From: "Bulletin Antiprohibitionist"
Subject: Liafax [EN] N. 04
Date: Thu, 3 Feb 2005 05:39:05 +0100

	Sign the appeal to reform the UN Conventions on Drugs e-Newsletter on the world campaign for the reform of the UN Conventions on Drugs #.04 - YEAR II - 02 February 2005 Published in   NEWS FROM THE IAL :                                                                                                                                                    _ If you wish to become a member of the International Antiprohibitionist League and you reside in a member state of the European Union or in the United States, the annual fee is €/$100. The IAL has offices only in Europe and the States, if you are a resident of any other country, and wish to Join and/or support the League, we encourage you to make a donation and to contact us ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Happy Birthday Bob! Thousands of Rastafarians and music fans are gathering in Ethiopia to begin a month of events to mark what have would been Bob Marley's 60th birthday. It is the first time the annual celebrations are being held outside the reggae legend's native Jamaica. Ethiopia was chosen because Rastafarians, such as the late singer, regard the late Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie as their spiritual leader. Marley's widow Rita Marley has said one day she wants him reburied in Ethiopia. She has distanced herself from initial comments she made last month that Marley would be reburied as part of this year's celebrations. "It was a dream of Bob Marley and it is a dream of the family to bury him in Ethiopia. As we believe in what is to be, must be, it will happen in due course," she told AFP news agency.   Icon Netsanet Asfaw, Ethiopia's minister of state for information, said Ethiopia was pleased to be hosting the events. "Bob Marley put Ethiopia on a pedestal and it is in his honour that this festival is going to take place here," she said. Under the banner Africa Unite, the month-long events will include concerts, a film festival, seminars and a gala fundraiser using the themes of Marley's songs including War, Exodus and Get Up Stand Up. They will kick off on Tuesday evening with a concert by the late singer's 80-year-old mother, Cedella Marley Booker. A highlight will be a concert in the capital, Addis Ababa, on 6 February - Marley's birthday - featuring three of Marley's children as well as Quincy Jones, Baaba Maal, Youssou N'Dour and Angelique Kidjo. After that the celebrations will move to Shashemene, some 250km (155 miles) south of the capital, where a Rastafarian community has settled on land left to them by Haile Selassie.   Peace recognition Marley became an icon of the 1970s with his music catching the imagination of millions.   Bob Marley's widow Rita Rita's remarks about the reburial did not go down well in Jamaica Africa Unite is from his most political album, Survival. On the cover is a quotation from black nationalist leader Marcus Garvey: "A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin and culture is like a tree without roots". Marley was a dedicated Rastafarian and a strong believer in one of its central beliefs, the importance of return to Mother Africa. He received a United Nations Peace Award , in recognition of his attempts to calm the warring factions of Jamaican politics and played at Zimbabwe's independence celebrations in 1980, where he discovered more Zimbabweans knew the lyrics of his song than knew the words of the national anthem. Aged 36, he died of cancer in 1981 and was buried with his Gibson guitar and Bible beside him. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ITALY The Genoa Appeals Court has condemned Radicali treasurer  Rita Bernardini to four months in gaol and fined her eight hundred euros for an offence committed in November 2000, during a National Conference on Drug Matters. By way of antiprohibitionist protest and civil disobedience she had given away eight grams of hashish to Giancarlo Caselli, then the head of Italy's Prison Administration, to 'show up the irrationality of our drug laws, which make criminals of young and some not-so-young people who in real life are not guilty of any dangerous nor even reprehensible behaviour'.   NEWS FROM THE WORLD :                                                                                                                                            _ 3890     24/01/2005 ASIA / CHINA CRIMINALITY XINHUANET The Chinese national police have confiscated 11.1 metric tonnes of drugs in the period May-November (incl.) 2004. 34,851 drug-related crimes were reported in the same period, 2,186 drug gangs were identified, and 34,719 persons were arrested. 3885     26/01/2005 CENTRAL AMERICA / MEXICO CRIMINALITY EL UNIVERSAL A report published by the Comision Nacional de los Derechos Humanos (CNDH) says that thirteen national prisons are controlled by drug traffickers and organised criminals who have created a species of 'self-government' within the walls. In fifteen Mexican states there is open trade of drugs among guards and inmates.   3887     24/01/2005 ASIA / VIETNAM - Ho Chi Minh City JUSTICE ANSA / AFP / REUTERS A court has sentenced seventeen person to death for having imported 820 kilos of heroin. Vietnam has launched a harsh anti-drug campaign, under the world's most draconian laws: death is prescribed for possession of six hundred grams of heroin. in 2004 a hundred and fifteen death sentences were issue, eighty-two of them carried out.   3888     25/01/2005 NORTH AMERICA / USA JUSTICE ASSOCIATED PRESS The Supreme Court has upheld the police's right to use of sniffer dogs to sniff in stopped cars even when there is no immediate reason to suspect the presence of drugs.   3892     22/01/2005 NORTH AMERICA / CANADA - Vancouver NEW IDEAS THE CANADIAN BROADCASTING CORPORATION More than four hundred and seventy addicts will participate in the government's first test of controlled and gratis heroin distribution in North America. The aim is to see whether prescription heroin can achieve better results than methadone has done and whether drug-related crime can be reduced this way.   3893     25/01/2005 EUROPEAN UNION / UNITED KINGDOM - London LAWS THIS IS LONDON Lee Jasper, advisor to London's mayor on security questions, says that a year after the legal reclassification, i.e. downgrading, of cannabis, many people scoff at the law by smoking openly in public and that the stuff now on the streets is much stronger than it ever was before. 3884     26/01/2005 ASIA / CHINA - Macao REPRESSION ANGOLA PRESS Beijing and Macao have reached an agreement whereby a first group of thirty-four drug users will be returned to the former Portuguese island colony, where they will undergo obligatory withdrawal  therapy. They will be barred from returning to the mainland for at least three years.   3886     25/01/2005 EUROPE RESEARCH WWW.COE.INT A Council of Europe Report on organised crime says that economic crime, de-facto slavery and drug trafficking are the greatest threats to European law and order. The European Union is the world's biggest drug market. 3889     20/01/2005 ASIA / TAJIKISTAN THE WAR ON DRUGS REUTERS The government have asked for US$100 million in international aid to combat the flow of Afghan drugs across Tajikistan on their way to Europe. At the moment some Russian forces are acting as guards but next year these will be replaced by Tajiks, who are ill-prepared and under-equipped.   3891     23/01/2005 ASIA / AFGHANISTAN THE WAR ON DRUGS IRANMANIA Habibullah Qaderi, anti-drugs minister, has invited Iran and Pakistan to collaborate on border controls against the massive drug flows.  --------------------------------------------------------------------- Editor in Chief: Marco Perduca Director: Vincenzo Donvito Layout & Distribution: C.E.D. Roma The Liafax is published with a contribution from the Open Society Institute To SUBSCRIBE To UNSUBSCRIBE If you wish not to receive this bulletin, send a message without modifying the object of the email . Important: please send a message from the email address that you want to delete from our emailing list.

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With less than 5% of the world's population
the USA has over 2.2 million of the world's
9 million prisoners!:
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http://corporatism.netfirms.com/world.htm

MMM (Million Marijuana March).
City list and world map:
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Yahoo Group:
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