Update: Already they backtrack. Now it turns out the substance wasn't dangerous the the Prime Minister is reduced to "but we don't know it wasn't sent by a Schapelle supporter. Why can't he just admit he made an irresponsible comment and apologize?

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Schapelle Corby supporters are being blamed for a delivery of an Anthrax type material to the Indonesian Embassy.

Prime Minister John Howard....identified the substance as bacillus - a genus of bacteria that are mostly benign but include bacillus anthracis, which causes anthrax.

Although there was no claim of responsibility, Howard said the timing pointed to a likely link with the Corby case. She was convicted Friday of smuggling nine pounds of marijuana onto the Indonesian island of Bali and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The timing? That's enough to bring such a serious allegation against those protesting the draconian sentence meted out to Schapelle Corby?

This Herald Sun article describes the conditions at the prison where Schapelle Corby is housed:

AIDS is rife in the jail as corrupt officials allow drug abuse to run virtually unchecked. Human rights activists estimate that life expectancy in the badly overcrowded jail compound would be between 10 and 15 years.

The toilets in the jail's squalid cells sit directly beside the benches where food is prepared. The jail was built in 1976 for 366 prisoners, but it holds 525.

Corby shares her 5m-wide cell with seven other women. She is forced to wash with only a small bucket and ladle. The untreated water is fetched from a dilapidated well in the prison compound.

Corby's family says the jail food is inedible. It comes around on a big cart -- a bucket of rice which her family says regularly contains stones, dirt and sticks, and a pot of some kind of stew. The pot is encrusted with drying and rotting food.

The U.S. has rejected Venezuela's request for an arrest warrant to commence extradition proceedings against anti-Castro militant Luis Posadas Carriles.

Venezuela's embassy in Washington said Friday the United States had rejected a "preventive detention request with the goal of the extradition of Luis Posada Carriles." The rejection does not affect Caracas' extradition request, the embassy said in a statement.

"We have sent a diplomatic note to the Venezuelan embassy today (Friday), saying that the request lacked sufficient basis from a legal point of view," a US official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

There were large protests over the decision this week. Check out this protest poster. So who is Posada and why is the U.S. refusing to turn him over?

Update: In Schapelle Corby news Sunday:

• Grace Under Fire Moves a Nation
• Thanks, Australia, People Power Will Save Me
• Schapelle Likely to Serve Whole Term in Australia
• Schapelle to Appeal, Risk Life Sentence
• Survival Rate Ten Years
• Cellmates Giving Corby Hell [note: this is at odds with People Power article]
• What Comes Next
• Corby Team Rules Out Pardon Request

Earlier:

• I Slept Well, Judge Says
• Easier Life for an Indonesian Smuggler
• Prosecutors to Appeal, Want Life Sentence
• A Life Left Behind

Crooks and Liars has this incredible video of Schapelle and her family's reaction to the verdict and sentence.

Here is an analysis of the verdict by a defense lawyer in Australia that I think is pretty much on the money. [Available on Lexis.com, I haven't seen an online link yet.]

Another case of injustice in the far east. A Phillipine painter has been sentenced to life in prison for selling 0.02 grams of Shabu. Drug War Rant investigates and explains.

I wish I was making this up, but I'm not. It's mind-boggling. Prosecutors in the Schapelle Corby case have announced they will appeal her 20 year sentence for bringing 9 pounds of pot into Bali on the grounds that it is not severe enough. They contend she should have received a life sentence.

Prosecutor Ida Bagus Wiswantanu said he believed the judge had erred and should have given Corby a life sentence.

"For us justice is life for anyone who imports that much marijuana,'' he told reporters.

An Australian expert on Indonesia's legal system agreed the sentence was unusually light by Indonesian standards.

[link via 12th Harmonic, whose author also blogs at the offical Schapelle Corby blog, Innocent Without a Doubt. Thanks also to 12th Harmonic for praising and quoting TalkLeft's live verdict blogging post. ]

More here.

Schapelle's address:
Schapelle Corby
LPM Kerobokan
Jl. Tangkuban Perahu
Kerobokan, Denpasar 80117
Bali, INDONESIA

Schapelle will serve her 20 year sentence at Kerobokan prion in Bali, where she has been held for the past seven months. Here's what she faces.

