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END ALL U.S. AID TO ISRAEL NOW!
National Days of Action to Protest Attack on Gaza Flotilla and Israeli Blockade
Saturday, June 5, 11am
San Francisco March & Rally
Civic Center (Polk & Grove Sts.)
Now is the time to make your voice heard! Join us to say:
End the Blockade of Gaza NOW!
Justice for the Victims of the Gaza Freedom Flotilla!
Prosecute Israel for War Crimes! Cut All U.S. Aid to Israel!
End Colonial Occupation-Self-Determination for the Palestinian People!
On Friday, June 4 and Saturday, June 5, demonstrations will take place across the country and around the world to protest the murderous attack by the Israeli army on seven boats carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza. At least 9 volunteer aid workers were killed and dozens seriously wounded.
Israel has maintained a blockade on Gaza-an impoverished area home to 1.6 million Palestinians-for more than three years. The attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla was an act of piracy and a war crime carried out in international waters. Attempting to turn reality upside-down, the Israeli military is now posing as the "victims" in this incident. Israel is only able to carry out massacres like this and the on-going oppression of the Palestinian people due to the huge military, economic and diplomatic support it receives from the U.S. government.
June 5, will mark the 43rd anniversary of the 1967 war when Israel conquered the West Bank and Gaza, along with Syria's Golan Heights, all areas that Israel continues to occupy to this day.
The June 5 protest in San Francisco is sponsored by many organizations, including:
Al Awda-Palestine Right to Return Coalition, ANSWER Coalition-Act Now to Stop War & End Racism, Palestine Youth Network, American Muslims for Palestine, U.S. Palestinian Community Network, International Solidarity Movement, Arab Resource & Organizing Center, Arab Youth Organization, Muslim Student Association, Students for Justice in Palestine, General Union of Palestinian Students, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, Youth and Student ANSWER, Middle East Children's Alliance, NAYI, Jewish Voice for Peace, Bay Area Committee to End Israeli Apartheid, Arab Community and Cultural Center (partial list)
To endorse or volunteer, call 415-821-6545 or email answer@answersf.org
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
Act Now to Stop War & End Racism
http://www.ANSWERcoalition.org http://www.answersf.org
answer@answersf.org
2489 Mission St. Rm. 24
San Francisco: 415-821-6545
BAY AREA UNITED AGAINST WAR newsletter fully endorses this action.
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Gulf Oil Spill?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAHS5z6QKok
Dear Readers,
If you are wondering why an antiwar newsletter is giving full coverage to the oil spill, it's because:
(1) "Supplying the US army with oil is one of BP's biggest markets, and further exploration in the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico is part of its long-term strategy."*
(2) "The Senate on Thursday, [May 27, 2010] approved a nearly $60 billion measure to pay for continuing military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq..."**
The two are inextricably entwined and interdependent.
--Bonnie Weinstein
*The black hole at the bottom of the Gulf
No one seems to know the extent of the BP disaster
By David Randall and Margareta Pagano
Sunday, 23 May 2010
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-black-hole-at-the-bottom-of-the-gulf-1980693.html
**Senate Approves Nearly $60 Billion for Wars
By CARL HULSE
May 27, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/us/politics/28cong.html?ref=us
Watch BP Live Video Webcam Camera Feed of Gulf Oil Spill Here! (Update 7)
http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2010/05/20/live-video-feed-webcam-gulf-oil-spill/
What BP does not want you to see:
ABC News went underwater in the Gulf with Philippe Cousteau Jr., grandson of famous explorer Jacques Cousteau, and he described what he saw as "one of the most horrible things I've ever seen underwater."
Check out what BP does not want you to see. And please share this widely -- every American should see what's happening under the surface in the Gulf.
http://acp.repoweramerica.org/page/invite/oilspillvideo?source=sprd-fwd&utm_source=crm_email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=oilspillvideo20100527&utm_content=link1
Live BP Gulf Oil Spill Webcam Video Reveals 5 Leaks
http://blog.alexanderhiggins.com/2010/05/24/live-bp-gulf-oil-spill-webcam-video-reveals-5-leaks/
Stop Shell Oil's Offshore Drilling Plans in the Arctic
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/308597489?z00m=19844689
Sign the Petition to Ban Offshore Drilling Now!
http://na.oceana.org/en/stopthedrill?key=31522015
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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
C. ARTICLES IN FULL
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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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YES ON F, GIVE RENTERS A BREAK!
Just two weeks before the June 8 election and if we are going to give renters a break from rent increases we need your help now!
Thousands of San Francisco renters are unemployed and at risk of losing their homes--Prop F will let them delay any new rent increases and give them a chance to stay housed. Here's how you can help pass Prop F:
Phonebanking, 5-7pm, Wed at SOMCAN, 1070 Howard Street
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THE INNER TOUR - A touching film about the Palestinian right of return
June 10, 2010, 7:30 P.M.
ANSWER: San Francisco Bay Area
ATA Theater, 992 Valencia St. at 21st St., SF
$6 donation (no one turned away for lack of funds)
At time of the film's production in 2000-just months before the second Intifada-Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza and were allowed into '48 Palestine on sightseeing tours.
The Inner Tour documents a three-day trip through Galilee to the Lebanon border, Tel Aviv and Jaffa where many of the passengers once lived. We hear conversations about occupation and loss. Several have been in Israeli prisons. Another sees his mother in Lebanon through barbed wire, unable to visit her. One woman tells how her husband was gunned down by Israeli soldiers while walking home. One man locates the site where his village once stood before it was destroyed by occupation forces, and finds his father's grave. 2002, Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles, 98 min.
For more info, call 415-821-6545.
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Please forward widely
Dear Friends of Lynne Stewart,
Forgive this hasty note updating Lynne's situation. I am off to Brazil shortly and must catch a plane soon.
I just spoke with Lynne's husband Ralph Poynter last night and learned the following.
A regularly scheduled follow up test to check on whether Lynne's breast cancel had reappeared revealed that Lynne now had a spot on her liver. Lynne struggled with prison authorities to have a required biopsy and related tests conducted at her regular, that is, non-prison, Roosevelt Hospital. Her requests were denied and she was compelled to have the biopsy done in a notoriously inferior facility where the results could not be determined for a week as compared to the almost immediate lab tests available at Roosevelt.
During Lynne's prison hospital stay she was shackled and handcuffed making rest and sleep virtually impossible. A horrified doctor ordered the shackles removed but immediately following his departure they were fastened on Lynne's feet and hands once again.
She is now back in her New York City prison cell. Her attorneys have filed for a postponement of her scheduled July 15 court appearance where Federal District Court sentencing Judge John Koeltl is to review the original 28-month jail sentence that he imposed last year.
This sentence was appealed by government prosecutors, who sought to order Koelt to impose a 30-year sentence. The U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, was sympathetic to the government's position and essentially stated that Koeltl's 28-month sentence exceeded the bounds of "reasonableness." Koeltl was ordered to reconsider. A relatively recent Supreme Court decision granted federal district court judges wide discretion in determining the length of internment. Koeltl's decision took into consideration many factors that the court system allows in determining Lynne's sentence. These included Lynne's character, her service to the community, her health and financial history and more. He ruled, among other things that Lynne's service to the community was indeed a "credit to her profession and to the nation."
Contrariwise, the government and prison authorities see Lynne as a convicted terrorist. Lynne was the victim of a frame-up trial held in the post-911 context. She was convicted on four counts of "aiding and abetting terrorism" stemming from a single act, Lynne's issuance of a press release on behalf of her client, the "blind" Egyptian Shreik Omar Abdel Rachman. The press release, that the government claimed violated a Special Administrative Order (SAM), was originally ignored as essentially trivial by the Clinton administration and then Attorney General Janet Reno. But the Bush administration's Attorney General John Ashcroft decided to go after Lynne with a sledge hammer.
A monstrous trial saw government attorney's pulling out all the stops to convince an intimidated jury that Lynne was associated in some way with terrorist acts across the globe, not to mention with Osama bin Laden. Both the judge and government were compelled to admit in court that there were no such "associations," but press clippings found in Lynne's office were nevertheless admitted as "hearsay" evidence even though they were given to Lynne by the government under the rules of discovery.
It is likely that Lynne's request for a postponement will be granted, assuming the government holds to the law that a prisoner has the right to partake in her/his own defense. Lynne's illness has certainly prevented her from doing so.
In the meantime, Lynne would like nothing more than to hear from her friends and associates. Down the road her defense team will also be looking for appropriate letters to the judge on Lynne's behalf. More later on the suggested content of these letters.
