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"There are decades when nothing happens; and there are weeks when decades happen."
--V. I. Lenin (1870-1924)
"Victory is accomplished through the perseverance of the last hour."
--Prophet Muhammad (570-632 AD)
TRADUCCION:
Marcha en contra de las guerras: en casa y en el exterior
Ellos son el gobierno y las corporaciones que financian las guerras, destruyen el medio ambiente, la economía y pisotean nuestras libertades y derechos democráticos.
Nosotros, somos la gran mayoría de la humanidad y queremos paz. Un planeta saludable y una sociedad que priorice en las necesidades humanas, la democracia y las libertades civiles para todos.
Nosotros, demandamos que las tropas militares, los mercenarios y los contratistas de guerra que enviaron a Irak, Afganistán, y Paquistán sean traídas de regreso a los Estados Unidos ¡Ahora! Que paren con las sanciones y las amenazas de guerra en contra de los pueblos de Irán, Corea del Norte y Yemen; y que los Estados Unidos deje de colaborar con Israel en la invasión y acoso a Palestina y Gaza. No al saqueo de los pueblos de América Latina, el Caribe y África; que paren la persecución racista que amenaza las comunidades musulmanas y que paren el terror policiaco en contra de las comunidades negras y latinas; derechos totales y legalización para los emigrantes.
Nosotros, demandamos que el FBI pare de inmediato la persecución a los luchadores por la justicia social y la solidaridad internacional; como también pongan un alto a todos los esfuerzos que reprimen y castigan a los contribuidores y fundadores de Wikileaks.
Nosotros, demandamos trillones de dólares para trabajos, educación y servicios sociales; que cesen todos los embargos de viviendas y desalojos; un programa de salud gratuito y de calidad para todos; un programa energético de conversión masiva que salve al planeta y buen el sistema de transporte público. Y reparaciones para las víctimas del terror de estados unidos aquí en casa y en el exterior.
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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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United National Antiwar Committee (UNAC) Steering Committee Meeting to Build April 10!
All Bay Area UNAC members invited.
Tuesday, February 8, 7:00 P.M.
474 Valencia Street (Between 15th and 16th Streets -- in the childcare center)
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World Trade Unions Mobilising for Democracy in Egypt: 8 February Action Day
International Trade Union Confederation
February 4, 2011
http://www.ituc-csi.org/world-trade-unions-mobilising-for.html?lang=en
Trade unions around the world will join a Day of Action for Democracy in Egypt on 8 February, following a decision by the ITUC General Council meeting in Brussels today. Unions will organise demonstrations at Egyptian embassies, and continue to press their governments to demand democratic transition in Egypt and to ensure that those responsible for the violent repression of peaceful demonstrations are brought to justice.
"We will continue to push the international community to put pressure on the regime of Hosni Mubarak to respect the wishes of the Egyptian people. Our support for Egypt's independent trade unions and the other forces for democracy is unwavering, and we are determined that there shall be no impunity for the people responsible for the killings, assaults and intimidation of innocent people," said ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow.
INTERNATIONAL TRADE UNION CONFEDERATION GENERAL COUNCIL (ITUC)
REVISED DRAFT RESOLUTION ON EGYPT
Brussels, 2 - 4 February 201
http://www.ituc-csi.org/resolution-on-egypt.html
People across Egypt have risen in massive numbers to demand change, for democracy, justice, and fundamental rights and to insist on the end of the discredited Mubarak regime. Decades of repression, poverty, imprisonment of political opponents and violation of human rights including, through the imposition of state controlled organisations, the rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining have stifled social and economic progress, and denied social justice.
The ITUC expresses its full support and solidarity to the Egyptian people in their quest for respect for fundamental freedoms and rights and its deepest condolences to the many victims of the Mubarak regime's violent repression of the legitimate protest actions which have taken place throughout the country. It pays tribute to all those who have stood up for democracy, and insists that human values must prevail over geopolitical and economic interests.
As in Tunisia and elsewhere, worsening unemployment, particularly amongst young people, has combined with resentment at the lack of political freedom to catalyse popular mobilisation against the regime. The ITUC salutes the independent trade union movement, which has stood at the forefront of the mobilisation, and recognises the critical role that the independent unions must play in putting Egypt on the path to genuine democracy and in ensuring social and economic justice for the Egyptian people.
The General Council:
INSTRUCTS the General Secretary to continue to closely monitor the situation in Egypt, and to assist the development of the independent trade union movement there;
REQUESTS all affiliates to call upon their governments to exert maximum international pressure for democratic transition in Egypt including full respect for freedom of association, collective bargaining and the other core labour standards; and,
FURTHER REQUESTS all affiliates and solidarity support organisations to assist in every possible way the development of genuine, independent trade unions in Egypt and their actions to promote democracy, social justice, equality and decent work. INSISTS that those responsible for ordering physical attacks, or who sought in any way to use force to prevent people from exercising their right to freedom of expression or to demonstrate must be brought to trial and cannot remain unpunished.
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Music/Ideas to Benefit Bradley Manning: Fri. Feb. 11, 8-11pm
Dear friends,
please join me for this multi-media talk (with amazing organizer-author I met in jail at age 19) and music with cutting edge riot-folk musician Ryan Harvey and friends) benefit and please invite your friends.
--David Solnit
*** PLEASE POST, CIRCULATE, FB & SHARE WITH OTHERS ***
Music and Ideas to Support Bradley Manning:
Exposing War Crimes Is Not a Crime!
A benefit for Bradley Manning
Friday, February 11, 8-11 p.m.
Station 40, 3030B 16th Street (at Mission), San Francisco
$5-20 donation for Courage to Resist , hub of the support campaign for Bradley Manning (but no one turned away for lack of funds)
IDEAS (9-10pm):
War, Peace, and Wikileaks
A multimedia analysis/talk by
Chris Hables Gray
followed by discussion
Chris is an AFT union member and lecturer at the University of California at Santa Cruz. He is a longtime antiwar organizer, anarchist-feminist, and author of the books Peace, War, and Computers, Postmodern War, and Cyborg Citizen.
Manning Support Campaign
Latest updates on Manning and what we can do, with Jeff Paterson, Courage to Resist project director and first Gulf War 1 Marine resister.
MUSIC (8-9pm & 10-11pm):
Ryan Harvey (on tour from Baltimore, MD)
Ryan is a Riot-Folk collective member and an organizer with the antiwar Civilian-Soldier Alliance. His songs blend music and activism. He is currently touring to promote his new album, Blowback, his tenth or eleventh CD (he;s not sure). Either way, his music has had an impact as part of many movements for radical change through the last decade.
Nomi
Nomi is a songwriter from New Orleans currently living in San Francisco. "She has a voice and folk songs with an uncanny depth that can tear u apart, and knit you back together again."
Snack Time (with Adhamh Roland of Riot-Folk)
Sugar Hill (banjo, violin, and vocals) and Adhamh Roland (accordion, guitar, and vocals), like peanut butter and chocolate, bring you a harmonious and delicious treat in their vocal and musical ensemble, Snack Time (peanut allergies aside). With more than just tasteful outfits, Snack Time will give you something to chew on, whether it be a tough candy coating or a soft, tender filling.
Please pass the word on facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/#!/event.php?eid=184729674882307
For more on Bradley Manning
couragetoresist.org
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West Coast Organizing Conference to End Political Repression
Come hear from 4 of the 23 activists targeted by the FBI
Saturday, February 12th, 11:00 AM-4:00 PM
Humanist Hall 390 27th Street (between Telegraph and Broadway)
Oakland, California
West Coast Organizing Conference organized by the Bay Area Committee to End FBI Repression*
Participants will discuss ways organize and strengthen our movement to fight back against government repression. Local activists are encouraged to participate in this regional organizing conference to push back against the government repression of anti-war and international solidarity activists.
The conference will feature a panel including Hatem Abudayyeh of the Arab American Action Network, Anh Pham and Thistle Parker-Hartog of the Twin Cities Anti-War Committee, Tom Burke of the Columbian Action Network, whose homes were raided and/or were subpoenaed by a Federal Grand Jury in Chicago charged with investigating "material support for terrorism."
In addition Bruce Nestor of the National Lawyers Guild and other speakers from the Palestinian, American Muslim, and other communities who either individually or as a community have faced government repression.
* Opposing War and Occupation is not a Crime!
* Resist FBI and Grand Jury Repression of anti-war and international solidarity activists!
For more information, see: www.stopfbi.net,
To find out how to join the committee, contact: stop.political.repression@gmail.com
Phone: Bay Area region: (415) 793-1794 (408) 987-8370 or (408) 849-7977
Los Angeles region: (626) 532-7164
Seattle region: (206) 499-1220
Forward widely. Thank you for your support!
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Cephus Johnson invited you · Share · Public Event
Time
Saturday, February 12 · 10:00am - 3:00pm
Location EOYDC East Oakland Youth Development Center
8200 international Blvd
Oakland, CA
Created By
Cephus Johnson, Beatrice X Dale
More Info The Oscar Grant Foundation
Brings to East Oakland Young Men ages 16 yrs to 34 yrs Old
A DAY Of EMPOWERMENT And OPPORTUNITY
`Empowering Our Communities'
Opportunities To:
Expunge Your Criminal Record;
Speak with Representatives from the Cypress Mandela Certification Program;
Laney College Workforce Development Program;
Mental Health Counseling;
Drug Treatment Program;
Men Of Valor Employment Training Program; and Much More
Join Us for Breakfast: 9:00am - 11:00am
Grits, Eggs, Toast, Pancakes, Potatoes, Coffee, Juice
Partial List of Participants:
Project Think 1st;
Cypress Training Institute;
Alameda County Probation Department;
Oakland Housing Authority;
Laney College;
Merritt College;
East Bay Community Law Center;
Private Industry Council;
City of Oakland Re-Entry Specialist;
Volunteers Of America;
Alameda County Mental Health.
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Bay Area Supporters of International Friends of the Leon Trotsky Museum invite you to:
"Honoring Revolutionary Continuity: An Afternoon Public Forum & Fundraiser for the Leon Trotsky Museum in Mexico City"
Sunday, February 13 @ 2:30 p.m.
Alameda Public Library
1550 Oak Street (@ Lincoln Ave.)
Alameda, Calif.
Featuring:
Presentation by ESTEBAN VOLKOV, Leon Trotsky's grandson and president of the Leon Trotsky Museum Foundation, and
Preview of "A Planet Without A Visa: The Movie" -- a film by DAVID WEISS, with presentations by LINDY LAUB, director of the documentary film, and SUZI WEISSMAN, historian of the revolutionary and socialist movements
Also: Honoring founding members of the American Trotskyist movement ESTAR BAUR, ERWIN BAUR & RUTH HARER
Sliding Scale $10 to $20
For more information, call Frank Fried at 510-459-0328
[If you are not able to make the event but would like to make a tax-deductible donation to International Friends of the Leon Trotsky Museum, please send your check, payable to Global Exchange (our fiscal sponsor), to International Friends, PO Box 40009, San Francisco, CA 94140.]