Abanana, some pawpaw, five slices of white bread and a half-bowl of vegetables is the daily ration for Schapelle Corby and each of the other 20 or so Westerners serving time in Bali's Kerobokan jail.

...The jail .... provides almost nothing to its more than 600 inmates - no drinking water, coffee or tea, bedding, toiletries, clothes, medicine, amenities or work.

...The women are locked in from about 5pm until 9am and Corby's cell is so small that the bodies of the seven women she shares with touch as they rest. With no beds, they sleep on mats, and with no fan, they sweat. Each woman gets a bucket of water a day to wash herself with.

That being said, apparently this prison has some benefits. Everything and everyone is for sale, beginning with the guards. So if Schapelle gets donations, she can live like this:

Indonesia says no to a transfer to Australia.

Update: Jeff Seaman for Congress and Swing State Project join the boycott.

Time to Boycott Bali. Indonesia rules out a prisoner transfer to Australia. What neanderthals they are over there. Schapelle got 20 years. Here's the translator's edited transcript of the verdict and sentencing. Here's the Austrlian news blog's description of the reaction in the courtroom. Is this sentence really better than life? I'd say it is a life sentence...Schapelle's life as she knew it is over. And who lives 20 years behind the walls of a foreign prison? We live-blogged the two hour verdict reading (along with Blaghdaddy in the comments) as best we could given the awful audio feed from the courtroom to the Australian media which kept going in and out - and the sporadic translation.

• 11:41 a.m. She's guilty, has until next Wednesday to appeal. Australian Government says it has to accept the verdict.

• 11:38 a.m. The Judge has been reading (screaming) for two hours. He's not done, but it's all over for Schapelle. Shorter version: She must be convicted because drugs are a menace to Indonesia and police are more credible than civilians.

• 11:31 a.m. Judge says evidence is pointing to her guilt. Mentions lack of fingerprint testing and excuses it. They've considered Schapelle's defense that she was a victim of drug traffickers....but because importation of drugs hurts Indonesian people....

Update: Guilty. We live blogged the verdict listening to an Australian tv network's webcast and live feed of the two hour reading here.

Update: We'll be bumping this post until the verdict is read Friday morning in Bali. Latest news article. Live reporter's blog will be here. Watch this video chronicling case from arrest to now. This is the prison where she is being held.

If she's convicted, an immediate appeal will be filed. Schapelle has a letter prepared for the Indonesian President asking for a pardon.

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Schapelle Corby finds out today whether she will be acquitted or sentenced to death or life in prison, when three judges render a decision in a case in which she is charged with smuggling less than 10 pounds of marijuana into Indonesia while en route to Bali for a vacation.

Update: Guilty. We live blogged the verdict listening to an Australian tv network's webcast and live feed of the two hour reading here.

Bump and Update: Drug Activists in Indonesia are calling for the death penalty for Schapelle Corby...for allegedly importing 9 pounds of pot into Bali. They say the Government should make an example of her. As we explain in the original post below, Schappelle maintains her innocence and is awaiting the judges' verdict. We will be bumping this post frequently as new information becomes available to call attention to her plight.

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Original Post: 5/12/05

Actor Russell Crowe has taken up the cause of an Australian beautician imprisoned on drug charges in Bali, Indonesia.

Crowe said: "The photographs of Schappelle Corby broke my heart. "I don't understand how we can, as a country, stand by and let a young lady rot away in a foreign prison. That is ridiculous. "It is Indonesia, fine and dandy, but we need to find a rational platform to save this girl's life."

The German newspaper, Spiegel, has been running a series on the last days of WWII this week. Check out this article on Hitler drugging his soldiers with meth.

The Nazis preached abstinence in the name of promoting national health. But when it came to fighting their Blitzkrieg, they had no qualms about pumping their soldiers full of drugs and alcohol. Speed was the drug of choice, but many others became addicted to morphine and alcohol....Pervitin, a stimulant commonly known as speed today, was the German army's -- the Wehrmacht's -- wonder drug.

It was delivered to the soldiers at the front.