Please write Lynne to express your love and solidarity:
Lynne Stewart 53504-054
MCC-NY
150 Park Row
New York, New York 10007
In Solidarity,
Jeff Mackler, West Coast Coordinator
Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
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Lynne Stewart and the Guantanamo Lawyers: Same Fact Patterns, Same Opponent, Different Endings?
Lynne Stewart will be re-sentenced sometime in July, in NYC.
By Ralph Poynter
(Ralph Poynter is the Life partner of Lynne Stewart. He is presently dedicated 24/7 to her defense, as well as other causes.)
Ralph.Poynter@yahoo.com
In the Spring of 2002, Lynne Stewart was arrested by the FBI, at her home in Brooklyn, for materially aiding terrorism by virtue of making a public press release to Reuters on behalf of her client, Sheik Abdel Omar Rahman of Egypt. This was done after she had signed a Special Administrative Measure issued by the Bureau of Prisons not permitting her to communicate with the media, on his behalf.
In 2006, a number of attorneys appointed and working pro bono for detainees at Guantanamo were discovered to be acting in a manner that disobeyed a Federal Judge's protective court order. The adversary in both cases was the United States Department of Justice. The results in each case were very different.
In March of 2010, a right wing group "Keep America Safe" led by Lynne Cheney, hoping to dilute Guantanamo representation and impugn the reputations and careers of the volunteer lawyers, launched a campaign. Initially they attacked the right of the detainees to be represented at all. This was met with a massive denouncement by Press, other media, Civil rights organizations ,and rightly so, as being a threat to the Constitution and particularly the Sixth Amendment right to counsel.
A second attack on the Gitmo lawyers was made in the Wall Street Journal of March 16. This has been totally ignored in the media and by civil and human rights groups. This latter revelation about the violations, by these lawyers, of the Judge's protective orders and was revealed via litigation and the Freedom of Information Act. These pro bono lawyers serving clients assigned to them at Gitmo used privileged attorney client mail to send banned materials. They carried in news report of US failures in Afghanistan and Iraq . One lawyer drew a map of the prison. Another delivered lists to his client of all the suspects held there. They placed on the internet a facsimile of the badges worn by the Guards. Some lawyers "provided news outlets with 'interviews' of their clients using questions provided in advance by the news organizations." When a partner at one of the large Wall Street law firms sent in multiple copies of an Amnesty International brochure, which her client was to distribute to other prisoners, she was relieved from her representation and barred by the Military Commander from visiting her client.
This case is significant to interpret not because of the right wing line to punish these lawyers and manipulate their corporate clients to stop patronizing such "wayward" firms. Instead it is significant because, Lynne Stewart, a left wing progressive lawyer who had dedicated her thirty year career to defending the poor, the despised, the political prisoner and those ensnared by reason of race, gender, ethnicity, religion , who was dealt with by the same Department of Justice, in such a draconian fashion, confirms our deepest suspicions that she was targeted for prosecution and punishment because of who she is and who she represented so ably and not because of any misdeed.
Let me be very clear, I am not saying that the Gitmo lawyers acted in any "criminal" manner. The great tradition of the defense bar is to be able to make crucial decisions for and with the client without interference by the adversary Government.
I believe that they were acting as zealous attorneys trying to establish rapport and trust with their clients. That said, the moment the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice tried to remove Julia Tarver Mason from her client, the playing field tilted. Ms Tarver Mason was not led out of her home in handcuffs to the full glare of publicity. There was no press conference. The Attorney General did not go on the David Letterman show to gloat about the latest strike in the War on Terror, the purge of the Gitmo lawyer...NO.
Instead an "armada" of corporate lawyers went to Court against the Government. They, in the terms of the litigation trade, papered the US District Courthouse in Washington D.C. They brought to bear the full force of their Money and Power-- derived from the corporate world--and in 2006 "settled" the case with the government, restoring their clients to Guantanamo without any punishment at all, not to say any Indictment. Lynne Stewart, without corporate connections and coming from a working class background, was tried and convicted for issuing, on behalf of her client, a public press release to Reuters. There was no injury, no harm, no attacks, no deaths.
Yet that same Department of Justice that dealt so favorably and capitulated to the Gitmo corporate lawyers, wants to sentence Lynne Stewart to thirty (30) YEARS in prison. It is the equivalent of asking for a death sentence since she is 70 years old.
This vast disparity in treatment between Lynne and the Gitmo lawyers reveals the deep contradictions of the system ---those who derive power from rich and potent corporations, those whose day to day work maintains and increases that power--are treated differently. Is it because the Corporate Power is intertwined with Government Power???
Lynne Stewart deserves Justice... equal justice under law. Her present sentence of 28 months incarceration (she is in Federal Prison) should at least be maintained, if not made equal to the punishment that was meted out to the Gitmo lawyers. The thirty year sentence, assiduously pursued by DOJ under both Bush and Obama, is an obscenity and an affront to fundamental fairness. They wanted to make her career and dedication to individual clients, a warning, to the defense bar that the Government can arrest any lawyer on any pretext. The sharp contrasts between the cases of Lynne and the Gitmo lawyers just confirm that she is getting a raw deal--one that should be protested actively, visibly and with the full force of our righteous resistance.
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INVITATION TO A NATIONAL CONFERENCE TO BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
United National Peace Conference
July 23 - 25, 2010, Albany , NY
Unac2010@aol.com
UNAC, P.O. Box 21675
Cleveland, OH 44121
518-227-6947
www.nationalpeaceconference.org
Greetings:
Twenty co-sponsoring national organizations urge you to attend this conference scheduled for Albany , New York July 23-25, 2010. They are After Downing Street, Arab American Union Members Council, Bailout the People Movement, Black Agenda Report, Campaign for Peace and Democracy, Campus Antiwar Network, Code Pink, International Action Center, Iraq Veterans Against the War, National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations, National Lawyers Guild, Peace Action, Peace of the Action, Progressive Democrats of America, The Fellowship of Reconciliation, U.S. Labor Against the War, Veterans for Peace, Voices for Creative Nonviolence, Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, and World Can't Wait.
The purpose of the conference is to plan united actions in the months ahead in support of demands for the immediate withdrawal of U.S. military forces and contractors from Afghanistan and Iraq , and money for human needs, not for wars, occupations, and bail-outs. The peace movement is strongest and most effective when plans for united actions are made by the whole range of antiwar and social justice organizations meeting together and deciding together dates and places for national mobilizations.
Each person attending the conference will have voice and vote. Attendees will have the opportunity to amend the action proposal submitted by conference co-sponsors, add demands, and submit resolutions for consideration by the conference.
Keynoters will be NOAM CHOMSKY, internationally renowned political activist, author, and critic of U.S. foreign and domestic policies, MIT Professor Emeritus of Linguistics; and DONNA DEWITT, President, South Carolina AFL-CIO; Co-Chair, South Carolina Progressive Network; Steering Committee, U.S. Labor Against the War; Administrative Body, National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations.
The conference's website is www.nationalpeaceconference.org and you will find there details regarding other speakers, workshops, registration, hotel and travel information, and how to submit amendments, demands, and resolutions. The action proposal has also been published on the website.
Please write us at UNAC2010@aol.com for further information or call 518-227-6947. We can fill orders for copies of the conference brochure. Tables for display and sale of materials can be reserved.
We look forward to seeing you in Albany on July 23-25.
In peace,
Jerry Gordon
Secretary, National Peace Conference
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Education 4 the People!
October 7 Day of Action in Defense of Public Education - California
http://defendcapubliceducation.wordpress.com/
MORE THAN 100 activists from across California gathered in Los Angeles April 24 to debate next steps for the fight against the devastating cutbacks facing public education.
The main achievements of the conference were to set a date and location for the next statewide mass action-October 7-and for the next anti-cuts conference, which will happen October 16 at San Francisco State University. The other key outcome was the first steps toward the formation of an ad hoc volunteer coordinating committee to plan for the fall conference.
These decisions were a crucial step toward deepening and broadening the movement. For example, the fall conference will be the key venue for uniting activists from all sectors of public education, and especially from those schools and campuses which saw action on March 4, but which have yet to plug into the broader movement.
This will be crucial for extending the scope and increasing the strength of our movement, as well as for helping us strategize and prepare for what is certain to be a tough year ahead. Similarly, the fall mass action will be crucial to re-igniting the movement following the summer months.
http://defendcapubliceducation.wordpress.com/
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B. SPECIAL APPEALS, VIDEOS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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Cointelpro (Counter Intelligence Program) and the Murder of Black Panther Leaders
http://www.averdade.org.br/modules/news/article.php?storyid=451
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This is just inspiring! You have to watch it! ...bw
Don't Get Caught in a Bad Hotel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-79pX1IOqPU
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SEIZE BP!
