2012-05-19: Headlines

• Democratic Underground: RT video: Congress still okay with indefinite detention and torture of Americans 2012-05-19

  Even after a federal court deemed the NDAA unconstitutional, the US House of Representatives refused to exclude indefinite detention provisions from the infamous defense spending bill during a vote on Friday. An attempt to strike down any provisions...

• BusinessWeek: Russia Tells G-8 Mideast Should Be Treated as Chess Game 2012-05-19

  Leaders from the Group of Eight nations sought to smooth over disagreements about how to contain Iran€™s nuclear ambitions and stem violence in Syria, as Russia warned Western powers that they should approach Middle East disputes with more delicacy. | The Russian comments were made at the G-8 summit, hosted by President Barack Obama at the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland.

• RFI: Eurozone crisis central to G8 talks 2012-05-19

  Leaders of the G8 are meeting today at Camp David in the United States. The eurozone economic crisis is top of the agenda. Political solutions to the unrest in Syria, preventing North Korea and Iran gaining nuclear capability and food security in Africa are also being discussed.

• The Guardian: French women's minister pitched into fierce equal rights battle 2012-05-19

  France's new minister for women's rights has promised to rush through a new sexual harassment law, as feminists warned they would stay vigilant over equal rights issues despite the record number of women in the new cabinet.

• Antiwar.com: The Serbian Job 2012-05-19

  A choice loses any meaning when it is denied, and the widespread fraud made it abundantly clear to Serbia's electorate that the May 6 elections were meaningless. It mattered not how the people actually voted, but who got to count the ballots.

• guardian.co.uk: Does Shakespeare work better outside Britain? | Bridget Escolme 2012-05-19

  International perspectives enrich our understanding of Shakespeare's tales of comedy and violence | In the year when that most exportable of English of cultural icons – Shakespeare – catches up with the multinational Olympics on reclaimed industrial land in east London and theatre companies from across the world are offering their own version of his plays at the Globe theatre, it's worth asking: does Shakespeare now speak more clearly to countries other than Britain? | Last November I visited Rio de Janeiro as part of a Shakespeare forum curated by People's Palace Projects, an organisation that promotes arts for social justice. I worked on Shakespeare's Measure for Measure with student actors in Vidigal, a favela famously situated above Ipanema beach and "pacified" just a week previously by armed police, as part of a state drive to reclaim areas like this from the violence of the drugs trade. | The students were hosted by

• Ogaden Online: Statement from Ogaden Youth and Students Union (OYSU) 2012-05-19

  We urge President Obama to this is golden opportunity to address the vicious human rights violations that are transpiring in Ogaden under the rule of Prime Minister Meles Zenawi. Meles Zenawi's regime has implemented a scorched earth policy against...

• Afrique en Ligue: Women's rights group calls on Morocco to end impunity for rapists 2012-05-19

  International women's rights body Equality Now Friday called on Moroccan authorities to take action and end the legal exemption for rapists who marry their victims, citing the incident of 15-year-old Safae from Tangiers who was raped and impregnated...

• Human Rights Watch: Egypt: Widespread Military Torture of Protesters Arrested in May 2012-05-19

  The brutal beating of both men and women protesters shows that military officers have no sense of limits on what they can do. The official law enforcement authorities may arrest people where there is evidence of wrongdoing, but it never has the right to beat and torture them. | "The brutal beating of both men and women protesters shows that military officers have no sense of limits on what they can do,"

• Truthdig: Yes, We Can Walk and Chew Gum 2012-05-19

  One of the most overused metaphors in a writer's arsenal is the one about "walking and chewing gum at the same time." As a hiker and Big League Chew enthusiast, I particularly hate this cliche. Nonetheless, I feel it is fitting right now because it so perfectly summarizes the argument being made by Republicans. They now insist that America cannot simultaneously walk the walk on equal rights and also chew economic gum.

• Salem-News.Com: Sri Lanka's Frontline Denial 2012-05-19

  The room was packed. The panel, consisting of journalists, activists and relatives of the victims, were speaking to an audience made up mainly of Sri Lankans. I was there too, partly because I admire the work of the film maker Callum Macrae and..

• Truthdig: A Victory for All of Us 2012-05-19

  Iraq War veteran Sgt. Shamar Thomas leads a demonstration in New York's Grand Central Station to call attention to a law signed by President Barack Obama that granted extraordinary powers to the military. | The government lawyers, despite being asked five times by the judge to guarantee that we plaintiffs would not be charged under the law for our activities, refused to give any assurances.

