The 33 miners trapped in Chile are set to be "extracted" and freed on Wednesday.

Here's how the wives, mothers and sisters are preparing. Movie productions are already in the works.

The Chilean government is providing each miner with six months of psychological support to deal with the media attention. They've already had a day of media training.

Six years ago today, Schapelle Corby was arrested at the airport in Bali when authorities found 4 kilos of marijuana in her boogie board case. She was en route from her home in Australia to visit her sister Mercedes, who lives in Bali with her husband and children.

I've been writing about her case since the news of her arrest first surfaced here in 2005. She has always maintained her innocence, and believes that a ring of corrupt airport baggage handlers put the pot in her suitcase.

The day police allege a Sydney drug ring brought almost 10 kilograms of cocaine through Sydney Airport with the help of corrupt baggage handlers is the same day Schapelle Corby flew to Bali from the same airport.

Schapelle is serving a 20 year sentence in Kerobokan Prison, widely known as a hellhole. Doctors say she has become mentally ill -- childlike -- during her six years in prison. She's being treated with anti-psychotic medication. [More...]

Update: Rape warrant canceled.

An arrest warrant has been issued in Sweden for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. He is being sought for questioning on allegations of rape and molestation in two cases.

Assange says the allegations are the beginning of a "dirty tricks" cammpaign intended as retribution for his publishing the Pentagon Afghan war files on the Wikileaks website.

Assange is Australian and doesn't have a permanent address. He was in Sweden last week on Wikileaks business.

Assange, an Australian citizen, was in Sweden last week to apply for a publishing certificate to make sure the website, which has servers in Sweden, can take full advantage of Swedish laws protecting whistleblowers. He also gave a talk about his work and defended the decision by Wikileaks to publish the Afghan war logs.

Assange's current whereabouts are unknown, but some say he is still in Sweden. On the allegations [More....]:

I'm on a short break from court, but I just saw that a Peruvian court of appeals has ordered Lori Berenson back to prison. I'll check the details later but my initial reaction is how awful and wrong-headed.

By now, I'd bet as many people have seen the arrest, perp walk and transfer of Joran Van der Sloot from police headquarters in Lima, Peru to the Big House at Miguel Castro Castro Prison as 15 years ago watched the perp walk of Timothy McVeigh as he was led out from the Noble County Courthouse in Oklahoma in his orange bullet-proof vest.

Amid throngs of media and crowds of angry bystanders, millions watched as Joran, wearing a bullet-proof vest with his head partially covered by a blanket, was manhandled by police as they whisked him into a waiting van (that appeared to be an ambulance.) The police allowed media cameras to continue filming as they followed the van to Castro Castro Prison. They even allowed the media to enter the prison so they could film Joran being perp-walked to his cell.

Within days, police released security camera videos from the scene of the crime and the casino where Joran and Stephany Flores played poker, video and photos of the inspection of his property upon arrest and the transcript of his post-arrest "confession." More recently, they revealed the crime-scene photos to a U.S. publication (which, in a desire to make sure everyone knew they had the exclusive, so prominently branded its name into the photos, the photos are practically worthless and not even worth linking to.)

The point: While it may appear the death of Stephany Flores is the crime of the century in Peru, and the reason for the wall-to-wall, symbiotic police-media video coverage, it turns out it isn't. This is just how they do things in Peru. [More...]

American Lori Berenson has finally been freed from prison in Peru, after serving 15 years of a 20 year sentence.

Berenson has served 15 years of a 20-year sentence for aiding Peruvian rebels in a 1995 plot to overthrow Peru's congress.

Her release is conditional, meaning she's on parole. So she can't leave the country right away. According to the FreeLori website, maintained by her family, she and her year old son Salvador, whom she had in prison, will be moving to an apartment in Lima.

Lori appeared before the judge in court on Monday, May 17th, for a hearing, defended by her husband, Anibal Apari Sanchez, a Lima lawyer and candidate for Mayor of Villa El Salvador, a suburb of Lima with over a half million inhabitants. Lori will be a single mom - Anibal and Lori are legally separated but remain friends and both share concerns for Salvador's proper upbringing.

Here's an interview with Lori from 2008, describing her arrest and life in prison. Lori's parents, Mark and Rhoda Berenson, worked tirelessly all these years to free Lori. They never gave up. What wonderful news, so long overdue, for all of them.