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US President Barack Obama may soon announce plans to expand Afghan security forces by roughly 70,000 over current targets by year's end. The plan is expensive: It would cost the United States another $6 billion next year -- nearly twice as much as previously planned.
The United States needs JOBS and a full-employment economy. NOT MORE WARS OR MILITARY SPENDING!
Please join us in demonstrating for Peace on February 18 at 2 PM., corner of University at Acton. Wheelchair accessible.
Sponsors:
Strawberry Creek Tenants Association
Fran Rachael
841-4143
Berkeley GRAY PANTHERS
Phone: (510)548-9696 FAX: (510)548-9697
Email: GrayPanthersBerk@aol.com
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Next Meeting of United National Antiwar Committee (UNAC) Steering Committee Meeting to Build April 10!
All BAy Area antiwar and peace and justice activists invited.
Sunday, February 20, 1:00 P.M.
Centro del Pueblo
474 Valencia Street (Between 15th and 16th Streets -- second floor, in the rear.)
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MEDIA RELEASE from Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists (BFUU)
A Benefit Evening to Support Bradley Manning
Thursday, Feb 24, 2011 7 - 9 pm
Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists
Fellowship Hall address: 1924 Cedar Street , Berkeley CA 94709
Sponsored by: Courage To Resist, Social Justice Committee of the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists & Code Pink Golden Gate
Wheelchair Accessible. Suggested Donation is $5 - 10. No one turned away for lack of funds.
Dr. Caroline Knowles of the Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists will give the welcoming remarks.
Daniel Ellsberg will speak. As the "Pentagon Papers" whistle-blower of the Vietnam War era, he is in a unique position to put the the current issues into historical context.
http://www.ellsberg.net
Senator Mike Gravel has been referencing the damage to a democratic society that excessive secrecy and media manipulation has had on the ability of citizens to exercise informed judgment. All the while the government has passed more repressive laws since the 9/11 attacks that intrude on citizen privacy and rights.
http://www.mikegravel.us
Jeff Patterson of "Courage To Resist" will provide an overview of the issues and the history of Bradley Manning's case.
http://www.couragetoresist.org
Cynthia Papermaster of Code Pink Golden Gate chapter will MC. She will offer views on the treatment of Bradley Manning and will report on her recent experience at the demonstration on MLK DAY at Fort Quantico Prison where Bradley Manning is being held in solitary confinement.
http://www.codepinkgoldengate.org
Details of the event can be found at BFUU Upcoming Events Webpage.
Berkeley Fellowship of Unitarian Universalists
Fellowship Hall address: 1924 Cedar Street , Berkeley CA 94709
Phone: 510-841-4824
www.bfuu.org
office@bfuu.org
Submitted by
Shirley Adams
404-245-7977 (cell)
BFUU Membership Team
The only gift is a portion of thyself.- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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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
Sunday, April 10th* in San Francisco, assemble at Dolores Park (18th and Dolores Streets) at 11:00 A.M.
*This date was changed because of the Annual Cesar Chavez Parade scheduled in San Francisco April 9. This is a huge community event that we can't conflict with.
Saturday, April 9th New York City (Union Sq. at noon)
--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 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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WikiLeaks Mirrors
Wikileaks is currently under heavy attack.
In order to make it impossible to ever fully remove Wikileaks from the Internet, you will find below a list of mirrors of Wikileaks website and CableGate pages.
Go to
http://wikileaks.ch/Mirrors.html
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Streaming TV from Egypt
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/spotlight/anger-in-egypt/
Mr. ElBaradei, who won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2005 for his work as the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said on Friday: "The Egyptian people will take care of themselves. The Egyptian people will be the ones who will make the change. We are not waiting for help or assistance from the outside world, but what I expect from the outside world is to practice what you preach, is to defend the rights of the Egyptian to their universal values."
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Labor Beat: Labor Stands with Subpoenaed Activists Against FBI Raids and Grand Jury Investigation of antiwar and social justice activists.
"If trouble is not at your door. It's on it's way, or it just left."
"Investigate the Billionaires...Full investigation into Wall Street..." Jesse Sharkey, Vice President, Chicago Teachers Union
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSNUSIGZCMQ
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Oil Spill Commission Final Report: Catfish Responds
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m3ZRdsccMsM
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New antiwar song that's bound to be a classic:
box
http://www.youtube.com/user/avimecca
by tommi avicolli mecca
(c) 2009
Credits are:
Tommi Avicolli Mecca, guitar/vocals
John Radogno, lead guitar
Diana Hartman, vocals, kazoo
Chris Weir, upright bass
Produced and recorded by Khalil Sullivan
I'm the recruiter and if truth be told/ I can lure the young and old
what I do you won't see/ til your kid's in JROTC
CHO ooh, put them in a box drape it with a flag and send them off to mom and dad
send them with a card from good ol' uncle sam, gee it's really just so sad
I'm the general and what I do/ is to teach them to be true
to god and country flag and oil/ by shedding their blood on foreign soil
CHO
I'm the corporate boss and well I know/ war is lots of dough dough dough
you won't find me over there/ they just ship the money right back here
CHO
last of all it's me the holy priest/ my part is not the least
I assure them it's god's will/ to go on out and kill kill kill
CHO
it's really just so sad
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You might enjoy a bit of history:
William Buckley Show with Socialist Workers Party Presidential Candidates
http://vimeo.com/18611069
William Buckley Show with Socialist Workers Party Presidential Candidates from asi somburu on Vimeo.
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Wall Street Fat-Cats Flip Public Service Workers the Bird
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTcSOygSBBM
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Free Bradley Manning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4eNzokgRIw&feature=player_embedded
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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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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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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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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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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MECA Middle East Children's Alliance
Howard & Roslyn Zinn Presente! Honor Their Legacy By Providing Clean Water for Children in Gaza
http://www.mecaforpeace.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=13
Howard Zinn supported the work of the Middle East Children's Alliance (MECA) from the beginning. Over the years, he lent his name and his time countless times to support our work. Howard and Roz were both personal friends of mine and Howard helped MECA raise funds for our projects for children in Palestine by coming to the Bay Area and doing events for us.
On the first anniversary of Howard's passing, I hope you will join MECA in celebrating these two extraordinary individuals.
- Barbara Lubin, Executive Director
YES! I want to help MECA build a water purification and desalination unit at the Khan Younis Co-ed Elementary School for 1,400 students in Gaza in honor of Howard & Roslyn Zinn.
http://www.mecaforpeace.org/civicrm/contribute/transact?reset=1&id=13
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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 #53504 - 054
Unit 2N
Federal Medical Center, Carswell
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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KEVIN COOPER IS INNOCENT! FREE KEVIN COOPER!
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!
http://www.savekevincooper.org/
http://www.savekevincooper.org/pages/essays_content.html?ID=255
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 (Unless otherwise noted)
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1) Among Little Egypt's Young, a Sudden Awareness of Politics and Identity
By DAN BILEFSKY
February 4, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/nyregion/05astoria.html?ref=nyregion
2) Strangest Part of the Jobs Report
By DAVID LEONHARDT
February 4, 2011, 4:23 pm
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/04/strangest-part-of-the-jobs-report/?src=busln
3) Bewitched by the Numbers
By BOB HERBERT
February 4, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/opinion/05herbert.html?hp
4) The Siege of Planned Parenthood
By GAIL COLLINS
February 4, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/opinion/05collins.html?hp
5) Obama Backs Suleiman-Led Transition
By MARK LANDLER and STEVEN ERLANGER
February 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/world/middleeast/06munich.html?hp
6) 2 Detained Reporters Saw Secret Police's Methods Firsthand
By SOUAD MEKHENNET and NICHOLAS KULISH
February 4, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/weekinreview/06held.html?hp
7) Discontented Within Egypt Face Power of Old Elites
"'The people are stubborn now,' said Nasser el-Sherif, a 24-year-old student, sitting near a grandmother, Um Ibrahim Abdel-Mohsin, who had ferried rocks to the barricades for two days. 'You want to beat us up? We'll kick you out, and it's our right. We're not compromising our freedom anymore,' Mr. Sherif added. Near him was scrawled graffiti. 'Victory is with the patient,' it said."
By ANTHONY SHADID
February 4, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/world/middleeast/05cairo.html?hp
8) Preapproved: Well, It Sounded Good
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON
February 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/business/06gret.html?ref=business
9) With Egypt in Turmoil, Oil and Food Prices Climb
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/02/05/business/AP-US-Egypt-Economic-Impact.html?src=busln
10) U.S. Says Farmers May Grow Engineered Sugar Beets
By ANDREW POLLACK
February 4, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/business/05beet.html?src=busln
11) Egypt Leadership Holds Firm After Talks
"The numbers seemed initially to be slightly fewer than on Saturday. But as the day wore on thousands of people headed to the square, so that the city offered rival visions - one promoted by footage on state television of a capital returning to its normal ways; and another, in Tahrir Square, of continued defiance....'What they are saying behind closed doors, they are backing Mubarak,' said Noha el-Shakawy, 52, a pharmacist with dual Egyptian and American citizenship. 'We are nothing to them. The United States wants to sacrifice all of our lives, 85 million people.' Leaders of the Egyptian opposition and rank-and-file protesters had earlier rejected any negotiations with Mr. Suleiman until after the ouster of Mr. Mubarak, arguing that moving toward democracy will require ridding the country of not only its dictator but also his rubber-stamp Parliament and a Constitution designed for one-party rule....Protesters noted that Western worries about security and orderly transitions sounded remarkably like Mr. Mubarak's age-old excuses for postponing change. And they said they had waited long enough. 'We don't want Omar Suleiman to take Mubarak's place. We are not O.K. with this regime at all,' said Omar el-Shawy, a young online activist. 'We want a president who is a civilian.'"
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, KAREEM FAHIM and ALAN COWELL
February 6, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/world/middleeast/07egypt.html?hp
12) Anger and a Facebook Page That Gave It Voice
By JENNIFER PRESTON
February 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/world/middleeast/06face.html?hp
13) Detentions, and Aide's Role, Anger Egyptians
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
February 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/world/middleeast/06detain.html?hp
14) Inflation, an Old Scourge, Plagues Argentina Again
"High inflation - a weakness of the Argentine economy for decades - is soaring again. Independent economists say inflation rose by 25 to 30 percent in 2010, the highest level since the calamitous 2002 devaluation that sent the economy into a tailspin. This time around, the pain is already being felt by the poor. Food-price increases began to outstrip wage increases in 2010, leading Argentines to buy less food, private economists say. And many in the middle and upper classes are leaning more heavily on credit cards, helping push up levels of personal debt."
