I would say to British society they cannot be complicit in this war. They have got to call a stop to it.”The situation in Cuba will be very difficult if Castro dies because the majority of people respect him and he is a special man to the people But they have a trajectory of struggle … and it is now easier to find men and women in Cuba with that capacity, so the future is guaranteed. It is never going to be the same but we will continue this path,” said Dr Guevara.A spokesman for the US government pointed out that 10 years ago the US had “very publicly” told Cuba there were no plans for military intervention. When your own country is in a “dire state”, he added, it was convenient to suggest a threat from outside. “Everyone is entitled to their own opinion but frankly I would take this with a pinch of salt.”Delegates for the forum at Alexandra Palace were paying £10 for a three-night stay in the Millennium Dome in east London.

“Last year in Paris we stayed for free,” said Anais Llexia, who was with a group from Catalonia “But we come to London and we are forced to pay We thought the money was going to the forum. But now we find out it’s going to the capitalists to make a casino John Prescott’s plan to turn a part of the unloved £800m monument to new Labour into a Las Vegas-style casino was never going to chime with the 10,000 politically engaged young Europeans who had come to London. Especially as Sol Kerzner, the tycoon behind the Sun City resort in South Africa ­ one of the most hated symbols of apartheid ­ is behind the scheme. Even the event’s media sponsor, The Guardian, claimed registration was marred by “chaos”. It said frustration had “seethed over” as 1,500 people were left to queue in the rain on Thursday.. Democrats are increasingly concerned that the presence of independent candidate Ralph Nader on the ballot in a handful of battlefield states could again prevent them from defeating George Bush in the race for the White House.

Construction was supposed to have been delayed while an environmental assessment was undertaken but this was brushed aside by the promise of a power facility capable of generating 30 per cent more electricity than the Three Gorges Dam.Electricity shortages forced factories on the east coast to close down this summer and economic pressure has seen China’s oil imports grow by more than 30 per cent this year. They are also the last ethnic group to use a form of hieroglyphics, a tradition which is passed down through tribal shaman, known as Dongbas.Premier Wen Jiabao agreed this year to suspend plans for 13 dams on the Salween river in response to protests from Burma and Thailand and Chinese environmentalists. It would also condemn ancient villages with distinctive architectural styles. Concerns are mounting over the fate of the Naxi with their unusual matriarchal tradition, which has drawn an increasing number of visitors to the area.The formerly nomadic people thought to have originated in Tibet, passes property to the youngest daughters and forces teenage boys to canvas door-to-door for partners in a system of “walk-in marriages”.

Chinese environmentalists have decided to make this their next major campaign,” says Ma Jun, a consultant who was the first to produce a study on the dam’s implications. The company is run by Li Xiaopeng, son of the hardline former prime minister Li Peng, who oversaw the massacre at Tiananmen Square. Mr Li was at the forefront of the controversial Three Gorges Dam project that was pushed through in the teeth of strident opposition from environmentalists and residents.”The stakes are extremely high. It would also bring an abrupt end to the nascent tourism industry in the remote southwestern Yunnan province.The battle to save the gorge, one of the deepest in the world, has pitted a David-like alliance of green groups and local tribespeople against the Goliath of the Huaneng Group, China’s biggest independent power producer, working with the Yunnan provincial government.

In the shadow of the Jade Dragon Snow Peak, deep inside the Tiger Leaping Gorge, Chinese developers are operating in secret to push through a massive dam project that will wash away the section of the Yangtze river valley thought to have been the real location for the fictional Shangri-La.
Local tribesmen have revealed that work is already under way on a massive project that would flood a Unesco world heritage site, displace more than 100,000 people and destroy the way of life of the unique Naxi people, one of the world’s only surviving matriarchal societies. The 519th was later deployed at Abu Ghraib, where at least one Iraqi inmate died and prisoners were sexually humiliated.Human rights campaigners have argued that harsh treatment of alleged Taliban prisoners in jails in Afghanistan – which independent monitors are denied access to – set a precedent for Iraq and may have contributed to the most damaging scandal to affect the US military in decades.Jumana Musa from Amnesty International USA told The New York Times: “The failure to take prompt action over the prisoners’ deaths indicates a chilling disregard for human life and may have laid the groundwork for abuses in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.”. Many alleged Taliban and al-Qa’ida prisoners have been held at Bagram, sometimes before being transferrred to Guantanamo Bay.The units involved are the 377th Military Police unit and the 519th Military Intelligence unit. Reports said both men had apparently been chained to the ceiling, one by the waist, one by the knees.US army commanders will now decide whether to court-martial 27 unnamed soldiers.The only one named so far is Sergeant James Bolan, a reservist who was serving as a guard at Bagram, who is charged with dereliction of duty and assault. The military has ruled they were homicides.Two men were found dead in interrogation cells at Bagram, the US military’s Afghan base, after being beaten on the legs. One, the 30-year-old brother of a Taliban commander, died as a result of blood clots in the legs and and the other, a 22-year-old taxi driver detained after a rocket attack on US troops, suffered a heart attack after an apparent beating exacerbated an existing coronary condition.Investigators found evidence that numerous soldiers had beaten the two Afghans, using their knees to hit the mens’ legs apparently because marks would not then be obvious.