Jorge Cervantes, the World’s leading expert on Cannabis cultivation, has watched and influenced an entire sub culture that sprang from a relatively unexplored science.

In 1983 he authored the first complete book about indoor cultivation which revolutionised the way gardeners produced medical Marijuana, with new and affordable technology emerging it was now possible for medicinal growers to utilise the same techniques used by the professionals.

An activist for anti-prohibition, Jorge holds a vast amount of information about the medical benefits of Marijuana, in particular a form of Cannabis known as “Sensimilla”, which has remarkable benefits for Multiple Sclerosis (MS) suffers.

He states: “Ninety-seven percent of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) patients who have tried marijuana report great relief from the spasms and tremors associated with the disease. The second-leading cause of blindness in the USA is Glaucoma, and approximately ninety percent of the sufferers using marijuana as medicine report that while standard medicines do not help them, smoking cannabis quickly restores their vision.

“Many long-term glaucoma patients have successfully maintained their sight using cannabis for twenty or twenty-five years and have avoided the gradual, painful deterioration to blindness that is otherwise inevitable.”

This leads to a much needed hard look at the legal status of Marijuana in most countries.

RINF Alternative News will be speaking to Jorge and would like to invite readers to take part and make your voice heard on this serious issue, no matter where you stand on the debate. The interview will lean towards the medical benefits, the law and what you can do to help end prohibition.

As Jorge is the World’s foreknowledge on Marijuana horticulture, we are also inviting a small forum of Amsterdam medical growers to take part so they can benefit from Jorge’s 30+ years of experience by asking questions about their own gardens.

Today, Jorge travels the World visiting grow rooms, continues to write books, produce DVD’s and is an outspoken activist for the end of prohibition.

Please post your questions for Jorge Cervantes on the RINF forums.
http://forums.rinf.com/showthread.php?t=1234

On a day when President Bush visited the Pentagon to discuss Iraq and Afghanistan with top officials, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said the question of additional forces for Afghanistan may be left to Bush’s successor.

“It is a mixed picture in Afghanistan,” Morrell told reporters, blaming a recent upswing in violence in the east of the country on a rise in the flow of foreign fighters from militant bases in Pakistan.

In one sign of the growing insurgency, militants killed nine U.S. soldiers in eastern Afghanistan earlier this month — the deadliest attack on U.S. troops in the country since 2005.

But Morrell cast media reports of Afghan violence as “overwriting” that gave the false impression that “the sky is falling.”

“I don’t think that the (defense) secretary (Robert Gates) believes that is the case,” Morrell said.

His comments came amid signs of sustained improvement in Iraq, where lower levels of violence appeared to be holding despite the withdrawal this year of five U.S. combat brigades deployed last year as part of Bush’s so-called surge strategy.

“That is the war which we have focused on. That is the war we are now winning,” Morrell said.

But he declined to make the same positive assessment for Afghanistan.

“The only thing I have heard about a judgment about whether we are winning or losing in Afghanistan is that we are not losing there,” Morrell said.

The intensifying insurgency in Afghanistan has prompted Pentagon officials to look for ways to send more U.S. forces to Afghanistan, where there are currently 35,000 troops including 16,000 under NATO command.

MORE COMBAT TROOPS

Commanders on the ground have asked for three additional combat brigades, or more than 10,000 soldiers, and Bush has agreed to send an undisclosed number next year.

But Morrell said the number of forces to be sent in 2009 would likely be determined by the administration that takes office when Bush leaves the White House in January.

“Whether it’s the three additional brigades that the commanders want, I think, is a question frankly for the next administration,” Morrell said.

Both presidential candidates say they favor more combat troops for Afghanistan.

Democrat Barack Obama has said he would send at least two brigades. Republican John McCain has said commanders should get the three brigades they want but the Iraq war is his priority.

Morrell said the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff are trying to determine whether additional troops can be sent to Afghanistan sooner than 2009 and suggested they could be support troops rather than combat forces.

“In the near term, there is an effort being made to figure out what can be done … Are there additional quantities of forces or capabilities that can be provided that can help the troops on the ground there now be more successful?” he said.

“The chiefs, as is their job, are working to determine whether or not they can meet the needs of the commanders any time soon.” (Additional reporting by Andrew Gray, editing by Jackie Frank)

Reuters North American News Service

American soldiers shot dead Arkan Ali al-Nuaimi, 19, on Wednesday evening as he approached a checkpoint in his car in the oil city of Kirkuk, a police official told AFP.