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
February 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/world/americas/06argentina.html?ref=world
15) Three Cases of Cholera Confirmed by [New York] City Officials
By AL BAKER
February 5, 2011, 6:36 pm
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/city-confirms-three-cases-of-cholera/?ref=world
16) Protesters Vow to Escalate Pressure on Mubarak
"The young organizers whose Facebook page fomented the revolt made their public debut at a news conference to declare that their protests would only grow until the government met the movement's demands, including Mr. Mubarak's ouster, the dissolution of the one-party parliament and rewriting the one-party Constitution. Of that group of a half-dozen doctors, lawyers and other professionals, several had been released late last night from three days of extra-legal police detention. Their resolve marked a new and uncharted stage in Egypt's unexpected uprising. Having beaten back assaults by armies of armed police and gangs of plain-clothes toughs, the protesters said they had no intention to back down in the face of either Western support for Mr. Suleiman or the Egyptian government's attempts to wait them out and wear them down. 'The government played all the dirty games that they had,' said Shady el-Ghazaly Harb, a 32-year-old surgeon. 'We are betting on the people.'"
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
February 6, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/world/middleeast/07egypt.html?ref=world
17) Protest Threats Derail Bush Speech in Switzerland
By JAMES RISEN
February 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/world/europe/06bush.html?ref=us
18) WikiLeaks' Assange Faces Extradition Hearing
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 6, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/02/06/business/AP-EU-Britain-WikiLeaks-Assange.html?src=busln
19) World Trade Unions Mobilising for Democracy in Egypt: 8 February Action Day
International Trade Union Confederation
February 4, 2011
http://www.ituc-csi.org/world-trade-unions-mobilising-for.html?lang=en
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1) Among Little Egypt's Young, a Sudden Awareness of Politics and Identity
By DAN BILEFSKY
February 4, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/nyregion/05astoria.html?ref=nyregion
For Esmaeel El Sayed, the 16-year-old son of immigrants in Astoria, Queens, the hierarchy of life had always been clear: Madonna trumped Naguib Mahfouz, Big Macs were to be savored over baba ghanouj, and being American overshadowed being Egyptian, Arab and Muslim.
But as tens of thousands of young Egyptians have taken to the streets of Cairo over the past two weeks, Esmaeel, the soft-spoken son of a chef from Alexandria who now runs a restaurant in what is known as Little Egypt, said he was undergoing a political transformation. Last week, he attended his first demonstration, reluctantly screaming out slogans against the Egyptian president, Hosni Mubarak. He has since been disseminating images of the Cairo protests on his Facebook page. Now, he is thinking of signing up for classes to learn to speak Arabic.
"When my father first suggested we go to a demonstration to show support for Egypt, my first reaction was: 'This is a school night. I have homework. This isn't my fight,' " said Esmaeel, a high school junior who likes to paint and play guitar. "But when I got there and saw all the anger and passion, I saw that I can't be selfish. I felt like Egypt is my country, and I suddenly felt proud."
For the younger generation of Egyptian-Americans in Astoria, the heart of the Egyptian community in New York, the uprising 5,600 miles away has provided a political education, a cultural awakening and a reckoning with a forgotten land. In recent days, some of the 20-somethings gathered at the Layali El Helmeya Café on Steinway Street have been pleading with their fathers to let them fly to Egypt to join the antigovernment demonstrations. But the fathers, many of whom came to America to save their children from such agitation, appear unmoved.
"The older generation thinks and the younger generation acts because they don't have anything to worry about," said Ali El Sayed, Esmaeel's father, the jovial self-professed mayor of Little Egypt, who opened its first Arabic establishment, Kabab Cafe, in 1987. "If Esmaeel said he wanted to go to Egypt to fight, I would tell him, 'I don't believe in dead heroes.' "
Mr. El Sayed said he was happy that the events in Egypt were giving him an opportunity to offer history lessons to his Guns N' Roses-loving son. But he was equally thankful that Esmaeel was supporting the revolution from the confines of his bedroom in Astoria. Esmaeel, for his part, said the Internet had allowed him to feel as if he had taken to the streets of Cairo - without having to leave the borough.
Michael Wahid Hanna, 37, an Egypt expert at the Century Foundation, which is based in New York, said events in the Middle East were galvanizing a generation that had already begun to feel more conscious of its Muslim identity in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks.
"For a lot of Egyptian-Americans, it is the first time they are looking at Egypt and seeing something heroic and brave," said Mr. Hanna, who himself is the son of doctors who immigrated from Cairo. "Peaceful protesters calling for universal rights like freedom being besieged by thugs is having an effect on the collective consciousness of how Egyptian-Americans see themselves, especially among young people."
Esmaeel, whose mother is Argentine and Catholic, said he learned about his Egyptian and Arabic heritage in his father's restaurant kitchen, where he grew up inhaling a steady diet of humanist philosophy, along with delicacies like lamb with pomegranate and Pharaoh's harvest goose. Che Guevara was invoked more often than the Prophet Muhammad by Mr. El Sayed, who took part in student protests in Alexandria in the 1960s. There were few visits to mosques and a lone trip to Egypt when Esmaeel was 2 years old.
"Esmaeel is an American boy, and that makes me happy," Mr. El Sayed said. "When he was a kid he loved going to McDonald's because he wanted a free toy. So I thought of introducing a falafel toy at the restaurant."
Esmaeel said the attacks on the World Trade Center had made him "more aware of my Muslim identity," and the consciousness had grown when he enrolled three years ago at the Baccalaureate School for Global Education, where his name made him stand out. "If I said I am Egyptian, people would say: 'You're a Muslim. You're an Arab.' It bothered me," he explained. "My name is Esmaeel and it rhymes with Israel, and before that some people would mistake me for Jewish. But after Sept. 11, that changed."
Indeed, members of both the older and the young generation in Little Egypt said that anti-Muslim sentiment after Sept. 11, even in its generally muted and subtle state in New York, had made them cleave more strongly to their ethnic identities, even as they felt deeply American.
After the uprising in Cairo last month, Samy El Sharkawy, 58, a limousine driver who came to Queens from Alexandria in 1990, said his 18-year-old son, Tarek, had been begging to go to Egypt to join the protests. Mr. El Sharkawy refused, but was privately pleased. He noted that while he himself seldom set foot in a mosque, his son, who was aggrieved by what he saw as the demonization of Islam in the West, prays five times a day - and with renewed vigor in recent days.
"It is very hard to hold on to your Egyptian identity in America," Mr. El Sharkawy said, sucking on a hookah pipe at the Layali El Helmeya Café. "But my son prays all the time in the mosque. It was my luck that he turned to the Koran instead of drugs and sex."
For others, the mass protests in Egypt - led by thousands of young people - have laid bare the generation gap in Cairo as in New York.
"I don't think my father's generation knew the meaning of democracy," complained Iman, a 35-year-old doctor from Alexandria, who declined to give his last name out of concern for relatives in Egypt. "They grew up in a police state and clung to the past, long after they arrived in America.
"Just look at this cafe: it is frozen in time," he added, pointing to a wall adorned with photographs of 1960s Egyptian icons, including Gamal Abdel Nasser, the former president; the singer Umm Kulthum; and the Nobel Prize-winning writer Naguib Mafouz.
But the El Sayeds said the events in Egypt were also uniting some fathers and sons, suddenly interested in the same news and sharing the same political goals. "Now finally we won't be known for Pharaoh and slavery," Esmaeel said.
"Yes," his father added. "Let my people go!"
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2) Strangest Part of the Jobs Report
By DAVID LEONHARDT
February 4, 2011, 4:23 pm
http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/04/strangest-part-of-the-jobs-report/?src=busln
The unemployment rate has declined more in the last two months than in any two months since 1958.
The rate had been 9.8 percent in November, and it was 9 percent in January. Since the Labor Department began keeping these statistics, only four other two-month periods have seen a larger decline.
They are: December 1949 (when the rate had 1.3 percentage points in the previous two months, to 6.6. percent); August 1950 (0.9 percentage point decline, to 4.5 percent); February 1951 (0.9 percentage point decline, to 3.4 percent); and November 1958 (0.9 percentage point decline, to 6.2 percent).
As I said before, the job market is neither healthy nor seems to be improving very rapidly. But the unemployment rate is dropping at an historically rapid rate. It's very odd.
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3) Bewitched by the Numbers
By BOB HERBERT
February 4, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/opinion/05herbert.html?hp
The data zealots have utterly discombobulated themselves.
They were expecting something on the order of 150,000 new jobs to have been created in January. That would have been a lousy number, but they were fully prepared to spin it as being pretty good. They thought the official jobless rate might hop up a tick to 9.5 percent.
Instead, the economy created just 36,000 jobs in January, an absolutely dreadful number. But the unemployment rate fell like a stone from 9.4 percent to 9.0 percent.
The crunchers stared at the numbers in disbelief. They moved them this way and that. No matter how they arranged them, they made no sense. Nothing even close to enough jobs were being created to bring the unemployment rate down, but for two successive months it had dropped sharply. (It dived from 9.8 percent to 9.4 in December.)
A baffled commentator on CNBC said, "I think there is an improvement in the economy, though you can't see it in today's payroll survey."
Mark Zandi of Moody's Analytics, who is frequently very good at this stuff, said: "I think these numbers are meaningless. I don't think they mean anything."
What data zealots need to do is leave their hermetically sealed rooms and step outside, take a walk among the millions of Americans who are hurting to the bone. They should talk with families that are suffering, losing their homes, doubling up, checking into homeless shelters.
We behave as though the numbers are an end in themselves - just get the G.D.P. up or the jobless rate down - and we'll be on our way to fat city. But the numbers are just tools, abstractions to help guide us, orient us. They aren't the be-all and end-all. They don't tell us squat about the flesh-and-blood reality of the mom or dad lying awake in the dark of night, worrying about the repo man coming for the family van or the foreclosure notice that's sure to materialize any day now.
The policy makers who rely on the data zealots are just as detached from the real world of real people. They're always promising in the most earnest tones imaginable to do something about employment, to ease the awful squeeze on the middle class (policy makers never talk about the poor), to reform education, and so on.
They say those things because they have to. But they are far more obsessed with the numbers than they are with the struggles and suffering of real people. You won't hear policy makers acknowledging that the unemployment numbers would be much worse if not for the millions of people who have left the work force over the past few years. What happened to those folks? How are they and their families faring?
The policy makers don't tell us that most of the new jobs being created in such meager numbers are, in fact, poor ones, with lousy pay and few or no benefits. What we hear is what the data zealots pump out week after week, that the market is up, retail sales are strong, Wall Street salaries and bonuses are streaking, as always, to the moon, and that businesses are sitting on mountains of cash. So all must be right with the world.
Jobs? Well, the less said the better.