[While this is a good beginning to a fight to put safety first--for workers and the planet--we must recognize that the whole thrust of capitalism is to get the job done quicker and cheaper, workers and the world be damned!
It is workers who are intimately aware of the dangers of production and the ways those dangers could be eliminated. And, if, say, a particular mine, factory, industry can't be made to be safe, then it should be abandoned. Those workers effected should simply be "retired" with full pay and benefits. They have already been subjected to the toxins, dangers, etc., on the job.
Basically, safety must be under worker's control. Workers must have first dibs on profits to insure safety first.
It not only means nationalizing industry--but internationalizing industry--and placing it under the control and operation of the workers themselves. Governmental controls of safety regulations are notoriously ineffectual because the politicians themselves are the corporation's paid defenders. It only makes sense that corporate profits should be utilized--under the worker's control--to put safety first or stop production altogether. Safety first has to be interpreted as "safety before profits and profits for safety first!" We can only hope it is not too late! ...bw]
SEIZE BP!
The government of the United States must seize BP and freeze its assets, and place those funds in trust to begin providing immediate relief to the working people throughout the Gulf states whose jobs, communities, homes and businesses are being harmed or destroyed by the criminally negligent actions of the CEO, Board of Directors and senior management of BP.
Take action now! Sign the Seize BP petition to demand the seizure of BP!
200,000 gallons of oil a day, or more, are gushing into the Gulf of Mexico with the flow of oil growing. The poisonous devastation to human beings, wildlife, natural habitat and fragile ecosystems will go on for decades. It constitutes an act of environmental violence, the consequences of which will be catastrophic.
BP's Unmitigated Greed
This was a manufactured disaster. It was neither an "Act of God" nor Nature that caused this devastation, but rather the unmitigated greed of Big Oil's most powerful executives in their reckless search for ever-greater profits.
Under BP's CEO Tony Hayward's aggressive leadership, BP made a record $5.6 billion in pure profits just in the first three months of 2010. BP made $163 billion in profits from 2001-09. It has a long history of safety violations and slap-on-the-wrist fines.
BP's Materially False and Misleading Statements
BP filed a 52-page exploration plan and environmental impact analysis with the U.S. Department of the Interior's Minerals Management Service for the Deepwater Horizon well, dated February 2009, which repeatedly assured the government that it was "unlikely that an accidental surface or subsurface oil spill would occur from the proposed activities." In the filing, BP stated over and over that it was unlikely for an accident to occur that would lead to a giant crude oil spill causing serious damage to beaches, mammals and fisheries and that as such it did not require a response plan for such an event.
BP's executives are thus either guilty of making materially false statements to the government to obtain the license, of consciously misleading a government that was all too ready to be misled, and/or they are guilty of criminal negligence. At a bare minimum, their representations constitute gross negligence. Whichever the case, BP must be held accountable for its criminal actions that have harmed so many.
Protecting BP's Super-Profits
BP executives are banking that they can ride out the storm of bad publicity and still come out far ahead in terms of the billions in profit that BP will pocket. In 1990, in response to the Exxon Valdez disaster, Congress passed and President Bush signed into law the Oil Pollution Act, which immunizes oil companies for the damages they cause beyond immediate cleanup costs.
Under the Oil Pollution Act, oil companies are responsible for oil removal and cleanup costs for massive spills, and their liability for all other forms of damages is capped at $75 million-a pittance for a company that made $5.6 billion in profits in just the last three months, and is expected to make $23 billion in pure profit this year. Some in Congress suggest the cap should be set at $10 billion, still less than the potential cost of this devastation-but why should the oil companies have any immunity from responsibility for the damage they cause?
The Oil Pollution Act is an outrage, and it will be used by BP to keep on doing business as usual.
People are up in arms because thousands of workers who have lost their jobs and livelihoods as a result of BP's actions have to wait in line to compete for lower wage and hazardous clean-up jobs from BP. BP's multi-millionaire executives are not asked to sacrifice one penny while working people have to plead for clean-up jobs.
Take Action Now
It is imperative that the government seize BP's assets now for their criminal negligence and begin providing immediate relief for the immense suffering and harm they have caused.
Seize BP Petition button*: http://www.seizebp.org/
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Neil Young - Ohio - Live at Massey Hall
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV0rAwk4lFE&feature=player_embedded#
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Rachel Carson's Warnings in "The Sea Around Us":
"It is a curious situation that the sea, from which life first arose, should now be threatened by the activities of one form of that life. But the sea, though changed in a sinister way, will continue to exist; the threat is rather to life itself. . ." http://www.savethesea.org/quotes
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Operation Small Axe - Trailer
http://www.blockreportradio.com/news-mainmenu-26/820-us-school-district-to-begin-microchipping-students.html
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Shame on Arizona
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer just signed a law that will authorize officers to pull over, question, and detain anyone they have a "reasonable suspicion" to believe is in this country without proper documentation. It's legalized racial profiling, and it's an affront on all of our civil rights, especially Latinos. It's completely unacceptable.
Join us in letting Arizona's leaders know how we feel, and that there will be consequences. A state that dehumanizes its own people does not deserve our economic support
"As long as racial profiling is legal in Arizona, I will do what I can to not visit the state and to avoid spending dollars there."
Sign Petition Here:
http://presente.org/campaigns/shame?populate=1
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Please sign the petition to stop the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal and
and forward it to all your lists.
"Mumia Abu-Jamal and The Global Abolition of the Death Penalty"
http://www.petitiononline.com/Mumialaw/petition.html
(A Life In the Balance - The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, at 34, Amnesty Int'l, 2000; www. Amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/001/2000.)
[Note: This petition is approved by Mumia Abu-Jamal and his lead attorney, Robert R. Bryan, San Francisco (E-mail: MumiaLegalDefense@gmail.com; Website: www.MumiaLegalDefense.org).]
Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 2012
New York, NY 10159-2012
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Donations for Mumia's Legal Defense in the U.S. Our legal effort is the front line of the battle for Mumia's freedom and life. His legal defense needs help. The costs are substantial for our litigation in the U.S. Supreme Court and at the state level. To help, please make your checks payable to the National Lawyers Guild Foundation indicate "Mumia" on the bottom left). All donations are tax deductible under the Internal Revenue Code, section 501c)3), and should be mailed to:
It is outrageous and a violation of human rights that Mumia remains in prison and on death row. His life hangs in the balance. My career has been marked by successfully representing people facing death in murder cases. I will not rest until we win Mumia's case. Justice requires no less.
With best wishes,
Robert R. Bryan
Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal
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Collateral Murder
[COLD-BLOODED, OUTRIGHT MURDER OF UNARMED CIVILIANS--AND THEY LAUGH ABOUT IT AS THEY SHOOT! THIS IS A BLOOD-CURTLING, VIOLENT AND BRUTAL VIDEO THAT SHOULD BE VIEWED BY EVERYONE! IT EXPOSES, AS MARTIN LUTHER KING SAID, "THE BIGGEST PURVEYORS OF VIOLENCE IN THE WORLD," THE U.S. BI-PARTISAN GOVERNMENT AND THE MILITARY THEY COMMAND. --BW]
Overview
5th April 2010 10:44 EST WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad -- including two Reuters news staff.
Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded.
http://www.collateralmurder.com/
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San Francisco City and County Tramples on Civil Liberties
A Letter to Antiwar Activists
Dear Activists:
On Saturday, March 20, the San Francisco City and County Recreation and Parks Department's Park Rangers patrolled a large public antiwar demonstration, shutting down the distribution of Socialist Viewpoint magazine. The rally in Civic Center Plaza was held in protest of the illegal and immoral U.S. wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, and to commemorate the 7th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The Park Rangers went table-to-table examining each one. They photographed the Socialist Viewpoint table and the person attending it-me. My sister, Debbie and I, had set up the table. We had a sign on the table that asked for a donation of $1.25 for the magazine. The Park Rangers demanded that I "pack it up" and go, because selling or even asking for donations for newspapers or magazines is no longer permitted without the purchase of a new and expensive "vendors license." Their rationale for this denial of free speech is that the distribution of newspapers, magazines, T-shirts-and even food-would make the political protest a "festival" and not a political protest demonstration!
This City's action is clearly a violation of the First Amendment to the Constitution-the right to free speech and freedom of the press-and can't be tolerated.
