Panama's Supreme Court has overturned a 2004 pardon of anti-Castro militant Luis Posada Carriles and three other right-wing Cubans—Pedro Crispin Remon Hernandez, Gaspar Jiménez Escobedo, and Guillermo Novo Sampoll—charged with plotting to kill Fidel Castro at the 2000 Ibero-American summit. The militants were accused of attempting to bomb a University of Panama auditorium where the Cuban leader was due to speak. Panamanian courts ruled there was too little evidence to try them for attempted murder but convicted them on charges of conspiracy, possessing explosives and endangering public safety. US-friendly President Mireya Moscoso issued the pardons in 2004—sparking a diplomatic spat with Cuba and Venezuela.

A three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit has released declassified portions of a June 20 decision that a Combatant Status Review Tribunal had improperly designated a Chinese Uighur detained at Guantanamo Bay as an "enemy combatant." In the opinion, Judge Merrick Garland dismissed government arguments that classified documents established Huzaifa Parhat's terror connections, finding: "Parhat has made a credible argument that—at least for some of the assertions—the common source is the Chinese government, which may be less than objective with respect to the Uighurs."

On June 23 the Mexican daily La Jornada reported that according to "judicial sources" the Mexican Attorney General's Office (PGR) has information that the Miami-based Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) has maintained ties for at least three years with the "Gulf Cartel" drug trafficking operation and "Los Zetas"—a gang of hired assassins working for the cartels—to help in the smuggling of Cuban and Central American immigrants through Mexican territory to the US. CANF, an influential organization of rightwing Cuban Americans in Florida, has friendly relations with US politicians from both the Democratic and Republican parties.

It is pretty depressing that 29 years after Three Mile Island and 22 after Chernobyl, the nuclear industry has recouped its propaganda losses to the point that both candidates are obliged to pay lip service to the oxymoron of "safe nuclear power." McCain is gung-ho for nukes, calling for building 45 new reactors over the next 30 years. Obama's support is more equivocal—he said June 20 that nuclear power is an option worth pursuing, while adding the caveat: "I don't think that nuclear power is a panacea." (Reuters, June 20)

From Physicians for Human Rights, June 18:

Medical Evidence Supports Detainees’ Accounts of Torture in US Custody
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) has published a landmark report documenting medical evidence of torture and ill-treatment inflicted on 11 men detained at US facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantánamo Bay, who were never charged with any crime. The physical and psychological evaluation of the detainees and documentation of the crimes are based on internationally accepted standards for clinical assessment of torture claims. The report also details the severe physical and psychological pain and long-term disability that has resulted from abusive and unlawful US interrogation practices.

Wired reports June 19 reports from Marlborough, MA, where the US Air Force held a confab to promote its new Cyber Command, which is to go operational in 105 days. While the command's mission is still "very much in question," it will certainly provide further opportunity for corporate-Pentagon collaboration. Wired writes that on the symposium's exhibition floor, companies like IBM bragged about "partnering for dominance" with the military in cyberspace.

A statement from the Center for Constitutional Rights, June 12:

Supreme Court: Guantánamo Detainees Have Constitutional Right to Habeas Corpus
Washington, DC — In one of the most important human rights cases of the decade, the Supreme Court of the United States held today, in a 5-4 decision, that the men imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay have the constitutional right to habeas corpus.

Larry Klayman, founder of Judicial Watch, which filed more than a dozen lawsuits against the Clinton administration alleging cover-ups, brought suit in Miami district court against the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), accusing the cartel of price-fixing. "It's now quite obvious that what they're doing is intentional," Klayman told the New York Times. "What they're trying to do is bring Western economies to their knees. It's extremely clever."