What's really happening, of course, is the same thing that's been happening in this country for the longest time - the folks at the top are doing fabulously well and they are not interested in the least in spreading the wealth around.
The people running the country - the ones with the real clout, whether Democrats or Republicans - are all part of this power elite. Ordinary people may be struggling, but both the Obama administration and the Republican Party leadership are down on their knees slavishly kissing the rings of the financial and corporate kingpins.
I love when the wackos call President Obama a socialist. Wasn't it his budget director, Peter Orszag, who moved effortlessly from his job in the administration to a hotshot post at Citigroup, beneficiary of tons of government largess? And didn't the president's new chief of staff, William Daley, arrive in his powerful new post fresh from the executive suite of JPMorgan Chase? And isn't the incoming chairman of Mr. Obama's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness very conveniently the chairman and chief executive of General Electric, Jeffrey Immelt?
You might ask: Who represents working people? The answer, as Tevye would say with grave emphasis in "Fiddler on the Roof," is, "I don't know."
Maybe the data zealots have stumbled on a solution. They've created a model in which a radically insufficient number of jobs has resulted in a sharp decline in the official gauge of unemployment. If that trend can be sustained, we'll eventually get the jobless rate down to zero. People will still be suffering, but full employment will have finally been achieved.
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4) The Siege of Planned Parenthood
By GAIL COLLINS
February 4, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/opinion/05collins.html?hp
As if we didn't have enough wars, the House of Representatives has declared one against Planned Parenthood.
Maybe it's all part of a grand theme. Last month, they voted to repeal the health care law. This month, they're going after an organization that provides millions of women with both family-planning services and basic health medical care, like pap smears and screening for diabetes, breast cancer, cervical cancer and sexually transmitted diseases.
Our legislative slogan for 2011: Let Them Use Leeches.
"What is more fiscally responsible than denying any and all funding to Planned Parenthood of America?" demanded Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, the chief sponsor of a bill to bar the government from directing any money to any organization that provides abortion services.
Planned Parenthood doesn't use government money to provide abortions; Congress already prohibits that, except in cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother. (Another anti-abortion bill that's coming up for hearing originally proposed changing the wording to "forcible rape," presumably under the theory that there was a problem with volunteer rape victims. On that matter at least, cooler heads prevailed.)
Planned Parenthood does pay for its own abortion services, though, and that's what makes them a target. Pence has 154 co-sponsors for his bill. He was helped this week by an anti-abortion group called Live Action, which conducted a sting operation at 12 Planned Parenthood clinics in six states, in an effort to connect the clinic staff to child prostitution.
"Planned Parenthood aids and abets the sexual abuse and prostitution of minors," announced Lila Rose, the beautiful anti-abortion activist who led the project. The right wing is currently chock-full of stunning women who want to end their gender's right to control their own bodies. Homely middle-aged men are just going to have to find another sex to push around.
Live Action hired an actor who posed as a pimp and told Planned Parenthood counselors that he might have contracted a sexually transmitted disease from "one of the girls I manage." He followed up with questions about how to obtain contraceptives and abortions, while indicating that some of his "girls" were under age and illegally in the country.
One counselor, shockingly, gave the "pimp" advice on how to game the system and was summarily fired when the video came out. But the others seem to have answered his questions accurately and flatly. Planned Parenthood says that after the man left, all the counselors - including the one who was fired - reported the conversation to their supervisors, who called the authorities. (One Arizona police department, the organization said, refused to file a report.)
Still, there is no way to look good while providing useful information to a self-proclaimed child molester, even if the cops get called. That, presumably, is why Live Action chose the scenario.
"We have a zero tolerance of nonreporting anything that would endanger a minor," said Cecile Richards, the president of Planned Parenthood. "We do the same thing public hospitals do and public clinics do."
But here's the most notable thing about this whole debate: The people trying to put Planned Parenthood out of business do not seem concerned about what would happen to the 1.85 million low-income women who get family-planning help and medical care at the clinics each year. It just doesn't come up. There's not even a vague contingency plan.
"I haven't seen that they want to propose an alternative," said Richards.
There are tens of millions Americans who oppose abortion because of deeply held moral principles. But they're attached to a political movement that sometimes seems to have come unmoored from any concern for life after birth.
There is no comparable organization to Planned Parenthood, providing the same kind of services on a national basis. If there were, most of the women eligible for Medicaid-financed family-planning assistance wouldn't have to go without it. In Texas, which has one of the highest teenage birthrates in the country, only about 20 percent of low-income women get that kind of help. Yet Planned Parenthood is under attack, and the State Legislature has diverted some of its funding to crisis pregnancy centers, which provide no medical care and tend to be staffed by volunteers dedicated to dissuading women from having abortions.
In Washington, the new Republican majority that promised to do great things about jobs, jobs, jobs is preparing for hearings on a bill to make it economically impossible for insurance companies to offer policies that cover abortions. And in Texas, Gov. Rick Perry, faced with an epic budget crisis that's left the state's schools and health care services in crisis, has brought out emergency legislation - requiring mandatory sonograms for women considering abortion.
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5) Obama Backs Suleiman-Led Transition
By MARK LANDLER and STEVEN ERLANGER
February 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/world/middleeast/06munich.html?hp
MUNICH - The Obama administration on Saturday formally threw its weight behind a gradual transition in Egypt, backing attempts by the country's vice president, Gen. Omar Suleiman, to broker a compromise with opposition groups and prepare for new elections in September.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, speaking to a conference here, said it was important to support Mr. Suleiman as he seeks to defuse street protests and promises to reach out to opposition groups, including the Muslim Brotherhood. Administration officials said earlier that Mr. Suleiman and other military-backed leaders in Egypt are also considering ways to provide President Hosni Mubarak with a graceful exit from power.
"That takes some time," Mrs. Clinton said. "There are certain things that have to be done in order to prepare."
Her message, echoed by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, was a notable shift in tone from the past week, when President Obama, faced with violent clashes in Cairo, demanded that Mr. Mubarak make swift, dramatic changes.
Now, the United States and other Western powers appear to have concluded that the best path for Egypt - and certainly the safest one, to avoid further chaos - is a gradual transition, managed by Mr. Suleiman, a pillar of Egypt's existing establishment, and backed by the military.
Whether such a process is acceptable to the crowds on the streets of Cairo is far from clear: there is little evidence that Mr. Suleiman, a former head of Egyptian intelligence and trusted confidant of Mr. Mubarak, would be seen as an acceptable choice, even temporarily. Opposition groups have refused to speak to him, saying that Mr. Mubarak must leave first.
But Mrs. Clinton suggested that the United States was not insisting on the immediate departure of Mr. Mubarak, and that such an abrupt shift of power may not be necessary or prudent. She said Mr. Mubarak, having taken himself and his son, Gamal, out of the September elections, was already effectively sidelined. She emphasized the need for Egypt to begin building peaceful political parties and to reform its constitution to make a vote credible.
"That is what the government has said it is trying to do," she said. "That is what we are supporting, and hope to see it move as orderly but as expeditiously, as possible, under the circumstances."
Mrs. Clinton expressed fears about deteriorating security inside Egypt, noting the explosion at a gas pipeline in the Sinai Peninsula, and uncorroborated media reports of an earlier assassination attempt on Mr. Suleiman.
The report was mentioned at the conference by Wolfgang Ischinger, a retired German diplomat who is the conference chairman, just as Mrs. Clinton began taking questions at the gathering of heads of state, foreign ministers, and legislators from the United States, Europe, and other countries.
American officials said they have no evidence that the report is accurate. But Mrs. Clinton picked up on it and said it "certainly brings into sharp relief the challenges we are facing as we navigate through this period."
A senior Republican senator at the meeting, Lindsay Graham of South Carolina, voiced support for the administration's backing for a gradual transition in Egypt, saying that a Suleiman-led transitional government, backed by the military, was probably the only way for Egypt to negotiate its way to elections in the fall.
"What would be the alternative?" he asked.
Mrs. Clinton emphasized that American support for Mr. Suleiman's plan should not be construed as an effort to dictate events. "Those of us who are trying to make helpful offers of assistance and suggestions for how to proceed are still at the end on the outside looking in," she said.
But in a hectic morning of diplomacy, Mrs. Clinton was clearly eager to build support for this position. She met with Mr. Cameron, Mrs. Merkel, and Turkey's foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, who said the views of Turkey and the United States were "100 percent identical." Mr. Obama spoke by phone Friday with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Mrs. Clinton's emphasis on a deliberate process was repeated by Mrs. Merkel and Mr. Cameron. Mrs. Merkel harkened to her past as a democracy activist in East Germany, recalling the impatience of protestors, after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, to immediately join democratic West Germany. But the process took a year, and it was time well spent, she said.
"There will be a change in Egypt," she said, "but clearly, the change has to shaped in a way that it is a peaceful, a sensible way forward."
Mr. Cameron said introducing democracy in Egypt "overnight" would fuel further instability, saying the West needed to encourage the development of civil society and political parties before holding a vote.
"Yes, the transition absolutely has to start now," Mr. Cameron said. "But if we think it is all about the act of holding an election, we are wrong. It is about a set of actions."
Mrs. Clinton highlighted the dangers of holding elections without adequate preparation. To take part in Egypt's new order, she said, political parties should renounce violence as a tool of coercion, pledge to respect the rights of minorities, and show tolerance. The White House has signaled that it is open to a dialogue with the Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist group that Israeli officials and others warn could put Egypt on a path to extremism.
"The transition to democracy will only happen if it is deliberate, inclusive, and transparent," she said. "The challenge is to help our partners take systematic steps to usher in a better future, where people's voices are heard, their rights respected, and their aspirations met."
"Revolutions have overthrown dictators in the name of democracy, only to see the process hijacked by new autocrats who use violence, deception, and rigged elections to stay in power," Mrs. Clinton said.
She also underlined the need to support Egypt's state institutions, including the army and financial institutions, which she said were functioning and respected. Economic pressures are building in Egypt, she said, which has been paralyzed by days of street demonstrations.
While this meeting was dominated by the political change sweeping through the Middle East, the United States and Russia also formally put into force New Start, a strategic arms control treaty passed by the Senate in December after a long political battle by President Obama.
Mrs. Clinton and Russia's foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, exchanged legal documents ratifying the treaty, which puts new limits on strategic nuclear warheads, heavy bombers, and launch vehicles. The United States and Russia have 45 days to trade details on the number, location, and technical specifications of their arsenals. Inspection can begin in 60 days.
Relations between the United States and Russia began to thaw at this meeting in 2009, when Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. called for the countries to "reset" their relationship after the chilly Bush years.
In addition to the ratification of New Start, the day saw a meeting of the Quartet, a group that deals with the Middle East and comprises the United States, Russia, the European Union and the United Nations. This meeting was intended to reaffirm support for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, even amid the turmoil in Egypt and the Arab world.