Iraqi police said the son of Ali Taha al-Nuaimi, editor of the US financed “The Voice of the Villages,” was raked with American bullets when he lost control of his vehicle.

“He lost control near the Bahrain bakery in southern Kirkuk… then they fired on him, killing him instantly,” the police official said, adding that a friend riding next to Nuaimi survived.

A US military spokesman, however, provided a different account of what appeared to be the same incident.

Major John Hall told AFP in an emailed response that a group of dismounted US soldiers was attacked with small arms fire from an approaching purple sedan.

“The soldiers returned fire in self defence, killing a passenger in the car. The driver of the vehicle was taken into custody,” Hall said.

He said one coalition soldier was injured in what was the only shooting incident Wednesday in the Kirkuk area that the US military has on file.

Hall added that incident was still being investigated.

The men matched at nine of the 13 locations on chromosomes, or loci, commonly used to distinguish people.

The FBI estimated the odds of unrelated people sharing those genetic markers to be as remote as 1 in 113 billion. But the mug shots of the two felons suggested that they were not related: One was black, the other white.

In the years after her 2001 discovery, Troyer found dozens of similar matches — each seeming to defy impossible odds.

As word spread, these findings by a little-known lab worker raised questions about the accuracy of the FBI’s DNA statistics and ignited a legal fight over whether the nation’s genetic databases ought to be opened to wider scrutiny.

The FBI laboratory, which administers the national DNA database system, tried to stop distribution of Troyer’s results and began an aggressive behind-the-scenes campaign to block similar searches elsewhere, even those ordered by courts, a Times investigation found.

At stake is the credibility of the compelling odds often cited in DNA cases, which can suggest an all but certain link between a suspect and a crime scene.

When DNA from such clues as blood or skin cells matches a suspect’s genetic profile, it can seal his fate with a jury, even in the absence of other evidence. As questions arise about the reliability of ballistic, bite-mark and even fingerprint analysis, genetic evidence has emerged as the forensic gold standard, often portrayed in courtrooms as unassailable.

But DNA “matches” are not always what they appear to be. Although a person’s genetic makeup is unique, his genetic profile — just a tiny sliver of the full genome — may not be. Siblings often share genetic markers at several locations, and even unrelated people can share some by coincidence.

No one knows precisely how rare DNA profiles are. The odds presented in court are the FBI’s best estimates.

The Arizona search was, in effect, the first test of those estimates in a large state database, and the results were surprising, even to some experts.

Defense attorneys seized on the Arizona discoveries as evidence that genetic profiles match more often than the official statistics imply — and are far from unique, as the FBI has sometimes suggested.

Lawyers seek searches

Now, lawyers around the country are asking for searches of their own state databases.

Several scientists and legal experts as well want to test the accuracy of official statistics using the nearly 6 million profiles in CODIS, the national system that includes most state and local databases.

“DNA is terrific and nobody doubts it, but because it is so powerful, any chinks in its armor ought to be made as salient and clear as possible so jurors will not be overwhelmed by the seeming certainty of it,” said David Faigman, a professor at UC Hastings College of the Law, who specializes in scientific evidence.

FBI officials argue that, under their interpretation of federal law, use of CODIS is limited to criminal justice agencies. In their view, defense attorneys are allowed access to information about their specific cases, not the databases in general.

Bureau officials say critics have exaggerated or misunderstood the implications of Troyer’s discoveries.

Indeed, experts generally agree that most — but not all — of the Arizona matches were to be expected statistically because of the unusual way Troyer searched for them.

In a typical criminal case, investigators look for matches to a specific profile. But the Arizona search looked for any matches among all the thousands of profiles in the database, greatly increasing the odds of finding them.

Continue http://www.latimes.com/news/la-me-dna20-2008jul20,0,4108871.story?page=2&track=rss

Eating dirt, mixed with salt and vegetable shortening, is the latest coping strategy of Haitian mothers trying to quiet hungry children in a year when the cost of rice (Haiti’s staple food) has risen nearly 150 percent.

Ironically, many of these women were once rice farmers themselves. But in the 1980s, U.S.-grown rice began pouring into Haiti. Thanks to federal subsidies, the imported rice was sold for less than what it cost to grow it. Haitian farmers just couldn’t compete.

Neither could millions of other farmers around the world, who have been bankrupted by the influx of rice, corn, and wheat from the U.S., Europe and Japan. These farmers have gone from growing their own food and feeding their countries to having to buy food that’s priced on a global market. Now that these commodity markets have spiked, millions of more families cannot afford to eat.