While they are firing teachers and other San Francisco workers, closing schools, cutting back healthcare access, cutting services to the disabled and elderly, it is outrageous that the Mayor and City Government chose to spend thousands of dollars to police tables at an antiwar rally-a protest demonstration by the people!
We can't let this become the norm. It is so fundamentally anti-democratic. The costs of the permits for the rally, the march, the amplified sound, is already prohibitive. Protest is not a privilege we should have to pay for. It's a basic right in this country and we should reclaim it!
Personally, I experienced a deep feeling of alienation as the crisply-uniformed Park Ranger told me I had to "pack it up"-especially when I knew that they were being paid by the City to do this at this demonstration!
I hope you will join this protest of the violation of the right to distribute and, therefore, the right to read Socialist Viewpoint, by writing or emailing the City officials who are listed below.1
In solidarity,
Bonnie Weinstein, Editorial Board Member, Socialist Viewpoint
www.socialistviewpoint.org
60 - 29th Street, #429
San Francisco, CA 94110
415-824-8730
1 Mayor Gavin Newsom
City Hall, Room 200
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place
San Francisco, CA 94102
gavin.newsom@sfgov.org
Board of Supervisors
City Hall
1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, Room 244
San Francisco, Ca 94102-4689
Board.of.supervisors@sfgov.org
San Francisco Recreation & Parks Department Park Rangers
McLaren Lodge & Annex
501 Stanyan Street
San Francisco, CA 94117
Park.patrol@sfgov.org
San Francisco Recreation and Park Commission
501 Stanyan Street
San Francisco, CA 94117
recpark.commission@sfgov.org
Chief of Police George Gascón
850 Bryant Street, #525
San Francisco, CA 94103
(I could not find an email address for him.).
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FREE LYNNE STEWART NOW!
Lynne Stewart in Jail!
Mail tax free contributions payable to National Lawyers Guild Foundation. Write in memo box: "Lynne Stewart Defense." Mail to: Lynne Stewart Defense, P.O. Box 10328, Oakland, CA 94610.
SEND RESOLUTIONS AND STATEMENTS OF SUPPORT TO DEFENSE ATTORNEY JOSHUA L. DRATEL, ESQ. FAX: 212) 571 3792 AND EMAIL: jdratel@aol.com
SEND PROTESTS TO ATTORNEY GENERAL ERIC HOLDER:
U.S. Department of Justice
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20530-0001
Department of Justice Main Switchboard - 202-514-2000
AskDOJ@usdoj.gov
Office of the Attorney General Public Comment Line - 202-353-1555
To send Lynne a letter, write:
Lynne Stewart
53504-054
MCC-NY
150 Park Row
New York, NY 10007
Lynne Stewart speaks in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hOQ5_VKRf5k&feature=related
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On June 30, an innocent man will be given a second chance.
In 1991, Troy Davis was sentenced to death for allegedly killing a police officer in Savannah, Georgia. There was no physical evidence tying him to the crime, and seven out of nine witnesses recanted or contradicted their testimony.
He was sentenced to death for a crime he didn't commit. But it's not too late to change Troy's fate.
We just learned today that Troy has been granted an evidentiary hearing -- an opportunity to right this wrong. Help give him a second chance by telling your friends to pledge their support for Troy:
http://www.iamtroy.com/
Troy Davis may just be one man, but his situation represents an injustice experienced by thousands. And suffering this kind of injustice, by even one man, is one person too many.
Thanks to you and 35,000 other NAACP members and supporters who spoke out last August, the U.S. Supreme Court is granting Troy Davis his day in court--and a chance to make his case after 19 years on death row.
This hearing is the first step.
We appreciate your continued support of Troy. If you have not yet done so, please visit our website, sign the petition, then tell your friends to do the same.
http://www.iamtroy.com
I will be in touch soon to let you know how else you can help.
Sincerely,
Benjamin Todd Jealous
President and CEO
NAACP
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Short Video About Al-Awda's Work
The following link is to a short video which provides an overview of Al-Awda's work since the founding of our organization in 2000. This video was first shown on Saturday May 23, 2009 at the fundraising banquet of the 7th Annual Int'l Al-Awda Convention in Anaheim California. It was produced from footage collected over the past nine years.
Video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTiAkbB5uC0&eurl
Support Al-Awda, a Great Organization and Cause!
Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition, depends on your financial support to carry out its work.
To submit your tax-deductible donation to support our work, go to
http://www.al-awda.org/donate.html and follow the simple instructions.
Thank you for your generosity!
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KEVIN COOPER IS INNOCENT!
FLASHPOINTS Interview with Innocent San Quentin Death Row Inmate
Kevin Cooper -- Aired Monday, May 18,2009
http://www.flashpoints.net/#GOOGLE_SEARCH_ENGINE
To learn more about Kevin Cooper go to:
savekevincooper.org
LINKS
San Francisco Chronicle article on the recent ruling:
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/13/BAM517J8T3.DTL
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling and dissent:
http://www.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2009/05/11/05-99004o.pdf
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COURAGE TO RESIST!
Support the troops who refuse to fight!
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/
Donate:
http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/21/57/
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C. ARTICLES IN FULL
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1) Messing With Miranda To Fight Terrorism: Obama's Playing Politics With Limited Options
By John W. Dean
Created Jun 3 2010 - 11:16am
- from FindLaw [1]
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/
2) New Ship Heads to Gaza, and Israel Vows to Stop It
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:57 a.m. ET
June 4, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/06/04/world/middleeast/AP-EU-Turkey-Israel.html?hp
3) Another Torrent BP Works to Stem: Its C.E.O.
By JAD MOUAWAD and CLIFFORD KRAUSS
June 3, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/04/us/04image.html?hp
4) Florida Beaches Full as Playtime Runs Short
By JOHN LELAND
June 3, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/04/us/04pensacola.html?ref=us
5)Kellogg to Restrict Ads to Settle U.S. Inquiry Into Health Claims for Cereal
By SEWELL CHAN
June 3, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/04/business/04ftc.html?ref=health
6) Disaster in the Amazon
By BOB HERBERT
June 4, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/05/opinion/05herbert.html?hp
7) Pelicans, Back From Brink of Extinction, Face Oil Threat
By JOHN COLLINS RUDOLF and LESLIE KAUFMAN
June 4, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/05/us/05pelican.html?hp
8) Israeli Military Boards Gaza-Bound Aid Ship
By ETHAN BRONNER
June 5, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/world/middleeast/06flotilla.html?hp
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1) Messing With Miranda To Fight Terrorism: Obama's Playing Politics With Limited Options
By John W. Dean
Created Jun 3 2010 - 11:16am
- from FindLaw [1]
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/
This is the second in a two-part series of columns on the Obama Administration's apparent plans to create an exception to the 1966 Supreme Court ruling in Miranda v. Arizona to deal with terrorists. - Ed.
As I noted in my prior column in this series [2], Attorney General Eric Holder (sort of) announced on May 9th that the Obama Administration was considering a request to Congress for changes in the public-safety exception to the requirement that Miranda warnings be given, when it comes to terror suspects. On May 13th Holder appeared before the House Judiciary Committee [3], which was very interested in his announcement about Miranda, but he had little to add to his prior comments. Nonetheless, something seems to be cooking.
Sam Stein, of the Huffington Post, reported [4] earlier this week that on May 25th South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsay Graham told reporters that he been in talks with the administration "for quite a while now" to find a way to "statutorily codify the public-safety provision." It is not clear if the Senator's talk preceded or followed the Attorney General's comments (or both), but the fact that Graham is involved could be troubling, because he wants to deny anyone suspected of a terror tactic his or her Miranda warning. Indeed, he wants much more. More generally, he does not want suspected terrorists dealt with by our criminal-justice system.
Eliminating Miranda By Making All Terror Suspects "Enemy Combatants"
At a Senate hearing on May 5th, following the arrest of Faisal Shahzad - the prime suspect in the attempt to detonate a car-bomb in Times Square - and before Shahzad had confessed, Senator Graham mounted his soapbox to proclaim that this naturalized American citizen should not be Mirandized. When "a suspect ... represents a military threat to our country even though they're a citizen, [we must] be able to gather intelligence before you [do] anything else," Graham demanded. For Graham, who constantly boasts his credentials as an attorney, suspected terrorists have lesser rights than run-of-the-mill serial killers.