The United States was reluctant to hold the meeting, a senior Western diplomat said, but the Europeans in particular wanted to make the point that change in the Middle East was a new opportunity for peace, and that stagnation between Israel and Palestine was a bad signal.
"Our analysis is because of the events in Egypt we must react and send a signal the peace process is alive," the European diplomat said. Another quartet meeting will follow in the next month, he said.
Mrs. Clinton deflected a question about how the turmoil would affect Israel or the peace process. In its eagerness to avoid the issue, the administration lined up with Turkey. Mr. Davutoglu said, "It is better not to talk about Israel-Palestine now. It is better to separate these issues."
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6) 2 Detained Reporters Saw Secret Police's Methods Firsthand
By SOUAD MEKHENNET and NICHOLAS KULISH
February 4, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/weekinreview/06held.html?hp
CAIRO
WE had been detained by Egyptian authorities, handed over to the country's dreaded Mukhabarat, the secret police, and interrogated. They left us all night in a cold room, on hard orange plastic stools, under fluorescent lights.
But our discomfort paled in comparison to the dull whacks and the screams of pain by Egyptian people that broke the stillness of the night. In one instance, between the cries of suffering, an officer said in Arabic, "You are talking to journalists? You are talking badly about your country?"
A voice, also in Arabic, answered: "You are committing a sin. You are committing a sin."
We - Souad Mekhennet, Nicholas Kulish and a driver, who is not a journalist and was not involved in the demonstrations - were detained Thursday afternoon while driving into Cairo. We were stopped at a checkpoint and thus began a 24-hour journey through Egyptian detention, ending with - we were told by the soldiers who delivered us there - the secret police. When asked, they declined to identify themselves.
Captivity was terrible. We felt powerless - uncertain about where and how long we would be held. But the worst part had nothing to do with our treatment. It was seeing - and in particular hearing through the walls of this dreadful facility - the abuse of Egyptians at the hands of their own government.
For one day, we were trapped in the brutal maze where Egyptians are lost for months or even years. Our detainment threw into haunting relief the abuses of security services, the police, the secret police and the intelligence service, and explained why they were at the forefront of complaints made by the protesters.
Many journalists shared this experience, and many were kept in worse conditions - some suffering from injuries as well.
According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, over the period we were held there were 30 detentions of journalists, 26 assaults and 8 instances of equipment being seized. We saw a journalist with his head bandaged and others brought in with jackets thrown over their heads as they were led by armed men.
In the morning, we could hear the strained voice of a man with a French accent calling out in English: "Where am I? What is happening to me? Answer me. Answer me."
This prompted us into action - pressing to be released with more urgency, and indeed fear, than before. A plainclothes officer who said his name was Marwan gestured to us. "Come to the door," he said, "and look out."
We saw more than 20 people, Westerners and Egyptians, blindfolded and handcuffed. The room had been empty when we arrived the evening before.
"We could be treating you a lot worse," he said in a flat tone, the facts speaking for themselves. Marwan said Egyptians were being held in the thousands. During the night we heard them being beaten, screaming after every blow.
We were on our way back to Cairo after reporting about the demonstrations from Alexandria for The Times. We were traveling with journalists from the German public television station ZDF, a normal practice in such conditions - safety in numbers.
At the outskirts of Cairo, we were stopped at what looked like a civilian checkpoint.
We had been through many checkpoints without problems, but after the driver opened our trunk a tremendous uproar began. They saw a large black bag with an orange ZDF microphone poking out. In the tense environment, television crews had been attacked and accused of creating anti-Egyptian propaganda. We had been in the middle of a near-riot with the same crew the day before.
The crowd shouted and banged on the car, pulling the doors open. The ZDF crew in the other car managed to drive off, while we were stuck. Instead of dragging us out as we expected, two men pushed their way into the backseat. We were relieved that they were taking us from the crowd, until one pulled out his police identification. Rather than helping us escape, he was now detaining us.
The officer gave the driver directions to an impromptu police station in the Sharabiya district of Cairo, on the roof of a lumber warehouse. The officer in charge there, who identified himself as Ehab, said they were the secret police.
They searched the ZDF bags and found much more than just a camera. "We have a woman with a German passport of Arab origin and an American in a car with camera, satellite equipment and $10,000," he said. "This is very suspicious. I think they need to be checked."
Anxiety turned to anticipation when we were driven to a military base. The military had been the closest thing Egypt had to a guarantor of stability and we thought once we explained who we were and provided documentation we would be allowed to go to our hotel.
In a strange exchange that only made sense later, Ms. Mekhennet asked a soldier, "Where are you taking us?" The soldier answered: "My heart goes out to you. I'm sorry."
After driving to several more bases we were told we were being handed over to the Mukhabarat at their headquarters in Nasr City.
It was sundown when they had us bring everything in from the car. The items were inventoried, from socks and a water bottle to a band of 50 $100 bills. Our cellphones, cameras and computers were confiscated.
We were taken to separate rooms with brown leather padded walls and interrogated individually. Mr. Kulish's interrogator spoke perfect English and joked about the television show "Friends," mentioning that he had lived in Florida and Texas.
The Mukhabarat has had a working relationship with American intelligence, including the C.I.A.'s so-called rendition program of prison transfers. During our questioning, a man nearby was being beaten - the sickening sound somewhere between a thud and a thwack. Between his screams someone yelled in Arabic, "You're a traitor working with foreigners."
Egyptian journalists had a freer hand than many in the region's police states, but the secret police kept a close eye on both journalists and their sources. As the protests became more violent, a campaign of intimidation against journalists and the Egyptians speaking to them became apparent. We appeared to have stumbled into the middle of it.
Ms. Mekhennet asked her interrogator, "Where are we?" The interrogator answered, "You are nowhere."
We were blindfolded and led to the blank room where we would spend the night and into the next afternoon on the orange plastic chairs. The screams from the torture made it nearly impossible to think.
We were not physically abused. Ms. Mekhennet explained that she had been sick and a man appeared with a blood-pressure gauge, but she declined the offer. One officer gave each of us Pepsi and a small package of cookies. It was after 10 o'clock at night, and we had not eaten since breakfast, but the agonizing cries instantly stilled our appetites.
We were told we could go in the morning, and starting at 6 a.m. we asked repeatedly to be released.
Marwan first appeared around 11 a.m. He became visibly annoyed by our requests, complaining that thousands of Egyptians civilians were in detention. He did not appreciate our sense of entitlement.
That was when he opened the door and showed us our handcuffed, blindfolded colleagues from international news outlets. He said that he was exhausted, but would find our cellphones and computers.
About an hour later, we were given back our belongings. Our greatest fear, that the innocent driver would be kept for "processing," did not come to pass.
We left together, with pangs of guilt as we saw our blindfolded, injured colleagues again, and new people led in, past guards with bulletproof vests and assault rifles.
Were we going to a hotel? we asked.
"You don't get to know that," a guard answered.
They put us in our car with orders to put our heads down. "Look down, and don't talk. If you look up you will see something you don't ever want to see."
They left us that way for 10 minutes. The only sounds were of guns being loaded and checked and duct-tape ripping.
An interrogator appeared and asked our driver, "What did you do in Tahrir Square?" He said we weren't there. The interrogator said to the driver, "So you're a traitor to your country."
In Arabic, Ms. Mekhennet, a German citizen with Arab roots, kept telling the questioner that we are journalists for The New York Times. "You came here to make this country look bad," the interrogator said.
We were told we would be driving out in our car, but escorted by a man with an assault rifle. Again, we were told to look down.
Finally, after a while, our escort ordered the driver to stop the car and got out. "You can go now."
The driver began yelling "Alhamdulillah" or "Praise be to God." We looked around and realized we were alone, somewhere in the middle of Cairo, but away from the protests, the normal street traffic slowly moving past.
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7) Discontented Within Egypt Face Power of Old Elites
"'The people are stubborn now,' said Nasser el-Sherif, a 24-year-old student, sitting near a grandmother, Um Ibrahim Abdel-Mohsin, who had ferried rocks to the barricades for two days. 'You want to beat us up? We'll kick you out, and it's our right. We're not compromising our freedom anymore,' Mr. Sherif added. Near him was scrawled graffiti. 'Victory is with the patient,' it said."
By ANTHONY SHADID
February 4, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/world/middleeast/05cairo.html?hp
CAIRO - It was proclaimed as "the Friday of departure," but neither the demonstrators who proved their staying power as a force for change nor their nemesis, President Hosni Mubarak, left. Now a prolonged collision is shaping up between a staggering but entrenched old guard and an outpouring of Egypt's discontented over how fast and how deep the changes will be.
In a contest of image, perception and power, the rebellion pits those disenfranchised by Mr. Mubarak's government against a still formidable array built around the military and security apparatus and a fabulously wealthy clique enriched by connections with the governing party.
Both revolt and reaction have offered their narrative - change and chaos - with the Information Ministry fanning popular discontent over an uprising that has devastated Egypt's economy. But a revolution is not a referendum, and in an 11-day battle that has seen momentum shift almost by the day, each faces the resilience of the other.
Even as it sheds some of its support, the government remains determined not to surrender what it deems its prestige. Mr. Mubarak's leadership is one symbol of that, but even if he leaves, the old guard may well dig in to obstruct open elections and true civilian rule. The government retains a monopoly on armed violence, the state's arsenal in its hands. But despite organizers' own lurking fears, the uprising has proved its ability to turn out thousands into the streets, in a remarkable show of steadfastness that has left the government no option but to engage it. "There are a lot of Fridays left," said Tayssir Ibrahim, a protester in Tahrir Square here.
Egypt's revolution is far from decided, but the country will never be the same. As the government begins to fall back on itself, inciting fears of foreigners, mobilizing provocateurs and cracking down on its opposition, it faces an ever fiercer revolutionary fervor, with ever more sweeping demands.
"It's in the streets now," said Omar Ghoneim, a businessman. "It's the people of Egypt protesting. We have no future. Either we die, or this regime goes completely."
Since a group of officers led by Gamal Abdel Nasser overthrew the monarchy in 1952, its corpulent king leaving behind a vast collection of pornography, the government has sought to claim the mantle of peasants and workers. Especially in the past decade, it has shed that pretense, concentrating its power around the military - long beyond criticism in the Egyptian media - as well as the loathed Interior Ministry, a governing party skilled in patronage and a clique of the very wealthy, many loyal to Mr. Mubarak's son, Gamal.
Since the revolt, the military has surged to the forefront, emerging as the pivotal player in politics it long sought to manage behind the scenes. The beneficiary of nearly $40 billion in American aid during Mr. Mubarak's rule, its interests span the gamut of economic life - from the military industry to businesses like road and housing construction, consumer goods and resort management. Even leading opposition leaders, like Mohamed ElBaradei, have acknowledged that the military will have a key role in a transition.