Even here in the U.S., still the world’s richest country, more and more families are struggling to afford food these days. Thankfully, we are not forced to feed our children mud cakes. But ultimately, all working families and small farmers, whether in Haiti or Iowa, are hurt by farm policies that are designed for the benefit of giant food corporations.

Consider the U.S. grain subsidies that have pushed so many Haitian families to the brink of survival. They have also hurt family farmers here at home. That’s because the lion’s share of this $307 billion goes to the largest factory farms, leaving small-holder farmers to fend for themselves.

As we saw last month, when floods wiped out hundreds of acres of crops in the Midwest, farming is a risky business. It’s the family farmers who don’t have much of a financial cushion that we should be protecting with subsidies.

The same goes for small-holder farmers in Haiti and other developing countries. Most of these farmers are women, are mothers, who like most moms in the U.S., are responsible for putting dinner on the table every day. In developing countries, these mothers often grow their family’s food from scratch.

The small-holder, women farmers had no say in the decisions that the G8 leaders’ made about the global food crisis. Yet, it turns out that they have a lot to say when it comes to finding solutions to the crisis they are facing.

Just before the G8 meeting, a network of women’s groups from Haiti, Nicaragua, Guatemala, and Colombia issued an open letter to the G8. Brought together by the international women’s human rights organization, MADRE, the women called on the G8 to support real solutions to the food crisis. They proposed concrete changes in the global economy, like international mechanisms to stabilize the cost of food and protect the livelihoods of farmers. They called for billion-dollar-a-day agricultural subsidies to be converted from support for big agribusiness to incentives for sustainable, small-scale and organic farms.

These are solid proposals backed up by research and years of first-hand experience in communities that are on the frontlines of today’s food crisis.

But instead of taking steps that could remedy the problem, the G8 plugged more of the same corporate-friendly trade and agriculture policies that brought on the food crisis in the first place.

G8 leaders called for more “open markets” in food trade. Openness sounds good, but in practice this means that poor countries can’t use tariffs to protect farmers from unfair competition.

The G8 also pushed for stricter patent laws. These rules take ownership of seeds — the very basis of all agriculture — away from small farmers and enable giant biotech companies like Monsanto to control our food supply.

The G8 did call for more aid to countries like Haiti that have been hard hit by the spike in food prices. That’s an important step when lives are at stake. But the money is to be administered through the International Monetary Fund, famous for making offers with strings attached. In this case, governments will be required to implement more of the kind of trade liberalization that hurts poor people and small farmers and has created record profits for big food corporations this year.

But as the women’s letter to the G8 clearly shows, it’s not corporate profits, but human rights –including the basic right to food — that will underpin real solutions to the food crisis.

Susskind is the communications director of MADRE: Rights, Resources and Results for Women Worldwide.

Copyright © 2008 by the American Forum.

While reporting on domestic surveillance under Bush, Salon obtained a detailed memo proposing such an inquiry, and spoke with several sources involved in recent discussions around it on Capitol Hill. The memo was written by a former senior member of the original Church Committee; the discussions have included aides to top House Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Judiciary Committee chairman John Conyers, and until now have not been disclosed publicly.

Salon has also uncovered further indications of far-reaching and possibly illegal surveillance conducted by the National Security Agency inside the United States under President Bush. That includes the alleged use of a top-secret, sophisticated database system for monitoring people considered to be a threat to national security. It also includes signs of the NSA’s working closely with other U.S. government agencies to track financial transactions domestically as well as globally.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2.

The possibility of the system delivering “credible verdicts is doubtful,” Davis said Tuesday in a remarkable interview on NPR’s Diane Rehm Show.

“The process has been so tainted, such a black eye to the country, that we have to make every effort possible to have an open trial…

“I’m afraid that what has happened, though, is that we’ve had a rush, in order to get things done before the election, rather than taking the time — and getting evidence declassified in order to have an open trial is a frustrating, time consuming process, but in my view a necessary step if these things are going to have credibility.

Morris said the politicization of the system began at the top, with the appointment of  Susan Crawford, a “political appointee” with no time in uniform, to run the military commissions.

Morris also said that Brig. Gen. Thomas W. Hartman, senior legal advisor to the convening authority, “broke the law” by exercizing command influence on the proceedings.

“Most people were watching to see what DoD was going to do about it, to see if he’d be fired. But instead they charged six more detainees and pressed ahead.”

