygiene such as running needles under the tap, continues to mount. Of the 400 or so children infected, over 50 have died. Part of the negotiations included settlements to the government and to the families for the care of these children. Several are being treated in France and Italy. I wish them all that life has to offer as well.