The protesters' demands have grown, in part, in a reflection of the way the state's other pillars are staggering. The police have collapsed, only gingerly returning to the streets, and unlike a week ago, its forces made no attempt on Friday to block the protesters' way.
"Its security apparatus is not an immediate player," said Khaled Fahmy, a professor at the American University of Cairo who was at the protests on Friday.
More striking is the way the government has begun shedding the business elite that surrounded it only months ago. Officials have announced the freezing of assets and a prohibition on travel for Ahmed Ezz, a hated steel magnate and leading member of the governing party, and for Rashid Mohammed Rashid, a former minister of trade and industry, Ahmed el-Maghraby, a former housing minister, and Zuheir Garana, a former minister of tourism. (The travel ban meant little for Mr. Rashid; he was in Dubai when the announcement was made.)
"We decided on eliminating all businessmen," Prime Minister Ahmed Shafiq said Friday of his cabinet in an interview with Al Arabiya, an Arabic satellite channel, in a gesture toward protesters who have made Mr. Ezz a symbol of everything corrupt about the state.
"Scapegoats," Ali Moussa, a leading businessman in Egypt and former chairman of the Cairo Chamber of Commerce, said of the ministers (though not Mr. Ezz).
"It's a sign of weakness, a well-known game that happens all the time," he added.
A dirtier struggle has played out in the streets, where the vision of protesters has collided so viscerally with the oldest tactics of an authoritarian state that, as Mr. Shafiq made clear, has begun retrenching itself. The military police have arrested 30 human rights activists, and an office of the Muslim Brotherhood was raided Friday. Government supporters, some wielding machetes, kitchen knives and a Cairene version of a shank, attacked scores of foreign journalists.
The protesters tried to offer a counterpoint to the government's aggressive image on Friday, in what seemed a growing struggle to define the way that people would be led in the transition. "We're sorry for any inconvenience we're causing you," guards said as they frisked people.
What is so striking about Egypt's tumult is the ardor that protesters have brought to an idea of community. In some ways, Egypt's revolution has already happened.
In a country made miserable by the petty humiliations of authority, Egyptians were welcomed to the square with boisterous greetings. "Thank God for your safety," men organized as guards declared. "Welcome, heroes!" others cried. "Come on and join the square." Most poignantly, they simply chanted, "These are the Egyptian people."
Throughout the day, by accident or intention, tens of thousands of people seemed determined to disprove every cliché that the elite has offered to justify its repression of a people that Mr. Mubarak, as recently as an interview on Thursday, insisted would descend into chaos without him.
No one pushed unduly as they waited to pass concertina wire strung by the military across the entrance. They waited as men prayed, bowing their heads on Egyptian flags that served as prayer rugs. The menacing harassment of women was nowhere to be seen. Volunteers ferried in bread, cheese, honey, juice and milk, along with medicine, some of which was provided by a pharmacist who gave a 20 percent discount for the cause.
Guards at the barricades wore helmets - actually, kitchen bowls converted for a fight - that bore the slogan "The government of the revolution."
"God is great," people chanted, "and the revolution is growing."
In a way, the contest has begun to pit two perceptions of power: sanctioned or imposed.
Protester after protester made the point that the government's prestige was broken, most remarkably by the young men in Tahrir Square who for two days fought off government supporters once routinely deployed to intimidate voters in sham elections and small crowds of protesters. "Heroes," they called the young men.
"The people are stubborn now," said Nasser el-Sherif, a 24-year-old student, sitting near a grandmother, Um Ibrahim Abdel-Mohsin, who had ferried rocks to the barricades for two days. "You want to beat us up? We'll kick you out, and it's our right."
"We're not compromising our freedom anymore," Mr. Sherif added.
Near him was scrawled graffiti. "Victory is with the patient," it said.
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8) Preapproved: Well, It Sounded Good
By GRETCHEN MORGENSON
February 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/business/06gret.html?ref=business
MELISSA CALDERONE was ready for a fresh start when she made plans last year to move to Florida from New Jersey. Recently remarried, she signed a contract in mid-March on a house to be built in Windermere, Fla., by Pulte Homes, the nation's largest homebuilder. The neighborhood had good schools for her three children and two stepchildren. It was also close to where Ms. Calderone's parents lived.
Her local bank approved her for a mortgage. But then a Pulte Homes saleswoman told her that she would get a $4,000 credit toward closing costs if she took out a loan with the homebuilder's banking unit instead. Ms. Calderone, 38, agreed. She deposited $20,000 in earnest money and set aside $80,000 more for a down payment on the $347,000 house. Her closing date, documents show, was scheduled for late summer, about six months later.
Then her troubles began. Although she had been "preapproved" by Pulte, the company ultimately denied her the loan. Then, contending that Ms. Calderone had defaulted on the purchase agreement by failing to close on time, Pulte kept her $20,000 deposit. The house went back on the market.
"They have my money and the house, which they are selling to somebody else," Ms. Calderone said. "I have no house and no deposit."
Asked about Ms. Calderone's complaint, a spokeswoman for the PulteGroup declined to comment, citing concerns over customer privacy.
But the spokeswoman provided a general statement: "Preapproval does not guarantee the final approval or closing on the transaction, since a buyer's financial situation can change during the homebuilding process or the buyer may be unable to verify certain aspects of his or her credit profile. If the buyer fails to close on his or her financing for any of these reasons, the purchase agreement allows the seller to retain the earnest money to offset any financial damages."
But Ms. Calderone is not the only Pulte customer with this kind of complaint. Last year, the attorney general of Arizona filed a lawsuit against Pulte, contending that the company's mortgage sales practices deceived consumers. That suit cited borrowers who thought, as Ms. Calderone did, that they had been approved for a mortgage when, in fact, they had not been. Those people lost their deposits as well.
"In the earlier contracts there was a 60-day period for refunds," said Nancy M. Bonnell, the assistant attorney general for Arizona who litigated the matter against Pulte. "It seemed like the disapproval of the loans came after the 60-day period. Then consumers would find out they did not qualify for the loan or rate."
Ms. Bonnell said that Pulte customers in her case forfeited deposits ranging from $2,500 to $25,000 each.
Even when a customer notified Pulte within the specified refund period, the company did not return deposits, according to the Arizona complaint. Some customers were told they had "prequalified" for a loan at one interest rate only to be charged a much higher rate when the loan came through, the complaint said. One customer was promised a 7 percent mortgage but received one carrying a rate of almost 14 percent, it said. Knowing she could not afford the loan, that customer canceled her purchase; Pulte refused to refund her deposit, the complaint said.
Pulte settled with the Arizona attorney general last August, without admitting or denying wrongdoing, Pulte agreed to pay $1.18 million, including restitution.
Under the terms of her contract with Pulte, Ms. Calderone had 45 days to cancel her purchase and get her deposit back. But as occurred in Arizona, her problems with Pulte Mortgage - indeed her first contact with the loan-processing unit - did not come until well after that period had ended.
E-mail correspondence between Ms. Calderone and Pulte shows that the lending company did not contact her until May 25, 2010 - some 67 days after she signed her contract. At that point, she began supplying documents, like the terms of her child-support agreement with her ex-husband, which was her only source of income.
Over the next three months, she continued to respond to questions and requests from Pulte, even when it asked for materials she had already submitted. Pulte also asked about small transactions in her bank account. Where did a $500 cash deposit come from, Pulte wondered? A wedding gift, Ms. Calderone replied.
AS the summer passed, Ms. Calderone kept supplying documents. But she was growing worried that she would be unable to move into the Windermere house by the Sept. 9 closing date. She was living with her parents, and a delay would mean her children could not attend the Windermere schools, where she had registered them.
During this back and forth, nothing changed in Ms. Calderone's financial situation. At one point, the Pulte loan processor told Ms. Calderone that questions were arising because of new rules imposed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the mortgage finance giants. "Then she comes back to me saying 'You haven't been divorced for a year yet, so we can't verify how much income you are getting every month,' " Ms. Calderone recalled.
It seemed to her like one big runaround. "I had the income; I had the credit score," she said. "They preapproved me, and I had a closing date. To me, is seemed like they were looking for a reason not to complete the deal."
The closing date came and went with no contact from Pulte, Ms. Calderone said. The extension she had received from the local school district, meanwhile, was set to expire on Sept. 23.
On Sept. 13, she received an e-mail from a Pulte representative saying the company was submitting her loan application to its regional underwriting manager for review. "I should know today," the e-mail concluded.
But Ms. Calderone did not hear about her loan that day. About a week later, she received a phone call saying the loan had been denied. Unsure if her children would be able to stay in the local school, she canceled her contract and asked for her money back. She was told that because she had failed to live up to her end of the deal, Pulte would keep her $20,000.
In early December, after she wrote a letter complaining to Pulte's chief executive, the company offered her a $10,000 credit on the purchase of another Pulte home. She declined. She and her family are now renting a home in south Florida.
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9) With Egypt in Turmoil, Oil and Food Prices Climb
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/02/05/business/AP-US-Egypt-Economic-Impact.html?src=busln
Filed at 10:00 a.m. EST
WASHINGTON (AP) - The turmoil in Egypt is causing economic jitters across the globe, pushing up food and oil prices so far, but bigger worries are ahead.
Will popular uprisings and revolution spread to Egypt's rich autocratic neighbors, managers of much of the world's oil supply? Will the U.S. see its influence in the region decline and that of Iran and other fundamental Islamic governments surge?
While those are open questions, there's no doubt the crisis has meant new risks for shaky economies and put a cloud over financial markets.
Instability in the Middle East, if prolonged, could jeopardize fragile recoveries in the United States and Europe. It could limit job creation and fuel inflation.
"If the turmoil is contained largely to Egypt, then the broader economic fallout will be marginal," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics. "Now, obviously, if it spills out of Egypt to other parts of the Middle East, the concern goes to a whole other darker level."
Protesters have topped the government of Tunisia, with more modest effects in Yemen and Jordan.
"The real worry, I think is if these protests continue indefinitely and there isn't more reassurance about stability in Egypt and in the broader region," said Shadi Hamid, a researcher on Gulf affairs at the Brookings Institution's Doha Center in Qatar. "We're going to see a continued decline in the regional economy and that will, of course, have an effect on the U.S. economy."
Hamid suggested the Obama administration's position of first supporting Mubarak and then raising the pressure on him to leave immediately was not helpful. "There is a real danger here that the Obama administration will be remembered as resisting change," he said.
The unrest already has affected U.S. energy prices.
The average price for a gallon of regular gasoline in the U.S. was $3.12 on Friday - up 2.4 cents just in the past week. Analysts expect prices to stay above $3 a gallon - the highest since 2008 - and probably go higher until the conflict in Egypt is resolved and Mideast tensions ease.
Oil prices hovered at about $90 a barrel over the past week. Some analysts predicted the Egyptian crisis will lead to $100 per barrel prices sooner rather than later.