Morris also said that on Jan. 2, 2007, two hours after President Bush withdrew the nomination of DoD General Counsel Jim Haynes, implicated in torture policy memos, to be a federal judge, Haynes called him up to demand the quick prosecution of Australian David Hicks, a Guantanamo inmate who has since been freed.  

 ”How quickly can you charge David Hicks?” Haynes said, according to Morris.

“At that time we had no statute in place, no convening authority for military commisions, no regulations for military commissions. The major pieces were not in place, and I’m having to deal with the general cousel who’s asking how soon we can charge David Hicks.”

Haynes compared the Guantanamo proceedings to the Nurenburg trials of Nazi officials at the end of World War Two. But when Morris noted that those trials had also rendered aquittals, Haynes expoloded. 

“Acquittals? We’re not going to have any acquittals,” Haynes said, according to Morris. “We’ve been holding these guys for years. How could you explain that if we had acquittals? We’ve gotta have convictions.”

Morris said there was no doubt in his mind that Salim Hamdan, on trial now, was far more than a cluless chaffeur for Osama bin Laden. But the “black eye” the proceedings have earned will taint his conviction.   (Listen to the audio tape here.)

The federal Appeals Court in Richmond, Virginia, ruled 5-4 on July 15 that Bush had the right, while prosecuting the “war on terror,” to hold Qatari citizen (and Peoria, Illinois, resident) Ali al-Marri indefinitely as an “enemy combatant.”

But some of the court’s more liberal judges expressed alarm, saying the legal reasoning that denied al-Marri meaningful due process not only trampled on American legal traditions but could be used to lock up U.S. citizens as well.

“For over two centuries of growth and struggle, peace and war, the Constitution has secured our freedom through the guarantee that, in the United States, no one will be deprived of liberty without due process of law,” wrote Judge Diana Motz, a Bill Clinton appointee, who dissented against the court’s approval of sweeping presidential powers.

Motz noted that al-Marri has been imprisoned for more than five years, “without acknowledgement of the protection afforded by the Constitution, solely because the Executive believes that his indefinite military detention - or even the indefinite military detention of a similarly situated American citizen - is proper.”

Al-Marri’s lawyers plan to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the case underscores one of the biggest issues at stake in the November elections: whether Republican John McCain will get to fulfill his promise to appoint more Supreme Court judges like Samuel Alito and John Roberts, who have embraced Bush’s vision of an all-powerful President.

Currently, the U.S. Supreme Court has a slim 5-4 majority in favor of limiting Bush’s authority to deny basic constitutional rights to people designated “enemy combatants,” but the replacement of one member of the majority with another Alito or Roberts would tip the balance and effectively permit the rewriting of the U.S. Constitution.

Though the July 15 ruling was convoluted and did call for a federal District Court to afford al-Marri some more rights, the Appeals Court decision effectively upheld Bush’s assertion of nearly unlimited power to have people detained as “enemy combatants.”

The ruling suggested that even American citizens - if they are deemed “enemy combatants” - could be subjected to Bush’s military commissions, where truncated legal rights make proving a person’s guilt much easier than in civilian courts.

Stunned Realization

Previously, the New York Times editorial page and some liberal legal experts had criticized Bush’s high-handed approach toward non-citizens, but had assured Americans that the military commissions would not apply to them.

But at Consortiumnews.com, we noted that language buried in the Military Commissions Act of 2006 seemed to cover - indeed even target - U.S. citizens. [See “Who Is ‘Any Person’ in Tribunal Law?” or our book, Neck Deep.]

For instance, one section dealing with penalties stated that “any person is punishable as a principal under this chapter who commits an offense punishable by this chapter, or aids, abets, counsels, commands, or procures its commission,” according to the law.

Another clause stated that “any person subject to this chapter who, in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States, knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States … shall be punished as a military commission … may direct.” [Emphasis added]

Presumably, Osama bin Laden has no “allegiance or duty to the United States.” Such a phrase seems aimed at American citizens.

But it took the Appeals Court ruling - and the blunt language from Judge Motz about denying constitutional rights to U.S. citizens - to catch the New York Times’ attention.

In a July 20 editorial, the Times wrote that the Appeals Court’s “decision gives the President sweeping power to deprive anyone - citizens as well as non-citizens - of their freedom. …

“The implications are breathtaking. The designation ‘enemy combatant,’ which should apply only to people captured on a battlefield, can now be applied to people detained inside the United States. Even though Mr. Marri is not an American citizen, the court’s reasoning appears to apply equally to citizens.”