Graham, and other like-minded conservatives, want terrorist suspects treated as "enemy combatants." And Graham lectured Attorney General Holder at length about his position during a hearing [5] late last year. Basically, Graham claims that if an American citizen is suspected of supporting declared enemies of the United States who employ terror tactics, then that citizen should not be entitled to the same rights that our system affords to the worst of criminals. Graham was one of the most active supporters of the Military Commission Act of 2006, which sought to give presidents this option. For Graham, to be an enemy of the United States and at war with the United States is more heinous than any crime and the Obama Administration - by not making terror suspects persons without rights - is downgrading war by criminalizing it. It is a powerful, but deeply flawed argument.
My fellow FindLaw columnist Joanne Mariner, a human rights attorney, explained (here [6] and here [7]) many of the problems that arise when analyzing the Military Commission Act of 2009, a law that Senator Graham seems to overlook, and the fact that it amended (read: cleaned up) the Military Commission Act of 2006. Not to draw too fine a point, but notwithstanding the Senator's call for designating terror suspects as Congressionally-defined "enemy combatants," they are now to be designated, if the president believes necessary, "unprivileged enemy belligerents." As Mariner notes, however, the difference is largely semantic: Unprivileged enemy belligerents, too, do not receive Miranda warnings, and are processed outside the criminal justice system.
Clearly, treating anyone who is suspected of terrorist activity or of providing support for such activity, and designating that person an unprivileged enemy belligerent, passes over any real presumption of innocence, which is the hallmark of our criminal justice system, and a component of the Constitution's promise of due process. As Chairman Leahy pointed out after Senator Graham lectured Attorney General Holder about how he should deal with terror suspects, designating them all "unprivileged enemy belligerents" is out of step with the views of most of the military leadership and the approach of the Bush and Obama Justice Departments, not to mention the conclusions of most Americans who have thought seriously about the prospect of the military policing and prosecuting Americans as terror suspects.
It strikes me - after observing Senator Graham's mode of operation since his days in the House of Representatives - that he is negotiating with the Obama Administration to codify the public-safety exception to the Miranda warning as a first step toward also codifying the stance that terror suspects do not belong in the criminal justice system at all. In short, Graham is not to be trusted, for he is simply trying to move the administration closer to his view of the world. Surely the Obama team knows this, so what are they doing messing with Miranda?
The Obama Administration's Terrorism Politics, Within Limited Options
After Eric Holder shared his thinking about the Miranda public-safety exception when he appeared on "Meet the Press" on May 9th, I have been asking people in Washington who know these things what, in fact, is going on. The short, and repeated answer, has been that this is mostly about politics, but the belief is also that, since there is an acknowledged public-safety exception to the Miranda requirements, it would not only be good politics but good law enforcement to try to codify that exception for the problem of dealing with terrorists.
I am told that the Obama Administration fully understands that it cannot ever please the Republicans, who were unhappy that George Bush pulled back from the efforts of his Vice President to think about waterboarding terror suspects first, and asking questions later. President Bush realized the damage he was doing to the image of America throughout the world - and his father no doubt had a few choice words to say about his concern about the excesses his son's presidency was employing in the name of fighting terrorists.
Obama's administration has, in fact, largely picked up where the Bush Administration left off, which is to abandon Dick Cheney's policies - but not George Bush's. While this approach has provoked squeals of displeasure from the former Vice President, Obama has been praised by the rest of the world. In fact, he has largely made public George Bush's approach, which he has only slightly modified. Obama appears totally uninterested, for the good of the nation, in the sort of world-wrath that Cheney's thinking produces, for Cheney's over-reaction not only hurts us, but was counterproductive to our goal of fighting terrorism. What Lindsey Graham and those who share his view are doing is to continue to embrace the Cheney approach. However, rather than lessening the risk of terrorism, these tactics proved in the past to be remarkably good recruiting tools for terrorists' leaders. The Obama team is not going to go there again.
I understand that the Obama Administration is working on an effort to provide law enforcement officers who are dealing with obvious terror suspects clear guidelines as to the type of questioning they can undertake to determine the threat to Americans, before giving Miranda warnings, without jeopardizing a future criminal prosecution in our criminal justice system - which was, of course, developed long before the current prevalence of terrorism. The thinking is that if there is bipartisan support for such a narrowly-drawn, but potentially important, proposal, then the Supreme Court - which created both the Miranda rule and the current exception - will likely make that proposal the law of the land.
Those who are working on this effort believe that bringing on board the Lindsey- Graham-type thinkers brings them closer to the worldview of President Obama, and further from the thinking of former Vice President Dick Cheney. They also explained that what can be done by Congress is very limited, since only the Supreme Court can resolve the question of the scope of the public-safety exception. But it is important that they do this, because the nation's appellate courts have reached no consensus as to the scope of this exception to Miranda.
I am told that we will see the resolution of this matter soon. Balancing the "rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" against one another has never been easy, nor simple, for each has inherent conflicts with the others. To protect life, history tells us, it may be necessary to sacrifice liberty and happiness. But without liberty and happiness, life itself has less value. During my own life, I have witnessed Hitler's fascism, Stalin's communism, and now Bin Laden's terrorism all threaten our fundamental rights, not to mention our ability to appropriately adjust the tensions between them. I trust the Obama Administration to find that balance.
Links:
[1] http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20100528.html
[2] http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20100514.html
[3] http://judiciary.edgeboss.net/real/judiciary/full/full05132010.smi
[4] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/05/26/obama-and-graham-in-talks_n_590129.html
[5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTmLKUT817Y
[6] http://writ.news.findlaw.com/mariner/20091104.html
[7] http://writ.news.findlaw.com/mariner/20091130.html
[8] http://del.icio.us/post?url=http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/john-w-dean/29225/messing-with-miranda-to-fight-terrorism-obamas-playing-politics-with-limited-options&title=Messing With Miranda To Fight Terrorism: Obama's Playing Politics With Limited Options
[9] http://digg.com/submit?phase=2&url=http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/john-w-dean/29225/messing-with-miranda-to-fight-terrorism-obamas-playing-politics-with-limited-options&title=Messing With Miranda To Fight Terrorism: Obama's Playing Politics With Limited Options
[10] http://reddit.com/submit?url=http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/john-w-dean/29225/messing-with-miranda-to-fight-terrorism-obamas-playing-politics-with-limited-options&title=Messing With Miranda To Fight Terrorism: Obama's Playing Politics With Limited Options
[11] http://www.newsvine.com/_tools/seed&save?u=http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/john-w-dean/29225/messing-with-miranda-to-fight-terrorism-obamas-playing-politics-with-limited-options&h=Messing With Miranda To Fight Terrorism: Obama's Playing Politics With Limited Options
[12] http://www.google.com/bookmarks/mark?op=add&bkmk=http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/john-w-dean/29225/messing-with-miranda-to-fight-terrorism-obamas-playing-politics-with-limited-options&title=Messing With Miranda To Fight Terrorism: Obama's Playing Politics With Limited Options
[13] http://myweb2.search.yahoo.com/myresults/bookmarklet?u=http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/john-w-dean/29225/messing-with-miranda-to-fight-terrorism-obamas-playing-politics-with-limited-options&t=Messing With Miranda To Fight Terrorism: Obama's Playing Politics With Limited Options
[14] http://technorati.com/cosmos/search.html?url=http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/john-w-dean/29225/messing-with-miranda-to-fight-terrorism-obamas-playing-politics-with-limited-options
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2) New Ship Heads to Gaza, and Israel Vows to Stop It
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 7:57 a.m. ET
June 4, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/06/04/world/middleeast/AP-EU-Turkey-Israel.html?hp
ISTANBUL (AP) -- An aid ship trying to break the blockade of Gaza could reach Israel's 20-mile (32-kilometer) exclusion zone by Friday afternoon, an activist said, but Israel's prime minister has vowed the ship will not reach land.
The dueling comments suggest a potential new clash over Israel's three-year-old blockade of the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip -- and come only four days after an Israeli commando raid on a larger aid flotilla left nine activists dead.
Greta Berlin, a spokesman for the Free Gaza group, says the 1,200-ton Rachel Corrie is heading directly to Gaza and will not stop in any port on the way. It is trying to deliver hundreds of tons of aid, including wheelchairs, medical supplies and concrete.
Irish Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mairead McGuire and the former head of the U.N. Oil-for-Food program in Iraq, Denis Halliday, are among the 11 passengers on board, she said.
The Irish vessel is named after an American college student crushed to death by an Israeli army bulldozer while protesting house demolitions in Gaza.
Israel will not allow the aid ship to reach Gaza, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told senior Cabinet ministers late Thursday. According to a participant in the meeting, he said Israel made several offers to direct the ship to an Israeli port, where the aid supplies would be unloaded, inspected and transferred to Gaza by land, but the offers were rejected.
