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FRIDAY EVENING, JANUARY 7, 7:00 P.M. "THE FEVER"
SATURDAY AFTERNOON, JANUARY 8, 1:30 P.M. "MARX IN SOHO"
TWO PLAYS: Wallace Shawn's, "The Fever" and Howard Zinn's, "Marx in Soho."
We are pleased to present both, Wallace Shawn's, "The Fever" and Howard Zinn's, "Marx in Soho." The two plays are complementary. "The Fever" is a raw portrayal of a person who is coming to social consciousness. "Marx in Soho" humanizes the man whose ideas describe these fundamental realities of our societies' social structure.
Two benefit performances by veteran actor and sociologist, Jerry Levy. LevyArts' mission is to utilize theater and social theory to entertain, enlighten and stimulate a constructive and reflective dialogue about society.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 7, 7:00 P.M. "THE FEVER," a one-man play by Wallace Shawn
Wallace Shawn's play, "The Fever" explores what a sensitive, well educated, arts loving and consumption-driven man or woman of any age discovers when his/her life-affirming existence is related to the often brutal suffering of others. In the bathroom of a hotel our "anti-hero" feverishly defends and relentlessly attacks his own way of life. Inner voices and imagined characters fuel his fever as he narrates and often attempts to enact his story. Directed by Thomas Griffin.
Actor Jerry Levy rehearses "The Fever," a one-man play which was be presented Dec. 4 and 10-12 at the Hooker-Dunham Theater in Brattleboro. (Jon Potter/Reformer)
http://www.reformer.com/localnews/ci_16720592
SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 1:30 P.M. "MARX IN SOHO," a one-man play by Howard Zinn
Howard Zinn's play, "Marx in Soho" portrays the return of Karl Marx. Embedded in some secular afterlife where intellectuals, artists, and radicals are sent, Marx is given permission by the administrative committee to return to Soho London to have his say. But through a bureaucratic mix-up, he winds up in SOHO in New York. From there the audience is given a rare glimpse of a Marx seldom talked about; Marx the man. The play offers an entertaining and thorough introduction to a person who knows little about Marx's life, while also offering valuable insight to students of his ideas.
[THERE WILL BE A SHORT DISCUSSION PERIOD FOLLOWING THIS PRESENTATION]
Centro del Pueblo
474 Valencia Street
(Between 16th and 15th Streets, San Francisco. Wheelchair accessible.)
Reserved ticket discounts for each play: $10.00
Tickets at the door: $20.00
SPECIAL BARGAIN RATE: BOTH PLAYS FOR $15.00 PRE-REGISTRATION
No one turned away for lack of funds.
To reserve your discount tickets, email:
giobon@comcast.net or phone: 415-824-8730
(Your name will be placed on a the discount ticket list at the door.)
To benefit: Barrio Unido and Bay Area United Against War Newsletter, bauaw.org
"The Fever" presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Services Inc.
Marx in Soho by Howard Zinn (c) Howard Zinn Revocable Trust
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Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Table of Contents:
A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
B. VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO. ART, POETRY, ETC.
C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
D. ARTICLES IN FULL
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A. EVENTS AND ACTIONS
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The Campaign to Keep The San Francisco Civic Center Public
January 4, 2011 - 3:00 p.m.
Public Hearing - Board of Supervisors
Creation of a Civic Center Community Benefit District
Let Your Voice Be Heard
Speak Out at this Meeting... and/or
Write to your Supervisor -- See Bottom of Home Page
Or through the clerk at Board.of.Supervisors@sfgov.org
Please refer to File No.101525
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EVENT: JANUARY 4th, 7:00 pm
Where: AFSC, Quaker Meeting House, 65 9th St., San Francisco (Near Civic Center BART)
RESISTANCE TO DRONE WARFARE: MOBILIZING AGAINST DRONES AND ENDLESS WAR.
Everything you ever wanted to know about drone warfare but were afraid to ask.
As the Pentagon and CIA continue to wage endless war, the use of unmanned planes for
reconnaissance and missile attacks are increasingly the vehicle of choice. Since these drone attacks and targeted assassinations result in no American casualties, in the short term they lesson public outcry to our failed foreign policies. In the long run, because of high civilian casualties, they create more enemies and ultimately a more insecure world, as drone technology is being propogated around the world without serious oversight into the ethical ramifications.
- Find out about the current status of ACLU lawsuits on U.S. drone warfare,
- Learn the latest about drone technology and why we need to halt it in it's tracks.
- Discover all the many ways drone technology is an attack on our very freedoms.
- Hear report back from recent CodePink trips to Creech and Beale Airforce Bases and the Creech 14 Trial.
- Find out about the growing collaborative drone resistance and anti-militarism campaign and be inspired to join us soon at a military base near you! Monthly Beale vigils/protest already in progress: Dec. 29, Jan. 18.
(Sponsors include: Bay Area CodePink, Grandmothers Against War, AFSC SF, Peace Center of Nevada County and Sacramento VFP)
Informative videos, slideshows
Singer/songwriter Betsy Rose will lead us with inspirational singing throughout the evening. Learn the latest drone resistance songs and sing some of our old time favorites.
Speakers to include:
Michael Thurman, IVAW member and ex-military who was stationed at Beale AFB, the northern California control center for the main intelligence gathering drone, the Global Hawk. Michael will give us a perspective from an insider's experience.
Cindy Sheehan, Peace activist and mother of Casey Sheehan, who was killed in the Iraq War. Cindy has been outspoken and active in the citizen resistance to drone warfare. Cindy will discuss the need for collaboration in the peace movement to
build organized, ongoing, sustained protests at military bases to encourage war resistance and to halt drone warfare.
Other speakers still being confirmed.
Refreshments included, please bring something to share. Donations welcome.
For more info/questions:
Toby Blome, ratherbenyckeling@comcast.net 510-215-5974
Martha Hubert, mhubert7@earthlink.net 415-647-1119
Dec. 29th: Beale AFB, 2nd monthly action, Theme: Free Bradley Manning Now:
Flyers will be offered to the military as they enter and exit the base, educating them about Bradley Manning's illegal detention and inhumane treatment.
Jan. 18th: Beale AFB, 3rd monthly action, Contact us for details.
Jan. 23-27th: CodePink Caravan to Creech AFB: Support Creech 14 Trial and daily am and pm Creech AFB actions to Ground the Drones Now. Creech AFB is a main drone control center that controls the Predator and Reaper, the attack drones that fire the Hellfire missle that leads to high civilian deaths. (One hour north of Las Vegas)
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UNITEHERE! LOCAL 2
Rally and Picket @ Hilton Hotel Union Square
O'Farrell St, between Mason and Taylor
January 7, 2011, Friday, 11:30am-3pm
WWW.UNITEHERE2.ORG
SAVE THE DATES OF FUTURE ACTIONS AND EVENTS!
http://www.unitehere.org/
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FRIDAY EVENING, JANUARY 7, 7:00 P.M. "THE FEVER"
SATURDAY AFTERNOON, JANUARY 8, 1:30 P.M. "MARX IN SOHO"
TWO PLAYS: Wallace Shawn's, "The Fever" and Howard Zinn's, "Marx in Soho."
We are pleased to present both, Wallace Shawn's, "The Fever" and Howard Zinn's, "Marx in Soho." The two plays are complementary. "The Fever" is a raw portrayal of a person who is coming to social consciousness. "Marx in Soho" humanizes the man whose ideas describe these fundamental realities of our societies' social structure.
Two benefit performances by veteran actor and sociologist, Jerry Levy. LevyArts' mission is to utilize theater and social theory to entertain, enlighten and stimulate a constructive and reflective dialogue about society.
FRIDAY, JANUARY 7, 7:00 P.M. "THE FEVER," a one-man play by Wallace Shawn
Wallace Shawn's play, "The Fever" explores what a sensitive, well educated, arts loving and consumption-driven man or woman of any age discovers when his/her life-affirming existence is related to the often brutal suffering of others. In the bathroom of a hotel our "anti-hero" feverishly defends and relentlessly attacks his own way of life. Inner voices and imagined characters fuel his fever as he narrates and often attempts to enact his story. Directed by Thomas Griffin
Actor Jerry Levy rehearses "The Fever," a one-man play which was be presented Dec. 4 and 10-12 at the Hooker-Dunham Theater in Brattleboro. (Jon Potter/Reformer)
http://www.reformer.com/localnews/ci_16720592
SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 1:30 P.M. "MARX IN SOHO," a one-man play by Howard Zinn
Howard Zinn's play, "Marx in Soho" portrays the return of Karl Marx. Embedded in some secular afterlife where intellectuals, artists, and radicals are sent, Marx is given permission by the administrative committee to return to Soho London to have his say. But through a bureaucratic mix-up, he winds up in SOHO in New York. From there the audience is given a rare glimpse of a Marx seldom talked about; Marx the man. The play offers an entertaining and thorough introduction to a person who knows little about Marx's life, while also offering valuable insight to students of his ideas.
Centro del Pueblo
474 Valencia Street
(Between 16th and 15th Streets, San Francisco. Wheelchair accessible.)
Reserved ticket discounts for each play: $10.00
Tickets at the door: $20.00
No one turned away for lack of funds.
To reserve your discount tickets, email:
giobon@comcast.net
(Your name will be placed on a the discount ticket list at the door.)
To benefit: Barrio Unido and Bay Area United Against War Newsletter, bauaw.org
"The Fever" presented by special arrangement with Dramatists Play Services Inc.
Marx in Soho by Howard Zinn (c) Howard Zinn Revocable Trust
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NEXT MEETING OF THE UNITED NATIONAL ANTIWAR COMMITTEE (UNAC)
SUNDAY, JANUARY 9, 1:00 P.M.
CENTRO DEL PUEBLO
474 VALENCIA STREET
(BETWEEN 16TH AND 15TH STREETS, SAN FRANCISCO)
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ORGANIZING MEETING FOR MARCH 19 MARCH AND RALLY AGAINST THE WARS
The first organizing meeting for the SF March 19 march and rally will be on Sunday, Jan. 16 at 2pm at the Local 2 union hall, 209 Golden Gate Ave.
[See call for March 19 immediately below...bw]
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.AnswerCoalition.org/
info@AnswerCoalition.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-265-1948
Boston: 857-334-5084 | New York City: 212-694-8720 | Chicago: 773-463-0311
San Francisco: 415-821-6545| Los Angeles: 213-251-1025 | Albuquerque: 505-268-2488
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[StopFBI-National] Jan. 25: Protest FBI and Grand Jury Repression!
Join the National Day of Action on Tuesday, January 25, 2011
In December 2010, under the direction of U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, the FBI delivered 9 new subpoenas in Chicago to anti-war and Palestine solidarity activists - bringing the total number of subpoenaed activists to 23. Patrick Fitzgerald's office is ordering the 9 to appear at a Grand Jury in Chicago on January 25.
In response, we are calling for protests across the country and around the world to show our solidarity. Hundreds of organizations and thousands of people will be protesting at Federal Buildings, FBI offices, and other appropriate places, showing solidarity with the 9 newly subpoenaed activists and with all the activists whose homes were raided by the FBI.
Fitzgerald's expanding web of repression already includes the 14 subpoenaed when the FBI stormed into homes on September 24th, carting away phones, computers, notebooks, diaries and children's artwork. In October, all fourteen activists from Chicago, Minneapolis, and Michigan decided to not participate in the secret proceedings of Fitzgerald's Grand Jury. Each signed a letter invoking their Fifth Amendment rights. However, three women from Minneapolis - Tracy Molm, Anh Pham and Sarah Martin - are facing re-activated subpoenas. They are standing strong and we are asking you to stand with them - and with the newly subpoenaed nine activists - by protesting Patrick Fitzgerald and his use of the Grand Jury and FBI to repress anti-war and international solidarity activists.
Defend free speech! Defend the right to organize! Opposing war and occupation is not a crime!
**Tell Patrick Fitzgerald to call off the Grand Jury!
**Stop FBI raids and repression!
Please organize a local protest or picket in your city or on your campus and e-mail us at stopfbi@gmail.com to let us know what you have planned.
In Struggle,
--Tom Burke
The Committee to Stop FBI Repression
www.StopFBI.net - stopfbi@gmail.com - 612-379-3585
petition: http://www.stopfbi.net/petition
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Saturday, March 19, 2011:
Day of Action to Resist the War Machine!
8th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq
Scores of organizations coming together for worldwide protests
In San Francisco, the theme of the March 19 march and rally will be "No to War & Colonial Occupation - Fund Jobs, Healthcare & Education - Solidarity with SF Hotel Workers!" 12,000 SF hotel workers, members of UNITE-HERE Local 2, have been fighting for a new contract that protects their healthcare, wages and working conditions. The SF action will include a march to boycotted hotels in solidarity with the Lo. 2 workers. The first organizing meeting for the SF March 19 march and rally will be on Sunday, Jan. 16 at 2pm at the Local 2 union hall, 209 Golden Gate Ave.
In Los Angeles, the March 19 rally and march will gather at 12 noon at Hollywood and Vine.
March 19 is the 8th anniversary of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Iraq today remains occupied by 50,000 U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands of foreign mercenaries.
The war in Afghanistan is raging. The U.S. is invading and bombing Pakistan. The U.S. is financing endless atrocities against the people of Palestine, relentlessly threatening Iran and bringing Korea to the brink of a new war.
While the United States will spend $1 trillion for war, occupation and weapons in 2011, 30 million people in the United States remain unemployed or severely underemployed, and cuts in education, housing and healthcare are imposing a huge toll on the people.
Actions of civil resistance are spreading.
On Dec. 16, 2010, a veterans-led civil resistance at the White House played an important role in bringing the anti-war movement from protest to resistance. Enduring hours of heavy snow, 131 veterans and other anti-war activists lined the White House fence and were arrested. Some of those arrested will be going to trial, which will be scheduled soon in Washington, D.C.
Saturday, March 19, 2011, the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, will be an international day of action against the war machine.
Protest and resistance actions will take place in cities and towns across the United States. Scores of organizations are coming together. Demonstrations are scheduled for San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and more.
Click this link to endorse the March 19, 2011, Call to Action:
http://www2.answercoalition.org/site/Survey?SURVEY_ID=8062&ACTION_REQUIRED=URI_ACTION_USER_REQUESTS
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.AnswerCoalition.org/
info@AnswerCoalition.org
National Office in Washington DC: 202-265-1948
Boston: 857-334-5084 | New York City: 212-694-8720 | Chicago: 773-463-0311
San Francisco: 415-821-6545| Los Angeles: 213-251-1025 | Albuquerque: 505-268-2488
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Are you joining us on April 8 at the Pentagon in a climate chaos protest codenamed "Operation Disarmageddon?" It has been decided that affinity groups will engage in nonviolent autonomous actions. Do you have an affinity group? Do you have an idea for an action?
So far these are some of the suggested actions:
Send a letter to Sec. of War Robert Gates demanding a meeting to disclose the Pentagon's role in destroying the planet. He will ignore the letter, so a delegation would then go to the Metro Entrance to demand a meeting.
Use crime tape around some area of the Pentagon. The idea of crime/danger taping off the building could be done just outside the main Pentagon reservation entrance (intersection of Army/Navy) making the Alexandria PD the arresting authority (if needed) and where there is no ban on photography. Hazmat suits, a 'converted' truck (or other vehicle) could be part of the street theater. The area where I am thinking is also almost directly below I-95 and there is a bridge over the intersection - making a banner drop possible. Perhaps with the hazmat/street closure at ground level with a banner from above. If possible a coordinated action could be done at other Pentagon entrances and / or other war making institutions.
A procession onto the Pentagon reservation, without reservations, and set up a camp on one of the lawns surrounding The Pentagon. This contingent would reclaim the space in the name of peace and Mother Earth. This contingent would plan to stay there until The Pentagon is turned into a 100% green building using sustainable energy employing people who work for peace and the abolishment of war and life-affirming endeavors.
Bring a potted tree to be placed on the Pentagon's property to symbolize the need to radically reduce its environmental destructiveness.
Since the Pentagon is failing to return to the taxpayers the money it has misappropriated, "Foreclose on the Pentagon."
Banner hanging from a bridge.
Hand out copies of David Swanson's book WAR IS A LIE. Try to deliver a copy to Secretary of War Robert Gates.
Have short speeches in park between Pentagon and river; nice photo with Pentagon in background.
Die-in and chalk or paint outlines of victim's bodies everywhere that remain after the arrest to point to where real crimes are really being committed.
Establish command center, Peacecom? Paxcom? Put several people in white shirts and ties plus a few generals directing their armies for "Operation Disarmageddon."
Make the linkage between the tax dollars going to the Pentagon and war tax resistance. Use the WRL pie chart and carry banners "foreclose on war" and "money for green jobs not war jobs."
Hold a rally with representative speakers before going to the Pentagon Reservation. This would be an opportunity to speak out against warmongering and the Pentagon's role in destroying the environment.
As part of "Operation Disarmageddon," we will take a tree and plant it on the reservation. Our sign reads, "Plant trees not landmines."
Use crime tape on Army/Navy Drive to declare the Pentagon a crime scene. Do street theater there as well. Other affinity groups could go to selected entrances.
Establish a Peace Command Center at the Pentagon. Hold solidarity actions at federal buildings and corporate offices.
What groups have you contacted to suggest joining us at the Pentagon? See below for those who plan to be at the Pentagon on April 8 and for what groups have been contacted.
Kagiso,
Max
April 8, 2011 participants
Beth Adams
Ellen Barfield
Tim Chadwick
Joy First
Jeffrey Halperin
Malachy Kilbride
Max Obuszewski
David Swanson
April 8 Outreach
Beth Adams -- Earth First, Puppet Underground, Emma's Revolution, Joe Gerson-AFSC Cambridge, Code Pink(national via Lisa Savage in Maine), Vets for Peace, FOR, UCC Justice & Witness Ministries, Traprock, Nipponzan Myohoji Buddhist Order, (National-INt'l) Vets for Peace and WILPF, Pace e Bene, Christian Peace Witness & UCC Justice & Witness (Cleveland).
Tim Chadwick -- Brandywine, Lepoco, Witness against Torture, Vets for Peace (Thomas Paine Chapter Lehigh Valley PA), and Witness for Peace DC.
Jeffrey Halperin -- peace groups in Saratoga Spring, NY
Jack Lombardo - UNAC will add April 8 2011 to the Future Actions page on our blog, and make note in upcoming E-bulletins, but would appreciate a bit of descriptive text from the organizers and contact point to include when we do - so please advise ASAP! Also, we'll want to have such an announcement for our next print newsletter, which will be coming out in mid-December.
Max Obuszewski - Jonah House & Pledge of Resistance-Baltimore
Bonnie Urfer notified 351 individuals and groups on the Nukewatch list
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Endorse the call to action from the United National Antiwar Committee (UNAC)
Bring the Troops Home Now!
March and Rally
April 9th, 2011
New York City (Union Sq. at noon)and San Francisco (Time and place to be announced)
--Bring U.S. Troops Now: Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan! End the sanctions and stop the threats of war against the people of Iran, North Korea and Yemen. No to war and plunder of the people of Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa! End U.S. Aid to Israel! End U.S. Support to the Israeli Occupation of Palestine and the Siege of Gaza!
--Trillions for jobs, education, social services, an end to all foreclosures, quality single-payer healthcare for all, a massive conversion to sustainable and planet-saving energy systems and public transportation and reparations to the victims of U.S. terror at home and abroad.
--End FBI raids on antiwar, social justice, and international solidarity activists, an end to the racist persecution and prosecutions that ravage Muslim communities, an end to police terror in Black and Latino communities, full rights and legality for immigrants and an end to all efforts to repress and punish Wikileaks and its contributors and founders.
--Immediate end to torture, rendition, secret trials, drone bombings and death squads
To add your group's name to the endorser list, local, state or national, please contact:
United National Antiwar Committee
P.O. Box 123 Delmar, New York 12054
518-227-6947 UNACpeace.org unacpeace@gmail.com
email you endorsement to:
jmackler@lmi.net and cc: unacpeace@gmail.com
Initial List of Endorsers (List in formation)
* = For Identification only
Endorsers:
United National Antiwar Committee (UNAC)
Center for Constitutional Rights
Muslim Peace Coalition, USA
Voices for Creative Nonviolence
Veterans for Peace
International Action Center
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom
Fellowship of Reconciliation
Black Agenda Report
Code Pink
National Assembly to End U.S. Wars and Occupations
World Can't Wait
Campaign for Peace and Democracy
Project Salam
Canadian Peace Alliance
BAYAN USA
Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
Office of the Americas
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
Middle East Children's Alliance
Tariq Ali
Dr. Margaret Flowers PNHP *
Ramsey Clark
Ambassador Syed Ahsani, Former Ambassador from Pakistan
Ahmed Shawki, editor, International Socialist Review
Ali Abunimah, Palestinian American Journalist
Alice Sturn Sutter, Washington Heights Women in Black *
Al-Awda NY: the Palestine Right to Return Coalition
American Iranian Friendship Committee
American Muslim Task Force, Dallas/Ft. Worth
Ana Edwards, Chair, Sacred Ground Historical Reclamation Project - Richmond, Va.
Anthony Arnove, Author, "Iraq: The logic of Withdrawal"
Andy Griggs, Co-chair, California Teachers Association, Peace and Justice Caucus/UTLA-retired*
B. Ross Ashley, NDP Socialist Caucus, Canada *
Bail Out the People Movement
Bay Area United Against War Newsletter
Barrio Unido, San Francisco
Bashir Abu-Manneh
Baltimore Job Is a Right Campaign
Baltimore-Washington Area Peace Council, US Peace Council Chapter
Battered Mother's Custody Conference
Bethlehem Neighbors for Peace
Blanca Misse, Student Worker Action Team/UC Berkeley, Academic Workers for Democratic Union - UAW 2865 *
Blauvelt Dominican sisters Social Justice Ministry
Bob Hernandez, Chapter President, SEIU Local 1021*
Bonnie Weinstein - Bay Area United Against Wars Newsletter
Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights
Boston UNAC
Boston University Anti-War Coalition
Café Intifada - Los Angeles
Camilo E. Mejia, Iraq war veteran and resister
Campaign for a Mass Party of Labor
Carole Seligman - Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal *
Central Jersey Coalition Against Endless War
Chesapeake Citizens
Howard Terry Adcock, Colombia Support Network, Austin (TX) , Center for Peace and Justice *
Coalition for Justice - Blacksburg, Va.
Colombian Front for Socialism (FECOPES)
Columbus Campaign for Arms Control
Committee for Justice to Defend the Los Angeles 8
Dave Welsh, Delegate, San Francisco Labor Council
David Swanson, WarIsACrime.org
David Keil - Metro West Peace Action (MWPA) *
Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality - Virginia
Derrick O'Keefe, Co-chair StopWar.ca (Vancouver)
Detroit Committee to Stop FBI/Grand Jury Repression.
