Draft Law Revives Practice of Soviets

(NYTimes) – The lower house of the Russian Parliament passed a draft law on Friday allowing the country’s intelligence service to officially warn citizens that their activities could lead to a future violation of the law, reviving a Soviet-era K.G.B. practice that was often used against dissidents. The president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, is expected to sign it into law shortly.

The legislation was proposed during the tense weeks after two suicide bombers attacked the Moscow subway, and its stated goal was to stanch the growth of radicalism among young Russians. But rights advocates and opposition parties have warned that the expanded powers could be used to silence critics of the government. In a letter made public on Thursday, 20 leading human rights activists condemned the legislation as a blow to “the cornerstone principles of the law: the presumption of innocence and legal certainty.” Read entire article

Israeli Chemical Weapons

(Independent) – Israel fails to calm Dutch anger over ‘nerve gas’ crash

The worst air crash in the history of the Netherlands, six years ago today, turned the Amsterdam apartment complex into a hell-like inferno in seconds, killing Norma Habibi’s two children and 41 of her neighbours. Six years on, the surviving residents of the suburb are suffering physical ailments which their doctors have long suspected, and which new revelations last week appear to confirm, were caused by exposure to something more sinister than burning perfume, paints or electronic equipment. Read More Here

(BBC) – Israel says El Al crash chemical ‘non-toxic’

Israel has said that the chemicals being carried by a cargo plane that crashed into a block of flats in Amsterdam in 1992 were “non-toxic”. Read More Here

(Wiki) – Sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway

The Sarin attack on the Tokyo subway, usually referred to in the Japanese media as the Subway Sarin Incident, was an act of domestic terrorism perpetrated by members of Aum Shinrikyo on March 20, 1995. Read More Here

MSM: Feds Propose Takeover of Subways, Light-rail Systems

(WAPost) – The Obama administration will propose that the federal government take over safety regulation of the nation’s subway and light-rail systems, responding to what it says is haphazard and ineffective oversight by state agencies.

The criminalisation of political dissent in Britain

“From foul deeds endless tragedy arises,” the World Socialist Web Site wrote, commenting on the state execution of innocent Brazilian worker, Jean Charles de Menezes, by plainclothes policemen on a London subway train on July 22, 2005.

Events have tragically confirmed that warning. In the years since Menezes’ killing, for which no one has ever been held to account, the legal framework of a police state has been enacted in Britain.