Free Republic

By Associated Press August 16, 2001 KINGSTON, Jamaica -- Saying marijuana is "culturally entrenched" in Jamaica, a government commission on Thursday recommended legalizing the private use and possession of small amounts of the drug by adults. The drug's "reputation among the people as a panacea and a spiritually enhancing substance is so strong that it must be regarded as culturally entrenched," said the commission's report, released Thursday. Any change to existing drug laws would have to be approved by Jamaica's Parliament. "My gut feeling is that the commission's recommendations will be followed," said Ralston Smith, an aide to Prime ...

MASSACRES OF THE ARMENIANS By James R. Russell In response to "Turkey's Hidden Past" (March 8, 2001) To the Editors: Christopher de Bellaigue ["Turkey's Hidden Past," NYR, March 8] has done his part to keep Turkey's past hidden, with these two references to the Armenians: "Under ['Abd al-Hamid's] rule thousands of Anatolian Armenians died while rioting against Ottoman Muslims during the 1890s." Actually 200,000 Armenians (none rioters) were systematically massacred in 1895–1896. The second: "A Turkish identity had emerged out of the ethnic conflict, particularly the conflict between Turks and Armenians, some half a million of whom died during the ...

Colombia cartels moving into Peru Neighbor's ambassador asks U.S. for more anti-drug funds By MICHAEL HEDGES Copyright 2001 Houston Chronicle Washington Bureau WASHINGTON -- Peru has seen a huge increase in crops of heroin-producing opium poppies as a result of U.S.-backed efforts to fight drugs in neighboring Colombia, Peru's ambassador said in a letter to U.S. lawmakers. In the letter, Ambassador Carlos Alzamora said that "the situation is a clear indication of the first effects of the spillover of Plan Colombia: Intelligence information shows that Colombian criminal cartels are relocating their opium poppy operations in Peru." Congress has approved, with ...

Another Colombia taking shape in Guatemala By JULIO GODOY-ANELU WITH any luck, the typical American may recognize Guatemala as a Central American country, about a two-hour flight south of Miami. Some may even know that the nation signed a peace treaty in 1996 that ended a 36-year, brutal civil war that killed more than 100,000 civilians, mainly Mayan Indians. Perhaps, some have heard of our country and its 12 million people because of the notorious murders that occurred there: A Catholic bishop was murdered two years ago; in May, an American missionary, Barbara Ann Ford, was slain in broad daylight. ...

by Christopher Hitchens Good to see that sanity can sometimes be as infectious as insanity. All it takes, apparently, is one lucid moment on the part of one public figure, and a whole realm of illusion can be dissipated. The Peter Lilley moment on soft drugs, closely followed by the David Blunkett one, gives some reason to hope that the American nightmare is not in our future. Here is what happened in my hometown of Washington DC during the Congressional elections of 1998. A local initiative was attached to the ballot, proposing the "decriminalization" of marijuana for medical purposes. ...

Castro Meets With German Minister HAVANA (AP) -- Fidel Castro played dinner host to German Economy Minister Werner Mueller, discussing everything from French poetry to Europe's relationship with Latin America in a six-hour meeting that ended early Tuesday. Castro looked quite healthy and animated during the gathering at his offices at the Council of State, Mueller told a morning briefing with German reporters in the traveling delegation. ''He was among the fittest at the table,'' the German minister said. At a news conference later in the day, Mueller said Castro ''has a great sense of humor. I have the impression ...

The slaying of Chicago Police Officer Brian T. Strouse, allegedly by a 16-year-old lookout for a drug-dealing street gang, is another item of evidence indicting the war on drugs. "Drug dealers bring much more violence than we have ever seen in this country," said Mayor Richard Daley at Thursday's funeral for the 33-year-old officer. The mayor can be forgiven a little hyperbole during such an emotional occasion. But this city has seen such violence before; in fact, Chicago once was defined by the violence wrought by a war on alcohol that we called Prohibition. In those days, drive-by shootings ...

By AFSHIN VALINEJAD, Associated Press TEHRAN, Iran (July 8, 2001 6:14 p.m. EDT) - Despite U.S. pressure on its allies to refrain from making oil and gas deals with Iran, Japan on Sunday moved a step closer to securing the right to develop Iran's largest oil field. "Japan is not affected by U.S. pressure," Japanese Trade Minister Takeo Hiranuma told reporters during a signing ceremony in Tehran. In the letter of intent, Japan agreed to spend $10 million to help fund a seismic study of the 26-billion-barrel Azadegan oil field. The two countries also signed an energy cooperation agreement. A ...

SUNDAY Q&A National Security Agency: Enemy of the state? Geoff Metcalf interviews author James Bamford about super-secret spy group Editor's note: Most people are familiar to varying degrees with the FBI, CIA, ATF, IRS and other assorted federal police agencies. However, unless they have seen the movie with Will Smith and Gene Hackman, "Enemy of the State," they may not even be aware that the National Security Agency exists. A few have heard of NSA programs like "Tempest" and "Echelon" and wondered what new mischief the U.S. government was involved in. But, until now, almost nobody knew that the NSA ...

Only drug users like glowsticks. Authorities are shutting down raves with old crack-house laws and making pacifiers drug paraphernalia Janelle Brown SALON.COM 06.22.01 Witness the humble glowstick. This neon yellow tube of light, testament to the wonders of the nontoxic chemical reaction, is popular at Britney Spears concerts, Mardi Gras parades and summer street fairs. But because glowsticks are also commonly found at raves, where partiers wave them about during their dance-floor kinetics, they have become a curious casualty of the government's war on drugs. An injunction handed down against a group of New Orleans party promoters last Wednesday ...