Doug Bullock, Albany County Legislator
Dr. Andy Coates PNHP *
DRUM (Desis Rising Up and Moving) - New York
Elaine Brower - national steering committee of World Can't Wait and anti-war military mom
Fight Imperialism Stand Together (FIST)
Freedom Road Socialist Organization
Freedom Socialist Party
Gilbert Achcar - Lebanese academic and writer
Guilderland Neighbors for Peace
Haiti Action Committee
Haiti Liberte
Hands off Venezuela
Howie Hawkins, Co-Chair, Green Party of New York State *
IIan Pappe, Director Exeter University, European Centre for Palestine Studies
International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal
International Socialist Organization
International support Haiti Network (ISHN)
Iraq Peace Action Coalition - Minneapolis
Italo-American Progressive Fraternal Society
Janata Dal (United), India
Jersey City Peace Movement
Jimmy Massey, Founding member of IVAW
John Pilger, Journalist and Documentary film maker
Journal Square Homeless Coalition
Justice for Fallujah Project
Kclabor.org
Karen Schieve, United Educators of San Francisco *
Kim Nguyen, Metrowest Peace Action (MWPA)*
Kwame Binta, The November Coalition
Larry Pinkvey, Black Activist Writers Guild
Lillie "Ms. K" Branch-Kennedy - Director, Resource Information Help for the Disadvantaged (R.I.H.D.), Virginia
Lisa Savage, CODEPINK Maine, Bring Our War $$ Home Coalition *
Los Angeles - Palestine Labor Solidarity Committee
Maggie Zhou - ClimateSOS *
Maine Veterans for Peace
Malu Aina, Hawaii
Maria Cristina Gutierrez, Exec. Director, Companeros del Barrio
Mark Roman, Waterville Area Bridges for Peace & Justice
Marlena Santoyo, Germantown Friends Meeting, Philadelphia, PA
Mary Flanagan, United Teachers of Richmond *
Masjid As-Salam Mosque, Albany, NY
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Michigan Emergency Committee Against Wars and Injustice
Mike Alewitz, Central Ct. State University *
Middle East Crisis Committee
Mobilization Against War and Occupation - Vancouver, Canada
Mobilization to Free Mumia
Moratorium NOW Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions and Utility Shut-offs
Muslim Solidarity Committee
Nancy Murray, Boston Coalition for Palestinian Rights*
Nancy Parten, Witness For Peace *
Nellie Bailey, Harlem Tenants Council *
New Abolitionist Movement
New England United
New Jersey Labor Against War
New Socialist Project
New York City Labor Against the War
New York Collective of Radical Educators
No More Victims
Nodutdol for Korean Community Development
Northeast Peace and Justice Action Coalition
Northern California Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism
Northwest Greens
NotMyPriorities.org
Nuestro Norte Es El Sur ((NUNO-SUR) Our North is the South
Omar Barghouti, Human rights activist (Palestine)
Pakistan USA Freedom Forum
Pakistani Trade Union Defense Campaign
Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People
Peace Action Maine
Peace Action Montgomery
Peacemakers of Schoharie County, New York
Peace and Freedom Party
People of Faith, Connecticut
Peninsula Peace & Justice, Blue Hill, Maine
Peninsula Peace and Justice Center - Palo Alto, Ca.
Peoples Video Network
Phil Wilayto, Editor, The Virginia Defender
Philadelphia Against War
Progressive Peace Coalition, Columbus Ohio
Protestobama.org
Queen Zakia Shabazz - Director, United Parents Against Lead National, Inc.
Radio Free Maine
Ralph Poynter, Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
Revolutionary Workers Group
Rhode Island Mobilization Committee
Roland Sheppard, Retired Business Agent Painters Local #4, San Francisco *
Rochester Against War
Ron Jacobs, writer
Saladin Muhammad - Founding Member, Black Workers for Justice
Sarah Roche-Mahdi, Code Pink Boston*
Saratoga Peace Alliance
Senior Action Network
Seth Farber, PhD., Institute of Mind and Behavior *
Sherry Wolf - International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, Author Sexuality and Socialism
Siege Busters Working Group
Socialist Action
Socialist Organizer
Socialist Viewpoint
Solidarity
Solidarity Committee of the Capital District
Staten Island Council for Peace & Justice
Steve Scher, Breen Party of NYC 26 AD *
Stewart Robinson, Stop Targeting Ohio Poor *
Stop the Wars Coalition, Boston
Tarak Kauff, Veterans for Peace
The Campaign Against Sanctions & Military Intervention in Iran
The Thomas Merton Center Antiwar Committee
Twin Cities Peace Campaign
Upper Hudson Peace Action
Virginia Defender
West Hartford Citizens for Peace and Justice
WESPAC Foundation
Women against Military Madness
Women in Black, Westchester
Women's International League for Peace and Freedom, Pittsburgh
Workers International League
Workers World Party
Youth for International Socialism
To remove yourself from the UNAC listserv, please send an email to:
UNAC-unsubscribe@lists.riseup.net
To add yourself to the UNAC listserv, please send an email to:
UNAC-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
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B. VIDEO, FILM, AUDIO. ART, POETRY, ETC.:
[Some of these videos are embeded on the BAUAW website:
http://bauaw.blogspot.com/ or bauaw.org ...bw]
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Song for Bradley Manning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_eood7DUwI
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Supermax Prison Cell Extraction - Maine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3jUfK5i_lQs&feature=player_embedded
Warning, this is an extremely brutal video. What do you think? Is this torture?
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Rachel Maddow- New GOP scapegoat- public workers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZ5byLyKPRI
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Did You Know?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cL9Wu2kWwSY
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These videos refer to what happened at the G-20 Summit in Toronto June 26-27 of this year. The importance of this is that police were caught on tape and later confirmed that they sent police into the demonstration dressed as "rioting" protesters. One cop was caught with a large rock in his hand. Clearly, this is proof of police acting as agent provocatours. And we should expect this to continue and escalate. That's why everyone should be aware of these facts...bw
police accused of attempting to incite violence at G20 summ
Protestors at Montebello are accusing police of trying to incite violence. Video on YouTube shows union officials confronting three men that were police officers dressing up as demonstrators. The union is demanding to know if the Prime Minister's Office was involved in trying to discredit the demonstrators.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWbgnyUCC7M
quebec police admit going undercover at montebello protests
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAfzUOx53Rg&feature=related
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The Wars in "Vietnamistan!" (The name Daniel Ellsberg gave to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as quoted from the video...bw)
Veterans for Peace White House Civil Disobedience to End War
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOde31QYbI0&feature=player_embedded
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John Pilger: Global Support for WikiLeaks is "Rebellion" Against U.S. Militarism, Secrecy
December 15, 2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzaclKj2B8M
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WikiLeaks founder concern for Manning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPrShC8qx4k&feature=player_embedded
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Newsnight: Bailed Julian Assange live interview (16Dec10)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NouXB5JACCw&feature=player_embedded
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Julian Assange: 'ongoing attempts to extradite me'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C30UhZDOO9A&feature=player_embedded
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Published on Thursday, December 16, 2010 by Countdown With Keith Olbermann
Quantico, the New Gitmo
http://www.commondreams.org/video/2010/12/16-0
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GO TO: http://hiphopandpolitics.wordpress.com/2010/12/12/day-3-of-historic-prison-strike-in-georgia-blacked-out-by-media-guards-committing-violence/
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Posted: December 12, 2010 by Davey D in 2010 Daily News, Political articles
On Thursday morning, December 9, 2010, thousands of Georgia prisoners refused to work, stopped all other activities and locked down in their cells in a peaceful protest for their human rights. The December 9 Strike became the biggest prisoner protest in the history of the United States. Thousands of men, from Augusta, Baldwin, Hancock, Hays, Macon, Smith and Telfair State Prisons, among others, initiated this strike to press the Georgia Department of Corrections ("DOC") to stop treating them like animals and slaves and institute programs that address their basic human rights. They set forth the following demands:
--A LIVING WAGE FOR WORK
--EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITIES
--DECENT HEALTH CARE
--AN END TO CRUEL AND UNUSUAL PUNISHMENTS
--DECENT LIVING CONDITIONS
--NUTRITIONAL MEALS
--VOCATIONAL AND SELF-IMPROVEMENT OPPORTUNITIES
--ACCESS TO FAMILIES
--JUST PAROLE DECISIONS
Despite that the prisoners' protest remained non-violent, the DOC violently attempted to force the men back to work-claiming it was "lawful" to order prisoners to work without pay, in defiance of the 13th Amendment's abolition of slavery. In Augusta State Prison, six or seven inmates were brutally ripped from their cells by CERT Team guards and beaten, resulting in broken ribs for several men, one man beaten beyond recognition. This brutality continues there. At Telfair, the Tactical Squad trashed all the property in inmate cells. At Macon State, the Tactical Squad has menaced the men for two days, removing some to the "hole," and the warden ordered the heat and hot water turned off. Still, today, men at Macon, Smith, Augusta, Hays and Telfair State Prisons say they are committed to continuing the strike. Inmate leaders, representing blacks, Hispanics, whites, Muslims, Rastafarians, Christians, have stated the men will stay down until their demands are addressed, one issuing this statement:
"...Brothers, we have accomplished a major step in our struggle...We must continue what we have started...The only way to achieve our goals is to continue with our peaceful sit-down...I ask each and every one of my Brothers in this struggle to continue the fight. ON MONDAY MORNING, WHEN THE DOORS OPEN, CLOSE THEM. DO NOT GO TO WORK. They cannot do anything to us that they haven't already done at one time or another. Brothers, DON'T GIVE UP NOW. Make them come to the table. Be strong. DO NOT MAKE MONEY FOR THE STATE THAT THEY IN TURN USE TO KEEP US AS SLAVES...."
When the strike began, prisoner leaders issued the following call: "No more slavery. Injustice in one place is injustice to all. Inform your family to support our cause. Lock down for liberty!"
Here's the link to our recent Hard Knock Radio interview w/ Elaine Brown on this historic strike
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/65925
READ Black Agenda Report Article at: http://www.BlackAgendaReport.com/?q=content/ga-prisoner-strike-continues-second-day-corporate-media-mostly-ignores-them-corrections-offi
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Domestic Espionage Alert - Houston PD to use surveillance drone in America!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpstrc15Ogg
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15 year old Tells Establishment to Stick-it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-U_gHUiL4P8&feature=player_embedded#
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POLICE KETTLING (STUDENT DEMONSTRATION against the EDUCATION CUTS), LONDON, 30-11-2010
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRV9h2dyBVU&NR=1
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Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVGqE726OAo&feature=player_embedded
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LOWKEY - TERRORIST? (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmBnvajSfWU
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Coal Ash: One Valley's Tale
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6E7h-DNvwx4&feature=player_embedded
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Flashmob: Cape Town Opera say NO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wElyrFOnKPk
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Video of massive French protest -- inspiring!
http://www.dailymotion.com/Talenceagauchevraiment
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"Don't F*** With Our Activists" - Mobilizing Against FBI Raid
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XyG3dIUGQvQ
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C. SPECIAL APPEALS AND ONGOING CAMPAIGNS
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Hunger strike of the Lucasville Uprising prisoners - starting Monday, Jan. 3
Posted on December 25, 2010 by denverabc
http://denverabc.wordpress.com/2010/12/25/hunger-strike-of-the-lucasville-uprising-prisoners-starting-monday-jan-3/
Dear family members, friends and supporters of the Lucasville uprising prisoners,
Siddique Abdullah Hasan, Bomani Shakur (Keith LaMar), Jason Robb and Namir Mateen (James Were) will start a hunger strike on Monday Jan. 3 to protest their 23-hour a day lock down for nearly 18 years. These four death-sentenced prisoners have been single-celled (in solitary) in conditions of confinement significantly more severe than the conditions experienced by the approximately 125 other death-sentenced prisoners at the supermax prison, Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown. They are completely isolated from any direct human contact, even during "recreation". They are restricted from certain kinds of good ordering including gold weather items for the almost unbearably cold condtions in the cells. They are denied access to computer databases they need in order to prepare their appeals. It has been made clear to them that the outcome of their annual "security level reviews" is pretermined, as one reads, "...regardless of your behavior while confined at OSP."
Prisoners whose death sentences were for heinous crimes are able to win privileges based on good behavior, but not the death-sentenced Lucasville uprising prisoners.
Meanwhile out in the world, the U.S. Supreme Court has granted additional due process rights to some of the Gauantanamo prisoners, some death-sentenced prisoners have been exonerated or had their sentences commuted, an evidentiary hearing was ordered for Troy Anthony Davis, and prisoners in Georgia are engaging in a non-violent strike for improvements in a wide range of conditions. So the four death-sentenced Lucasville uprising prinsoners have decided that being punished by the worst conditions allowable under the law has gone far enough, especially since their convictions were based on perjured testimony. They are innocent! They were wrongfully convicted! They are political prisoners. This farce has gone on far too long and their executions loom in the not too distant future. These brave men are ready to take another stand. We ask that you get ready to support them.
The hunger strike will proceed in an organized manner, with one prisoner, probably Bomani Shakur starting on Jan.3. The hunger strike becomes official after he has refused 9 meals. Therefore the plan is that 3 days later, Siddiquie Abdullah Hasan will start his hunger strike and 3 days later, Jason Robb will follow. Namir Mateen has a great willingness to participate and plans to take part to the extent that his diabetes will allow.
On the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Saturday, Jan. 15, we will be holding a press conference about the hunger strike and other issues pertaining to Ohio State Penitentiary. Details of time and location are being worked out. There will very likely be a brief rally near the gates of OSP, as we have in previous years to honor Dr. King, to protest the death penalty and to protest the farce of the Lucasville uprising convictions. There will probably be one or more vans and/or a car caravan to OSP for the event. Stay tuned for more information.
Please forward this email to other people you think would be interested, here in Ohio, around the country and around the world.
the Lucasville Uprising Freedom Network
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Call for EMERGENCY RESPONSE Action if Assange Indicted,
Dear Friends:
We write in haste, trying to reach as many of you as possible although the holiday break has begun.......This plan for an urgent "The Day After" demonstration is one we hope you and many, many more organizations will take up as your own, and mobilize for. World Can't Wait asks you to do all you can to spread it through list serves, Facebook, twitter, holiday gatherings.
Our proposal is very very simple, and you can use the following announcement to mobilize - or write your own....
ANY DAY NOW . . . IN THE EVENT THAT THE U.S. INDICTS JULIAN ASSANGE
An emergency public demonstration THE DAY AFTER any U.S. criminal indictment is announced against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Spread the word and call people to come out, across the whole range of movements and groups: anti-war, human rights, freedom of information/freedom of the press, peace, anti-torture, environmental, students and youth, radicals and revolutionaries, religious, civil liberties, teachers and educators, journalists, anti-imperialists, anti-censorship, anti-police state......
At the Federal Building in San Francisco, we'll form ourselves into a human chain "surrounding" the government that meets the Wikileaked truth with repression and wants to imprison and silence leakers, whistleblowers and truthtellers - when, in fact, these people are heroes. We'll say:
HANDS OFF WIKILEAKS! FREE JULIAN ASSANGE! FREE BRADLEY MANNING!
Join the HUMAN CHAIN AROUND THE FEDERAL BUILDING!
New Federal Building, 7th and Mission, San Francisco (nearest BART: Civic Center)
4:00-6:00 PM on The Day FOLLOWING U.S. indictment of Assange
Bring all your friends - signs and banners - bullhorns.
Those who dare at great risk to themselves to put the truth in the hands of the people - and others who might at this moment be thinking about doing more of this themselves -- need to see how much they are supported, and that despite harsh repression from the government and total spin by the mainstream media, the people do want the truth told.
Brad Manning's Christmas Eve statement was just released by his lawyer: "Pvt. Bradley Manning, the lone soldier who stands accused of stealing millions of pages secret US government documents and handing them over to secrets outlet WikiLeaks, wants his supporters to know that they've meant a lot to him. 'I greatly appreciate everyone's support and well wishes during this time,' he said in a Christmas Eve statement released by his lawyer...." Read more here:
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/mannings-message-christmas-eve-i-gr/
Demonstrations defending Wikileaks and Assange, and Brad Manning, have already been flowering around the world. Make it happen here too.
Especially here . . .
To join into this action plan, or with questions, contact World Can't Wait or whichever organization or listserve you received this message from.
World Can't Wait, SF Bay
415-864-5153
sf@worldcantwait.org
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Email received from Lynne Stewart:
12/19/10; 12:03pm
Dear Folks:
Some nuts and bolts and trivia,
1. New Address
Lynne Stewart
Federal Medical Center, Carswell
53504 - 054
Unit 2N
P.O. Box 27137
Fort Worth, TEXAS 76127
2. Visiting is very liberal but first I have to get people on my visiting list Wait til I or the lawyers let you know. The visits are FRI, SAT, SUN AND MON for 4 hours and on weekends 8 to 3. Bring clear plastic change purse with lots of change to buy from the machines. Brief Kiss upon arrival and departure, no touching or holding during visit (!!) On visiting forms it may be required that you knew me before I came to prison. Not a problem for most of you.
3. One hour time difference
4. Commissary Money is always welcome It is how I pay for the phone and for email. Also need it for a lot that prison doesn't supply in terms of food and "sundries" (pens!) A very big list that includes Raisins, Salad Dressing , ankle sox, mozzarella (definitely not from Antonys--more like a white cheddar, Sanitas Corn Chips but no Salsa etc. To add money, you do this by using Western Union and a credit card by phone or you can send a USPO money order or Business or Govt Check. The negotiable instruments (PAPER!) need to be sent to Federal Bureau of Prisons , 53504-054, Lynne Stewart, PO Box 474701, Des Moines Iowa 50947-001 (Payable to Lynne Stewart, 53504-054) They hold the mo or checks for 15 days. Western Union costs $10 but is within 2 hours. If you mail, your return address must be on the envelope. Unnecessarily complicated ? Of course, it's the BOP !)
5. Food is vastly improved. Just had Sunday Brunch real scrambled eggs, PORK sausage, Baked or home fried potatoes, Butter(sweet whipped M'God !!) Grapefruit juice Toast , orange. I will probably regain the weight I lost at MCC! Weighing against that is the fact that to eat we need to walk to another building (about at far as from my house to the F Train) Also included is 3 flights of stairs up and down. May try to get an elevator pass and try NOT to use it.
6. In a room with 4 bunks(small) about two tiers of rooms with same with "atrium" in middle with tv sets and tables and chairs. Estimate about 500 on Unit 2N and there are 4 units. Population Black, Mexicano and other spanish speaking (all of whom iron their underwear, Marta), White, Native Americans (few), no orientals or foreign speaking caucasians--lots are doing long bits, victims of drugs (meth etc) and boyfriends. We wear army style (khaki) pants with pockets tee shirts and dress shirts long sleeved and short sleeved. When one of the women heard that I hadn't ironed in 40 years, they offered to do the shirts for me. (This is typical of the help I get--escorted to meals and every other protection, explanations, supplies, etc. Mostly from white women.) One drawback is not having a bathroom in the room---have to go about 75 yards at all hours of the day and night --clean though.
7. Final Note--the sunsets and sunrises are gorgeous, the place is very open and outdoors there are pecan trees and birds galore (I need books for trees and birds (west) The full moon last night gladdened my heart as I realized it was shining on all of you I hold dear.
Love Struggle
Lynne
The address of her Defense Committee is:
Lynne Stewart Defense Committee
1070 Dean Street
Brooklyn, New York 11216
For further information:
718-789-0558 or 917-853-9759
Please make a generous contribution to her defense.
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Help end the inhumane treatment of Bradley Manning!
Bradley Manning Support Network. December 22, 2010
The Marine Brig at Quantico, Virginia is using "injury prevention" as a vehicle to inflict extreme pre-trial punishment on accused Wikileaks whistleblower Army PFC Bradley Manning (photo right). These "maximum conditions" are not unheard-of during an inmate's first week at a military confinement facility, but when applied continuously for months and with no end in sight they amount to a form of torture. Bradley, who just turned 23-years-old last week, has been held in solitary confinement since his arrest in late May. We're now turning to Bradley's supporters worldwide to directly protest, and help bring a halt to, the extremely punitive conditions of Bradley's pre-trial detention.
We need your help in pressing the following demands:
End the inhumane, degrading conditions of pre-trial confinement and respect Bradley's human rights. Specifically, lift the "Prevention of Injury (POI) watch order". This would allow Bradley meaningful physical exercise, uninterrupted sleep during the night, and a release from isolation. We are not asking for "special treatment". In fact, we are demanding an immediate end to the special treatment.
Quantico Base Commander
Colonel Daniel Choike
3250 Catlin Ave, Quantico VA 22134
+1-703-784-2707 (phone)
Quantico Brig Commanding Officer
CWO4 James Averhart
3247 Elrod Ave, Quantico VA 22134
+1-703-784-4242 (fax)
Background
In the wake of an investigative report last week by Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com giving evidence that Bradley Manning was subject to "detention conditions likely to create long-term psychological injuries", Bradley's attorney, David Coombs, published an article at his website on Saturday entitled "A Typical Day for PFC Bradley Manning". Mr. Coombs details the maximum custody conditions that Bradley is subject to at the Quantico Confinement Facility and highlights an additional set of restrictions imposed upon him under a Prevention of Injury (POI) watch order.
Usually enforced only through a detainee's first week at a confinement facility, or in cases of violent and/or suicidal inmates, the standing POI order has severely limited Manning's access to exercise, daylight and human contact for the past five months. The military's own psychologists assigned to Quantico have recommended that the POI order and the extra restrictions imposed on Bradley be lifted.
Despite not having been convicted of any crime or even yet formally indicted, the confinement regime Bradley lives under includes pronounced social isolation and a complete lack of opportunities for meaningful exercise. Additionally, Bradley's sleep is regularly interrupted. Coombs writes: "The guards are required to check on Manning every five minutes [...] At night, if the guards cannot see PFC Manning clearly, because he has a blanket over his head or is curled up towards the wall, they will wake him in order to ensure he is okay."
Denver Nicks writes in The Daily Beast that "[Bradley Manning's] attorney [...] says the extended isolation - now more than seven months of solitary confinement - is weighing on his client's psyche. [...] Both Coombs and Manning's psychologist, Coombs says, are sure Manning is mentally healthy, that there is no evidence he's a threat to himself, and shouldn't be held in such severe conditions under the artifice of his own protection."
In an article to be published at Firedoglake.com later today, David House, a friend of Bradley's who visits him regularly at Quantico, says that Bradley "has not been outside or into the brig yard for either recreation or exercise in four full weeks. He related that visits to the outdoors have been infrequent and sporadic for the past several months."
In an average military court martial situation, a defense attorney would be able to bring these issues of pre-trial punishment to the military judge assigned to the case (known as an Article 13 hearing). However, the military is unlikely to assign a judge to Bradley's case until the pre-trial Article 32 hearing is held (similar to an arraignment in civilian court), and that is not expected until February, March, or later-followed by the actual court martial trial months after that. In short, you are Bradley's best and most immediate hope.