Netanyahu has hotly rejected calls to lift the blockade on Gaza, insisting that it prevents missile attacks on Israel. The Rachel Corrie's cargo of concrete is also a problem, because Israel considers that to have military uses.
Netanyahu also instructed the military to act with sensitivity in preventing the Rachel Corrie from landing and avoid harming those on board the ship, the participant said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the meeting was closed.
Israel has rejected demands for an international panel to probe Monday's deadly commando raid on the aid ships, saying it can conduct a professional, impartial investigation on its own.
Activists say Israel sabotaged the previous aid flotilla, and Israeli defense officials said Friday only that unspecified ''actions'' were taken when the boats were still far from Gaza.
Without explicitly confirming sabotage, the officials say the Israeli actions only delayed the flotilla. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the information was classified.
In Istanbul, Turkey's deputy prime minister said Friday that economic and defense cooperation with Israel will be reduced amid tensions after the killing of nine Turkish activists by Israeli commandos on an aid ship.
Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc said all deals with Israel are being evaluated.
''We are serious on this issue. New cooperation will not start and relations with Israel will be reduced,'' he said.
Energy Minister Taner Yildiz has said discussions about extending a Russian natural gas pipeline to Israel and providing fresh drinking water to Israel from the Manavgat river were being shelved.
The pro-Palestinian activists' deaths on the aid ship increased tensions in the Mideast, especially with Turkey, an important ally of Israel. On Thursday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Israel's actions ''a historic mistake.''
Israel maintains its commandos opened fire Monday as a last resort after they were attacked, and released a video showing soldiers in riot gear descending from a helicopter into a crowd of men with clubs. Three or four activists overpowered each soldier as he landed.
Returning activists admitted fighting with the Israelis but insisted their actions were in self defense because the ships were being boarded in international waters by a military force.
Thousands jammed Istanbul on Thursday to pay tribute to those killed on the ship at a funeral service outside the Fatih mosque, and larger services were expected on Friday.
The youngest of the nine activists killed, Furkan Dogan, was to be buried Friday in his family's hometown in Kayseri in central Turkey.
Dogan, who was born in Troy, New York, moved to Turkey when he was two. The other eight activists were all Turkish nationals.
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Hadjicostis reported from Nicosia. Associated Press writers Mark Lavie and Matti Friedman in Jerusalem and Selcan Hacaoglu in Istanbul also contributed to this report.
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3) Another Torrent BP Works to Stem: Its C.E.O.
By JAD MOUAWAD and CLIFFORD KRAUSS
June 3, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/04/us/04image.html?hp
BP, already bedeviled by an out-of-control well spewing millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, now finds itself with one more problem: Tony Hayward, its gaffe-prone chief executive.
Among his memorable lines: The spill is not going to cause big problems because the gulf "is a very big ocean" and "the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to have been very, very modest." And this week, he apologized to the families of 11 men who died on the rig for having said, "You know, I'd like my life back."
But rather than receiving a limited public role, Mr. Hayward, a geologist who has led the company for three years, has become even more the public face of the company. On Thursday, BP began showing a new television ad in which Mr. Hayward, speaking directly into a camera, pledges to spare no effort to clean up the spill.
It ends with a heartfelt promise: "We will get it done. We will make this right." (The same day, in an interview published in The Financial Times, he said, "What is undoubtedly true is that we did not have the tools you would want in your tool kit.")
Instead of reassuring the public, critics say, Mr. Hayward has turned into a day-after-day reminder of BP's public relations missteps in responding to the crisis, which began six weeks ago and looks likely to continue well into the summer.
Mr. Hayward and the company have repeatedly played down the size of the spill, the company's own role in the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon, and the environmental damage that has occurred. At the same time, they have projected a tone of unrelenting optimism despite repeated failures to plug the well.
The chief executive's tendency to utter provocative statements has prompted a surge of criticism from politicians, bloggers and television pundits, who took particular offense at the "I'd like my life back" comment.
But Mr. Hayward, an earnest-looking man with cherubic red cheeks and a soft British accent, remains ever present in BP's response efforts.
One Louisiana congressman, Charlie Melancon, has started a petition campaign calling on BP's board of directors to fire Mr. Hayward, and financial analysts are increasingly predicting that he will get the boot before the crisis is over.
"People want to know someone is in charge, that the right person is there, but someone who says the stuff that Hayward has said doesn't engender confidence," said Sydney Finkelstein, a professor of strategy and leadership at Dartmouth University's Tuck School of Business. "We understand he is overwhelmed, but that also might suggest he's not the right man for the job."
Robert Wine, a BP spokesman, said that Mr. Hayward "has the full support of the board, and he is very much at the heart of the response managing everything we are doing."
Mr. Hayward, 53, ascended to the top job when his predecessor, John Browne, resigned after a personal scandal and a series of major accidents. Mr. Hayward promised to refocus the company culture on safety.
Much is at stake for BP, the top oil and gas producer in the United States and the largest deepwater operator in the Gulf of Mexico. The company has already spent about $1 billion to deal with the accident, and it faces billions of dollars in additional damage claims and government penalties, with the liability growing every day that the leak continues. In addition, the Justice Department, an independent panel and numerous Congressional committees are investigating the company.
Shareholders are worried about the cost to the company, based in London, whose stock has fallen about 35 percent since the explosion.
To be sure, BP is facing an unprecedented technological and engineering challenge, battling formidable odds in trying to plug a damaged oil well in the darkness and pressure found 5,000 feet below the ocean surface. After several efforts to stop the oil flow failed, the company is now seeking to install a temporary dome to capture most of the spilled oil until it can drill two relief wells.
Those relief wells, which would be used to inject cement into the damaged well to permanently kill it, are not expected to be completed before August, and the environmental damage would linger well after that - which means that the company and Mr. Hayward face a public relations crisis that will last for many months.
The company has enlisted the help of the Brunswick Group, a public relations and crisis management firm, to deal with the accident. It has dedicated the home page of its Web site, BP.com, to the crisis and taken out full-page advertisements in major newspapers.
BP has also hired a new head of media relations in the United States, Anne Womack Kolton, who worked at Brunswick and is a former aide to Vice President Dick Cheney and Energy Department spokeswoman.
In Washington, BP has become a toxic political symbol that is a target on all fronts, even as it is seeking to work with the government get out of its current predicament.
Before the spill, BP had maintained a low profile in Washington relative to other companies, with its lobbying work and political contributions usually trailing other oil-and-gas giants like Exxon Mobil, Chevron and Conoco Phillips. Unlike many other companies with federal interests, BP kept most of its lobbying work in-house, although it had retained several prominent Washington lobbyists, including Ken Duberstein and Tony Podesta, to make its case on issues including tax incentives for gas production and climate control regulations.
From the start, BP promised to be transparent about the spill. But the company has wavered between providing information to the public and strictly limiting it. For example, it resisted for weeks putting up a live video feed of the underwater spill, agreeing to it only after intense pressure from Congress. The company has consistently refused to use widely used scientific techniques to measure the spill, saying it was focused on shutting down the well.
Administration officials and Congressional leaders have accused BP of hiding the true dimensions of the leak for financial reasons. Carol M. Browner, the White House energy and environment adviser, has noted that BP has a "vested financial interest" in minimizing the size of the leak because the fines the company will eventually pay will in part be based on the amount of oil that has escaped.
BP and the government initially estimated the well was leaking 1,000 barrels a day. But since then, government scientists have come up with a new and much larger rate of 12,000 to 19,000 barrels a day.
"They have tried to control the message, including controlling facts, because they have a direct financial interest in this," said David Pettit, a senior lawyer with Natural Resources Defense Council. "The government is letting BP clean up their own crime scene. On TV cop shows, they don't do that."
Perhaps trying to tamp down the outcry over his own comments, Mr. Hayward's remarks to reporters on Thursday in Houston were more tame. He promised that the company would clean up every drop of oil and "restore the shoreline to its original state."
The chief executive added: "We will be here for a very long time. We realize this is just the beginning."
Jad Mouawad reported from New York and Clifford Krauss from Houston. Eric Lichtblau contributed reporting from Washington and Stuart Elliott from New York.
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4) Florida Beaches Full as Playtime Runs Short
By JOHN LELAND
June 3, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/04/us/04pensacola.html?ref=us
PENSACOLA, Fla. - When Tony and Jodie Delatte watched the gloomy news Wednesday night - sticky blobs of oil landing on the white beaches of Mississippi and Alabama - they knew right away what they had to do.
