For Memorial Day: A UNICEF report on the Impact of Armed Conflict on Children;
a newsletter from Swedish Save the Children on the use of children in armed conflict;
an under-construction site from the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers, whose aims are

the adoption of, and adherence to,

an Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child

(CRC) prohibiting the military recruitment and use in hostilities

of any person younger than 18 years of age, and the recognition

and enforcement of this standard by all armed forces and

groups, both governmental and non-governmental;

and a Human Rights Watch mobilization to stop the use of child soldiers.

U.S. Uncovers New Evidence Against Pinochet. Finally, the Justice Dept. may have enough data to implicate Pinochet in the Washington car bombing that killed exiled Chilean socialist Orlando Letelier and U.S. peace activist Ronni Moffitt in September 1976. Since he had taken power in a coup that had overthrown Chile’s populist socialist leader Salvador Allende three years earlier, Pinochet had been obsessed with Letelier’s opposition. Just excused for health reasons from trial in the UK after the Spanish had tried to extradite him for civil rights abuses, he will doubtless never stand trial in the U.S. for the Letelier assassination even with the new evidence.

Utne Reader: Sidewalk Redemption: ‘I hang from an iron fence

a banner with the message “Confessions

Heard Here,” then sit beneath it with a

pen and notebook and wait to see what

happens. I have established some ground

rules: I will make it clear to anyone who

stops to talk to me that I’m writing a

story and plan to record their confessions

in my notebook. I’ll use only first names

or made-up names. I will not offer

absolution because I do not consider

myself empowered to do so. “I have

come to hear confessions” is all I will

offer; the interpretation of confession will

be up to the person before me.’