What can you do?
Contact the Marine Corps officers above and respectfully, but firmly, ask that they lift the extreme pre-trial confinement conditions against Army PFC Bradley Manning.
Forward this urgent appeal for action widely.
Sign the "Stand with Brad" public petition and letter campaign at www.standwithbrad.org - Sign online, and we'll mail out two letters on your behalf to Army officials.
Donate to Bradley's defense fund at www.couragetoresist.org/bradley
References:
"The inhumane conditions of Bradley Manning's detention", by Glenn Greenwald for Salon.com, 15 December 2010
"A Typical Day for PFC Bradley Manning", by attorney David E. Coombs, 18 December 2010
"Bradley Manning's Life Behind Bars", by Denver Nicks for the Daily Beast, 17 December 2010
Bradley Manning Support Network
Courage To Resist
484 Lake Park Ave. #41
Oakland, CA 94610
510-488-3559
couragetoresist.org
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KOREA: Emergency Response Actions Needed
The United National Antiwar Committee urges the antiwar movement to begin to plan now for Emergency 5pm Day-of or Day-after demonstrations, should fighting break out on the Korean Peninsula or its surrounding waters.
As in past war crisis and U.S. attacks we propose:
NYC -- Times Square, Washington, D.C. -- the White House
In Many Cities - Federal Buildings
Many tens of thousands of U.S., Japanese and South Korean troops are mobilized on land and on hundreds of warships and aircraft carriers. The danger of a general war in Asia is acute.
China and Russia have made it clear that the scheduled military maneuvers and live-fire war "exercises" from an island right off the coast of north Korea (the Democratic People's Republic of Korea) by South Korea are very dangerous. The DPRK has made it clear that they consider these live-fire war exercises to be an act of war and they will again respond if they are again fired on.
The U.S. deployment of thousands of troops, ships, and aircraft in the area while South Korea is firing thousands of rounds of live ammunition and missiles is an enormously dangerous provocation, not only to the DPRK but to China. The Yellow Sea also borders China. The island and the waters where the war maneuvers are taking place are north of the Korean Demilitarized Zone and only eight miles from the coast of the DPRK.
On Sunday, December 19 in a day-long emergency session, the U.S. blocked in the UN Security Council any actions to resolve the crisis.
UNAC action program passed in Albany at the United National Antiwar Conference, July 2010 of over 800 antiwar, social justice and community organizations included the following Resolution on Korea:
15. In solidarity with the antiwar movements of Japan and Korea, each calling for U.S. Troops to Get Out Now, and given the great increase in U.S. military preparations against the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, National Peace Conference participants will organize immediate protests following any attack by the U.S. on Korea. U.S. war preparations include stockpiling hundreds of bunker-busters and conducting major war games near the territorial waters of China and Korea. In keeping with our stand for the right of self-determination and our demand of Out Now, the National Peace Conference calls for Bringing All U.S. Troops Home Now!
UNAC urges the whole antiwar movement to begin to circulate messages alerts now in preparation. Together let's join together and demand: Bring all U.S. Troops Home Now! Stop the Wars and the Threats of War.
The United National Antiwar Committee, www.UNACpeace.org
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In earnest support of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange:
http://readersupportednews.org/julian-assange-petition
rsn:Petition
We here undersigned express our support for the work and integrity of Julian Assange. We express concern that the charges against the WikiLeaks founder appear too convenient both in terms of timing and the novelty of their nature.
We call for this modern media innovator, and fighter for human rights extraordinaire, to be afforded the same rights to defend himself before Swedish justice that all others similarly charged might expect, and that his liberty not be compromised as a courtesy to those governments whose truths he has revealed have embarrassed.
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GAP Inc: End Your Relationship with Supplier that Allows Workers to be Burned Alive
http://humanrights.change.org/blog/view/workers_burned_alive_making_clothes_for_the_gap
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GEORGIA PRISON STRIKE PETITION:
http://ca.defendpubliceducation.org/?p=716
A handful of East Bay organizations have put together an open letter to the strikers. If your organization would like to become a signatory, you can email me to put you on it you and can do so here.
A Letter to the Prisoners on Strike in Georgia,
We, as members of activist and community organizations in the Bay Area of California, send our support for your strike against the terrible conditions you face in Georgia's prisons. We salute you for making history as your strike has become the largest prison strike in the history of this nation. As steadfast defenders of human and civil rights, we recognize the potential that your action has to improve the lives of millions subject to inhumane treatment in correctional facilities across this country.
Every single day, prisoners face the same deplorable and unnecessarily punitive conditions that you have courageously decided to stand up against. For too long, this nation has chosen silence in the face of the gross injustices that our brothers and sisters in prison are subjected to. Your fight against these injustices is a necessary and righteous struggle that must be carried out to victory.
We have heard about the brutal acts that Georgia Department of Corrections officers have been resorting to as a means of breaking your protest and we denounce them. In order to put a stop to the violence to which you have been subjected, we are in the process of contacting personnel at the different prison facilities and circulating petitions addressed to the governor and the Georgia DOC. We will continue to expose the DOC's shameless physical attacks on you and use our influence to call for an immediate end to the violence.
Here, in the Bay Area, we are all too familiar with the violence that this system is known to unleash upon our people. Recently, our community erupted in protest over the killing of an unarmed innocent black man named Oscar Grant by transit police in Oakland. We forced the authorities to arrest and convict the police officer responsible for Grant's murder by building up a mass movement. We intend to win justice with you and stop the violent repression of your peaceful protest in the same way-by appealing to the power and influence of the masses.
We fully support all of your demands. We strongly identify with your demand for expanded educational opportunities. In recent years, our state government has been initiating a series of massive cuts to our system of public education that continue to endanger our right to a quality, affordable education; in response, students all across our state have stood up and fought back just as you are doing now. In fact, students and workers across the globe have begun to organize and fight back against austerity measures and the corresponding violence of the state. Just in the past few weeks in Greece, Ireland, Spain, England, Italy, Haiti, Puerto Rico - tens and hundreds of thousands of students and workers have taken to the streets. We, as a movement, are gaining momentum and we do so even more as our struggles are unified and seen as interdependent. At times we are discouraged; it may seem insurmountable, but in the words of Malcolm X, "Power in defense of freedom is greater than power on behalf of tyranny and oppression."
You have inspired us. News of your strike, from day one, has served to inspire and invigorate hundreds of students and community organizers here in Berkeley and Oakland alone. We are especially inspired by your ability to organize across color lines and are interested in hearing an account from the inside of how this process developed and was accomplished. You have also encouraged us to take more direct actions toward radical prison reform in our own communities, namely Santa Rita County Jail and San Quentin Prison. We are now beginning the process of developing a similar set of demands regarding expediting processing (can take 20-30 hours to get a bed, they call it "bullpen therapy"), nutrition, visiting and phone calls, educational services, legal support, compensation for labor and humane treatment in general. We will also seek to unify the education and prison justice movements by collaborating with existing organizations that have been engaging in this work.
We echo your call: No more Slavery! Injustice to one is injustice to all!
In us, students, activists, the community members and people of the Bay Area, you have an ally. We will continue to spread the news about your cause all over the Bay Area and California, the country and world. We pledge to do everything in our power to make sure your demands are met.
In solidarity,
UC-Berkeley Student Worker Action Team (SWAT) _ Community Action Project (CAP) _ La Voz de los Trabajadores _ Laney College Student Unity & Power (SUP) _ Laney College Black Student Union (BSU)
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In Solidarity
By Kevin Cooper
On Thursday, December 9, 2010, the inmates in the state of Georgia sat down in unity and peace in order to stand up for their human rights.
African American, White, and Latino inmates put aside their differences, if they had any, and came together as a 'People' fighting for their humanity in a system that dehumanizes all of them.
For this they have my utmost respect and appreciation and support. I am in true solidarity with them all!
For further information about Kevin Cooper:
http://www.savekevincooper.org/
http://www.savekevincooper.org/pages/essays_content.html?ID=255
Reasonable doubts about executing Kevin Cooper
Chronicle Editorial
Monday, December 13, 2010
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/12/13/EDG81GP0I7.DTL
Death penalty -- Kevin Cooper is Innocent! Help save his life from San Quentin's death row!
URGENT ACTION APPEAL
- From Amnesty International USA
17 December 2010
Click here to take action online:
http://takeaction.amnestyusa.org/siteapps/advocacy/index.aspx?c=jhKPIXPCIoE&b=2590179&template=x.ascx&action=15084
To learn about recent Urgent Action successes and updates, go to
http://www.amnestyusa.org/iar/success
For a print-friendly version of this Urgent Action (PDF):
http://www.amnestyusa.org/actioncenter/actions/uaa25910.pdf
Kevin Cooper, who has been on death row in California for 25 years, is asking the outgoing state governor to commute his death sentence before leaving office on 2 January 2011. Kevin Cooper has consistently maintained his innocence of the four murders for which he was sentenced to death. Since 2004, a dozen federal appellate judges have indicated their doubts about his guilt.
On the night of 4 June 1983, Douglas and Peggy Ryen were hacked and stabbed to death in their home in Chino Hills, California, along with their 10-year-old daughter Jessica and 11-year-old houseguest Christopher Hughes. The couple's eight-year-old son, Joshua Ryen, was seriously wounded, but survived. He told investigators that the attackers were three or four white men. In hospital, he saw a picture of Kevin Cooper on television and said that Cooper, who is black, was not the attacker. However, the boy's later testimony - that he only saw one attacker - was introduced at the 1985 trial. The case has many other troubling aspects which call into question the reliability of the state's case and its conduct in obtaining this conviction (see http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/013/2004/en).
Kevin Cooper was less than eight hours from execution in 2004 when the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit granted a stay and sent the case back to the District Court for testing on blood and hair evidence, including to establish if the police had planted evidence. The District Court ruled in 2005 that the testing had not proved Kevin Cooper's innocence - his lawyers (and five Ninth Circuit judges) maintain that it did not do the testing as ordered. Nevertheless, in 2007, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit upheld the District Court's ruling. One of the judges described the result as "wholly discomforting" because of evidence tampering and destruction, but noted that she was constrained by US law, which places substantial obstacles in the way of successful appeals.
In 2009, the Ninth Circuit refused to have the whole court rehear the case. Eleven of its judges dissented. One of the dissenting opinions, running to more than 80 pages and signed by five judges, warned that "the State of California may be about to execute an innocent man". On the question of the evidence testing, they said: "There is no way to say this politely. The district court failed to provide Cooper a fair hearing and...imposed unreasonable conditions on the testing" ordered by the Ninth Circuit. They pointed to a test result that, if valid, indicated that evidence had been planted, and they asserted that the district court had blocked further scrutiny of this issue.
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger had already denied clemency in 2004 when the Ninth Circuit issued its stay. At the time, he had said that the "courts have reviewed this case for more than eighteen years. Evidence establishing his guilt is overwhelming". Clearly, a notable number of federal judges disagree. The five judges in the Ninth Circuit's lengthy dissent in 2009 stated that the evidence of Kevin Cooper's guilt at his trial was "quite weak" and concluded that he "is probably innocent of the crimes for which the State of California is about to execute him".
BACKGROUND INFORMATION
On 2 June 1983, two days before the Chino Hills murders, Kevin Cooper had escaped from a minimum security prison, where he was serving a four-year term for burglary, and had hidden in an empty house near the Ryen home for two nights. After his arrest, he became the focus of public hatred. Outside the venue of his preliminary hearing, for example, people hung an effigy of a monkey in a noose with a sign reading "Hang the Nigger!!" At the time of the trial, jurors were confronted by graffiti declaring "Die Kevin Cooper" and "Kevin Cooper Must Be Hanged". Kevin Cooper pleaded not guilty - the jury deliberated for seven days before convicting him - and he has maintained his innocence since then. Since Governor Schwarzenegger denied clemency in 2004, more evidence supporting Kevin Cooper's claim of innocence has emerged, including for example, testimony from three witnesses who say they saw three white men near the crime scene on the night of the murders with blood on them.
In 2007, Judge Margaret McKeown was the member of the Ninth Circuit's three-judge panel who indicated that she was upholding the District Court's 2005 ruling despite her serious concerns. She wrote: "Significant evidence bearing on Cooper's guilt has been lost, destroyed or left unpursued, including, for example, blood-covered coveralls belonging to a potential suspect who was a convicted murderer, and a bloody t-shirt, discovered alongside the road near the crime scene. The managing criminologist in charge of the evidence used to establish Cooper's guilt at trial was, as it turns out, a heroin addict, and was fired for stealing drugs seized by the police. Countless other alleged problems with the handling and disclosure of evidence and the integrity of the forensic testing and investigation undermine confidence in the evidence". She continued that "despite the presence of serious questions as to the integrity of the investigation and evidence supporting the conviction, we are constrained by the requirements of the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (AEDPA)". Judge McKeown wrote that "the habeas process does not account for lingering doubt or new evidence that cannot leap the clear and convincing hurdle of AEDPA. Instead, we are left with a situation in which confidence in the blood sample is murky at best, and lost, destroyed or tampered evidence cannot be factored into the final analysis of doubt. The result is wholly discomforting, but one that the law demands".
Even if it is correct that the AEDPA demands this result, the power of executive clemency is not so confined. Last September, for example, the governor of Ohio commuted Kevin Keith's death sentence because of doubts about his guilt even though his death sentence had been upheld on appeal (see http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR51/079/2010/en). Governor Ted Strickland said that despite circumstantial evidence linking the condemned man to the crime, "many legitimate questions have been raised regarding the evidence in support of the conviction and the investigation which led to it. In particular, Mr Keith's conviction relied upon the linking of certain eyewitness testimony with certain forensic evidence about which important questions have been raised. I also find the absence of a full investigation of other credible suspects troubling." The same could be said in the case of Kevin Cooper, whose lawyer is asking Governor Schwarzenegger to commute the death sentence before he leaves office on 2 January 2011. While Kevin Cooper does not yet have an execution date, it is likely that one will be set, perhaps early in 2011.
More than 130 people have been released from death rows on grounds of innocence in the USA since 1976. At the original trial in each case, the defendant had been found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. It is clear beyond any dispute that the USA's criminal justice system is capable of making mistakes. International safeguards require that the death penalty not be imposed if guilt is not "based upon clear and convincing evidence leaving no room for an alternative explanation of the facts". Amnesty International opposes all executions regardless of the seriousness of the crime or the guilt or innocence of the condemned.
California has the largest death row in the USA, with more than 700 prisoners under sentence of death out of a national total of some 3,200. California accounts for 13 of the 1,234 executions in the USA since judicial killing resumed there in 1977. There have been 46 executions in the USA this year. The last execution in California was in January 2006.
RECOMMENDED ACTION: Please send appeals to arrive as quickly as possible:
- Acknowledging the seriousness of the crime for which Kevin Cooper was sentenced to death;
- Urging Governor Schwarzenegger to take account of the continuing doubts about Kevin Cooper's guilt, including as expressed by more than 10 federal judges since 2004, when executive clemency was last requested;
- Urging the Governor to commute Kevin Cooper's death sentence.
APPEALS TO:
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
State Capitol Building, Sacramento, CA 95814, USA
Fax: 1 916-558-3160
Email: governor@governor.ca.gov or via http://gov.ca.gov/interact#contact
Salutation : Dear Governor
PLEASE SEND APPEALS IMMEDIATELY.
Check with the AIUSA Urgent Action office if sending appeals after 2 January 2011.
Tip of the Month:
Write as soon as you can. Try to write as close as possible to the date a case is issued.
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Amnesty International is a worldwide grassroots movement that promotes and defends human rights.
This Urgent Action may be reposted if kept intact, including contact information and stop action date (if applicable). Thank you for your help with this appeal.
Urgent Action Network
Amnesty International USA
600 Pennsylvania Ave SE 5th fl
Washington DC 20003
Email: uan@aiusa.org
http://www.amnestyusa.org/urgent/
Phone: 202.509.8193
Fax: 202.675.8566
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Free the Children of Palestine!
Sign Petition:
http://www.gopetition.com/petition/41467.html
Published by Al-Awda, Palestine Right to Return Coalition on Dec 16, 2010
Category: Children's Rights
Region: GLOBAL
Target: President Obama
Web site: http://www.al-awda.org
Background (Preamble):
According to Israeli police, 1200 Palestinian children have been arrested, interrogated and imprisoned in the occupied city of Jerusalem alone this year. The youngest of these children was seven-years old.
Children and teen-agers were often dragged out of their beds in the middle of the night, taken in handcuffs for questioning, threatened, humiliated and many were subjected to physical violence while under arrest as part of an ongoing campaign against the children of Palestine. Since the year 2000, more than 8000 have been arrested by Israel, and reports of mistreatment are commonplace.
Further, based on sworn affidavits collected in 2009 from 100 of these children, lawyers working in the occupied West Bank with Defense Children International, a Geneva-based non governmental organization, found that 69% were beaten and kicked, 49% were threatened, 14% were held in solitary confinement, 12% were threatened with sexual assault, including rape, and 32% were forced to sign confessions written in Hebrew, a language they do not understand.
Minors were often asked to give names and incriminate friends and relatives as a condition of their release. Such institutionalized and systematic mistreatment of Palestinian children by the state of Israel is a violation international law and specifically contravenes the Convention on the Rights of the Child to which Israel is supposedly a signatory.
Petition:
http://www.gopetition.com/petition/41467.html
We, the undersigned call on US President Obama to direct Israel to
1. Stop all the night raids and arrests of Palestinian Children forthwith.
2. Immediately release all Palestinian children detained in its prisons and detention centers.
3. End all forms of systematic and institutionalized abuse against all Palestinian children.
4. Implement the full restoration of Palestinian children's rights in accordance with international law including, but not limited to, their right to return to their homes of origin, to education, to medical and psychological care, and to freedom of movement and expression.
The US government, which supports Israel to the tune of billions of taxpayer dollars a year while most ordinary Americans are suffering in a very bad economy, is bound by its laws and international conventions to cut off all aid to Israel until it ends all of its violations of human rights and basic freedoms in a verifiable manner.
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"Secret diplomacy is a necessary tool for a propertied minority, which is compelled to deceive the majority in order to subject it to its interests."..."Publishing State Secrets" By Leon Trotsky
Documents on Soviet Policy, Trotsky, iii, 2 p. 64
November 22, 1917
http://www.marxists.org/history/ussr/government/foreign-relations/1917/November/22.htm
FREE JULIAN ASSANGE! FREE BRADLEY MANNING! STOP THE FBI RAIDS NOW!
MONEY FOR HUMAN NEEDS NOT WAR!
To understand how much a trillion dollars is, consider looking at it in terms of time:
A million seconds would be about eleven-and-one-half days; a billion seconds would be 31 years; and a trillion seconds would be 31,000 years!
From the novel "A Dark Tide," by Andrew Gross
Now think of it in terms of U.S. war dollars and bankster bailouts!
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MIDDLE EAST CHILDREN'S ALLIANCE
Your Year-End Gift for the Children
Double your impact with this matching gift opportunity!
Dear Friend of the Children,
You may have recently received a letter from me via regular mail with a review of the important things you helped MECA accomplish for the children in 2010, along with a special Maia Project decal.
My letter to you also included an announcement of MECA's first ever matching gift offer. One of our most generous supporters will match all gifts received by December 31. 2010 to a total of $35,000.
So, whether you are a long time supporter, or giving for the first-time... Whether you can give $10 or $1,000... This is a unique opportunity to double the impact of your year-end gift!
Your contribution will be matched dollar for dollar, making it go twice as far so that MECA can:
* Install twenty more permanent drinking water units in Gaza schools though our Maia Project
* Continue our work with Playgrounds for Palestine to complete a community park in the besieged East Jerusalem neighborhood of Silwan, where violent Israeli settlers attack children and adults, Israeli police arrest the victims, and the city conducts "administrative demolitions" of Palestinian homes.
* Send a large medical aid shipment to Gaza.
* Renew support for "Let the Children Play and Heal," a program in Gaza to help children cope with trauma and grief through arts programs, referrals to therapists, educational materials for families and training for mothers.
Your support for the Middle East Children's Alliance's delivers real, often life-saving, help. And it does more than that. It sends a message of hope and solidarity to Palestine-showing the people that we are standing beside them as they struggle to bring about a better life for their children.
With warm regards,
Barbara Lubin
Founder and Director
P.S. Please give as much as you possible can, and please make your contribution now, so it will be doubled. Thank you so much.
P.S.S. If you didn't receive a MAIA Project decal in the mail or if you would like another one, please send an email message to meca@mecaforpeace.org with "MAIA Project decal" in the subject line when you make your contribution.
To make a gift by mail send to:
MECA, 1101 8th Street, Berkley, CA 94710
To make a gift by phone, please call MECA's off at: 510-548-0542
To "GO PAPERLESS" and receive all your MECA communications by email, send a message to meca@mecaforpeace.org with "Paperless" in the subject line.
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For Immediate Release
Antiwar movement supports Wikileaks and calls for and independent, international investigation of the crimes that have been exposed. We call for the release of Bradley Manning and the end to the harassment of Julian Assange.
12/2/2010
For more information: Joe Lombardo, 518-281-1968,
UNACpeace@gmail.org, NationalPeaceConference.org
Antiwar movement supports Wikileaks and calls for and independent, international investigation of the crimes that have been exposed. We call for the release of Bradley Manning and the end to the harassment of Julian Assange.
The United National Antiwar Committee (UNAC) calls for the release of Bradley Manning who is awaiting trial accused of leaking the material to Wikileaks that has been released over the past several months. We also call for an end to the harassment of Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks and we call for an independent, international investigation of the illegal activity exposed through the material released by Wikileaks.
Before sending the material to Wikileaks, Bradley Manning tried to get his superiors in the military to do something about what he understood to be clear violations of international law. His superiors told him to keep quiet so Manning did the right thing; he exposed the illegal activity to the world.
The Afghan material leaked earlier shows military higher-ups telling soldiers to kill enemy combatants who were trying to surrender. The Iraq Wikileaks video from 2007 shows the US military killing civilians and news reporters from a helicopter while laughing about it. The widespread corruption among U.S. allies has been exposed by the most recent leaks of diplomatic cables. Yet, instead of calling for change in these policies, we hear only a call to suppress further leaks.
At the national antiwar conference held in Albany in July, 2010, at which UNAC was founded, we heard from Ethan McCord, one of the soldiers on the ground during the helicopter attack on the civilians in Iraq exposed by Wikileaks (see: http://www.mediasanctuary.org/movie/1810 ). He talked about removing wounded children from a civilian vehicle that the US military had shot up. It affected him so powerfully that he and another soldier who witnessed the massacre wrote a letter of apology to the families of the civilians who were killed.