The next morning they left their home in Gonzalez, Miss., for Pensacola Beach in Florida. By afternoon they were on the beach and in the water, not even waiting for a morning thunderstorm to shed its last drops.
"It might be our last chance to come," Mr. Delatte said.
The oil from the Deepwater Horizon is now on collision course with one of America's money-making icons, Florida tourism, threatening a core business of a state already in the throes of a severe fiscal crisis.
But this week, Pensacola Beach is reveling in what may be its last glory days of summer. Hotel prices were higher than last year and discounts were rare.
The Hilton on the beach sold out in midweek. Julian McQueen, head of Innisfree Hotels, which owns the Hilton and three other beachfront hotels in Pensacola and Gulf Shores, Al., with a total of 1,000 rooms, said his hotels had lost half or more of their advance reservations since the start of the oil spill on April 20. But sudden arrivals had made up much of this loss.
At the Fish House, which serves 10,000 people a week, Shelly Yates, the marketing director, said "the bar business has been good."
"It's hard to say if the crisis in the gulf is contributing to that," she added. "We're all on pins and needles."
Pensacola Beach has not needed cleanup crews to walk the beaches (no tar balls yet). But it is still woefully underprepared, said Buck Lee, executive director of the Santa Rosa Island Authority, which governs the shoreline.
"We should've done everything we needed to have done in two weeks," postspill, he said, including getting sifters to remove oil from sand and absorbent material to soak up oil. "That's the problem with having BP and the federal government running the recovery." He feels they have been unresponsive to local needs.
The Delattes probably would have to cancel their plans to come back in July, they said. But for now? "I did tell him if he found a glob of oil he had to throw it at someone else," Ms. Delatte said.
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5)Kellogg to Restrict Ads to Settle U.S. Inquiry Into Health Claims for Cereal
By SEWELL CHAN
June 3, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/04/business/04ftc.html?ref=health
WASHINGTON - Maybe it should have just stuck with Snap, Crackle and Pop.
The Kellogg Company has agreed to advertising restrictions to resolve an investigation into its claims about the health benefits of its Rice Krispies cereal, the Federal Trade Commission said on Thursday.
The agreement expands on a settlement order that Kellogg agreed to last July over similar claims that another cereal, Frosted Mini-Wheats, was "clinically shown to improve kids' attentiveness by nearly 20 percent."
The commission acted against Kellogg as public health researchers and obesity opponents have intensified their challenges to the marketing of sugary foods.
"We expect more from a great American company than making dubious claims - not once, but twice - that its cereals improve children's health," Jon Leibowitz, the chairman of the F.T.C., said in a statement.
Marion Nestle, a nutrition professor at New York University, said it was unusual for the commission to act in a case involving health claims made for food products, an area traditionally handled by the Food and Drug Administration.
Last summer, Kellogg unveiled product packaging claiming that Rice Krispies "now helps support your child's immunity" and that the cereal "has been improved to include antioxidants and nutrients that your family needs to help them stay healthy."
In the order covering Frosted Mini-Wheats, Kellogg had agreed to stop making claims about benefits to "cognitive health, process or function provided by any cereal or any morning food or snack food" unless the claims were true and substantiated.
The new expanded order bars the company from making "claims about any health benefit of any food unless the claims are backed by scientific evidence and not misleading."
In a statement, Kellogg, based in Battle Creek, Mich., said it had "a long history of responsible advertising," but did not specifically address the latest accusations.
"We stand behind the validity of our product claims and research, so we agreed to an order that covers those claims," the company said. "We believe that the revisions to the existing consent agreement satisfied any remaining concerns."
Jennifer L. Harris, a psychologist who studies food marketing at the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity at Yale, said the agreement highlighted the need to tighten requirements so that all health-related claims on packaging are based on scientific evidence, which is not the case now.
"As parents become more health-conscious, these claims try to make high-sugar cereals healthier than they really are," she said.
A study by the Rudd Center found that the least healthful cereals were the ones most heavily marketed to children, and that children were exposed to more advertising for highly sweetened cereals than for any other kind of packaged food.
William Neuman contributed reporting from New York.
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6) Disaster in the Amazon
By BOB HERBERT
June 4, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/05/opinion/05herbert.html?hp
BP's calamitous behavior in the Gulf of Mexico is the big oil story of the moment. But for many years, indigenous people from a formerly pristine region of the Amazon rainforest in Ecuador have been trying to get relief from an American company, Texaco (which later merged with Chevron), for what has been described as the largest oil-related environmental catastrophe ever.
"As horrible as the gulf spill has been, what happened in the Amazon was worse," said Jonathan Abady, a New York lawyer who is part of the legal team that is suing Chevron on behalf of the rainforest inhabitants.
It has been a long and ugly legal fight and the outcome is uncertain. But what has happened in the rainforest is heartbreaking, although it has not gotten nearly the coverage that the BP spill has.
What's not in dispute is that Texaco operated more than 300 oil wells for the better part of three decades in a vast swath of Ecuador's northern Amazon region, just south of the border with Colombia. Much of that area has been horribly polluted. The lives and culture of the local inhabitants, who fished in the intricate waterways and cultivated the land as their ancestors had done for generations, have been upended in ways that have led to widespread misery.
Texaco came barreling into this delicate ancient landscape in the early 1960s with all the subtlety and grace of an invading army. And when it left in 1992, it left behind, according to the lawsuit, widespread toxic contamination that devastated the livelihoods and traditions of the local people, and took a severe toll on their physical well-being.
A brief filed by the plaintiffs said: "It deliberately dumped many billions of gallons of waste byproduct from oil drilling directly into the rivers and streams of the rainforest covering an area the size of Rhode Island. It gouged more than 900 unlined waste pits out of the jungle floor - pits which to this day leach toxic waste into soils and groundwater. It burned hundreds of millions of cubic feet of gas and waste oil into the atmosphere, poisoning the air and creating 'black rain' which inundated the area during tropical thunderstorms."
The quest for oil is, by its nature, colossally destructive. And the giant oil companies, when left to their own devices, will treat even the most magnificent of nature's wonders like a sewer. But the riches to be made are so vastly corrupting that governments refuse to impose the kinds of rigid oversight and safeguards that would mitigate the damage to the environment and its human and animal inhabitants.
Pick your venue. The families whose lives and culture are dependent upon the intricate web of waterways along the Gulf Coast of the United States are in a fix similar to that of the indigenous people zapped by nonstop oil spills and the oil-related pollution in the Ecuadorian rainforest. Each group is fearful about its future. Both have been treated contemptuously.
The oil companies don't care. Shell can't wait to begin drilling in the Arctic Ocean off the northern coast of Alaska, an area that would pose monumental problems for anyone trying to deal with a catastrophic spill. The companies pretend that the spills won't happen. They always say that their drilling operations are safe. They said that before drilling off Santa Barbara, and in the rainforest in Ecuador, and in the Gulf of Mexico, and everywhere else they drill.
Their assurances mean nothing.
President Obama has suspended Shell's Arctic drilling permits and has temporarily halted the so-called Arctic oil rush. What we've learned from the BP debacle in the gulf, and from the rainforest, and so many other places, is just how reckless and inept the oil companies can be when it comes to safeguarding life, limb and the environment.
They're dangerous. They need the most stringent kind of oversight, and swift and severe sanctions for serious wrongdoing. At the same time, we need to be searching with a much, much greater sense of urgency for viable energy alternatives. Treating the Amazon and the gulf and the Arctic as if they were nothing more than toxic waste sites is an affront to the planet and all life-forms that inhabit it.
Chevron doesn't believe it should be called to account for any of the sins Texaco may have committed in the Amazon. A spokesman told me that the allegations of environmental damage were wildly overstated and that even if Texaco had caused some pollution, it had cleaned it up and reached an agreement with the Ecuadorian government that precluded further liability.
The indigenous residents may be suffering (they're in much worse shape than the people on the gulf coast) but the Chevron-Texaco crowd feels real good about itself. The big money was made, and the trash was left behind.
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7) Pelicans, Back From Brink of Extinction, Face Oil Threat
By JOHN COLLINS RUDOLF and LESLIE KAUFMAN
June 4, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/05/us/05pelican.html?hp
FORT JACKSON, La. - For more than a decade, the hundreds of brown pelicans that nested among the mangrove shrubs on Queen Bess Island west of here were living proof that a species brought to the edge of extinction could come back and thrive.
The island was one of three sites in Louisiana where the large, long-billed birds were reintroduced after pesticides wiped them out in the state in the 1960s.
