Democracy Now! Monday, June 8, 2009

Today's Headlines

• Two US Journalists Sentenced to 12 Years in North Korea
• US-Backed Coalition Wins in Lebanon
• Nation’s Unemployment Rate Surges to 9.4%
• Anti-Abortion Activist Warns of More Violent Acts
• More than 100 Killed in Somalia; Radio Journalist Assassinated
• Panel Finds Lax Oversight of Wartime Contracting
• Iraqi Government Arrests Five US Contractors
• Report: Global Military Spending Rose to $1.46 Trillion in 2008
• Couple Accused of Spying for Cuba
• Nominee Linked to CIA Torture Declines Position
• Palestinian Protester Shot Dead by Israeli Troops
• Gay Rights Activist Cleve Jones Calls for March on Washington
• Civil Rights and AIDS Activist Dr. Alan Berkman Dies

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  Peruvian Police Accused of Massacring Indigenous Protesters in Amazon Jungle

  Dozens of people are estimated to have been killed in clashes between police and indigenous activists protesting oil and mining projects in the northern Peruvian Amazonian province of Bagua. Peruvian authorities have declared a military curfew, and troops are patrolling towns in the Amazon jungle. Authorities say up to twenty-two policemen have been killed, and two remain missing. The indigenous community says at least forty people, including three children, were killed by the police this weekend. [includes rush transcript]

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  Obama's Pick to Lead Afghan War Linked to Abuse of Prisoners & Secret Assassination Unit

  Lieutenant General Stanley McChrystal formerly served as commander of the Joint Special Operations Command from 2003 to 2008. During that time, he oversaw a secretive program to hunt down and assassinate suspected terrorists around the globe. Last year, lawmakers delayed Stanley McChrystal’s nomination for a key position because of questions about prisoner abuse by forces under his command. Many of the reports of abuse center on Camp Nama, a US base near Baghdad’s airport where Special Operations troops ran an interrogation and detention center. [includes rush transcript]

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  "Diary of Bergen-Belsen, 1944-1945": Amira Hass Discusses Her Mother's Concentration Camp Diary

  President Obama followed up his trip to Saudi Arabia and Egypt with a visit to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany on Friday, where 56,000 were killed during World War II. Obama invoked his great-uncle who had helped liberate a Buchenwald prison camp and returned a haunted man. Israeli journalist Amira Hass, columnist for Ha’aretz newspaper, comes from a family of Holocaust survivors. Her mother, Hanna Levy-Hass, survived the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Amira Hass edited her mother’s diary from that period, and it’s being published this month from Haymarket Books. [includes rush transcript]