We ask why this material was classified in the first place. There were no state secrets in the material, only evidence of illegal and immoral activity by the US military, the US government and its allies. To try to cover this up by classifying the material is a violation of our right to know the truth about these wars. In this respect, Bradley Manning and Julian Assange should be held up as heroes, not hounded for exposing the truth.
UNAC calls for an end to the illegal and immoral policies exposed by Wikileaks and an immediate end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and an end to threats against Iran and North Korea.
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Courage to Resist needs your support
By Jeff Paterson, Courage to Resist.
It's been quite a ride the last four months since we took up the defense of accused WikiLeaks whistle-blower Bradley Manning. Since then, we helped form the Bradley Manning Support Network, established a defense fund, and have already paid over half of Bradley's total $100,000 in estimated legal expenses.
Now, I'm asking for your support of Courage to Resist so that we can continue to support not only Bradley, but the scores of other troops who are coming into conflict with military authorities due to reasons of conscience.
Please donate today:
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38590
"Soldiers sworn oath is to defend and support the Constitution. Bradley Manning has been defending and supporting our Constitution."
-Dan Ellsberg, Pentagon Papers whistle-blower
Iraq War over? Afghanistan occupation winding down? Not from what we see. Please take a look at, "Soldier Jeff Hanks refuses deployment, seeks PTSD help" in our December newsletter. Jeff's situation is not isolated. Actually, his story is only unique in that he has chosen to share it with us in the hopes that it may result in some change. Jeff's case also illustrates the importance of Iraq Veterans Against the War's new "Operation Recovery" campaign which calls for an end to the deployment of traumatized troops.
Most of the folks who call us for help continue to be effected by Stoploss, a program that involuntarily extends enlistments (despite Army promises of its demise), or the Individual Ready Reserve which recalls thousands of former Soldiers and Marines quarterly from civilian life.
Another example of our efforts is Kyle Wesolowski. After returning from Iraq, Kyle submitted an application for a conscientious objector discharge based on his Buddhist faith. Kyle explains, "My experience of physical threats, religious persecution, and general abuse seems to speak of a system that appears to be broken.... It appears that I have no other recourse but to now refuse all duties that prepare myself for war or aid in any way shape or form to other soldiers in conditioning them to go to war." We believe he shouldn't have to walk this path alone.
Sincerely,
Jeff Paterson
Project Director, Courage to Resist
First US military service member to refuse to fight in Iraq
Please donate today.
https://co.clickandpledge.com/sp/d1/default.aspx?wid=38590
P.S. I'm asking that you consider a contribution of $50 or more, or possibly becoming a sustainer at $15 a month. Of course, now is also a perfect time to make a end of year tax-deductible donation. Thanks again for your support!
Please click here to forward this to a friend who might
also be interested in supporting GI resisters.
http://ymlp.com/forward.php?id=lS3tR&e=bonnieweinstein@yahoo.com
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Add your name! We stand with Bradley Manning.
"We stand for truth, for government transparency, and for an end to our tax-dollars funding endless occupation abroad... We stand with accused whistle-blower US Army Pfc. Bradley Manning."
Dear All,
The Bradley Manning Support Network and Courage to Resist are launching a new campaign, and we wanted to give you a chance to be among the first to add your name to this international effort. If you sign the letter online, we'll print out and mail two letters to Army officials on your behalf. With your permission, we may also use your name on the online petition and in upcoming media ads.
Read the complete public letter and add your name at:
http://standwithbrad.org/
Courage to Resist (http://couragetoresist.org)
on behalf of the Bradley Manning Support Network (http://bradleymanning.org)
484 Lake Park Ave #41, Oakland CA 94610
510-488-3559
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Committee to Stop FBI Repression
P.O. Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55414
Dear Friend,
On Friday, September 24th, the FBI raided homes in Chicago and Minneapolis, and turned the Anti-War Committee office upside down. We were shocked. Our response was strong however and we jumped into action holding emergency protests. When the FBI seized activists' personal computers, cell phones, and papers claiming they were investigating "material support for terrorism", they had no idea there would be such an outpouring of support from the anti-war movement across this country! Over 61 cities protested, with crowds of 500 in Minneapolis and Chicago. Activists distributed 12,000 leaflets at the One Nation Rally in Washington D.C. Supporters made thousands of calls to President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder. Solidarity statements from community organizations, unions, and other groups come in every day. By organizing against the attacks, the movement grows stronger.
At the same time, trusted lawyers stepped up to form a legal team and mount a defense. All fourteen activists signed letters refusing to testify. So Assistant U.S. Attorney Brandon Fox withdrew the subpoenas, but this is far from over. In fact, the repression is just starting. The FBI continues to question activists at their homes and work places. The U.S. government is trying to put people in jail for anti-war and international solidarity activism and there is no indication they are backing off. The U.S. Attorney has many options and a lot of power-he may re-issue subpoenas, attempt to force people to testify under threat of imprisonment, or make arrests.
To be successful in pushing back this attack, we need your donation. We need you to make substantial contributions like $1000, $500, and $200. We understand many of you are like us, and can only afford $50, $20, or $10, but we ask you to dig deep. The legal bills can easily run into the hundreds of thousands. We are all united to defend a movement for peace and justice that seeks friendship with people in other countries. These fourteen anti-war activists have done nothing wrong, yet their freedom is at stake.
It is essential that we defend our sisters and brothers who are facing FBI repression and the Grand Jury process. With each of your contributions, the movement grows stronger.
Please make a donation today at stopfbi.net (PayPal) on the right side of your screen. Also you can write to:
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
P.O. Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55414
This is a critical time for us to stand together, defend free speech, and defend those who help to organize for peace and justice, both at home and abroad!
Thank you for your generosity! Tom Burke
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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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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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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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D. ARTICLES IN FULL
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1) Several Warnings, Then a Soldier's Lonely Death
By JAMES RISEN
January 1, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/world/asia/02suicide.html?hp
2) Europe's Young Grow Agitated Over Future Prospects
By RACHEL DONADIO
January 1, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/world/europe/02youth.html?ref=world
3) Computers That See You and Keep Watch Over You
By STEVE LOHR
January 1, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/science/02see.html?ref=us
4) Career Shift Often Means Drop in Living Standards
By CATHERINE RAMPELL
December 31, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/01/business/economy/01hires.html?ref=business
5) Real Estate Developers Prosper Despite Defaults
By CHARLES V. BAGLI
January 1, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/realestate/02developers.html?ref=business
6) Cuomo Plans One-Year Freeze on State Workers' Pay
[Once frozen only the workers themselves will be able to generate enough heat to defrost their pay through a real fightback...bw]
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
January 2, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/nyregion/03cuomo.html?hp
7) Deep Hole Economics
By PAUL KRUGMAN
January 2, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/opinion/03krugman.html?hp
8) Facing Threat From WikiLeaks, Bank Plays Defense
"Despite his legal troubles, Mr. Assange's threats have grown more credible with every release of secret documents, including those concerning the dumping of toxic waste in Africa, the treatment of prisoners held by the United States at Guantánamo Bay, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and, most recently, the trove of diplomatic cables.
That Mr. Assange might shift his attention to a private company - especially one as politically unpopular as Bank of America or any of its rivals, which have been stained by taxpayer-financed bailouts and the revelation of improper foreclosure practices - raises a new kind of corporate threat, combining elements of law, technology, public policy, politics and public relations."
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ
January 2, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/business/03wikileaks-bank.html?hp
9) Roots of British Student Unrest Unresolved
"Both houses of Parliament have now approved measures that allow the cap on tuition, currently set at £3,290, or $5,150, a year, to rise to £9,000 starting in 2012, at the same time as central government funding for university teaching in most subjects will be cut 80 percent... Len McCluskey, the newly elected leader of Unite, Britain's largest union of private sector workers, said that trade union leaders would meet early in January to discuss a 'broad strike movement' to support the students in their opposition to the government's austerity program. In an article in a British newspaper, Mr. McCluskey said the student protests had 'put the trade union movement on the spot,' adding that 'students have to know we are on their side.'"
By D.D. GUTTENPLAN
January 2, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/world/europe/03iht-educLede03.html?ref=world
10) Outlawed, Cellphones Are Thriving in Prisons
"President Obama signed a law in August making possession of a phone or a wireless device in a federal prison a felony, punishable by up to a year of extra sentencing."
By KIM SEVERSON and ROBBIE BROWN
January 2, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/us/03prisoners.html?ref=us
11) Pa. Allows Dumping of Tainted Waters From Gas Boom
"In the two years since the frenzy of activity began in the vast underground rock formation known as the Marcellus Shale, Pennsylvania has been the only state allowing waterways to serve as the primary disposal place for the huge amounts of wastewater produced by a drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking."
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 3, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/01/03/business/AP-US-Gas-Drilling-Frackwater.html?src=busln
12) Poll: 81 percent Say Tax Rich or Cut Military;
3 percent Say Cut Social Security
Published on Tuesday, January 4, 2011 by Reuters
by Reuters
www.CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/01/04-8
14) There He Goes Again
NYT Editorial
January 4, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/opinion/05wed3.html
15) Israeli Military Officials Challenge Account of Palestinian Woman's Death
By ISABEL KERSHNER
January 4, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/world/middleeast/05mideast.html?ref=world
16) U.N. Food Price Index Jumps in December
By REUTERS
January 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/business/global/06food.html?ref=world
17) Birthright Citizenship Looms as Next Immigration Battle
By MARC LACEY
January 4, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/us/politics/05babies.html?ref=world
18) One Statistic Private Schools Keep Quiet: The Kicked-Out Rate
By SARAH MASLIN NIR
January 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/nyregion/06private.html?ref=nyregion
19) Pension Fund Losses Hit States Hard, Data Show
By MICHAEL COOPER
January 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/us/06states.html?ref=us
20) Detained American Says He Was Beaten in Kuwait
By MARK MAZZETTI
January 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/world/middleeast/06detain.html?ref=us
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1) Several Warnings, Then a Soldier's Lonely Death
By JAMES RISEN
January 1, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/world/asia/02suicide.html?hp
WASHINGTON - A gentle snow fell on the funeral of Staff Sgt. David Senft at Arlington National Cemetery on Dec. 16, when his bitterly divided California family came together to say goodbye. His 5-year-old son received a flag from a grateful nation.
But that brief moment of peace could not hide the fact that for his family and friends and the soldiers who had served with him in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, too many unanswered questions remained about Sergeant Senft's lonely death in a parked sport utility vehicle on an American air base in Afghanistan, and about whether the Army could have done more to prevent it.
Officially, the Army says only that Sergeant Senft, 27, a crew chief on a Black Hawk helicopter in the 101st Airborne Division's aviation brigade, was killed as a result of "injuries sustained in a noncombat related incident" at Kandahar Air Base on Nov. 15. No specific cause of death has been announced. Army officials say three separate inquiries into the death are under way.
But his father, also named David Senft, an electrician from Grass Valley, Calif., who had worked in Afghanistan for a military contractor, is convinced that his son committed suicide, as are many of his friends and family members and the soldiers who served with him.
The evidence appears overwhelming. An investigator for the Army's Criminal Investigative Division, which has been looking into the death, has told Sergeant Senft's father by e-mail that his son was found dead with a single bullet hole in his head, a stolen M-4 automatic weapon in his hands and his body slumped over in the S.U.V., which was parked outside the air base's ammunition supply point. By his side was his cellphone, displaying a text message with no time or date stamp, saying only, "I don't know what to say, I'm sorry." (Mr. Senft shared the e-mails from the C.I.D. investigator with The New York Times.)
With Sergeant Senft, the warning signs were blaring.
The Army declared him fit for duty and ordered him to Afghanistan after he had twice attempted suicide at Fort Campbell, Ky., and after he had been sent to a mental institution near the base, the home of the 101st. After his arrival at Kandahar early in 2010 he was so troubled that the Army took away his weapon and forced him into counseling on the air base, according to the e-mails from the Army investigator. But he was assigned a roommate who was fully armed. C.I.D. investigators have identified the M-4 with which Sergeant Senft was killed as belonging to his roommate.
"I question why, if he was suicidal and they had to take away his gun, why was he allowed to stay in Afghanistan?" asked Sergeant Senft's father. "Why did they allow him to deploy in the first place, and why did they leave him there?"
Defense Department officials have frequently spoken about how suicide prevention has become a top priority, and in interviews, officials noted that the National Institute of Mental Health was now leading a major study of Army suicides.
Ever since the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq began, suicides among American troops have been soaring, as military personnel become mentally exhausted and traumatized from repeated deployments to combat zones. In 2004, the Army reported that 67 soldiers on active duty committed suicide; by 2009 that number had jumped to 162. The Army has reported 144 suicides in 2010 through November, and officials say it is now beginning to see a sharp rise in suicides among nonactive duty National Guard and Reserve personnel who are not currently deployed.
It is unclear how much the Army knew of Sergeant Senft's deterioration. But Col. Chris Philbrick, deputy director of the Army's health promotion and risk reduction task force, which handles suicide prevention programs, said that a medical determination of cause of death, a law enforcement review of the matter by Army investigators, and an internal review of both Sergeant Senft's personnel history and the handling of his case by his chain of command were all continuing.
"We are trying to get answers to these questions, answers to many of the same questions that the family is raising," said Colonel Philbrick, who has personally reviewed Sergeant Senft's case.
Interviews with friends and family members suggest that for Sergeant Senft, prolonged exposure to two wars may have been too much to bear for a friendly and sweet, but emotionally fragile young man filled with insecurities resulting from a badly splintered family life.
His parents divorced when he was about 3 years old, and the rift between his father and mother never healed. Home life for David and his brother and sister became intertwined with a series of stepparents and divided families around Northern California. David's younger brother, Andrew, is now in prison in California for armed robbery.
The first signs of trouble for David Senft came when he was 18 or 19 and living with a stepmother who had divorced his father and remarried. He ran away and threatened to kill himself, recalled his stepmother, Tina Norvell. Her husband, Steve Norvell, found him and took him home.
David Senft joined the Army in early 2002, just months after the Sept. 11 attacks.
After basic training, he was assigned to the 82nd Airborne Division based at Fort Bragg, N.C., and in 2003 he was sent to Iraq as a member of a helicopter crew.
His experiences during that first combat deployment had a major impact on him, according to close friends. In one episode that he often recounted to both his family and friends, he told of witnessing the crash of an evacuation helicopter filled with medical personnel and wounded soldiers that had been shot down by insurgents. He and his Black Hawk crew were ordered to the crash site, and the gruesome scene haunted him.
"He changed after he went to Iraq the first time," recalled Ana Ochoa, one of his closest friends.
After returning to Fort Bragg in 2004, David Senft confided in another soldier, Lynette Hager, that he wanted to kill himself.
"I reported it to the chain of command," recalled Ms. Hager, who has since left the Army. "When you come back from a deployment, they have briefings and make you watch PowerPoints, but if you need help, you have to go get it yourself."
Ms. Hager and David Senft later began dating, and in 2005 she gave birth to their son, Landon. She said that during a fight over child support payments, he threatened to kill himself rather than make further payments and that because of the suicide threat, the court ordered that he be allowed only supervised visitation rights with their son. "He was a really good guy, fun, nice, and he loved being in the military," Ms. Hager said. "But he didn't have the coping skills to get out of his depressive states."
In 2007, he was deployed again with the 82nd Airborne Division, this time to Afghanistan. After his return, he transferred to the 101st Airborne Division and re-enlisted in the Army.
"I told him not to re-enlist; I told him to get out, his personality was changing. I told him, 'You are making me uncomfortable,' " Ms. Ochoa said. "After each deployment he seemed to get needier, sadder, and he would be talking deeper."
While at Fort Campbell in 2008, he attempted suicide by swallowing a bottle of sleeping pills. The pills only knocked him out for two or three days, and when he awoke in his apartment, he called friends, who urged him to get help. He agreed to be admitted to a mental hospital in Hopkinsville, Ky. He told Ms. Ochoa that he had tried to kill himself twice while at Fort Campbell. "He was depressed," she said. "He said he had seen a lot of crazy stuff and seen a lot of friends die, and he was unhappy; he had a lot of failed relationships."
His suicide attempts and hospitalization finally got the attention of the Army, which kept him back from a scheduled deployment to Iraq. Instead, he was given a desk job at Fort Campbell. "I remember he told me he had tried to kill himself and had been taken off the deployment roster for Iraq," recalled Matt Davis, who served with Sergeant Senft in the 82nd Airborne Division.
But he could not get out of his unit's next scheduled deployment, to Afghanistan in early 2010. Colonel Philbrick said that he could not answer why Sergeant Senft was allowed to deploy to Afghanistan after he had been held back from Iraq after his suicide attempt.
He apparently did well for the first few months of the Afghan deployment, because he went home on leave in July and, without telling many friends and relatives, quietly married another soldier he had recently met.
But his mental state seemed to worsen again after his return to Afghanistan, and his commanders took action. He was placed in regular counseling in Kandahar, apparently for the first time in his military career, and met regularly with an Army chaplain on the base. His weapon was taken from him several months before his death, according to the e-mails from the Army investigator.
On the morning of Nov. 15, Sergeant Senft's roommate woke to find his weapon missing. After Sergeant Senft failed to show up for duty that morning, another member of his unit discovered his body.
Ms. Ochoa said: "As soon as I heard he was dead, I just said to myself, he did it. He did it."
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2) Europe's Young Grow Agitated Over Future Prospects
By RACHEL DONADIO
January 1, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/world/europe/02youth.html?ref=world
LECCE, Italy - Francesca Esposito, 29 and exquisitely educated, helped win millions of euros in false disability and other lawsuits for her employer, a major Italian state agency. But one day last fall she quit, fed up with how surreal and ultimately sad it is to be young in Italy today.
It galled her that even with her competence and fluency in five languages, it was nearly impossible to land a paying job. Working as an unpaid trainee lawyer was bad enough, she thought, but doing it at Italy's social security administration seemed too much. She not only worked for free on behalf of the nation's elderly, who have generally crowded out the young for jobs, but her efforts there did not even apply to her own pension.
"It was absurd," said Ms. Esposito, a strong-willed woman with a healthy sense of outrage.
The outrage of the young has erupted, sometimes violently, on the streets of Greece and Italy in recent weeks, as students and more radical anarchists protest not only specific austerity measures in flattened economies but a rising reality in Southern Europe: People like Ms. Esposito feel increasingly shut out of their own futures. Experts warn of volatility in state finances and the broader society as the most highly educated generation in the history of the Mediterranean hits one of its worst job markets.
Politicians are slowly beginning to take notice. Italy's president, Giorgio Napolitano, devoted his year-end message on Friday to "the pervasive malaise among young people," weeks after protests against budget cuts to the university system brought the issue to the fore.
Giuliano Amato, an economist and former Italian prime minister, was even more blunt. "By now, only a few people refuse to understand that youth protests aren't a protest against the university reform, but against a general situation in which the older generations have eaten the future of the younger ones," he recently told Corriere della Sera, Italy's largest newspaper.
The daughter of a fireman and a high school teacher, Ms. Esposito was the first in her family to graduate from college and the first to study foreign languages. She has an Italian law degree and a master's from Germany and was an intern at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. It has not helped.
"I have every possible certificate," Ms. Esposito said dryly. "I have everything except a death certificate."
Even before the economic crisis hit, Southern Europe was not an easy place to forge a career. Low growth and a corrosive lack of meritocracy have long posed challenges to finding a job in Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal. Today, with the added sting of austerity, more people are left fighting over fewer opportunities. It is a zero-sum game that inevitably pits younger workers struggling to enter the labor market against older ones already occupying precious slots.
As a result, a deep malaise has set in among young people. Some take to the streets in protest; others emigrate to Northern Europe or beyond in an epic brain drain of college graduates. But many more suffer in silence, living in their childhood bedrooms well into adulthood because they cannot afford to move out.
"They call us the lost generation," said Coral Herrera Gómez, 33, who has a Ph.D. in humanities but still lives with her parents in Madrid because she cannot find steady work. "I'm not young," she added over coffee recently, "but I'm not an adult with a job, either."
There has been a national debate for years in Spain about "mileuristas," a nickname for college graduates whose best job prospects may well pay just 1,000 euros a month, or $1,300.
Ms. Herrera is at the lower end of the spectrum. Fed up with earning 600 euros a month, or $791, under the table as a children's drama teacher, Ms. Herrera said she had decided to move to Costa Rica this month to teach at a university.
As she spoke in a cafe in Madrid, a television on the wall featured a report on the birthday of a 106-year-old woman who said that eating blood sausage was the secret to her longevity.
The contrast could not have been stronger. Indeed, experts warn of a looming demographic disaster in Southern Europe, which has among the lowest birth rates in the Western world. With pensioners living longer and young people entering the work force later - and paying less in taxes because their salaries are so low - it is only a matter of time before state coffers run dry.
"What we have is a Ponzi scheme," said Lawrence Kotlikoff, an economist at Boston University and an expert in fiscal policy.
He said that pay-as-you-go social security and health care were a looming fiscal disaster in Southern Europe and beyond. "If these fertility rates continue through time, you won't have Italians, Spanish, Greeks, Portuguese or Russians," he said. "I imagine the Chinese will just move into Southern Europe."
The problem goes far beyond youth unemployment, which is at 40 percent in Spain and 28 percent in Italy. It is also about underemployment. Today, young people in Southern Europe are effectively exploited by the very mechanisms created a decade ago to help make the labor market more flexible, like temporary contracts.
Because payroll taxes and firing costs are still so high, businesses across Southern Europe are loath to hire new workers on a full-time basis, so young people increasingly are offered unpaid or low-paying internships, traineeships or temporary contracts that do not offer the same benefits or protections.
"This is the best-educated generation in Spanish history, and they are entering a job market in which they are underutilized," said Ignacio Fernández Toxo, the leader of the Comisiones Obreras, one of Spain's two largest labor unions. "It is a tragedy for the country."
Yet many young people in Southern Europe see labor union leaders like Mr. Fernández, and the left-wing parties with which they have been historically close, as part of the problem. They are seen as exacerbating a two-tier labor market by protecting a caste of tenured older workers rather than helping younger workers enter the market.
For Dr. Kotlikoff, the solution is simple: "We have to change the labor laws. Not gradually, but quickly."
Yet in Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain, any change in national contracts involves complex negotiations among governments, labor unions and businesses - a delicate dance in which each faction fights furiously for its interests.
Because older workers tend to be voters, labor reform remains a third rail to most politicians. Asked at a news conference last year about changing Italy's de facto two-tier system, Italy's center-right finance minister, Giulio Tremonti, said simply, "You can't make violent changes to the system."
New austerity measures in Spain, where the overall unemployment rate is 20 percent, the highest in the European Union, are further narrowing the employment window. Spain has pledged to raise its retirement age to 67 from 65, but incrementally over the next 20 years.