Traders worry the unrest might spread to oil-producing countries in the region and even affect shipments through the Suez Canal. Egypt is not a major oil producer, but it controls the canal and a nearby pipeline that together carry about 2 million barrels of oil a day from the Middle East to customers in Europe and the United States.
So far, traffic through the canal has been unimpeded. But it's high on everybody's worry list. It was blockaded by the Egyptian military for eight years after the 1967 war with Israel and shut briefly during the Suez crisis of 1956.
"I think the major fear regarding the Suez Canal revolves around the power vacuum that's being created by this uprising," said Jeff Sica, president of SicaWealth Management in Morristown, N.J. "The prospect for the Suez Canal being controlled by an unfriendly regime would further devastate the economy."
The likelihood of the canal being shut or blockaded seems remote. It is a huge source of revenue for Egypt that the government will not want to lose, no matter who is in charge. Still, just the possibility could spook financial markets if tensions escalate.
Rising food prices helped fuel the popular uprising in Egypt. Unrest in Somalia and other Arab nations also appears to be driving food prices even higher. Some nations in the region, including Saudi Arabia and Algeria, have indicated they may begin increasing their stockpiles of wheat and other grains.
Hoarding can lead to more hoarding, and political strife can accelerate the process. Egypt is the world's largest importer of wheat.
Iranian leaders have much to gain from the Egyptian turmoil. Not only is Mubarak the most anti-Iranian of American allies, but rising oil prices have clear economic benefits to Tehran.
"Hundred dollar-a-barrel oil for the Iranians does a lot to take down the pain of the sanctions that we're putting on them, so they must be sitting there rubbing their hands with glee at the moment," said Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel.
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AP Diplomatic Writer Barry Schweid contributed to this report.
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10) U.S. Says Farmers May Grow Engineered Sugar Beets
By ANDREW POLLACK
February 4, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/business/05beet.html?src=busln
The Department of Agriculture said on Friday that American farmers could resume growing genetically engineered sugar beets that had been barred by a federal judge.
The decision could allow farmers to plant the biotech seeds this spring, avoiding a possible shortage of sugar later on.
"The decision is a win for consumers," said Duane Grant, a beet farmer in Rupert, Idaho, and chairman of the farmer-owned Snake River Sugar Company. "It assures a full beet crop will be planted in 2011."
But environmental groups and organic farmers were dismayed by the decision.
The genetically engineered beets accounted for more than 90 percent of the sugar beets grown last year. They can withstand spraying by the herbicide Roundup, allowing farmers to kill weeds without harming the crop.
But in August, in response to a lawsuit filed by environmental groups and organic farmers, a federal district court judge in San Francisco revoked the approval of the beets.
The judge, Jeffrey S. White, said the Agriculture Department had to prepare an environmental impact statement assessing the effects of the biotech crop. His biggest concern was that the genetically engineered trait could spread to organic sugar beet crops or to other crops like Swiss chard and red table beets.
But some farmers said there might not be enough nonengineered seed available to satisfy demand. The government projected a possible 20 percent reduction in American sugar production.
As a result, the Agriculture Department was under pressure to allow the genetically engineered beets to be grown - and to do so in time for the spring planting season - even though it did not expect to finish the environmental impact statement until May 2012.
The solution announced Friday was an interim "partial deregulation" of the beets that will hold until the impact statement is done and a final decision made. The partial deregulation was requested by the two companies that developed the crop, Monsanto and KWS, a German seed company.
Farmer-owned sugar processing companies will enter into compliance agreements with the government covering their growers. The agreements will spell out the measures that must be taken to prevent the genetically engineered traits from spreading. Farmers' fields will be subject to inspection.
For seed production, growers will need permits and will be kept from growing such seeds within four miles of other sugar beet, table beet or chard seed fields.
Paul Achitoff, the lead counsel for the groups that sued the Agriculture Department, said the conditions imposed on the growers were no different from what was now done voluntarily and would not prevent the spread of the biotech trait.
"It's just window dressing," said Mr. Achitoff, who is with the group Earthjustice.
He said the groups would ask the court to block the Agriculture Department's decision from being put into effect. One obstacle they could face, however, is that the Supreme Court, in a decision last year concerning genetically engineered alfalfa, said the Agriculture Department had the authority to grant partial deregulation.
Friday's decision is the second in less than two weeks favorable to agricultural biotechnology companies and farmers who grow the genetically engineered crops.
Last week, the Agriculture Department allowed farmers to resume growing genetically engineered Roundup-resistant alfalfa without restrictions. In doing so, it pulled back from a proposal to restrict where the biotech alfalfa could be grown so as to prevent genetically engineered material from spreading to organic alfalfa.
Sugar beets are a fairly small crop, planted on a little over one million acres, mainly in northern states, and worth somewhat more than $1 billion. Beets account for roughly half of the American sugar supply, with the rest coming from sugar cane.
World sugar prices are extremely high now because of weather problems and poor output in Brazil and Australia. That would have made it more difficult and expensive to import sugar to make up for any shortfall of American production.
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11) Egypt Leadership Holds Firm After Talks
"The numbers seemed initially to be slightly fewer than on Saturday. But as the day wore on thousands of people headed to the square, so that the city offered rival visions - one promoted by footage on state television of a capital returning to its normal ways; and another, in Tahrir Square, of continued defiance....'What they are saying behind closed doors, they are backing Mubarak,' said Noha el-Shakawy, 52, a pharmacist with dual Egyptian and American citizenship. 'We are nothing to them. The United States wants to sacrifice all of our lives, 85 million people.' Leaders of the Egyptian opposition and rank-and-file protesters had earlier rejected any negotiations with Mr. Suleiman until after the ouster of Mr. Mubarak, arguing that moving toward democracy will require ridding the country of not only its dictator but also his rubber-stamp Parliament and a Constitution designed for one-party rule....Protesters noted that Western worries about security and orderly transitions sounded remarkably like Mr. Mubarak's age-old excuses for postponing change. And they said they had waited long enough. 'We don't want Omar Suleiman to take Mubarak's place. We are not O.K. with this regime at all,' said Omar el-Shawy, a young online activist. 'We want a president who is a civilian.'"
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK, KAREEM FAHIM and ALAN COWELL
February 6, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/world/middleeast/07egypt.html?hp
CAIRO - Vice President Omar Suleiman insisted Sunday that President Hosni Mubarak could not step down, and in a significant but limited move held a first meeting with members of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood and youth opposition groups.
The encounter itself was remarkable, bringing together members of the brotherhood - Egypt's biggest opposition movement - and the autocratic government that has for decades repressed it as an Islamist threat.
But the results were less momentous. While Mr. Suleiman's office issued a statement - widely reported on state television - saying that talks had produced a consensus on a number of topics, the list reflected promises the Egyptian government had already made. The government has consistently tried to woo moderate Egyptians away from the protesters by publicizing concessions that fall short of the demonstrators' demands.
The opposition groups, a disparate array that has no central leadership but has unified around the demand that Mr. Mubarak step down immediately, said that there were no new agreements or concessions.
A spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, Gamal Nassar, said the huge and sometimes violent demonstrations that have paralyzed Cairo for 13 days, reverberating around the Middle East, would continue "until the political path can have a role in achieving the aspirations of the protesters" - an apparent reference to their goal of removing Mr. Mubarak.
Mr. Nassar said mediators had brokered the encounter with Mr. Suleiman, who Saturday received public backing from the Obama administration and other Western governments that confirmed him as the West's choice to guide any transfer of power.
"The brothers decided to enter a round of dialogue to determine how serious the officials are achieving the demands of the people," Mr. Nassar said. "The regime keeps saying we're open to dialogue and the people are the ones refusing, so the Brotherhood decided to examine the situation from all different sides."
"The Egyptian regime is stubborn, and cannot relinquish power easily," he said. "In politics, you must hear everyone's opinions."
Another member of the Brotherhood, the former lawmaker Mohasen Rady, said the organization had not abandoned its demand for Mr. Mubarak's ouster. "He can leave in any way the regime would accept him to leave, but it has to be that he is out," he said.
Other members of the Brotherhood described its presence at the talks on Sunday as exploratory rather than part of a full negotiation.
On Sunday - the first day of the working week - Cairo seemed to be assuming some of the trappings of normalcy.
Some banks reopened for several hours after a week of closures, with limits on withdrawals by customers who stood in line to access their accounts. The city's notoriously rambunctious traffic began to rebuild across bridges over the Nile that had been access routes to Tahrir Square for pro-democracy protesters and their adversaries.
Tens of thousands of protesters milled again in the square, which seemed to be taking on an air of semi-permanency with tents, food stalls, worship and music. Vendors offered dates. On the perimeters, a Bahrain airline office had reopened, as had a store called "Hana Eastern Gifts."
The numbers seemed initially to be slightly fewer than on Saturday. But as the day wore on thousands of people headed to the square, so that the city offered rival visions - one promoted by footage on state television of a capital returning to its normal ways; and another, in Tahrir Square, of continued defiance.
Tanks remained in position on the square itself, and an overnight curfew was still technically in force. Reporters in the city said that foreigners risked being stopped at roadblocks and that some had been threatened with arrest as spies.
Muslim and Coptic prayers resounded over the square. The show of interfaith harmony came just weeks after a suicide bomber killed at least 21 people as a New Year's Eve Mass was ending in Alexandria. In the past, some members of the Coptic minority have accused their leaders of reluctance to confront the state.
In an interview broadcast on ABC's "This Week with Christiane Amanpour" on Sunday, Mr. Suleiman repeated his insistence that Mr. Mubarak could not step down now. "We don't want chaos in our country," he said. If Mubarak would say I'm leaving now who would take over?"
Mr. Suleiman, who is also in charge of Egyptian intelligence, said that under the Constitution the speaker of parliament would rule in the president's absence, but he warned that "in this atmosphere the people who have their own agenda will make instability in our country."
He said he would not seek the presidency himself. "I became old now," he said. "I did enough for this country," he said, adding "when the president asked me to be vice president I accepted just to help the president in this critical time."
Asked who was behind the currents of political change sweeping across Tunisia, Yemen and much of the Middle East, he focused on Islamic extremism. It is "an Islamic current that pushes these people," he said.
Young people may be the face of protest, "but others are pushing them to do that," adding that those spurs are coming from abroad.
According to The Associated Press, footage on state television showed youthful supporters of a leading democracy advocate, Mohamed ElBaradei, and a number of smaller leftist, liberal group along with representatives of the Brotherhood meeting Mr. Suleiman.
In an interview with CNN, Mr. ElBaradei said that he was not ready to negotiate with a representative of Mr. Mubarak, saying that his regime had lost credibility.
Instead, Mr. ElBaradei called for a presidential council to serve during a year of transition as a caretaker government to prepare for elections and to take other steps.