How Global Battle Against Drugs Risks Backfiring The international war on narcotics is going awry. Chemical spraying of coca bushes is poisoning Colombian villages. by Hugh O'Shaughnessy in Bogota Franci sits on the veranda and whimpers. The little girl is underweight. Her armpits are erupting in boils. Like most of her people, she has suffered from respiratory problems and stomach pains since the aircraft and the helicopter gunships came over at Christmas and again at New Year dropping toxic pesticides on their villages. The tiny indigenous Kofan community of Santa Rosa de Guamuez in Colombia had it hard enough with ...

Because of dot-com bust, laid-off high-tech workers are ending up in homeless shelters By Karen A. Davis Associated Press Writer SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- Mike Schlenz, who recently installed computer networks for a living, had been sleeping in his Honda Civic for three months before he went to a homeless shelter. John Sacrosante, who earned more than $100,000 a year as a free-lance database engineer, spent his 39th birthday last week with the "brothers" he met at the church shelter where he has been living. Both are casualties of the dot-com bust in Silicon Valley, where a surprising number ...

1979 John Wayne dies On this day in 1979, John Wayne dies. The star of countless westerns, Wayne had been battling cancer for more than a decade. Wayne was born Marion Michael Morrison in 1908 in Iowa. He moved as a child to Glendale, California. A football star at Glendale High School, he attended the University of Southern California on a scholarship but dropped out after two years. Working as a movie studio laborer, he befriended rising director John Ford. Wayne played bit parts under the name of Duke Morrison (a childhood nickname derived from the family dog, Marion's ...

An extraordinary thing has happened in Brazil. During the burial service a diseased has come to life. According to RIA “Novosti”, this revival has happened in San-Paulo. Juan Batista, a 70-year-old bricklayer died and revived in two during the burial service, which was conducting in his house. When the divine service started, the diseased suddenly seized the hand of his friend, who was standing close to the coffin. The relatives of Juan understood, that it was a false and called ambulance. But the nearest hospital, where Juan was regarded as decedent, sent catafalque instead of ambulance. The catafalque transported the ...

---------------------------------------------------------- By MARK STEVENSON, Associated Press MEXICO CITY (May 21, 2001 8:24 p.m. EDT) - Saying his trip was emblematic of closer relations with Mexico, John Ashcroft stressed border security and safe immigration Monday in his first journey outside the United States as attorney general. Fresh from a tour of the two countries' common border, Ashcroft said the Bush administration will send Congress a program that would grant Mexican immigrants guest worker visas. He said the Bush administration is not demanding any specific measures to reduce illegal immigration in return, although officials would like to see both countries dedicate ...

OAKLAND, California, May 15 (AFP) - It was business as usual Tuesday in the Oakland Cannabis Buyers' Cooperative, one day after the US Supreme Court ruled that states could not override federal laws saying marijuana has no medical use. Hemp jeans and tie-dye T-shirts bearing phrases such as "Marijuana Medic On Duty" hung from clothing racks. Satiny "Alternative Undies" woven from cannabis plant fibers and silver pot leaf jewelry were also for sale in a display case near the passageway leading to a rear room where people lined up for Medical Marijuana identification cards. Volunteers checked identification, studied physicians' ...

The Associated Press SYDNEY, Australia (May 10, 2001 9:51 a.m. EDT) - An animal rights group was investigating the death of a rat that was killed Thursday in a fashion parade stunt that went wrong. The Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said the rat, one of almost 200 released during a fashion show at Australia's annual Fashion Week in Sydney, died when a curtain rod collapsed on it. An animal officer at the scene, holding the dead rat in a plastic cup, said the protection of animals in fashion shows should be upgraded or they should ...

So what's the story? In the age-old quest to put the message directly in consumers' sightlines, Revelstoke Canadian Spiced Whisky may have found the Holy Grail - right at the bottom of the pisser. Looking to make a splash with young barflies across Canada and the U.S., Revelstoke has begun putting ads directly on the rubber nets that adorn the bottoms of urinals in local pubs wherever the rye whisky is sold. The concept was developed by Dean Phillips, president of Minneapolis, Minn.-based Phillips Products, which produces Revelstoke and those other staples of the hard-drinking set, Sourpuss and Butter Ripple ...

Methamphetamine--once the drug of choice for motorcycle gangs who cooked it in large batches in out-of-the-way places--has moved downtown with 'mom-and-pop' drug labs springing up across Los Angeles, police say. Recent meth busts in the Santa Clarita Valley and in Van Nuys last week highlighted the ease with which users can start their own labs and manufacture the drug in small doses. "The chemical formula has become sort of simple even for people not that aware of chemistry," said Robert Schirn, the head of Major Narcotics Division of the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office. "Some of the materials are ...

A US Marine who fired a toy gun at the car of two pizza delivery men at Camp Courtney last week has apologized to them. The Marine had pointed an authentic-looking gun at the car and fired a plastic projectile which hit the rear window. On Friday the Marine visited the pizza restaurant where the men worked, accompanied by senior officers and a commander. The marine told the two 25 year old restaurant workers that he had done something really disgraceful and had been reflecting on himself. The marine looked very tense throughout the encounter. One of the civilians said ...