"Now people are being sent into early retirement at age 55," said Sara Sanfulgencio, 28, who has a master's degree in marketing but is unemployed and living in Madrid with her mother, who owns a children's shoe store. "But if I haven't started working by age 28 and I already have to stop at 55, it's absurd."
In Italy, Ms. Esposito is finishing her lawyer traineeship at a private firm in Lecce. It pays little but sits better on her conscience than her unpaid work for the government.
"I'm a repentant college graduate," she said. "If I had it to do over again, I wouldn't go to college and would just start working."
Lucia Magi contributed reporting from Madrid, and Gaia Pianigiani from Rome.
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3) Computers That See You and Keep Watch Over You
By STEVE LOHR
January 1, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/science/02see.html?ref=us
Hundreds of correctional officers from prisons across America descended last spring on a shuttered penitentiary in West Virginia for annual training exercises.
Some officers played the role of prisoners, acting like gang members and stirring up trouble, including a mock riot. The latest in prison gear got a workout - body armor, shields, riot helmets, smoke bombs, gas masks. And, at this year's drill, computers that could see the action.
Perched above the prison yard, five cameras tracked the play-acting prisoners, and artificial-intelligence software analyzed the images to recognize faces, gestures and patterns of group behavior. When two groups of inmates moved toward each other, the experimental computer system sent an alert - a text message - to a corrections officer that warned of a potential incident and gave the location.
The computers cannot do anything more than officers who constantly watch surveillance monitors under ideal conditions. But in practice, officers are often distracted. When shifts change, an observation that is worth passing along may be forgotten. But machines do not blink or forget. They are tireless assistants.
The enthusiasm for such systems extends well beyond the nation's prisons. High-resolution, low-cost cameras are proliferating, found in products like smartphones and laptop computers. The cost of storing images is dropping, and new software algorithms for mining, matching and scrutinizing the flood of visual data are progressing swiftly.
A computer-vision system can watch a hospital room and remind doctors and nurses to wash their hands, or warn of restless patients who are in danger of falling out of bed. It can, through a computer-equipped mirror, read a man's face to detect his heart rate and other vital signs. It can analyze a woman's expressions as she watches a movie trailer or shops online, and help marketers tailor their offerings accordingly. Computer vision can also be used at shopping malls, schoolyards, subway platforms, office complexes and stadiums.
All of which could be helpful - or alarming.
"Machines will definitely be able to observe us and understand us better," said Hartmut Neven, a computer scientist and vision expert at Google. "Where that leads is uncertain."
Google has been both at the forefront of the technology's development and a source of the anxiety surrounding it. Its Street View service, which lets Internet users zoom in from above on a particular location, faced privacy complaints. Google will blur out people's homes at their request.
Google has also introduced an application called Goggles, which allows people to take a picture with a smartphone and search the Internet for matching images. The company's executives decided to exclude a facial-recognition feature, which they feared might be used to find personal information on people who did not know that they were being photographed.
Despite such qualms, computer vision is moving into the mainstream. With this technological evolution, scientists predict, people will increasingly be surrounded by machines that can not only see but also reason about what they are seeing, in their own limited way.
The uses, noted Frances Scott, an expert in surveillance technologies at the National Institute of Justice, the Justice Department's research agency, could allow the authorities to spot a terrorist, identify a lost child or locate an Alzheimer's patient who has wandered off.
The future of law enforcement, national security and military operations will most likely rely on observant machines. A few months ago, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Pentagon's research arm, awarded the first round of grants in a five-year research program called the Mind's Eye. Its goal is to develop machines that can recognize, analyze and communicate what they see. Mounted on small robots or drones, these smart machines could replace human scouts. "These things, in a sense, could be team members," said James Donlon, the program's manager.
Millions of people now use products that show the progress that has been made in computer vision. In the last two years, the major online photo-sharing services - Picasa by Google, Windows Live Photo Gallery by Microsoft, Flickr by Yahoo and iPhoto by Apple - have all started using face recognition. A user puts a name to a face, and the service finds matches in other photographs. It is a popular tool for finding and organizing pictures.
Kinect, an add-on to Microsoft's Xbox 360 gaming console, is a striking advance for computer vision in the marketplace. It uses a digital camera and sensors to recognize people and gestures; it also understands voice commands. Players control the computer with waves of the hand, and then move to make their on-screen animated stand-ins - known as avatars - run, jump, swing and dance. Since Kinect was introduced in November, game reviewers have applauded, and sales are surging.
To Microsoft, Kinect is not just a game, but a step toward the future of computing. "It's a world where technology more fundamentally understands you, so you don't have to understand it," said Alex Kipman, an engineer on the team that designed Kinect.
'Please Wash Your Hands'
A nurse walks into a hospital room while scanning a clipboard. She greets the patient and washes her hands. She checks and records his heart rate and blood pressure, adjusts the intravenous drip, turns him over to look for bed sores, then heads for the door but does not wash her hands again, as protocol requires. "Pardon the interruption," declares a recorded women's voice, with a slight British accent. "Please wash your hands."
Three months ago, Bassett Medical Center in Cooperstown, N.Y., began an experiment with computer vision in a single hospital room. Three small cameras, mounted inconspicuously on the ceiling, monitor movements in Room 542, in a special care unit (a notch below intensive care) where patients are treated for conditions like severe pneumonia, heart attacks and strokes. The cameras track people going in and out of the room as well as the patient's movements in bed.
The first applications of the system, designed by scientists at General Electric, are immediate reminders and alerts. Doctors and nurses are supposed to wash their hands before and after touching a patient; lapses contribute significantly to hospital-acquired infections, research shows.
The camera over the bed delivers images to software that is programmed to recognize movements that indicate when a patient is in danger of falling out of bed. The system would send an alert to a nearby nurse.
If the results at Bassett prove to be encouraging, more features can be added, like software that analyzes facial expressions for signs of severe pain, the onset of delirium or other hints of distress, said Kunter Akbay, a G.E. scientist.
Hospitals have an incentive to adopt tools that improve patient safety. Medicare and Medicaid are adjusting reimbursement rates to penalize hospitals that do not work to prevent falls and pressure ulcers, and whose doctors and nurses do not wash their hands enough. But it is too early to say whether computer vision, like the system being tried out at Bassett, will prove to be cost-effective.
Mirror, Mirror
Daniel J. McDuff, a graduate student, stood in front of a mirror at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Media Lab. After 20 seconds or so, a figure - 65, the number of times his heart was beating per minute - appeared at the mirror's bottom. Behind the two-way mirror was a Web camera, which fed images of Mr. McDuff to a computer whose software could track the blood flow in his face.
The software separates the video images into three channels - for the basic colors red, green and blue. Changes to the colors and to movements made by tiny contractions and expansions in blood vessels in the face are, of course, not apparent to the human eye, but the computer can see them.
"Your heart-rate signal is in your face," said Ming-zher Poh, an M.I.T. graduate student. Other vital signs, including breathing rate, blood-oxygen level and blood pressure, should leave similar color and movement clues.
The pulse-measuring project, described in research published in May by Mr. Poh, Mr. McDuff and Rosalind W. Picard, a professor at the lab, is just the beginning, Mr. Poh said. Computer vision and clever software, he said, make it possible to monitor humans' vital signs at a digital glance. Daily measurements can be analyzed to reveal that, for example, a person's risk of heart trouble is rising. "This can happen, and in the future it will be in mirrors," he said.
Faces can yield all sorts of information to watchful computers, and the M.I.T. students' adviser, Dr. Picard, is a pioneer in the field, especially in the use of computing to measure and communicate emotions. For years, she and a research scientist at the university, Rana el-Kaliouby, have applied facial-expression analysis software to help young people with autism better recognize the emotional signals from others that they have such a hard time understanding.
The two women are the co-founders of Affectiva, a company in Waltham, Mass., that is beginning to market its facial-expression analysis software to manufacturers of consumer products, retailers, marketers and movie studios. Its mission is to mine consumers' emotional responses to improve the designs and marketing campaigns of products.
John Ross, chief executive of Shopper Sciences, a marketing research company that is part of the Interpublic Group, said Affectiva's technology promises to give marketers an impartial reading of the sequence of emotions that leads to a purchase, in a way that focus groups and customer surveys cannot. "You can see and analyze how people are reacting in real time, not what they are saying later, when they are often trying to be polite," he said. The technology, he added, is more scientific and less costly than having humans look at store surveillance videos, which some retailers do.
The facial-analysis software, Mr. Ross said, could be used in store kiosks or with Webcams. Shopper Sciences, he said, is testing Affectiva's software with a major retailer and an online dating service, neither of which he would name. The dating service, he said, was analyzing users' expressions in search of "trigger words" in personal profiles that people found appealing or off-putting.
Watching the Watchers
Maria Sonin, 33, an office worker in Waltham, Mass., sat in front of a notebook computer looking at a movie trailer while Affectiva's software, through the PC's Webcam, calibrated her reaction. The trailer was for "Little Fockers," starring Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller, which opened just before Christmas. The software measured her reactions by tracking movements on a couple of dozen points on her face - mostly along the eyes, eyebrows, nose and the perimeter of her lips.
To the human eye, Ms. Sonin appeared to be amused. The software agreed, said Dr. Kaliouby, though it used a finer-grained analysis, like recording that her smiles were symmetrical (signaling amusement, not embarrassment) and not smirks. The software, Ms. Kaliouby said, allows for continuous, objective measurement of viewers' response to media, and in the future will do so in large numbers on the Web.
Ms. Sonin, an unpaid volunteer, said later that she did not think about being recorded by the Webcam. "It wasn't as if it was a big camera in front of you," she said.
Christopher Hamilton, a technical director of visual effects, has used specialized software to analyze facial expressions and recreate them on the screen. The films he has worked on include "King Kong," "Charlotte's Web" and "The Matrix Revolutions." Using facial-expression analysis technology to gauge the reaction of viewers, who agree to be watched, may well become a valuable tool for movie makers, said Mr. Hamilton, who is not involved with Affectiva.
Today, sampling audience reaction before a movie is released typically means gathering a couple of hundred people at a preview screening. The audience members then answer questions and fill out surveys. Yet viewers, marketing experts say, are often inarticulate and imprecise about their emotional reactions.
The software "makes it possible to measure audience response with a scene-by-scene granularity that the current survey-and-questionnaire approach cannot," Mr. Hamilton said. A director, he added, could find out, for example, that although audience members liked a movie over all, they did not like two or three scenes. Or he could learn that a particular character did not inspire the intended emotional response.
Emotion-sensing software, Mr. Hamilton said, might become part of the entertainment experience - especially as more people watch movies and programs on Internet-connected televisions, computers and portable devices. Viewers could share their emotional responses with friends using recommendation systems based on what scene - say, the protagonists' dancing or a car chase - delivered the biggest emotional jolt.
Affectiva, Dr. Picard said, intends to offer its technology as "opt-in only," meaning consumers have to be notified and have to agree to be watched online or in stores. Affectiva, she added, has turned down companies, which she declined to name, that wanted to use its software without notifying customers.
Darker Possibilities
Dr. Picard enunciates a principled stance, but one that could become problematic in other hands.
The challenge arises from the prospect of the rapid spread of less-expensive yet powerful computer-vision technologies.
At work or school, the technology opens the door to a computerized supervisor that is always watching. Are you paying attention, goofing off or daydreaming? In stores and shopping malls, smart surveillance could bring behavioral tracking into the physical world.
More subtle could be the effect of a person knowing that he is being watched - and how that awareness changes his thinking and actions. It could be beneficial: a person thinks twice and a crime goes uncommitted. But might it also lead to a society that is less spontaneous, less creative, less innovative?
"With every technology, there is a dark side," said Hany Farid, a computer scientist at Dartmouth. "Sometimes you can predict it, but often you can't."
A decade ago, he noted, no one predicted that cellphones and text messaging would lead to traffic accidents caused by distracted drivers. And, he said, it was difficult to foresee that the rise of Facebook and Twitter and personal blogs would become troves of data to be collected and exploited in tracking people's online behavior.
Often, a technology that is benign in one setting can cause harm in a different context. Google confronted that problem this year with its face-recognition software. In its Picasa photo-storing and sharing service, face recognition helps people find and organize pictures of family and friends.
But the company took a different approach with Goggles, which lets a person snap a photograph with a smartphone, setting off an Internet search. Take a picture of the Eiffel Tower and links to Web pages with background information and articles about it appear on the phone's screen. Take a picture of a wine bottle and up come links to reviews of that vintage.
Google could have put face recognition into the Goggles application; indeed, many users have asked for it. But Google decided against it because smartphones can be used to take pictures of individuals without their knowledge, and a face match could retrieve all kinds of personal information - name, occupation, address, workplace.
"It was just too sensitive, and we didn't want to go there," said Eric E. Schmidt, the chief executive of Google. "You want to avoid enabling stalker behavior."
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4) Career Shift Often Means Drop in Living Standards
By CATHERINE RAMPELL
December 31, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/01/business/economy/01hires.html?ref=business
Even the lucky ones are not so lucky, it seems.
A new study of American workers displaced by the recession sheds light on the sacrifices a large number have made to find work. Many, it turns out, had to switch careers and significantly reduce their living standards.
"In many cases, these people are not very happy," said Cliff Zukin, professor of public policy and political science at Rutgers University and one of the authors of the study. "They're the winners who got new jobs, but they're not really what they want, and not where they want to be."
The study, conducted by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers, was based on a survey of Americans around the country who were unemployed as of August 2009 and re-interviewed about their job status twice over the next 15 months.
As of November 2010, only about one-third had found replacement jobs, either as full-time workers (26 percent) or as part-time workers not wanting a full-time job (8 percent).
And of those who successfully found work, 41 percent had switched into a new career or field.
Some of these may have been workers who retrained for new fields they wished to enter, but many seem to have taken their new jobs out of desperation. Only a minority of those displaced workers changing careers - 22 percent - said they had taken a class or a training course before finding their new job.
"Look, I am really happy to have a job - that's the main thing," said Sue Bires, 60, who was laid off from a job managing homeowners' associations in Orlando, Fla., in September 2008. She initially had another job lined up with a different realty association in Orlando, but when that fell through, she moved to Austin, Tex., to stay with a friend. She filed for bankruptcy and took a job at a call center.
But she now earns $30,000, far below the $45,000 she was paid when she was managing properties.
"It's competitive out there, even for the lower paying jobs, especially when you're 60 looking for a job in a young town," Ms. Bires said. "So I'm grateful to have a job where the people are nice and I have a little bit of flexibility in my hours. That's especially important now, since retirement is looking like a long way off."
Like Ms. Bires, most of those forced to switch careers generally seemed to downgrade their job status.
Nearly 7 in 10 of the survey's respondents who took jobs in new fields say they had to take a cut in pay, compared with just 45 percent of workers who successfully found work in their original field.
Of all the newly re-employed tracked by the Heldrich Center, 29 percent took a reduction in fringe benefits in their new job. Again, those switching careers had to sacrifice more: Nearly half of these workers (46 percent) suffered a benefits cut, compared with just 29 percent who stayed in the same career.
Many of those who found work in a different field say they have come to terms with the limited opportunities, but they are reluctant to see their new job as a calling.
"I wouldn't go so far as to say I've switched careers, since I'm not exactly sure this is a career, but I'm definitely doing something different," said Adam Kowal, 30, of Royal Oak, Mich.
After being laid off from a job as a quality control supervisor at a department store warehouse and losing his house, he moved his family across the state to live with his mother. Unable to find similar work, he initially took a "soul-sucking" temporary job on an assembly line making auto parts, and is now working in a kitchen at a high school.
His hourly wage has fallen from $15 an hour at the warehouse to $10.50 an hour washing dishes and preparing food, and he has gone from having health insurance coverage for his whole family to no benefits. He, his pregnant wife and their 4-year-old son are now on Medicaid.
"I'd love to go back to what I was doing," he said, or even into what he described as his true passion, full-time screenwriting. "But when I talk with the unemployment office here in Michigan, they tell me the chances of going back and using the same skill set I had before are pretty farfetched."
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5) Real Estate Developers Prosper Despite Defaults
By CHARLES V. BAGLI
January 1, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/realestate/02developers.html?ref=business
Larry Gluck, the apartment building king whose company defaulted on loans in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington, recently bought the Windermere Hotel in Manhattan and Tivoli Towers, a subsidized housing complex in Brooklyn.
Ian Bruce Eichner, who lost two major New York skyscrapers to foreclosure in the early 1990s and defaulted on a $760 million loan for a Las Vegas casino resort in 2008, is working on a plan to rescue One Madison Park, a troubled 50-story condominium project.
Even Harry Macklowe, whose $7 billion gamble on seven Midtown skyscrapers at the top of the market almost cost him his entire empire, is out looking for new deals.
Industry lore has it that New York is one of the toughest, most unforgiving real estate markets in the world. The costs are so high, the unions so ornery, the politicians so demanding and the rivalries so fierce, that one false move invites financial disaster.
But the truth is that there have been surprisingly few career fatalities among New York developers, even though they have lost billions of investor dollars on overpriced real estate and have littered the city with unfinished apartment buildings. While a homeowner who lost a house to foreclosure would find it difficult to borrow for years, developers who defaulted on enormous loans have still been able to attract money.
The reasons, experts say, are that there is still plenty of money floating around and that the market has a very short memory.
"You can always find an investor who'll put up equity with a guy, unless he's Attila the Hun," said Daniel Alpert, managing partner at Westwood Capital, a real estate investment bank.
For some of these developers, however, putting together a deal is not as easy as it used to be. Large banks and pension funds that endured huge losses have become very picky. Scott Lawlor, the founder of Broadway Partners, bought 28 office buildings in 2006 and 2007 and is now stuck with heavy debts on what is left of a portfolio whose value has dropped by at least a third. He is trying to come back with a focus on distressed residential real estate but has been unable to attract institutional money, according to lawyers and real estate executives who know him. He is now trying to line up wealthy investors.
Hedge funds and private equity funds are still offering backing for deals, believing that the real estate market will warm up again this year. There are also new investors looking to get into real estate, including funds based in China, and Norwegian pension funds.
And there have been casualties. Shaya Boymelgreen, the once-ubiquitous developer who built more than 2,400 apartments during the boom, broke with his money partner, was peppered with lawsuits from condominium buyers and was evicted from his offices in Brooklyn.
The $3 billion real estate portfolio that Kent Swig, a scion of a West Coast real estate family, put together over the past two decades is slowly slipping through his hands, and he warned last year that personal bankruptcy could be in the offing.
But while a homeowner who is foreclosed upon is often on the brink of financial ruin, many developers who defaulted emerged relatively unscathed themselves. Most of them invested relatively little of their own money in the deals, preferring "O.P.M.," or "other people's money." One of the best-known examples is Tishman Speyer Properties, which lost $56 million on Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village, while lenders and other investors lost over $2.4 billion.
It was a rare stumble and, in perspective, a minor setback for the company, which controls Rockefeller Center and operates on four continents. It has since raised $2.5 billion to expand its portfolio and recently acquired two buildings in Paris, one in Washington and a 45-story office tower in Chicago.
Mr. Macklowe, an unabashed property gambler, is also considered a real estate genius with a keen eye for development, having turned the G.M. Building across the street from the Plaza Hotel into a gold mine. He sought to double his holdings in 2007 by buying seven office towers for $7 billion. Desperate for cash during the credit crisis 15 months later, Mr. Macklowe was forced to relinquish those buildings and to sell several other properties, including his beloved G.M. Building.
Now a new set of investors is bringing him back to develop a site he once owned, where the Drake Hotel stood, according to two real estate executives who work with him.
In 2005, Mr. Gluck and a partner bought the 1,232-unit Riverton Houses complex in Harlem for $131 million. The following year, he refinanced with $250 million in loans, allowing him to renovate the lobbies and elevators and to put tens of millions of dollars in his pocket.
But in less than two years, Mr. Gluck's plan to replace residents of rent-regulated apartments with tenants paying higher rents unraveled. The lender foreclosed as the property's value fell by half. Loan defaults followed in San Francisco, Los Angeles and elsewhere.
Most recently, Mr. Gluck and a partner, Rob Rosania, paid $70 million for a residential hotel in Manhattan, the Windermere. But the days of easy money, when Wall Street would lend 90 percent or more of the purchase price, are over, Mr. Gluck said. His lenders required his company to put up 28 percent of the purchase price and to provide an additional $10 million for renovations.
Mr. Gluck and Mr. Rosania said they were buyers again because they were better capitalized than their competitors and did not squabble with their lenders when the money ran out. "If you behave like a gentleman and don't leave your partners and investors to fend for themselves, you will be rewarded for your loyalty," Mr. Gluck said.
In his case and others, investors and lenders are forgiving losses incurred after a bubble in which everyone from the smallest homeowner to the largest bank was overleveraged. "Throughout my 30 years in the business," Mr. Alpert said, "I have seen an enormous amount of forgiveness for market errors."
It is an infuriating pattern for the city's real estate aristocracy, like the Durst family, which has been measured in its borrowing and has never defaulted on a loan. Yet, Douglas Durst said, "That has not given us any advantage as we go through each financial cycle in which the bankers who made bad loans are let go, but the defaulting borrowers are waiting for the new team of bankers to start the process over again."
Mr. Eichner has been up and down more than once. After lenders took over two of his skyscrapers in 1991, Mr. Eichner dismissed criticism that he was an example of the excesses of the 1980s boom. "Everyone who was aggressive in the '80s suffered substantial losses," he said in 1994.
Mr. Eichner's lenders suffered the biggest losses, and at one troubled building, 1540 Broadway in Times Square, they paid him tens of millions of dollars in 1992 to relinquish control.
More recently, in Las Vegas, Mr. Eichner has said he was a victim of the credit crisis after he was forced to walk away from the Cosmopolitan Resort Casino in 2008. Unable to obtain new financing and plagued by cost overruns and environmental issues, he defaulted on loans from Deutsche Bank for the project.
Still, Mr. Eichner, who did not return calls requesting comment, vowed in 2008 that he would be back and that bankers would lend to him once again. He is now putting together a reorganization plan to salvage the bankrupt tower, One Madison Park. The lender, iStar, opposes Mr. Eichner's involvement, arguing that his approach would unfairly slash the mortgage in half while Mr. Eichner would reap a huge return on his $40 million investment.
"Capital is blind," said David W. Levinson, a founder of L & L Holding Company, a real estate firm that controls 11 Manhattan buildings. "It will go wherever it can for a return. That's it in a nutshell."
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6) Cuomo Plans One-Year Freeze on State Workers' Pay
[Once frozen only the workers themselves will be able to generate enough heat to defrost their pay through a real fightback...bw]
By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE
January 2, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/nyregion/03cuomo.html?hp
ALBANY - Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo will seek a one-year salary freeze for state workers as part of an emergency financial plan he will lay out in his State of the State address on Wednesday, senior administration officials said.
The move will signal the opening of what is expected to be a grueling fight between the new governor and the public-sector unions that have traditionally dominated the state's political establishment.