But on Thursday, 29 of the birds, their feathers so coated in thick brown sludge that their natural white and gray markings were totally obscured, were airlifted to a bird rehabilitation center in Fort Jackson, the latest victims of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Another dozen were taken to other rescue centers.
Six more pelicans were brought here on Friday, and as visitors to the center looked on, the birds huddled together in makeshift plywood cages and, in their unnatural stillness, looked as if the gooey muck had frozen them solid. The 29 pelicans brought in Thursday were being treated in hot rooms by workers in protective clothing.
"The pelicans are in dire trouble," said Doug Inkley, a senior scientist with the National Wildlife Federation, who worried that the oil spill could put an end to the bird's recovery in Louisiana.
The images of oil-covered birds - pelicans, northern gannets, laughing gulls and others - are eerily reminiscent of the Exxon Valdez disaster 21 years ago, and have in recent days have become the most vivid symbol of the damage wrought by the hundreds of thousands of barrels of crude oil that have poured into the Gulf of Mexico since the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded April 20. Since the spill, 612 damaged birds had been cataloged as of Friday, most dead but some alive and drenched in oil, federal officials said.
Yet the brown pelican, because of its history of robust recovery in the face of extreme peril, has a special significance for the public.
The birds were once so common on the coastline here that they grace the state flag. They were frequent companions for fishermen, who shared their waters and admired their skill at spotting fish from afar and diving from great heights to scoop them up in their bills.
At the turn of the 20th century, observers estimated the brown pelican population in Louisiana at close to 50,000. But by 1961, no nesting pair could be spotted along the state's entire coast, according to LaCoast, a Coast Guard Web site. Like another subspecies of the brown pelican found in California, the local birds had been hard hit by DDT and other pesticides, which acted to thin the shells of their eggs. The eggs were crushed when the adults sat on them. (DDT was banned in the United States in 1972.)
In 1968, Louisiana took birds from a surviving Florida colony and reintroduced them along the state's southern coast in three spots. One was Queen Bess Island, which had been the site of one of the last breeding pairs before extinction, said Kerry St. Pé, program director of the nearby Barataria-Terrebonne National Estuary Program.
Still, the birds struggled, threatened this time by the loss of their habitat. The local wetlands, hurt by levees in the Mississippi that blocked sediment from flowing downstream and by canals cut by oil companies looking to lay pipe, were sinking into the gulf at an astonishing rate. Queen Bess was going under as well until 1990, when a coastal restoration project financed a rock barrier around the island, which stabilized it. The pelican colony began to flourish and the birds' offspring helped repopulate the coastline, Mr. St. Pé said.
Last year, the birds were officially taken off the endangered species list. But the oil spill, experts said, could change that. Like all birds, pelicans are very sensitive to oil, said Melanie Driscoll, director of bird conservation for the National Audubon Society's Louisiana Coastal Initiative. It prevents them from regulating their body temperature when it gets on their feathers, she said, and in Louisiana the pelicans are subject to overheating. The oil can also poison the fish the pelicans feed on and seep through the shells of pelican eggs, killing the embryos.
The potential for damage was frighteningly apparent at the rescue center set up here by the International Bird Rescue Research Center with BP and federal and state officials. All day Thursday, oiled birds, including the 29 brown pelicans, arrived at the makeshift veterinary emergency room built in a hangar on a former military base. They were carried from Coast Guard helicopters in dog kennels and cardboard boxes with air holes punched in them.
Most of the birds were so thoroughly coated in crude that they could not stand up. Some were stuck to the floor of their cages. Workers wiped off thick globs of oil with towels, then gave them fluids and fed them a fish slurry.
The pelicans were placed in plywood pens covered with blankets. The next morning, workers began to clean them using hot water and Dawn, a mild dish detergent.
So far, even the most heavily oiled pelicans have survived. Had they not been treated immediately, however, they would have almost certainly drowned or died of starvation or exposure, according to a veterinarian with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.
The birds at the rehabilitation center, said Sharon Taylor, a veterinarian here, represent a lucky few - far more are certain to die in the wild.
"A lot of them will just disappear into the environment," she said. "We will probably only find a very, very small percentage of what's been impacted out there."
Still, she worried that because there are so many large rookeries nearby, far more pelicans would soon be headed to the center.
"Tomorrow or tonight we could get a hundred pelicans, we could get a thousand pelicans," Ms. Taylor said.
John Collins Rudolf reported from Fort Jackson, La., and Leslie Kaufman from New York.
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8) Israeli Military Boards Gaza-Bound Aid Ship
By ETHAN BRONNER
June 5, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/06/world/middleeast/06flotilla.html?hp
ASHDOD, Israel - Israel prevented a new attempt to break its blockade of Gaza on Saturday when its naval commandos boarded an Irish-owned vessel carrying humanitarian supplies and prominent activists and steered it to this Israeli port.
There were no attempts at resistance or reports of violence, the Israeli military said.
The interception, 23 miles off the coast, took place less than a week after an Israeli commando raid on a Gaza-bound Turkish ship turned violent, leaving nine Turkish activists dead and creating an international crisis that severely damaged Israeli-Turkish relations.
On Friday, the Israeli and Irish governments reached an agreement to unload the vessel's cargo in Ashdod, in southern Israel, and transport most of it to Gaza, but the group sponsoring both this ship and the Turkish flotilla, the Free Gaza Movement, rejected the deal. The 11 activists and 8 crew members on board the 1,200-ton cargo ship had made clear at the outset that they would not resist and that they had no arms. The passengers included Mairead Maguire, an Irish Nobel Peace laureate; Denis Halliday, a former United Nations assistant secretary general from Ireland; and Mohd Nizar bin Zakaria, a member of the Malaysia's Parliament.
It was not possible to reach the boat because communications were jammed but an Israeli journalist embedded with the navy filed an account of the takeover that confirmed the military's report of the events.
The journalist, Ron Ben-Yishai of Ynet News, said the takeover, shortly before 12:30 p.m., took five minutes and involved two missile boats carrying about 20 combat soldiers.
A spokeswoman for the Free Gaza group, Greta Berlin, told The Associated Press that the takeover was "another outrage to add to the nine murdered," and that the group would be sending more ships to Gaza. The group aims to end the three-year blockade of Gaza, which Israel says is intended to prevent the infiltration of weapons and militants into the Hamas-run territory.
The Israeli military said that the ship, Rachel Corrie, had been asked three times to dock in Ashdod, change course or face a naval takeover and that the requests had been ignored. The operation did not involve an airdrop as in the raid last Monday.
A military spokeswoman here, Lt. Col. Avital Leibovich, said the passengers would be questioned by the police, processed through customs and deported. Those who refused deportation could face jail, she said.
A senior naval commander said that the cargo would be inspected here and that anything that would not serve Hamas for weapons or defense would be sent over land to Gaza.
The commander, who spoke by telephone to journalists under military rules of anonymity, was asked why Israel did not agree to inspect the cargo at sea and then permit the boat to reach Gaza.
"It is not possible to inspect thousands of bags inside a vessel," he said. "You have to unload it in port and examine it there."
He said everything the boat was carrying, except items like cement that could be used to build bunkers, tunnels or rockets, would be delivered to Gaza.
Defending Israel's blockade of Gaza, which some experts in international law say is illegal, he said, "Everyone understands that the regime there is in a state of armed conflict with us and that with such material they can build more rockets."
Israel has been widely condemned for its blockade. After last Monday's raid, when Israeli commandos met fierce resistance and opened fire on the anti-blockade activists, Israel has said it is open to new ways to ensure that civilian goods can enter Gaza while meeting Israeli security needs. It is unclear what the new ways would include.
The Rachel Corrie, named after an American activist killed in 2003 as she tried to prevent an Israeli bulldozer from razing a Palestinian home, had been due to join the other boats in the flotilla last week but was delayed by technical problems.
Hamas, which rejects Israel's existence, won Palestinian parliamentary elections in early 2006. Israel then began to reduce trade and relations with Gaza. When Hamas militants seized an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, in a raid that June, Israel further reduced what was permitted in and out of the coastal territory.
A year later, after Hamas fighters drove the more moderate Fatah movement from Gaza, Israel imposed a full closure on Gaza, permitting in only basic humanitarian goods.
While international aid agencies say there is no starvation or acute medical crisis there, malnutrition is creeping up, water treatment and sewage are problematic and the economy has been almost entirely shut down by the blockade, which is also enforced by Egypt. The United States and other world powers say that the situation is untenable and that a new approach must be found.
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