A Chilean officer, accused of murdering prisoners for Pinochet, was allowed to teach for years in the US National Defense University which disregarded the complaints against him.

The US coordinated and encouraged the repression in Chile and other nearby countries in the 1970s, and it continued afterward to shield many of those that carried it out.

I disagree with one person quoted in the article. These murders were not terrorism. Murder of prisoners is a different crime. Stretching the meaning of "terrorism" is an obstacle to clear thinking, so let's not do it.

Swedish prosecutors have agreed to interview Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.

There are good reasons to believe that the real purpose of this interview was only to get their hands on him and render him to the US. But the Swedish Supreme Court told them to stop dragging their heels and get the interview done.

Reports say that US air strikes in Syria have killed over 100 civilians.

All in all, that is not very many compared with the 76,000 killed last year in Syria.

Most of the US air strikes in Syria have been done on the battlefield. I expect Syrians to understand that there is no way to make battlefields safe, and civilians try to stay away from them.

However, attacks on Raqqa are a different case. That is not a battlefield, so air strikes there are more likely to bystanders. It is hard to flee Raqqa; even harder for women.

Last week it emerged that Iraqi Shi'ite militias were torturing and killing Sunni prisoners. The US and Iraqi governments said they were surprised.

They said the same thing 10 years ago, after Bush forces troops found Iraqi government agents torturing and killing prisoners. The troops were ordered to go away and say nothing about it.

None so surprised as he who will not remember.

Global heating tends to reduce the summer storms that bring cooler air from the ocean. As a result, it will tend to increase summer heat waves, above and beyond the general heating.

If you want to watch the video on YouTube, please do not view it directly from the site, since that will run nonfree Javascript code in your browser. Protect your freedom by using youtube-dl to download it.