It will also come days after the New Year's Eve layoffs of more than 900 state workers, an event that union representatives marked with a candlelight vigil on the steps of the Capitol and outside government offices in five other cities.
"The governor said during his campaign that the difficult financial times call for shared sacrifice," said a senior administration official, who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly about the governor's address. "A salary freeze is obviously a difficult thing for many government workers, but it's necessary if the state is going to live within its means."
While the immediate budget savings from the freeze would be relatively modest - between $200 million and $400 million against a projected deficit in excess of $9 billion - achieving it would be politically meaningful.
And because such a step would not require legislative approval, Mr. Cuomo could achieve it while bypassing the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, and the Democratic-controlled State Assembly, labor's most powerful allies in Albany.
Of course, a freeze - which Mr. Cuomo promised he would seek during his campaign - would be subject to negotiation with the unions. But labor contracts for the vast majority of the state's 190,000 employees expire on March 31, giving Mr. Cuomo an opening to seek changes at a time of public unease toward government workers' benefits.
Salaries, health care and pension benefits for state workers represent one of the largest and fastest-growing areas of spending, accounting for about one-fifth of all state dollars.
On Sunday, a spokesman for the Civil Service Employees Association, the largest union of state workers, said that the association was open to discussions with Mr. Cuomo, but was uncomfortable with unilateral demands.
"There's a significant difference between negotiating in good faith, and issuing some kind of edict that may or may not be legal," said Stephen Madarasz, the association spokesman. "It's really all based on what action follows."
Public-sector unions around the nation face growing political pressures not only from Republicans but also from their traditional allies among Democrats, as governors grapple with recession, declining tax revenues and pension funds perilously close to bankruptcy.
In November, following the Republican takeover of the House, President Obama ordered a two-year salary freeze for civilian federal workers, subject to Congressional approval.
On Wednesday, Mr. Cuomo is also expected to call for a constitutional cap on state spending that would limit growth to the rate of inflation and for a budget that does not raise corporate, personal income or sales taxes, echoing proposals he made on the campaign trail. He will also repeat his call for a cap on the growth of local property taxes.
Even if he succeeds in winning a freeze, experts said, Mr. Cuomo will ultimately need to tackle more difficult public employee benefits, including a substantial restructuring of the state's pension system, which faces serious shortfalls in the coming years.
"The past couple of budgets have really been holdover, stopgap plans," said Elizabeth Lynam, vice president of the Citizens Budget Commission, an advocacy group that favors more limited spending. A one-year salary freeze, she added, would be "a beginning, and it's a shot across the bow at organized labor, which has to date been uncompromising."
"Hopefully it will lead to broad-based changes in the way state employees are compensated," she said.
Mr. Cuomo has made clear that breaking the stranglehold that entrenched interests, including unions, have on political leaders in Albany is a major priority.
But Mr. Cuomo, who has longstanding ties to labor and was endorsed by the Public Employees Federation last year, is hoping that unions will join him in the effort to fix the state's budget problems. In recent months, he invited public-sector unions to become his partners, even sending their leaders copies of "The Man Who Saved New York," a biography of former Gov. Hugh L. Carey, which recounts how Mr. Carey, a Democrat, teamed up with labor leaders in similar fashion in the 1970s.
At the same time, Mr. Cuomo has signaled that he is ready to fight, and has vowed to avoid the fate of his predecessors, who have endured millions of dollars in withering television advertisements from public-sector unions seeking to forestall cuts to state spending.
After his landslide victory in November, he kept a substantial campaign war chest on reserve to run his own ads to counter any union-backed television campaigns and is now deploying outside advisers to organize business interests into what he hopes will become a counterweight to labor: a new group known as the Committee to Save New York.
Mr. Cuomo on Sunday attended Mass with his girlfriend, Sandra Lee, and his three daughters at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, down the street from the Executive Mansion. Shortly after that, he returned to work at the Capitol, where aides were huddled to help draft Wednesday's speech and attend to other issues.
"We're going to be getting back to work," he told reporters after the service.
He also issued an executive order that will require top administration officials to undergo ethics training within the first three months of this year and to be recertified every two years afterward.
Thomas Kaplan contributed reporting.
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7) Deep Hole Economics
By PAUL KRUGMAN
January 2, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/opinion/03krugman.html?hp
If there's one piece of economic wisdom I hope people will grasp this year, it's this: Even though we may finally have stopped digging, we're still near the bottom of a very deep hole.
Why do I need to point this out? Because I've noticed many people overreacting to recent good economic news. What particularly concerns me is the risk of self-denying optimism - that is, I worry that policy makers will look at a few favorable economic indicators, decide that they no longer need to promote recovery, and take steps that send us sliding right back to the bottom.
So, about that good news: various economic indicators, ranging from relatively good holiday sales to new claims for unemployment insurance (which have finally fallen below 400,000 a week), suggest that the great post-bubble retrenchment may finally be ending.
We're not talking Morning in America here. Construction shows no sign of returning to bubble-era levels, nor are there any indications that debt-burdened families are going back to their old habits of spending all they earned. But all we needed for a modest economic rebound was for construction to stop falling and saving to stop rising - and that seems to be happening. Forecasters have been marking up their predictions; growth as high as 4 percent this year now looks possible.
Hooray! But then again, not so much. Jobs, not G.D.P. numbers, are what matter to American families. And when you start from an unemployment rate of almost 10 percent, the arithmetic of job creation - the amount of growth you need to get back to a tolerable jobs picture - is daunting.
First of all, we have to grow around 2.5 percent a year just to keep up with rising productivity and population, and hence keep unemployment from rising. That's why the past year and a half was technically a recovery but felt like a recession: G.D.P. was growing, but not fast enough to bring unemployment down.
Growth at a rate above 2.5 percent will bring unemployment down over time. But the gains aren't one for one: for a variety of reasons, it has historically taken about two extra points of growth over the course of a year to shave one point off the unemployment rate.
Now do the math. Suppose that the U.S. economy were to grow at 4 percent a year, starting now and continuing for the next several years. Most people would regard this as excellent performance, even as an economic boom; it's certainly higher than almost all the forecasts I've seen.
Yet the math says that even with that kind of growth the unemployment rate would be close to 9 percent at the end of this year, and still above 8 percent at the end of 2012. We wouldn't get to anything resembling full employment until late in Sarah Palin's first presidential term.
Seriously, what we're looking at over the next few years, even with pretty good growth, are unemployment rates that not long ago would have been considered catastrophic - because they are. Behind those dry statistics lies a vast landscape of suffering and broken dreams. And the arithmetic says that the suffering will continue as far as the eye can see.
So what can be done to accelerate this all-too-slow process of healing? A rational political system would long since have created a 21st-century version of the Works Progress Administration - we'd be putting the unemployed to work doing what needs to be done, repairing and improving our fraying infrastructure. In the political system we have, however, Senator-elect Kelly Ayotte, delivering the Republican weekly address on New Year's Day, declared that "Job one is to stop wasteful Washington spending."
Realistically, the best we can hope for from fiscal policy is that Washington doesn't actively undermine the recovery. Beware, in particular, the Ides of March: by then, the federal government will probably have hit its debt limit and the G.O.P. will try to force President Obama into economically harmful spending cuts.
I'm also worried about monetary policy. Two months ago, the Federal Reserve announced a new plan to promote job growth by buying long-term bonds; at the time, many observers believed that the initial $600 billion purchase was only the beginning of the story. But now it looks like the end, partly because Republicans are trying to bully the Fed into pulling back, but also because a run of slightly better economic news provides an excuse to do nothing.
There's even a significant chance that the Fed will raise interest rates later this year - or at least that's what the futures market seems to think. Doing so in the face of high unemployment and minimal inflation would be crazy, but that doesn't mean it won't happen.
So back to my original point: whatever the recent economic news, we're still near the bottom of a very deep hole. We can only hope that enough policy makers understand that point.
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8) Facing Threat From WikiLeaks, Bank Plays Defense
"Despite his legal troubles, Mr. Assange's threats have grown more credible with every release of secret documents, including those concerning the dumping of toxic waste in Africa, the treatment of prisoners held by the United States at Guantánamo Bay, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and, most recently, the trove of diplomatic cables.
That Mr. Assange might shift his attention to a private company - especially one as politically unpopular as Bank of America or any of its rivals, which have been stained by taxpayer-financed bailouts and the revelation of improper foreclosure practices - raises a new kind of corporate threat, combining elements of law, technology, public policy, politics and public relations."
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ
January 2, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/business/03wikileaks-bank.html?hp
By the time the conference call ended, it was nearly midnight at Bank of America's headquarters in Charlotte, N.C., but the bank's counterespionage work was only just beginning.
A day earlier, on Nov. 29, the director of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, said in an interview that he intended to "take down" a major American bank and reveal an "ecosystem of corruption" with a cache of data from an executive's hard drive. With Bank of America's share price falling on the widely held suspicion that the hard drive was theirs, the executives on the call concluded it was time to take action.
Since then, a team of 15 to 20 top Bank of America officials, led by the chief risk officer, Bruce R. Thompson, has been overseeing a broad internal investigation - scouring thousands of documents in the event that they become public, reviewing every case where a computer has gone missing and hunting for any sign that its systems might have been compromised.
In addition to the internal team drawn from departments like finance, technology, legal and communications, the bank has brought in Booz Allen Hamilton, the consulting firm, to help manage the review. It has also sought advice from several top law firms about legal problems that could arise from a disclosure, including the bank's potential liability if private information was disclosed about clients.
The company's chief executive, Brian T. Moynihan, receives regular updates on the team's progress, according to one Bank of America executive familiar with the team's work, who, like other bank officials, was granted anonymity to discuss the confidential inquiry.
Whether Mr. Assange is bluffing, or indeed has Bank of America in its sights at all, the bank's defense strategy represents the latest twist in the controversy over WikiLeaks and Mr. Assange.
The United States government has been examining whether Mr. Assange, an Australian, could be charged criminally for the release by WikiLeaks of hundreds of thousands of classified Pentagon and State Department diplomatic cables that became the subject of articles in The New York Times and other publications last month.
The Swedish government is also seeking to question Mr. Assange about rape accusations against him. As he fights extradition from Britain in that case, he remains under house arrest in an English mansion. Mr. Assange has said the timing of the rape accusations was not coincidental, and that he was the victim of a smear campaign led by the United States government.
Despite his legal troubles, Mr. Assange's threats have grown more credible with every release of secret documents, including those concerning the dumping of toxic waste in Africa, the treatment of prisoners held by the United States at Guantánamo Bay, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and, most recently, the trove of diplomatic cables.
That Mr. Assange might shift his attention to a private company - especially one as politically unpopular as Bank of America or any of its rivals, which have been stained by taxpayer-financed bailouts and the revelation of improper foreclosure practices - raises a new kind of corporate threat, combining elements of law, technology, public policy, politics and public relations.
"This is a significant moment, and Bank of America has to get out in front of it," said Richard S. Levick, a veteran crisis communications expert. "Corporate America needs to look at what happens here, and how Bank of America handles it."
Last month, the bank bought up Web addresses that could prove embarrassing to the company or its top executives in the event of a large-scale public assault, but a spokesman for the bank said the move was unrelated to any possible leak.
Then, on Dec. 18, Bank of America may have antagonized Mr. Assange further when it said it would join other companies like MasterCard and PayPal in halting the processing of payments intended for WikiLeaks, citing the possibility the organization's activities might be illegal.
Mr. Assange has never said explicitly that the data he possesses comes from Bank of America, which is the nation's largest bank, though he did say that the disclosure would take place sometime early this year.
The bank has emerged as the most likely target because a year before the latest threat, Mr. Assange said in an interview that his group had the hard drive of a Bank of America executive containing five gigabytes of data - enough to hold more than 200,000 pages of text - and was evaluating how to present it. It was this connection that set the wheels in motion on Nov. 30.
The financial markets took the threat seriously. Bank of America shares fell 3 percent in trading the day after Mr. Assange made his threat against a nameless bank, and while the stock has since recovered, the prospect of a Bank of America data dump from WikiLeaks remains a concern, said Moshe Orenbuch, an analyst with Credit Suisse.
"The fears have calmed down somewhat, but if there is something out there that is revealed, the market reaction will be negative," he said.
Bank of America's internal review has turned up no evidence that would substantiate Mr. Assange's claim that he has a hard drive, according to interviews with executives there. The company declined to otherwise comment on the case. A WikiLeaks representative also declined to comment.
With the data trail cold, one working theory both inside and outside the bank is that internal documents in Mr. Assange's possession, if any, probably came from the mountains of material turned over to the Securities and Exchange Commission, Congressional investigators and the New York attorney general's office during separate investigations in 2009 and 2010 into the bank's acquisition of Merrill Lynch.
As it happens, Mr. Assange's first mention of the Bank of America hard drive, in October 2009, coincided with hearings by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform into the Merrill merger, and with wide-ranging requests for information by the committee.
The bank's investigative team is trying to reconstruct the handover of materials to public agencies for a variety of inquiries, in pursuit of previously undisclosed documents that could embarrass the company, bank officials said.
In addition to the Merrill documents, the team is reviewing material on Bank of America's disastrous acquisition in 2008 of Countrywide Financial, the subprime mortgage specialist, the officials said. The criticism of Bank of America's foreclosure procedures centers mostly on loans it acquired in the Countrywide deal, and one possibility is that the documents could show unscrupulous or fraudulent lending practices by Countrywide.
If that is the case, it would not only reignite political pressure on Bank of America and other top mortgage servicers, but it could also strengthen the case of investors pressuring the big banks to buy back tens of billions in soured mortgages.
"If something happens, we want to be ready," one bank official said. "You want to know what your options are before it comes out, rather than have to decide on the spot." Bank of America's efforts are complicated by the fact that it has made several huge acquisitions in recent years, and those once-independent companies had different computer systems and security procedures.
WikiLeaks has taken on private companies in the past, including leaking documents from Barclays of Britain and Bank Julius Baer of Switzerland, but neither disclosure drew nearly as much attention.
Officials at the S.E.C., the House oversight committee and the New York attorney general's office insist the information they received had been turned over in the form of papers and discs, never a hard drive, and deny they are the source of the WikiLeaks cache.
At the same time, Mr. Assange's own statements would seem to undermine the government-as-source theory, hinting instead that resignations might follow as evidence emerges of corruption among top executives, something the public investigations never found.
"It will give a true and representative insight into how banks behave at the executive level in a way that will stimulate investigations and reforms, I presume," he said in the November 2010 interview with Forbes. "For this, there's only one similar example. It's like the Enron e-mails."
Eric Dash and Louise Story contributed reporting.
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9) Roots of British Student Unrest Unresolved
"Both houses of Parliament have now approved measures that allow the cap on tuition, currently set at £3,290, or $5,150, a year, to rise to £9,000 starting in 2012, at the same time as central government funding for university teaching in most subjects will be cut 80 percent... Len McCluskey, the newly elected leader of Unite, Britain's largest union of private sector workers, said that trade union leaders would meet early in January to discuss a 'broad strike movement' to support the students in their opposition to the government's austerity program. In an article in a British newspaper, Mr. McCluskey said the student protests had 'put the trade union movement on the spot,' adding that 'students have to know we are on their side.'"
By D.D. GUTTENPLAN
January 2, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/world/europe/03iht-educLede03.html?ref=world
LONDON - Despite a growing wave of student protests in Britain over government plans to sharply raise university tuition fees that saw buildings occupied at campuses across the country, and battles in the streets between demonstrators and the police whose ferocity at one point even seemed to threaten the heir to the British throne, the year 2010 ended quietly, with students heading home for the holidays and university authorities once again in control of their premises.
Both houses of Parliament have now approved measures that allow the cap on tuition, currently set at £3,290, or $5,150, a year, to rise to £9,000 starting in 2012, at the same time as central government funding for university teaching in most subjects will be cut 80 percent. There would still be some government support for science, technology, medicine, nursing and "strategically important languages." Government-funded loans to cover the fees would be available, to be repaid only after students graduate and are earning more than £21,000 a year.
But as students return to campuses this week, and with the details of the government's plans still not due to emerge until next month, the dispute seems far from resolved.
Len McCluskey, the newly elected leader of Unite, Britain's largest union of private sector workers, said that trade union leaders would meet early in January to discuss a "broad strike movement" to support the students in their opposition to the government's austerity program. In an article in a British newspaper, Mr. McCluskey said the student protests had "put the trade union movement on the spot," adding that "students have to know we are on their side."
Student activists were also predicting a resumption of hostilities. "We have to make sure that these protests don't just die away like the anti-war marches did," said Joseph Blake, a freshman at Leeds University who participated in demonstrations there and in London. "It took three years of people shouting in the streets for the government to change its mind about the poll tax," he said, referring to a shift in the funding of local government under Margaret Thatcher from a property tax to a levy on individual adults. Introduced in 1990, the poll tax was extremely unpopular, prompting widespread unrest and contributing to Mrs. Thatcher's downfall. Her successor, John Major, reinstated a system of local property taxes in 1993.
Meanwhile, the government has been pressing ahead with changes, with the higher education minister, David Willetts, writing in late December to advise the head of the Higher Education Funding Council that "we have to control public expenditure costs by controlling student numbers." Last year, nearly 200,000 British students failed to gain admission to a university, and though the government made an additional 10,000 places available in response to the rise in demand for the 2010 and 2011 academic years, Mr. Willetts and the business secretary, Vince Cable, said that after 2011, "the 10,000 extra places will not be repeated."
The only thing that all sides in this process agree on is that the landscape of British higher education is about to be transformed. For the government, the changes are part of a bold experiment to "lay stress on choice for students" by enabling "universities to respond flexibly to demand," according to the Willetts-Cable letter. "Institutions which are chosen by students because they offer better quality, responsiveness and value for money should be able to grow if they wish and - if necessary - at the expense of those that perform less well."
But this reliance on a student-driven market to allocate educational resources requires young people to make choices about their own futures before they are equipped to do so, critics say.
"Even at a time of huge reductions in public spending, the cuts imposed on universities and students" by the government are "particularly disappointing," said Les Ebdon, vice chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire. The failure to provide for growth in student numbers "is highly unlikely to achieve the government's objectives of promoting innovation or add to capacity to promote regional or national growth," he said in a statement.
The government's decision to shift a greater portion of the cost of education onto students themselves, at the same time it imposes overall cuts on the level of support for university teaching, means that "students who do go under these conditions to study arts subjects will have taken out huge loans for an education inferior to what we're getting," said Lucy Vaughan, a student at Goldsmith's College who took part in the London protests. "They'll face much larger classes, less contact time with teachers - they just won't get as good an education. And it will cost them three times as much!"
Luke Yates, a graduate student at Manchester University in the third year of a doctoral program in sociology, said that a lot of the people who occupied a student union building there were "worried about their younger brothers and sisters."
But student concerns extend beyond families - or the issue of tuition fees. "I teach undergraduates," Mr. Yates said. "The graduate sociology department at Manchester gets a lot of funding for research, so it will probably survive. With the cuts to teaching, I'm very worried there just won't be any undergraduates studying sociology," he said.
In addition to various disciplines and university departments fighting over prospective students, the future of British education seems to assume far more competition between institutions. Again, the government sees this as a spur to improvement, with Oxford, Cambridge and other prestigious universities expanding at the expense of less successful institutions.
But Pam Tatlow, chief executive of Million Plus, a university research group, said: "There are no winners as a result of these reforms. There are real concerns that participation by students from low income families who are more debt and risk averse, will be undermined."
Her concern was echoed by Lee Elliot Major, head of research for the Sutton Trust, a charity devoted to promoting social mobility through education. Just before Christmas, the Sutton Trust released a report showing that students who graduate from expensive private schools are 55 times more likely to be admitted to Oxford or Cambridge than a student whose family income is low enough to qualify for free school meals. "We are worried that the current generation of children in the U.K. - from low- and also middle-income backgrounds - face the worst prospects for social mobility in generations unless more is done to improve their educational opportunities," Dr. Elliot Major said.
It is this sense of a gamble for very high stakes beyond the university campus that makes another season of discontent a distinct possibility. For the government, the goals are efficiency and economy in an educational sector able to compete in the global marketplace. But for the students and their allies, the values of society itself are at issue.
"The humanities and education generally used to be considered worthwhile aims of the welfare state," Mr. Yates said. "The government says we all have to share the pain. But once those things are cut, they won't ever come back."
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10) Outlawed, Cellphones Are Thriving in Prisons
"President Obama signed a law in August making possession of a phone or a wireless device in a federal prison a felony, punishable by up to a year of extra sentencing."
By KIM SEVERSON and ROBBIE BROWN
January 2, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/03/us/03prisoners.html?ref=us
ATLANTA - A counterfeiter at a Georgia state prison ticks off the remaining days of his three-year sentence on his Facebook page. He has 91 digital "friends." Like many of his fellow inmates, he plays the online games FarmVille and Street Wars.
He does it all on a Samsung smartphone, which he says he bought from a guard. And he used the same phone to help organize a short strike among inmates at several Georgia prisons last month.
Technology is changing life inside prisons across the country at the same rapid-fire pace it is changing life outside. A smartphone hidden under a mattress is the modern-day file inside a cake.
"This kind of thing was bound to happen," said Martin F. Horn, a former commissioner of the New York City Department of Correction who teaches at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. "The physical boundaries that we thought protected us no longer work."
Although prison officials have long battled illegal cellphones, smartphones have changed the game. With Internet access, a prisoner can call up phone directories, maps and photographs for criminal purposes, corrections officials and prison security experts say. Gang violence and drug trafficking, they say, are increasingly being orchestrated online, allowing inmates to keep up criminal behavior even as they serve time.
"The smartphone is the most lethal weapon you can get inside a prison," said Terry L. Bittner, director of security products with the ITT Corporation, one of a handful of companies that create cellphone-detection systems for prisons. "The smartphone is the equivalent of the old Swiss Army knife. You can do a lot of other things with it."
The Georgia prison strike, for instance, was about things prisoners often complain about: They are not paid for their labor. Visitation rules are too strict. Meals are bad.
But the technology they used to voice their concerns was new.
Inmates punched in text messages and assembled e-mail lists to coordinate simultaneous protests, including work stoppages, with inmates at other prisons. Under pseudonyms, they shared hour-by-hour updates with followers on Facebook and Twitter. They communicated with their advocates, conducted news media interviews and monitored coverage of the strike.
In Oklahoma, a convicted killer was caught in November posting photographs on his Facebook page of drugs, knives and alcohol that had been smuggled into his cell. In 2009, gang members in a Maryland prison were caught using their smartphones to approve targets for robberies and even to order seafood and cigars.
Even closely watched prisoners are sneaking phones in. Last month, California prison guards said they had found a flip phone under Charles Manson's mattress.
The logical solution would be to keep all cellphones out of prison. But that is a war that is being lost, corrections officials say. Prisoners agree.