Bush’s victory in the Marri case reflects his continued insistence that for the duration of the “war on terror,” Bush or any successor can exercise “plenary” - or unlimited - powers as the Commander in Chief.

And, since the “war on terror” will go on indefinitely and since the “battlefield” is everywhere, Bush is asserting the President’s right to do whatever he wants to whomever he wants wherever the person might be, virtually forever.

In effect, Bush’s interpretation of his own powers - allowing him to imprison, torture and kill at his discretion - trumps the Founders’ vision that everyone possesses certain “unalienable rights” that a government can’t take away.

Despite some reversals in the U.S. Supreme Court - and the loss of Republican control of Congress in 2006 - Bush still sees himself as a kind of a global monarch who gets to decide which rights and freedoms his subjects anywhere in the world can enjoy and which ones will be denied them.

Al-Marri’s Arrest

Al-Marri entered the United States on a legal student visa, along with his wife and children, only a day before the 9/11 attacks. He was arrested amid the panic and fear that followed the attacks, and was charged criminally in a credit-card scheme.

But the Bush administration then asserted that al-Marri was an al-Qaeda “sleeper cell” agent planning follow-up attacks, declared him an “enemy combatant,” and locked him up at a Navy brig in South Carolina, where he was held incommunicado.

Eventually, al-Marri challenged his indefinite detention through a federal court suit. Bush’s lawyers countered by citing the Military Commissions Act in seeking to deny him access to civilian courts.

In an affidavit submitted to a District Court, a U.S. counter-terrorism official alleged that al-Marri had received al-Qaeda training, was prepared to engage in a suicide attack, and had met personally with Osama bin Laden and other senior terrorist leaders.

However, the original source of that evidence was kept secret, since it presumably was derived from interrogation of al-Qaeda captives, many of whom have been subjected to brutal interrogation methods.

In siding with Bush, conservative Appeals Court judges noted al-Marri had offered only a general denial of the accusations against him and failed to rebut the specific charges. Al-Marri’s lawyers argued that their client should have a right to confront his accusers and not be put in a position of having to prove his innocence.

However, the Appeals Court’s majority accepted the validity of the “sleeper cell” allegations - since al-Marri had not disproved them - and ruled that Bush did have the authority to lock al-Marri up indefinitely as an “enemy combatant.”

“While I would be the first to agree that the criminal justice system retains an important place in our constitutional system when handling the terrorist threat, the notion that it is the only manner of dealing with such threats, or is constitutionally compelled in all cases involving apprehensions on American soil, is simply wrong,” wrote Judge Harvie Wilkinson, a Ronald Reagan appointee who is often cited as a possible Republican Supreme Court nominee.

Wilkinson said the government had many good reasons not to grant an accused terrorist a public trial.

“While a showcase of American values, an open and public criminal trial may also serve as a platform for suspected terrorists,” Wilkinson wrote. “Terror suspects may use the bully pulpit of a criminal trial in an attempt to recruit others to their cause. Likewise, terror suspects may take advantage of the opportunity to interact with others during trial to pass critical intelligence to their allies.”

However, Motz and other more liberal judges dissented on the grounds that the Constitution spells out basic due-process rights for defendants and that denying those rights to non-citizens like al-Marri means that they would be lost to U.S. citizens as well.

“It is likely that the constitutional rights our court determines exist, or do not exist, for al-Marri will apply equally to our own citizens under like circumstances,” Motz wrote. “This means simply that protections we declare to be unavailable under the Constitution to al-Marri might likewise be unavailable to American citizens, and those rights which protect him will protect us as well.”

Motz’s conclusion also wasn’t simply based on her opinion. It was a little-notice argument that Bush’s lawyers made earlier in the case.

“A citizen, no less than an alien, can be an enemy combatant,” administration lawyer David B. Salmons told the Appeals Court in oral arguments on Feb. 1, 2007, adding that the courts cannot interfere with the President’s wartime judgments on such matters.

Salmons insisted that Bush is not interested in using this power too broadly, but argued that the judgment on whom is deemed an “enemy combatant” must solely be at the discretion of President Bush. [NYT, Feb. 2, 2007]

What may be decided in Election 2008 is whether the U.S. Supreme Court will be stocked with like-minded legal theorists.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat, and can be ordered at neckdeepbook.com. His two previous books, Secrecy & Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq and Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & ‘Project Truth’

First published at  Consortiumnews.com