When Mexico's President, Felipe Calderon, came to Washington this week, he urged the U.S. to be more helpful in the war on drugs. He asked that Congress reinstate the assault weapons ban (for which Republicans like Sen. John Cornyn took him to task, saying "Moreover, the Second Amendment is not a subject open for diplomatic negotiation, with Mexico or any other nation.") Calederon also criticized Arizona's immigration law. And he said the U.S. has a moral obligation to help Mexico fight the cartels.

In 2007, former President Bush got Congress to approve the Merida initiative, designed to to combat drug trafficking and organized crime, with a whopping $1.3 billion budgeted for Mexico from 2008-2010, ten times the amount budgeted in prior years.

Merida is set to expire in September, 2010, and Obama is now asking to extend it a year and provide an additional $310 million for FY 2011.

So where did the money go? Mostly, it turns out, nowhere. [More...]

There's urban warfare in Bangkok.

Soldiers fired live rounds at demonstrators who fought back with petrol bombs, rocks and crude homemade rockets in two major areas of the city as the army tried to enforce a security cordon around a sprawling protest encampment in central Bangkok.

"We will not retreat," Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva said in a televised statement. "We cannot allow the country to be in a condition in which people can establish an armed group to topple the government that they are not happy with."

The "Red shirt" protesters are "made up of the rural and urban poor" who support former premier Thaksin Shinawatra. The death toll is rising.

The protesters are far outnumbered by the military which is blocking food and water from reaching them. I hope this ends quickly.

Schapelle Corby, imprisoned in Indonesia for 20 years after being convicted of smuggling 4 kilos of marijuana into Bali, has filed a clemency petition with the Indonesian Government which alleges, as has been reported many times the past few years, she has gone insane.

Finally, the Australian Government is supporting her:

A spokesman for Foreign Affairs Minister Stephen Smith said yesterday that Canberra would support "any application by Ms Corby for clemency".

"I have made that clear to Ms Corby's family," he said. "[However] it is important to bear in mind that the decision to grant clemency is for the President of Indonesia."

It's long past time to send Shapelle home. Our prior coverage since the time of her arrest in 2005 is assembled here.

Via TMZ: "On April 22, 2000, Elian was taken from the home of his Miami relatives by U.S. federal agents and eventually returned to Cuba. In 2008, Elian became a member of the Young Communist Union of Cuba."

TMZ reports the recent picture is from Easter Sunday and says he looks "indoctrinated." I can't tell. He looks more wistful to me. Maybe he was humming Cher's "If I Could Turn Back Time" in his head. Either way, a sad chapter for their whole family, both the cousins and aunts and uncles in Miami who wanted him to stay, and the father in Cuba who wanted him back. The father clearly had the law on his side.

As for whether Elian would have been lonely and felt separated from Cubans had he stayed in Miami, the answer is probably no. Miami Dade alone has a population of 650,000 Cubans, including those of Cuban descent. I think he'll turn out ok either way, he was a happy child and now is a "purposeful" adult. Good luck, Elian. My sympathies have always lay with you in this ordeal.

The spokesman for the Swiss Ministry today told the Associated Press that Switzerland will not act on the extradition request for Roman Polanski until a California appeals court rules on his appeal of the trial court's denial of his motion to be sentenced in absentia.

"The Justice Ministry will decide on the extradition only after the California Court of Appeal has decided whether to hold proceedings in absentia," Galli said. "This action allows the extradition process to adapt to the US proceedings."

The prosecution filed its brief yesterday urging Polanski's return. I haven't found a copy of either Polanski or the state's latest briefs anywhere, so I can't say which is stronger. But I continue to believe Polanski is getting a very raw deal here and the case should be dismissed due to the improper conduct of the judge. The newly discovered notes of DA Gunson confirm the Judge promised no more than 90 days, and the extradition treaty doesn't apply to such short sentences. [More...]

Women suicide bombers attacked two Metro subway stations in Moscow at rush hour this morning, killing at least 34 people and injuring many more.d

No group immediately took responsibility for the blasts, but suspicion is likely to fall on Chechen militants and other groups from Russia's North Caucasus, where Russia is fighting a growing Islamist insurgency.

In 2004, an attack on the Moscow Metro killed 39. President Vladmir Putin blamed Aslan Maskhadov, the fugitive Chechen rebel leader. In 2003, women suicide bombers July 5, 2003 - Two women suicide bombers killed 15 people at an open-air rock festival at Moscow's Tushino airfield.

More here and here