"Almost everybody has a phone," said Mike, 33, an inmate at Smith State Prison in Georgia who, like other prisoners interviewed for this article, asked that his full name not be used for fear of retaliation. "Almost every phone is a smartphone. Almost everybody with a smartphone has a Facebook."
Cellphones are prohibited in all state and federal prisons in the United States, often even for top corrections officials. Punishment for a prisoner found with one varies. In some states, it is an infraction that affects parole or time off for good behavior. In others, it results in new criminal charges.
President Obama signed a law in August making possession of a phone or a wireless device in a federal prison a felony, punishable by up to a year of extra sentencing.
Still, they get in. By the thousands. In the first four months of 2010, Federal Bureau of Prisons workers confiscated 1,188 cellphones, according to Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat who sponsored the federal measure. In California last year, officers discovered nearly 9,000 phones.
Payments for cellphones range from $300 to $1,000, depending on the type of phone and the service plan. Monthly fees are generally paid by inmates' relatives. Phones are smuggled in by guards, visitors and inmates convicted of misdemeanors with lower security restrictions.
But that is not the only way. In South Carolina, where most prisons are rural and staff members have to pass through X-ray machines and metal detectors, smugglers resort to an old-fashioned method - tossing phones over fences.
They stuff smartphones into footballs or launch them from a device called a potato cannon or spud gun, which shoots a projectile through a pipe. Packages are sometimes camouflaged with a coating of grass, which makes them hard for guards to detect. The drops are coordinated through texts or calls between inmates and people outside, said Jon Ozmint, director of the South Carolina Department of Corrections, which confiscates as many as 2,000 cellphones a year.
Even if officers intercept 75 percent of the packages, Mr. Ozmint said, that is still a lot of contraband getting in.
"It is impossible to have enough staff to watch the two million people we have locked up in the country at this time," he said. "In a perfect world, yes, we would find all the phones. But this isn't a perfect world."
The solution, Mr. Ozmint and others say, is to simply jam cellphone signals in prisons. He and prison officials from 29 other states petitioned the Federal Communications Commission last year for permission to install technology that would render cellphones useless. But there is no support from the cellphone industry.
"It's illegal, plain and simple," said Chris Guttman-McCabe, vice president of regulatory affairs for CTIA-The Wireless Association. He cited the Communications Act of 1934, which prohibits the blocking of radio signals - or, in this case, cellphone signals - from authorized users.
Although supporters of jamming disagree, Mr. Guttman-McCabe argues that the technology is not yet good enough to prevent legal cellphones nearby but not inside prison walls to be jammed. Nor does the technology assure that every inch inside a prison is blocked, he said.
The solution may be a new system introduced in Mississippi. It is being tested in several other states and has the cellphone industry's support. Called managed access, the system establishes a network around a prison that detects every call and text. Callers using cellphones that are not on an approved list receive a message saying the device is illegal and will no longer function.
At the Mississippi State Penitentiary, which houses about 3,000 inmates, 643,388 calls and texts going in and out were intercepted from July 31 to Dec. 1, 2010. The system was so successful that Mississippi is installing it at the state's two other penitentiaries.
Finding the actual cellphones inside a prison is another solution, and several states are testing systems. For example, Maryland and New Jersey are using dogs that can sniff out the ionization of cellphone batteries.
"An effective, reliable cellphone-detection capability, that's the holy grail," said Mr. Horn, the criminal justice professor and expert on the use of illegal digital technology inside prisons.
The recent rise in smartphones raises larger issues for prisoners and their advocates, who say the phones are not necessarily used for criminal purposes. In some prisons, a traditional phone call is prohibitive, costing $1 per minute in many states. And cellphones can help some offenders stay better connected with their families.
Mike, the Georgia inmate who was part of the recent strike, said he used his to stay in touch with his son.
"When he gets off the school bus, I'm on the phone and I talk to him," he said in an interview on his contraband cellphone. "When he goes to bed, I'm on the phone and I talk to him."
Some groups are encouraging prisons to embrace new technology while managing risks. Inmates are more likely to successfully re-enter society if they maintain relationships with friends and families, said David Fathi, director of the National Prison Project at the American Civil Liberties Union.
"It shows that even if they are closed institutions, prisons are still part of the larger society," Mr. Fathi said. "They can't be forever walled off from technological changes."
And in a world where hundreds of apps are introduced each day by developers hoping to tap new markets, a pool of prisoners with smartphones can seem an attractive new market, despite the implications.
"It's a pure business opportunity," said Hal Goldstein, the publisher of iPhone Life magazine. He predicted that games would be big, but so would the ability to download news and books.
"People outside of prison become addicted to their phones," Mr. Goldstein said. "Can you imagine if you had nothing but time on your hands?"
Sarah Wheaton contributed reporting from New York.
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11) Pa. Allows Dumping of Tainted Waters From Gas Boom
"In the two years since the frenzy of activity began in the vast underground rock formation known as the Marcellus Shale, Pennsylvania has been the only state allowing waterways to serve as the primary disposal place for the huge amounts of wastewater produced by a drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking."
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
January 3, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/01/03/business/AP-US-Gas-Drilling-Frackwater.html?src=busln
Filed at 12:59 p.m. EST
The natural gas boom gripping parts of the U.S. has a nasty byproduct: wastewater so salty, and so polluted with metals like barium and strontium, that most states require drillers to get rid of the stuff by injecting it down shafts thousands of feet deep.
Not in Pennsylvania, one of the states at the center of the gas rush.
There, the liquid that gushes from gas wells is only partially treated for substances that could be environmentally harmful, then dumped into rivers and streams from which communities get their drinking water.
In the two years since the frenzy of activity began in the vast underground rock formation known as the Marcellus Shale, Pennsylvania has been the only state allowing waterways to serve as the primary disposal place for the huge amounts of wastewater produced by a drilling technique called hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
State regulators, initially caught flat-footed, tightened the rules this year for any new water treatment plants but allowed any existing operations to continue discharging water into rivers.
At least 3.6 million barrels of the waste were sent to treatment plants that empty into rivers during the 12 months ending June 30, according to state records. That is enough to cover a square mile with more than 81/2 inches of brine.
Researchers are still trying to figure out whether Pennsylvania's river discharges, at their current levels, are dangerous to humans or wildlife. Several studies are under way, some under the auspices of the Environmental Protection Agency.
State officials, energy companies and the operators of treatment plants insist that with the right safeguards in place, the practice poses little or no risk to the environment or to the hundreds of thousands of people who rely on those rivers for drinking water.
But an Associated Press review found that Pennsylvania's efforts to minimize, control and track wastewater discharges from the Marcellus Shale have sometimes failed.
For example:
- Of the roughly 6 million barrels of well liquids produced in a 12-month period examined by The AP, the state couldn't account for the disposal method for 1.28 million barrels, about a fifth of the total, because of a weakness in its reporting system and incomplete filings by some energy companies.
- Some public water utilities that sit downstream from big gas wastewater treatment plants have struggled to stay under the federal maximum for contaminants known as trihalomethanes, which can cause cancer if swallowed over a long period.
- Regulations that should have kept drilling wastewater out of the important Delaware River Basin, the water supply for 15 million people in four states, were circumvented for many months.
In 2009 and part of 2010, energy company Cabot Oil & Gas trucked more than 44,000 barrels of well wastewater to a treatment facility in Hatfield Township, a Philadelphia suburb. Those liquids ultimately were discharged into a creek that provides drinking water to 17 municipalities with more than 300,000 residents. Cabot acknowledged it should not have happened.
People in those communities had been told repeatedly that the watershed was free of gas waste.
"This is an outrage," said Tracy Carluccio, deputy director of the Delaware Riverkeeper Network, an environmental group. "This is indicative of the lack of adequate oversight."
The situation in Pennsylvania is being watched carefully by regulators in other states, some of which have begun allowing some river discharges. New York also sits over the Marcellus Shale, but Gov. David Paterson has slapped a moratorium on high-volume fracking while environmental regulations are drafted.
Industry representatives insist that the wastewater from fracking has not caused serious harm anywhere in Pennsylvania, in part because it is safely diluted in the state's big rivers. But most of the largest drillers say they are taking action and abolishing river discharges anyway.
Cabot, which produced nearly 370,000 barrels of waste in the period examined by the AP, said that since the spring it has been reusing 100 percent of its well water in new drilling operations, rather than trucking it to treatment plants.
"Cabot wants to ensure that everything we are doing is environmentally sound," said spokesman George Stark. "It makes environmental sense and economic sense to do it."
All 10 of the biggest drillers in the state say they have either eliminated river discharges in the past few months, or reduced them to a small fraction of what they were a year ago. Together, those companies accounted for 80 percent of the wastewater produced in the state.
The biggest driller, Atlas Resources, which produced nearly 2.3 million barrels of wastewater in the review period, said it is now recycling all water produced by wells in their first 30 days of operation, when the flowback is heaviest. The rest is still sent to treatment plants, but "our ultimate goal is to have zero surface discharge of any of the water," said spokesman Jeff Kupfer.
How much wastewater is still being discharged into rivers is unclear. Records verifying industry claims of a major drop-off will not be available until midwinter.
Natural gas drilling has taken off in several states in recent years because of fracking and horizontal drilling, techniques that allow the unlocking of more methane than ever before.
Fracking involves injecting millions of gallons of water mixed with chemicals and sand deep into the rock, shattering the shale and releasing the gas trapped inside. When the gas comes to the surface, some of the water comes back, too, along with underground brine that exists naturally.
It can be several times saltier than sea water and tainted with fracking chemicals, some of which can be carcinogenic if swallowed at high enough levels over time.
The water is also often laden with barium, which is found in underground ore deposits and can cause high blood pressure, and radium, a naturally occurring radioactive substance.
In other places where fracking has ignited a gas bonanza, like the Barnett Shale field in Texas, the Haynesville Shale in Louisiana, and deposits in West Virginia, New Mexico and Oklahoma, the dominant disposal method for drilling wastewater is to send it back down into the ground via injection wells.
In some arid states, wastewater is also treated in evaporation pits. Water is essentially baked off by the sun, leaving a salty sludge that is disposed of in wells or landfills.
Operators of the treatment plants handling the bulk of the Pennsylvania waste say they can remove most of the toxic substances without much trouble, including radium and barium, before putting the water back into rivers.
"In some respects, its better than what's already in the river," said Al Lander, president of Tunnelton Liquids, a treatment plant that discharges water into western Pennsylvania's Conemaugh River.
The one thing that can't be removed easily, except at great expense, he said, is the dissolved solids and chlorides that make the fluids so salty.
Those substances usually don't pose a risk to humans in low levels, said Paul Ziemkiewicz, director of the West Virginia Water Research Institute at West Virginia, but large amounts can give drinking water a foul taste, leave a film on dishes and give people diarrhea. Those problems have been reported from time to time in some places.
Those salts can also trigger other problems.
The municipal authority that provides drinking water to Beaver Falls, 27 miles northwest of Pittsburgh, began flunking tests for trihalomethanes regularly last year, around the time that a facility 18 miles upstream, Advanced Waste Services, became Pennsylvania's dominant gas wastewater treatment plant.
Trihalomethanes are not found in drilling wastewater, but there can be a link. The wastewater often contains bromide, which reacts with the chlorine used to purify drinking water. That creates trihalomethanes.
The EPA says people who drink water with elevated levels of trihalomethanes for many years have an increased risk of cancer and could also develop liver, kidney or central nervous system problems.
Pennsylvania's multitude of acid-leaching, abandoned coal mines and other industrial sources are also a major source of the high salt levels that lead to the problem.
Beaver Falls plant manager Jim Riggio said he doesn't know what is keeping his system off-kilter, but a chemical analysis suggested it was linked to the hundreds of thousands of barrels of partially treated gas well brine that now flow past his intakes every year.
"It all goes back to frackwater," he said.
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12) Poll: 81 percent Say Tax Rich or Cut Military;
3 percent Say Cut Social Security
Published on Tuesday, January 4, 2011 by Reuters
by Reuters
www.CommonDreams.org
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/01/04-8
Most Americans think the United States should raise taxes for the rich to balance the budget, according to a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll released on Monday.
[Most Americans think the United States should raise taxes for the rich to balance the budget, according to a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll released on Monday. (photo by Flickr user Lisa Norwood)]Most Americans think the United States should raise taxes for the rich to balance the budget, according to a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll released on Monday. (photo by Flickr user Lisa Norwood)
President Barack Obama last month signed into law a two-year extension of Bush-era tax cuts for millions of Americans, including the wealthiest, in a compromise with Republicans.
Republicans, who this week take control of the House of Representatives, want to extend all Bush-era tax cuts "permanently" for the middle class and wealthier Americans. They are also demanding spending cuts to curb the $1.3 trillion deficit.
Sixty-one percent of Americans polled would rather see taxes for the wealthy increased as a first step to tackling the deficit, the poll showed.
The next most popular way -- chosen by 20 percent -- was to cut defense spending.
Four percent would cut the Medicare government health insurance program for the elderly, and 3 percent would cut the Social Security retirement program, the poll showed.
Asked which part of the world they would fix first, the largest proportion of respondents -- 36 percent -- chose Washington, compared with 23 percent who picked the Middle East and 14 percent who chose Haiti.
The poll included a random sample of 1,067 adults across the United States from November 29 to December 2. The margin of error may be plus or minus 3 percentage points, 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair said.
(Reporting by Kristina Cooke; Editing by Daniel Trotta and Peter Cooney)
(c) 2011 Reuters
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13) Brutal Reprisals Against Peaceful GA Inmate Strikers Confirmed, Was One Victim Hidden For Weeks By Prison Authorities?
By BAR Managing Editor Bruce A. Dixon
January 1, 2011
http://blackagendareport.com/?q=content/brutal-reprisals-against-peaceful-ga-inmate-strikers-confirmed-was-one-victim-hidden-weeks-p
Black, brown and white inmates in 6 Georgia prisons nonviolently locked themselves in their cells for several days beginning December 9, demanding wages for work, educational opportunities, adequate food and medical care, just parole decisions and access to their families. The peaceful inmate strikers, as we reported the following day, were already victims of brutal retaliation on the part of correctional officials, ranging from cutoffs of heat and hot water to unprovoked assaults by correctional employees upon prisoners.
It now appears that at least one inmate, Terrance Dean of Bibb County GA was brutally assaulted by staff at Macon State Prison on or about December 16 was so severely injured prison officials secretly evacuated him to a hospital in Atlanta without bothering to inform his family. It's not known at this time which Department of Corrections officials authorized the secret evacuation, who decided not to notify Dean's family of either his injuries or his whereabouts, or whether the prisoner was transported the roughly 130 miles to Atlanta via ground or air ambulance. The first word the prisoner's family received of either the beating or Dean's whereabouts was when they were contacted December 30 or 31 by the friends and associates of other prisoners on the outside. Neither the Department of Corrections nor Atlanta Medical Center, where the prisoner was held for about two weeks, has released any information about the extent of the prisoner's injuries, his current medical condition, or how he was injured.
The morning of Friday, December 31, Dean's sister, along with ACLU attorney Chara Jackson and GA state NAACP chief Ed DuBose representing the Concerned Coalition to Respect Prisoner's Rights showed up at the Atlanta Medical Center demanding to see the injured prisoner or at least have his whereabouts confirmed. After several hours of delay, correctional officials said his mother and sister, along with the attorney would be allowed to visit him at Jackson State Prison Sunday, January 2, but they offered no explanation of the reasons for his secretive transfer. Hospital officials also refused to offer any information on Dean's injuries, even to his family, on grounds of doctor-patient confidentiality.
"We assume that state officials have a written policy requiring them to inform family members in the event of the serious injury of their loved ones in prison," said the Georgia Green Party's Hugh Esco. "If Georgia corrections personnel did brutally beat Terrance Dean, transfer him secretly more than a hundred miles from the scene of the crime scene and neglect to inform his family about his injuries or whereabouts they could be parties to a criminal conspiracy. The Green Party has written a letter to the outgoing and incoming governors asking them to look carefully at the events surrounding the case of Mr. Dean. We also note that the Department of Corrections promised access to the 37 prisoners whom it transferred as a result of the inmate strike that began on December 9. We hope this is a promise they keep, so that the public can get a complete and accurate picture of what goes on behind those walls."
Dean's sister, attorney Chara Jackson, and the NAACP's Ed DuBose briefed the press at Atlanta Medical Center, including representatives from at least one local TV station repeatedly beginning at noon on Friday, and assured Black Agenda Report that they will attempt to see Terrance Dean at Jackson State Prison on Sunday, January 2. But as of nearly 24 hours later, on the morning of January 1, 2011 no corporate news outlet is publicly asking or answering any of the key questions around the assault on Terrance Dean, or what look for all the world like official attempts to conceal it from his family and the public.
"This is no surprise," offered BAR executive editor Glen Ford. "For corporate journalists, a story without input from government or corporate officials is no story at all. For these so-called reporters, the story has a big hole in it as long as state officials decline to comment, even though official misconduct on the part of government IS the story. If the state declines to comment until Sunday or Monday, they will sit on the story till then. Establishment journalists are nothing if not disciplined and well-trained."
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14) There He Goes Again
NYT Editorial
January 4, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/opinion/05wed3.html
Justice Antonin Scalia has a knack for drawing unflattering light to himself and the Supreme Court. Recall, for example, when he refused to recuse himself from a case involving the energy task force run by Dick Cheney, his friend and duck-hunting companion, when Mr. Cheney was vice president.
Justice Scalia is now getting attention for his outlandish view, expressed in an interview in the magazine California Lawyer, that the promise of equal protection in the Constitution's 14th Amendment does not extend to protecting women against sex discrimination. Legislatures may outlaw sex discrimination, Justice Scalia suggested, but if they decided to enact laws sanctioning such unfair treatment, it would not be unconstitutional.
This is not the first time Justice Scalia has espoused this notion, and it generally tracks his jurisprudence in the area. Still, for a sitting member of the nation's highest court to be pressing such an antiquated view of women's rights is jarring, to say the least.
No less dismaying is his notion that women, gays and other emerging minorities should be left at the mercy of the prevailing political majority when it comes to ensuring fair treatment. It is an "originalist" approach wholly antithetical to the framers' understanding that vital questions of people's rights should not be left solely to the political process. It also disrespects the wording of the Equal Protection Clause, which is intentionally broad, and its purpose of ensuring a fairer society.
Fortunately, Justice Scalia's views on women are not the law of the land.
In a slew of rulings since 1971, often with conservative justices in the majority, the Supreme Court has consistently rejected Justice Scalia's constricted view of what the Constitution requires. It would be nice if he underscored that fact the next time he spoke out on the subject.
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15) Israeli Military Officials Challenge Account of Palestinian Woman's Death
By ISABEL KERSHNER
January 4, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/world/middleeast/05mideast.html?ref=world
BILIN, West Bank - Clashing narratives over the case of a 36-year-old Palestinian woman who died on Saturday is fast making her a new symbol of the enduring conflict here, with the Israeli military anonymously casting doubt on Palestinian accounts - backed by medical documents - that she died from inhaling tear gas.
The woman's relatives, village leaders and staff members at the hospital in Ramallah where she was treated said that she was fatally sickened by tear gas fired on Friday by Israeli forces during the weekly protest against Israel's separation barrier in the Palestinian village of Bilin. Her mother said she and her daughter, Jawaher Abu Rahmah, were watching the protest from a distance when a cloud of tear gas wafted their way, causing her daughter to collapse.
But Israeli military officials, who insisted on anonymity while their investigation was continuing, told various journalists and bloggers that they had never heard of tear gas killing anyone in the open, and raised the possibility that she had some pre-existing ailment that, alone or compounded by the tear gas, caused her death.
The army routinely fires CS tear gas against the protesters to keep them away from the barrier and to disperse stone-throwing youths. The gas is toxic and can be lethal in closed environments but is considered nonlethal in the open air. Israeli military officials said the gas used on Friday was exactly the same as that used every week.
Pro-Israel advocates quickly pounced on the Israeli military official's anonymous conjectures, accusing the Palestinians of fabricating the story of death from tear gas for propaganda purposes. The Palestinians riposted, saying the Israelis were making an underhanded attempt to discredit them and cover up army actions. The Palestinian government's media center called the Israeli arguments "reprehensible," describing them as "half truths," "misinformation" and "lies."
Both sides are aware of the potency of such symbols. A brother of Ms. Abu Rahmah, Bassem, became a rallying point for the Bilin protests in 2009, when he died after being struck in the chest by an Israeli tear gas canister. Video of a 12-year-old Palestinian being shot to death in Gaza in 2000 during a gun battle between Israeli forces and Palestinians provided an iconic image that fanned Palestinian rage in the early stages of the second intifada. Israel first apologized for the death of the boy, Muhammad al-Dura, then concluded he had probably been killed by Palestinian fire. Some critics even charged that the whole episode had been staged.
For now, the debate has focused on Ms. Abu Rahmah's medical history and possible conflicts in hospital records.
She went to work as usual on Thursday, according to her employer in Ramallah. On Friday morning, one of her brothers, Samir, recalled, she was chatting happily about New Year and other subjects with her family at home.
Local Palestinians, bolstered by international and Israeli supporters, have held weekly protests against Israel's separation barrier in Bilin for the past five years, turning the village into a symbol of Palestinian defiance. Friday's demonstration was billed as a particularly large one to observe the end of 2010.
Ms. Abu Rahmah's mother, Soubhiya, said she was with her daughter and several neighbors on a rise near their home at the edge of the village, watching the confrontation between the Israeli forces and activists who were closer to the barrier across the valley.
The mother and others described a "cloud" of tear gas carried toward them on the wind. Witnesses said that Ms. Abu Rahmah soon began vomiting and emitting white foam from her mouth.
Her brother Samir, 34, was at home when neighbors called him for help. He said he found his sister lying on the floor of the neighbor's house. "She said, 'I'm going to die,' " he recalled, standing outside the family home, a small, weathered structure with a bare concrete floor.
A few minutes later, at 1:20 p.m., an ambulance arrived, according to a case form from the Palestine Red Crescent Society. It delivered Ms. Abu Rahmah to the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah and returned to its base by 2:43 p.m., according to the driver, Saher Bisharat.
Another brother, Ahmed, said he stayed all night with Ms. Abu Rahmah in the hospital. He recounted that her situation deteriorated and her heart stopped three times on Saturday morning before she died.
On Saturday night, an Israeli military official said the army had received an initial report from the Palestinians that a woman who was hospitalized after inhaling tear gas had been released and died later at her home. While not disputing that Ms. Abu Rahmah had been affected by tear gas, the official questioned whether she had some pre-existing medical condition that might have contributed to her death, or whether her death could have been a result of medical negligence.
A report dated Jan. 2 from the hospital and signed by two doctors and the director, Dr. Muhammad Aideh, said her death was caused by "unknown gas inhalation" after an "attack by Israeli soldiers as the family said." Dr. Aideh also said the patient "died from lung failure that was caused by tear gas inhalation, leading to a heart attack."
