Hard To Believe

Report: Human Rights Situation in Central Asia Still Unsatisfactory

The U.S. State Department says Kazakhstan's human rights record remained poor in 2005. It says the government continued to commit numerous human rights abuses, including arbitrary arrests and aggressive persecution of independent media and political opposition.

In neighboring Kyrgyzstan, the annual report notes improvements in several areas following the March overthrow of President Askar Akayev, although some problems remained.

The report describes the human rights situation in Tajikistan as poor. It says corruption hampered democratic and social reform, while the government continued to restrict basic human rights.

The State Department report says Turkmenistan is a country of particular concern. It says arbitrary arrests, torture, denial to due process and fair trial are rampant, and the government continues to restrict basic freedoms.

Hard to believe that these are the countries the key powers of the East and West are courting!

Iraq contiues its spiral into civil war and more bloodshed - Bomb blasts shake Iraqi capital

At least 8 people have been killed and 21 injured in a series of bombings in the west of the Iraqi capital, Baghdad.

In the first attack, six civilians were killed when a roadside bomb exploded close to an Iraqi army patrol in Amiriya, an insurgent stronghold.

A second roadside bomb, targeting a police patrol in Jihad, injured three civilian bystanders.

Later, two people were killed and 13 wounded when a car bomb exploded in a busy street outside Yarmouk hospital.

Mystery Iraq abduction raises new security fears

Confusion over Iraqi guards' fate

There is confusion about the fate of 50 security firm employees in Baghdad who were reported to have been seized by people wearing police uniforms.

Reports said they were either arrested by police or kidnapped by militants posing as police officers on Wednesday.

Officials at the Iraqi interior ministry has denied involvement and called the operation a "terrorist act".

The incident followed the discovery of the bodies of 18 men in a van in a western, mainly Sunni area of the city.

The Bush Junta and their lackeys must really live in some fantasy land if they think Iraq is a 'haven of democracy', they attack the media (and anyone who speaks of reality) for reporting what goes on daily there, does them no good to blubber about it, this is their mess they caused, they blundered in the first few months of the occupation and now they are paying the price.

What is even more hilarious is that China is lecturing the US on human rights, now China hardly has a sparkling human rights record but the US has lots its moral finger wagging since they started locking people up without trial and abusing them.

China rejects US rights 'hypocrisy'

China has rejected US criticism of its record on human rights in an official rejoinder which says racial discrimination and crime are still rife in America.

The State Council, China's cabinet, denounced America on Thursday for what it called rampant violence and widespread discrimination against minorities, especially blacks, in its annual response to the US state department's report on human rights worldwide.

"As in previous years, the state department pointed the finger at human rights situations in more than 190 countries and regions, including China, but kept silent on the serious violations of human rights in the United States," the Chinese report said.