• The Guardian: Syria car bomb kills nine and injures hundreds 2012-05-19

  Syria is five weeks into a peace plan sponsored by the UN and Arab League. The plan includes a UN monitoring mission intended to oversee a ceasefire, which is yet to take hold, aimed at paving the way for a political path out of bloodshed.

• AllAfrica.com: Kajuga Eyes Peace Marathon Podium Finish 2012-05-19

  Robert Kajuga believes he is good enough to win the half marathon race in the forthcoming Kigali Peace marathon scheduled for May 27. | The diminutive SEC Academy athlete finished in second place last year, behind Kenya's Francis Bowen but after competing in a series of marathons in Uganda, Tanzania, South Africa and Morocco this year, the youngster hopes he will reign this time round.

• Democratic Underground: Chilling effect of the Nakba Law on Israel's human rights 2012-05-19

  By rejecting the petition calling for the repeal of the Nakba Law in January of this year, the High Court of Justice ignored the violation of human rights inherent in the danger that institutions may now preemptively refuse to fund activities...

• Huffington Post: The Burqa That We Are All Wearing 2012-05-19

  Hibaaq Osman: In 2011, France campaigned to ban niqabs -- face veils worn by Muslim women -- in an effort that center-right President Nicolas Sarkozy said was critical in ensuring women's rights. Much debated and contested, the veil ban -- which affected only 2,000 women out of 5 to 6 million Muslims living in France -- was supposedly an example of France doing the right thing: fighting the backwards Arab-Muslim traditions that oppress women....

• Democratic Underground: House OKs continued war in Afghanistan 2012-05-19

  By AP WASHINGTON — The House endorsed the continued war in Afghanistan on Thursday despite acknowledgment from Republicans and Democrats that the American people are war -weary after more than a decade of conflict. By a vote of 303-113...

• Truthdig: We Told You So 2012-05-19

  To economists in my own circle, it had long been clear that the financial crisis then unfolding was an epic event. We had watched the subprime mortgage disaster build up. In August 2007 we knew the meltdown had begun. Bear Stearns had failed. But for reasons that have to do with the pace and rhythm of politics, these issues remained on the back burner, the campaign being dominated by health care and the Iraq war.

• Truthdig: Disco Queen and Go-Go King 2012-05-19

  The soundtrack of my youth is fading. That's hardly an original observation, I realize, but self-indulgence is a columnist's inalienable right and music has unique power to summon unbidden waves of nostalgia. -

• Huffington Post: The Police, the iPhone and Your Right to Record 2012-05-19

  Timothy Karr: While the media landscape has changed, our First Amendment rights haven't. Freedom of the press is more important, not less, when anyone with a mobile phone and an Internet connection can act as a journalist.

2012-05-18: top stories

USA TODAY: Police: Zimmerman's encounter with Trayvon 'avoidable' 2012-05-18

Florida prosecutors have released several hundred pages of evidence in the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. | A Sanford police officer wrote in his report that he believed that the fatal Feb. 26 encounter between George Zimmerman and Trayvon was "ultimately avoidable" if Zimmerman had stayed in his vehicle and waited for police to respond to his 911 report of a suspicious person in the gated community of Retreat at Twin Lakes.

Consortium News: Applying the Six-Day War to Iran 2012-05-18

Exclusive: America's neocons continue to beat the drums for war with Iran, brushing aside warnings even from Israeli intelligence veterans. Another part of the propaganda is to merge a future war against Iran with the heroic memories of the Six-Day War nearly 45 years ago, as ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern notes.

USA TODAY: Police: Zimmerman's encounter with Trayvon 'avoidable' 2012-05-18

Florida prosecutors have released several hundred pages of evidence in the killing of 17-year-old Trayvon Martin. | A Sanford police officer wrote in his report that he believed that the fatal Feb. 26 encounter between George Zimmerman and Trayvon was "ultimately avoidable" if Zimmerman had stayed in his vehicle and waited for police to respond to his 911 report of a suspicious person in the gated community of Retreat at Twin Lakes.

RIA Novosti: Police Move in on Occupy Campers at New Site 2012-05-18

In just under two hours after being evicted by riot police in the early morning hours of Wednesday from an Occupy-type tent protest in Moscow, anti-Putin protesters moved their camp to another central park to continue their stand against President Vladimir Putin's return to the Kremlin.