On Tuesday, the military official said that records showed that Ms. Abu Rahmah was given a drug at the hospital that can be used to treat leukemia or a drug overdose. The official also suggested that Ms. Abu Rahmah could have had asthma. The military also said that Palestinian medical officials had not immediately provided the military with the medical reports, a lack of cooperation that the military considered problematic.
The hospital report states that Ms. Abu Rahmah had "no history of chronic disease." Family members said she underwent a CT brain scan in late December after complaining of headaches. A report from the Shafey Diagnostic Center said the scan showed everything to be normal. The family said the problem was an inner ear infection that was subsequently treated and cured.
The military official noted that there were no photographs or video showing Ms. Abu Rahmah at the protest on Friday, but that is not surprising since she was not at the forefront of the demonstration.
The Israeli military's questions focus chiefly on discrepancies in timekeeping. The military says that according to one medical report, Ms. Abu Rahmah's laboratory test results were registered at 2:45 p.m. on Friday, whereas another report states that she was admitted at 3:20 p.m.
Her brothers said that 3:20 p.m. was the time when she admitted to the intensive care unit. The tests, they said, were carried out earlier in the emergency room.
The family refused an autopsy on religious grounds. Ms. Abu Rahmah was buried Saturday afternoon in a small cemetery near her home, next to her brother Bassem.
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16) U.N. Food Price Index Jumps in December
By REUTERS
January 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/business/global/06food.html?ref=world
ROME - Prices of corn, wheat and other grains can go much higher and current weather patterns are of concern, the United Nations' food agency said Wednesday after announcing a jump in its food price index in December.
The F.A.O.'s food price index, which measures monthly price changes for a food basket composed of cereals, oilseeds, dairy, meat and sugar, averaged 215 points last month, up from 206 points in November.
That level, fueled by soaring sugar prices and strength in cereals and oilseeds, was the highest since records began in 1990, and topped the high of 213.5 in June 2008, during a food crisis which sparked riots in some countries.
The Food and Agriculture Organization's economist Abdolreza Abbassian told Reuters the F.A.O. was concerned by the unpredictability of current weather activity.
"There is still room for prices to go up much higher, if for example the dry conditions in Argentina tend to become a drought, and if we start having problems with winterkill in the northern hemisphere for the wheat crops," he said.
Winterkill occurs when cold attacks plants seeded, generally in the autumn, for harvesting the following year.
Mr. Abbassian added that despite high prices, many factors that triggered sometimes deadly food riots in 2008, such as weak output in poor countries and a sudden surge in crude oil prices, were not currently present, reducing the risk of more turmoil.
A mix of high oil and fuel prices, growing use of biofuels, bad weather and soaring futures markets pushed up prices of food in 2007 and 2008, prompting violent protests in countries including Egypt, Cameroon and Haiti.
Prices of grains surged in 2010, with wheat buoyed by a series of weather events including drought in Russia and its Black Sea neighbors. European wheat prices doubled, American corn rose more than 50 percent while American soybeans jumped 34 percent.
Low stocks of grains such as corn mean that more weather-related damage to crops could be critical for markets. China in particular has a huge appetite for corn and is keen to secure adequate stocks of the grain.
Crude oil prices have also crept higher on a resurgence in global demand, which has raised concern of a double burden of high food and energy prices particularly for developing countries with import needs, Mr. Abbassian said.
"That's when people have problems because of inflation. Fast-growth developing countries are more vulnerable," he said, mentioning India and China.
But he did not see the oil price buoying grains and oilseeds markets to the extent it did in 2007/08, because it had not seen such a drastic and sudden surge and because the biofuels industry is no longer growing as rapidly.
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17) Birthright Citizenship Looms as Next Immigration Battle
By MARC LACEY
January 4, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/05/us/politics/05babies.html?ref=world
NOGALES, Ariz. - Of the 50 or so women bused to this border town on a recent morning to be deported back to Mexico, Inez Vasquez stood out. Eight months pregnant, she had tried to trudge north in her fragile state, even carrying scissors with her in case she gave birth in the desert and had to cut the umbilical cord.
"All I want is a better life," she said after the Border Patrol found her hiding in bushes on the Arizona side of the border with her husband, her young son and her very pronounced abdomen.
The next big immigration battle centers on illegal immigrants' offspring, who are granted automatic citizenship like all other babies born on American soil. Arguing for an end to the policy, which is rooted in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution, immigration hard-liners describe a wave of migrants like Ms. Vasquez stepping across the border in the advanced stages of pregnancy to have what are dismissively called "anchor babies."
The reality at this stretch of the border is more complex, with hospitals reporting some immigrants arriving to give birth in the United States but many of them frequent border crossers with valid visas who have crossed the border legally to take advantage of better medical care. Some are even attracted by an electronic billboard on the Mexican side that advertises the services of an American doctor and says bluntly, "Do you want to have your baby in the U.S.?"
Women like Ms. Vasquez, who was preparing for a desert delivery, are rare.
Still, Arizona - whose tough law granting the police the power to detain illegal immigrants is tied up in the courts - may again take the lead in what is essentially an effort to redefine what it means to be an American. This time, though, Arizona lawmakers intend to join with legislators from other states to force the issue before the Supreme Court.
This coalition of lawmakers will unveil its exact plans on Wednesday in Washington, but people involved in drafting the legislation say they have decided against the painstaking process of amending the Constitution. Since the federal government decides who is to be deemed a citizen, the lawmakers are considering instead a move to create two kinds of birth certificates in their states, one for the children of citizens and another for the children of illegal immigrants.
The theory is that this could spark a flurry of lawsuits that might resolve the legal conflict in their favor.
"This is not a far-out, extremist position," said John Kavanagh, one of the Arizona legislators who is leading an effort that has been called just that. "Only a handful of countries in the world grant citizenship based on the GPS location of the birth."
Most scholars of the Constitution consider the states' effort to restrict birth certificates patently unconstitutional. "This is political theater, not a serious effort to create a legal test," said Gabriel J. Chin, a law professor at the University of Arizona whose grandfather immigrated to the United States from China at a time when ethnic Chinese were excluded from the country. "It strikes me as unwise, un-American and unconstitutional."
The 14th Amendment, adopted in 1868, was a repudiation of the Supreme Court's 1857 ruling, in Dred Scott v. Sandford, that people of African descent could never be American citizens. The amendment said citizenship applied to "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof."
In 1898, the Supreme Court, in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, interpreted the citizenship provision as applying to a child born in the United States to a Chinese immigrant couple.
Still, some conservatives contend that the issue is unsettled. Kris Kobach, the incoming secretary of state in Kansas and a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City who has helped draft many of the tough immigration regulations across the country, argued that the approach the states were planning would hold up to scrutiny.
"I can't really say much more without showing my hand," Mr. Kobach said in an e-mail. "But, yes, I am confident that the law will stand up in court."
The legal theories are lost on Laura Gomez, 24, who crossed into Arizona from Mexico five years ago while expecting and is now pregnant with her second child. But like many other pregnant women in Arizona who are without papers, she has been following the issue with anxiety.
"It doesn't seem fair to just change the rules like that," Ms. Gomez said.
Despite being called "anchor babies," the children of illegal immigrants born in the United States cannot actually prevent deportation of their parents. It is not until they reach the age of 21 that the children are able to file paperwork to sponsor their parents for legal immigration status. The parents remain vulnerable until that point.
Maria Ledezma knows as much. Just off a bus that deported her from Phoenix to the Mexico border town of Nogales, she was sobbing as she explained the series of events that led her to be separated from her three daughters, ages 4, 7 and 9, all American citizens.
"I never imagined being here," said Ms. Ledezma, 25, who was brought to Phoenix from Mexico as a toddler. "I'll bet right now that my girls are asking, 'Where's Mom?' "
Blended families like hers are a reality across the United States. A studyreleased in August by the Pew Hispanic Center found that about 340,000 children were born to illegal immigrants in the United States in 2008 and became instant citizens.
In April, Representative Duncan Hunter, Republican of California, one of those pushing for Congressional action on the issue, stirred controversy when he suggested that children born in the United States to illegal immigrants should be deported with their parents until the birthright citizenship policy was changed.
"And we're not being mean," Mr. Hunter told a Tea Party rally in Southern California. "We're just saying it takes more than walking across the border to become an American citizen. It's what's in our souls."
Immigrant advocates say intolerance is driving the measure. "They call themselves patriots, but they pick and choose which parts of the Constitution they support," said Lydia Guzman, a Latino activist in Phoenix. "They're fear-mongerers. They're clowns."
Like many states, Arizona is suffering a severe budget crisis, prompting even some lawmakers who have supported immigration restrictions in the past to question whether it is the right time for another divisive immigration bill. They say the state's fiscal issues need to be resolved before Arizona jumps back into a controversial immigration debate.
"I was born and raised in New York," responded Mr. Kavanagh, who is chairman of the Appropriations Committee of the Arizona House. "I can ride a subway, drink coffee, read the newspaper and make sure my pockets are not picked all at the same time."
Scholars who have studied migration say it is the desire for better-paying jobs, not a passport for their children, that is the main motivator for people to leave their homes for the United States.
Even Ms. Vasquez, who was preparing for a desert delivery, agrees with that. While she preferred to have her child be born in the United States, she said, it was the prospect of a better economic future, with or without papers, that had prompted her and her family to cross when they did. "I'll try again - but once the baby's born," she said.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: January 4, 2011
An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the year that the Supreme Court, in United States v. Wong Kim Ark, applied the citizenship provision to a child born in the United States to Chinese immigrants; it was 1898.
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18) One Statistic Private Schools Keep Quiet: The Kicked-Out Rate
By SARAH MASLIN NIR
January 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/nyregion/06private.html?ref=nyregion
Thousands of parents trying to get their children into private schools are now busy mailing thank-you cards to admissions offices and biting their nails while waiting for word back.
But for a small number of parents who prevailed through this gantlet in the past, this time of year brings another kind of notice - that their child is on thin ice - as an even more painful process begins: the "counseling out" of students who are not succeeding.
Not discussed on schools' tours or in their glossy pamphlets, counseling out is nonetheless a matter of practice at many private schools. Unlike the public school system, private schools are not obligated, and often not set up, to handle children having trouble keeping up.
"There are some kids that we're not going to renew," said Pamela J. Clarke, the head of the Trevor Day School in Manhattan, "either because they can't do the work and we're not serving them, or generally, that might be combined with behavior issues we can't win."
"That means he or she needs a different school," Ms. Clarke said.
Schools do not publicize how many students they remove this way, but the number is generally a small portion of the enrollment. But some Web sites for parents have offered the suspicion that schools remove lagging students to protect another statistic that schools do publicize: their students' admissions rates to top colleges. Frank C. Leana, an independent college counselor on the Upper East Side, said that view was wrong. "They're trying to justify their own kids, or their friend's kids, who have been counseled out," he said.
Parents and students who have been counseled out - or kicked out, as some more bluntly put it - describe the experience as one of the more trying of their lives. They found themselves thrust into a world previously unknown to them, of intensive tutoring, special consultants and in some cases even more expensive niche schools.
When Sandra Klihr's son William started to slip at the Collegiate School, the standard-bearer of all-boys education on the Upper West Side, the school plied him with extra help. But the fast-paced classes nonetheless became frustrating and demoralizing. He was removed in the fourth grade.
"The school just sat down with us and said, 'You know, he seems really miserable, and we feel like we'd already given him one-on-one,' " Ms. Klihr said. He ended up at the Summit School in Queens and is now in high school, getting good grades at the Smith School on the Upper West Side, two of a small number of alternative schools that cater to children with learning or emotional troubles who have not succeeded at other schools.
To keep their children in the schools, some parents pile on tutors or turn to intensive programs like the one at Lindamood-Bell Learning Processes, whose five-week, four-hours-a-day afterschool reading course costs $11,500. Parents "know that the child is struggling," said Jennifer Egan, the director of the Lindamood-Bell center in New York City, but do all they can to stay in their chosen schools. "It feels like a defeat to some people."
Though sometimes effective, the litany of tutors can overwhelm an already stressed child. "There's a point where it's destructive," said Carla Howard Horowitz, an educational evaluator, who helps guide students in this betwixt state. By the time she is called in, Ms. Horowitz said, schools have often already made up their minds about the student.
Jesse Statman won a high school math award while in eighth grade at Bay Ridge Preparatory School in Brooklyn. But in other subjects he lagged behind. To keep him focused, he needed an aide beside him in class. He also had trouble getting along with his classmates.
Eventually the school suggested that Jesse leave, said his father, Mark, who resisted at first. Parents "don't always see what's best; we see what looks like it would be best," Mr. Statman said. "I can tell people that my kid's in an Ivy League school, or goes to Andover, or goes to Choate - that doesn't always translate into a good experience for the kid."
Jesse pinballed around several programs for students who have troubles in school before landing at Smith. His father said he was doing much better there and had been accepted at Eugene Lang College, part of the New School, where Mr. Statman is a professor.
Filling a role that reform or military schools used to perform, alternative schools like Smith, which has just 35 students in grades 7 through 12, tend to take a more nurturing approach. Some of these schools provide an educational rehab of sorts: the Stephen Gaynor School on the Upper West Side and the Windward School in White Plains specialize in getting students back into mainstream schools after a few years - sometimes the same schools they left.
But with their high staff-to-student ratios, they are not cheap: Windward's annual tuition is $43,000, about $10,000 more than at most Manhattan private schools. Smith's upper-school tuition ranges from $29,000 to $41,500, depending on the grade and the extent of extra help.
Before making a student leave, a school may try to fix the areas in which the child is slipping, with, for example, an in-house reading specialist or by recommending tutors. When parents receive the blow that their child is being removed, said Ms. Clarke of the Trevor School, it should not be a surprise. "It's something that surely we've talked about for at least two years," she said.
But the experience can still leave a bad taste, even for students who eventually land on their feet.
Bennett Allen, now 28, said he was asked to leave the Dalton School a month before the end of eighth grade for disciplinary problems like buying and sharing cigarettes and for falling behind in some classes.
"I was very young, and I was testing the limits," Mr. Allen said. At the Beacon School, the public school he ended up in, teachers took him more firmly under their wing, he said, and helped him channel his rambunctiousness. "Dalton was kind of like that parent who rather than play with their kid and encourage and grow their curiosity, brings it to the doctor and gets them Adderall instead," he said.
Dalton, asked about its counseling-out practices, said only: "Together with families, Dalton works to serve the students' best interests, so they may thrive and be successful."
Mr. Allen acknowledged that he was better off having transferred to a school that met his needs, albeit in a less prestigious setting. "It was the biggest favor they ever did for me," he said of Dalton's move. He went on to Columbia University and is now an investigator for the United States Labor Department.
He says he bears no grudges toward the school. Well, maybe one. "I still get their letters asking for donations," he said. "I'm not giving them a cent."
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19) Pension Fund Losses Hit States Hard, Data Show
By MICHAEL COOPER
January 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/us/06states.html?ref=us
When total state government revenues across the nation plummeted by a record-breaking 30.8 percent in 2009, the steep investment losses of pension funds proved to be an even bigger drain on state coffers than recession-battered tax collections, according to census data released Wednesday.
States reported $1.1 trillion in total revenues in 2009, down from $1.6 trillion a year earlier - the steepest drop the United States Census Bureau has reported since it began collecting data on state government finances in 1951.
Tax collections fell by $66 billion, blowing a hole in the operating budgets of many states. But the biggest losses will be felt only in the future: states reported a $477 billion decline in what the census calls "insurance trust revenue," mostly from pension funds but also from funds for unemployment insurance and workers' compensation.
It is hardly a secret that the bursting of the housing bubble and the Great Recession pummeled state finances. But the new census data, for the fiscal year that ended for most states at the end of June 2009, provides the most comprehensive view yet of the decisions states made in the year they saw their revenues fall by record amounts.
The data told a tale of states struggling to adapt to the new fiscal reality. Thanks to an infusion of federal aid, largely from the stimulus, states saw their general revenues decrease by only 1.4 percent - but general expenditures by state governments rose by 3 percent.
The downturn gave states new priorities and needs. As more people lost their jobs, states found themselves paying $66 billion in unemployment benefits in 2009, up from the $35 billion that they had paid a year earlier.
Donald J. Boyd, a senior fellow at the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government in Albany, said the new census data showed how state governments as a whole began to respond to the recession in what he called "the year of shock and awe for state government taxes."
Public welfare spending rose 6.1 percent in 2009, as needs rose during the prolonged recession and the federal stimulus bill provided more money to states for programs like Medicaid and the Temporary Assistance to Needy Families. But at the same time, Mr. Boyd pointed out, "spending on some of the bread-and-butter operations of government came to a virtual standstill" as corrections spending grew by only 1 percent, spending on government administration grew by less than half a percent, and spending on parks and recreation fell by 4.6 percent.
Even though President Obama only signed the stimulus bill into law in February 2009, midway through the fiscal year for most states, the injection of federal money helped offset some of the loss of tax revenue: total federal grants to the states rose by nearly 13 percent that year to $477.7 billion. The stimulus money is set to run out this summer - leaving states facing big deficits next year, since their tax collections, which have begun to rise again, are still far below their pre-recession levels.
The biggest loss recorded - the $477 billion decline in revenues earned by the pension funds and other social insurance trust funds - had little immediate impact on state budgets. But its effects are likely to be felt for years.
"It is truly astounding," Mr. Boyd said of the losses. "They don't translate immediately into budgetary stress for states. But what does happen is through the wizardry of actuarial valuations, they will drive pension contributions by states and localities up considerably in the coming years, and that's true despite the good stock market of 2009, and the relatively good stock market of 2010."
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20) Detained American Says He Was Beaten in Kuwait
By MARK MAZZETTI
January 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/06/world/middleeast/06detain.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON - An American teenager detained in Kuwait two weeks ago and placed on an American no-fly list claims that he was severely beaten by his Kuwaiti captors during a weeklong interrogation about possible contacts with terrorism suspects in Yemen.
The teenager, Gulet Mohamed, a Somali-American who turned 19 during his captivity, said in a telephone interview on Wednesday from a Kuwaiti detention cell that he was beaten with sticks, forced to stand for hours, threatened with electric shocks and warned that his mother would be imprisoned if he did not give truthful answers about his travels in Yemen and Somalia in 2009.
American officials have offered few details about the case, except to confirm that Mr. Mohamed is on a no-fly list and, for now at least, cannot return to the United States. Mr. Mohamed, from Alexandria, Va., remains in a Kuwaiti detention center even after Kuwait's government, according to his brother, determined that he should be released.
Mr. Mohamed said that Kuwaiti interrogators repeatedly asked whether he had ever met Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-born cleric now hiding in Yemen who is suspected in terrorist plots by Al Qaeda's Yemen affiliate. He said that the Kuwaitis also asked detailed questions about his family in the United States and his family's clan in Somalia - information he said he assumed that American officials provided to the Kuwaitis.
Mr. Mohamed denies ever meeting with militants. "I am a good Muslim, I despise terrorism," he said in the interview.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation declined to comment about the episode, and State Department officials would not answer questions about whether American officials helped engineer Mr. Mohamed's arrest. A message left at the Kuwaiti Embassy in Washington was not returned.
Mr. Mohamed's case is the latest in a string of episodes over the past year in which Americans have been detained overseas and questioned about their travels to Yemen, where a number of attempted terrorist attacks against the United States have originated. The Obama administration has expanded terrorist watch lists to prevent people who have traveled to Yemen to travel to the United States without additional screening - or detention and questioning.
During the 90-minute telephone interview, Mr. Mohamed was agitated as he recounted his captivity, tripping over his words and breaking into tears. He said he left the United States in March 2009 to "see the world and learn my religion," and had planned to return to the United States for college.
He said he had traveled to Yemen to study Arabic, but stayed less than a month because his mother worried about his safety. He said that he spent five months later that year living with an aunt and uncle in northern Somalia, before moving to Kuwait in August 2009 to live with an uncle and continue his Arabic studies.
He said that after being taken into custody, he had been visited once by an American Embassy official in Kuwait, and that F.B.I. agents visited a week later to tell him that he could not return to the United States until he gave truthful answers about his travels.
On Tuesday, his lawyer wrote a letter to the Justice Department demanding an investigation into the episode.
"The manner of his detention and the questions asked of Mr. Mohamed indicate to him that he was taken into custody at the behest of the United States," wrote Gadeir Abbas, a lawyer appointed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Mr. Mohamed said the episode began Dec. 20, when he went to the airport in Kuwait City to renew his Kuwaiti visa, which he had done every three months since he arrived in the country.
He became worried when a normally routine visit lasted several hours, as Kuwaiti officials made him wait in a spartan office. After five hours, he said, two men in civilian clothes entered the office with handcuffs, and soon he was blindfolded and spirited away to a detention site that he estimated was a 15-minute drive from the airport.
Over the next several days, he said, his captors grew increasingly hostile and began beating his feet with sticks and striking him in the face when they asked him about his time in Yemen.
"Are you a terrorist?" they asked, according to his account.
"No," he replied.
"Do you know Anwar?" his interrogators asked, referring to Mr. Awlaki.
"I've never met him," Mr. Mohamed recalled saying.
"You are from Virginia, you have to know him," they responded, according to Mr. Mohamed. From 2001 to 2002, Mr. Awlaki was the imam of a prominent mosque in northern Virginia.
Mr. Mohamed said he rarely slept during a week or so at the prison and was able to mark time only by the daily cycle of Islamic prayers.
He said that his interrogators told him they would have American officials detain his mother in Virginia and that "he would never see her again" if he did not tell the truth about his connections to terrorists. During the interrogation sessions, he said, the Kuwaitis also tried to intimidate him by repeatedly barking orders to "bring the electricity."
Mr. Mohamed said he was eventually transferred to the deportation center in Kuwait, where he is currently detained. He said that the American Embassy officer told him that his travels had raised "red flags." The officer, he said, told him that the embassy had been unaware of his whereabouts and had been searching hospitals and local jails since his disappearance - an assertion he said he did not believe.
It is unclear how long Mr. Mohamed will remain in limbo. His older brother, Mohed, has traveled to Kuwait, and he said in an interview on Wednesday that the Kuwaitis told him they were pushing for his release, but that the American Embassy had not yet filled out paperwork that would allow Mr. Mohamed to be freed.
Mohed Mohamed said that his family, which fled Somalia in 1995, has always been pro-American and grateful to the United States for its intervention in Somalia's civil war in the 1990s.
He said that his younger brother was the most adventurous of seven siblings, and the first to travel outside the United States since the family had arrived.
Waiting to learn his fate, Gulet Mohamed said the past two weeks had changed him.
"I cannot sleep," he said. "I cannot eat. I'm scared to walk to the bathroom because I'm afraid they will hunt me down."
"I've been beaten and tortured, physically and mentally," he said, choking back tears. "I'm not the same."
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