"We need to abolish the present constitution," he said. "We need to dissolve the current parliament. These are all elements of the dictatorship regime, and we should not be - I don't think we will go to democracy through the dictatorial constitution."
Rashid Mohammed Rashid, a former minister of trade and industry, said in an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria that he believed it would be better for Mr. Mubarak to finish his term as president to ensure a smooth transition.
"I personally believe that he will push towards changes to be done, and it's not easy," Mr. Rashid said. "We all know it's not easy, but I believe that the alternative is chaos and the alternative is just jumping into the unknown, and I believe that he has the will to do that."
Mr. Rashid also acknowledged that the Muslim Brotherhood was strong, but that the impetus for the street protests was initiated by Egypt's youth who "were restricted despite the political reforms that have been happening of having a voice and a share."
"I believe that they will also be counterbalance to some of the few people who want to take extremist views, like the Muslim Brotherhood and others," he added.
Asked whether Mr. Mubarak was disappointed that President Obama had asked him to resign, Mr. Rashid said: "I think the position of President Obama, the position of the American government was extremely short-sighted, I don't want even to say stupid. There was so much interference. They shouldn't actually get involved in this."
The meeting with the Muslim Brotherhood seemed to reflect a wider regional acknowledgment of the its influence. On Thursday, King Abdullah II of Jordan, struggling to stave off growing public discontent, also met with his own country's representatives of the Muslim Brotherhood for the first time in nearly a decade.
The development came a day after American officials said Mr. Suleiman had promised them an "orderly transition" that would include constitutional reform and outreach to opposition groups.
"That takes some time," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said, speaking at a Munich security conference. "There are certain things that have to be done in order to prepare."
Protesters interpreted the simultaneous moves by the Western leaders and Mr. Suleiman as a rebuff to their demands for an end to the dictatorship led for almost three decades by Mr. Mubarak, a pivotal American ally and pillar of the existing order in the Middle East.
"What they are saying behind closed doors, they are backing Mubarak," said Noha el-Shakawy, 52, a pharmacist with dual Egyptian and American citizenship. "We are nothing to them. The United States wants to sacrifice all of our lives, 85 million people."
Leaders of the Egyptian opposition and rank-and-file protesters had earlier rejected any negotiations with Mr. Suleiman until after the ouster of Mr. Mubarak, arguing that moving toward democracy will require ridding the country of not only its dictator but also his rubber-stamp Parliament and a Constitution designed for one-party rule.
On Saturday, Mr. Mubarak's party announced a shake-up that removed its old guard, including his son Gamal, from the party's leadership while installing younger, more reform-minded figures. But such gestures were quickly dismissed as cosmetic by analysts and opposition figures.
Mrs. Clinton's message, echoed by Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain, and reinforced in a flurry of calls by President Obama and Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to Egyptian and regional leaders, appears to reflect an attempt at balancing calls for systemic change with some semblance of legal order and stability.
Mrs. Clinton said Mr. Mubarak, having taken himself and Gamal out of the September elections, was already effectively sidelined. She emphasized the need for Egypt to reform its Constitution to make a vote credible. "That is what the government has said it is trying to do," she said.
She also stressed the dangers of holding elections without adequate preparation and highlighted fears about deteriorating security inside Egypt, noting an explosion at a gas pipeline in the Sinai Peninsula, and uncorroborated news reports of an earlier assassination attempt on Mr. Suleiman.
In a statement, the Egyptian government said there had been no assassination attempt, but added that on Jan. 28 a car in Mr. Suleiman's motorcade was struck by a bullet fired by "criminal elements."
Protesters noted that Western worries about security and orderly transitions sounded remarkably like Mr. Mubarak's age-old excuses for postponing change. And they said they had waited long enough.
"We don't want Omar Suleiman to take Mubarak's place. We are not O.K. with this regime at all," said Omar el-Shawy, a young online activist. "We want a president who is a civilian."
David D. Kirkpatrick and Kareem Fahim reported from Cairo, and Alan Cowell from Paris. Reporting was contributed by Mark Landler and Steven Erlanger from Munich; Anthony Shadid, Mona El-Naggar and Robert F. Worth from Cairo; and Christine Hauser and Joseph Berger from New York.
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12) Anger and a Facebook Page That Gave It Voice
By JENNIFER PRESTON
February 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/world/middleeast/06face.html?hp
If there is a face to the revolt that has sprouted in Egypt, it may be the face of Khaled Said.
Mr. Said, a 28-year-old Egyptian businessman, was pulled from an Internet cafe in Alexandria last June by two plainclothes police officers, who witnesses say then beat him to death in the lobby of a residential building. Human rights advocates said he was killed because he had evidence of police corruption.
The Egyptian police and security services have a well-earned reputation for brutality and snuffing out political opposition. But in Mr. Said, they unwittingly chose the wrong target.
Within five days of his death, an anonymous human rights activist created a Facebook page - We Are All Khaled Said - that posted cellphone photos from the morgue of his battered and bloodied face, and YouTube videos played up contrasting pictures of him happy and smiling with the graphic images from the morgue. By mid-June, 130,000 people joined the page to get and share updates about the case.
It became and remains the biggest dissident Facebook page in Egypt, even as protests continue to sweep the country, with more than 473,000 users, and it has helped spread the word about the demonstrations in Egypt, which were ignited after a revolt in neighboring Tunisia toppled the government there.
"There were many catalysts of the uprising," said Ahmed Zidan, an online political activist marching toward Tahrir Square for a protest last week. "The first was the brutal murder of Khalid Said."
The Tunisian rebellion was set off after a fruit vendor, Mohamed Bouazizi, burned himself to death after being humiliated by the police. His desperate act led to protests, which were recorded on mobile phones, posted on the Internet, shared on Facebook and eventually broadcast by Al Jazeera.
But Mr. Said's death may be the starkest example yet of the special power of social networking tools like Facebook even - or especially - in a police state. The Facebook page set up around his death offered Egyptians a rare forum to bond over their outrage about government abuses.
"Prior to the murder of Khaled Said, there were blogs and YouTube videos that existed about police torture, but there wasn't a strong community around them," said Jillian C. York, the project coordinator for the OpenNet Initiative of the Berkman Center for the Internet and Society at Harvard University. "This case changed that."
While it is almost impossible to isolate the impact of social media tools from the general swirl of events that set off the popular uprisings across the Middle East, there is little doubt that they provided a new means for ordinary people to connect with human rights advocates trying to amass support against police abuse, torture and the Mubarak government's permanent emergency laws allowing people to be jailed without charges.
Facebook and YouTube also offered a way for the discontented to organize and mobilize - and allowed secular-minded young people to seize the momentum from Egypt's relatively neutered, organized opposition.
Far more decentralized than political parties, the strength and agility of the networks clearly caught Egyptian authorities - and American intelligence analysts - by surprise, even as the Egyptian government quickly attempted to shut them down.
Mr. Said, who was from a middle-class family and worked in the import-export business, was not an activist or involved in politics. But human rights advocates said he was killed because the local police believed he had shot a video showing officers with illegal drugs. Such a video did eventually show up on YouTube.
The police had told Mr. Said's family that he was involved in drugs and died of asphyxiation from swallowing a package of marijuana while in police custody. But witnesses denied that account, telling their stories in YouTube videos.
"What made this case different is that Khaled Said was just an ordinary person," said Gamal Eid, 47, a lawyer and executive director of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information in Cairo. "He was just a guy who found evidence of corruption and he published it. Then when people learned what happened to him, when people saw pictures of his face, people got very angry."
Mr. Eid said that Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and cellphones made it easy for human rights advocates to get out the news and for people to spread and discuss their outrage about Mr. Said's death in a country where freedom of speech and the right to assemble were limited and the government monitored newspapers and state television.
"He is a big part of our revolution," said Hudaifa Nabawi, a 20-year-old student in Tahrir Square on Saturday. "Khalid Said was a special case. He didn't belong to any faction, and he didn't do anything wrong. He became the way to focus our perceptions around the oppression that all the youth all face. You can consider him a symbol."
Facebook has been the social networking tool of choice for human rights activists in Egypt. There are five million Facebook users in Egypt, the highest number in any Middle Eastern or North African country.
Its power and importance has been building for years. In 2008, the April 6 Youth Movement used Facebook to gain more than 70,000 supporters to help raise awareness for striking workers in Mahalla al-Kobra, Egypt.
In the last two years, that movement and other human rights advocates have also turned to Twitter and to YouTube, the third most visited Web site in Egypt after Google and Facebook. YouTube, which human rights advocates have used to upload dozens of videos showing Egyptian police torture and abuse, has evolved as an enormously powerful social media tool as more people have been able to capture and share video on cellphones.
When video of the corrupt police officers with drugs attributed to Mr. Said was uploaded on YouTube on June 11, 2010, a member of the April 6 Youth Movement left a message in Arabic on the video that said: "We are Khaled. Each one of us can be Khaled."
The message urged people to stand up against police abuse and torture and say no to "bullying police." This single video has been viewed more than 500,000 times since June and spawned dozens more videos about Mr. Said, including rap songs and more solemn presentations with haunting music.
Last June, besides providing regular Facebook updates about the stalled police investigation into Mr. Said's death, the anonymous administrator of the Facebook page began posting invitations to join street protests and silent protests in Alexandria and Cairo, which spread to nine other cities. Mohamed ElBaradei, the former chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was among thousands attending the protest in Alexandria.
With the conversation on social networks translating into street protests - and with the well-documented evidence of the police abuse posted online for hundreds of thousands to see - prosecutors were forced to arrest the two police officers in early July in connection with Mr. Said's death. But the case remains unresolved.
Other Egyptians died at the hands of the police last summer. The protests continued, first every week or so, and then sporadically last fall, until Tunisia fell and then the April 6 Youth Movement Facebook group and the We Are All Khaled Said Facebook page began inviting Egyptians to a protest on Jan. 25.
Signaling the Mubarak government's growing awareness about the powerful role that social media are playing in Egypt, pro-Mubarak supporters began jumping into the Khaled Said Facebook page's conversation soon after access to the Internet was restored last week.
There are now wall posts and comments on the page, blasting antigovernment supporters, demanding that Mr. Mubarak be given a chance and spreading disinformation, including that the "day of departure" protest on Friday was canceled.
But that did little to deter the protesters. "If you think you can go on Facebook and tell the people to go home, it's too late for that," said Omar Ghoneim, 32, who walked to Friday's protest, wearing two bandages on his right hand from, he said, throwing tear gas canisters back at the police.
David D. Kirkpatrick, Kareem Fahim and Anthony Shadid contributed reporting from Cairo.
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13) Detentions, and Aide's Role, Anger Egyptians
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
February 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/world/middleeast/06detain.html?hp
CAIRO - Vice President Omar Suleiman of Egypt has won the blessing of both the Mubarak and Obama administrations as the leader of a political transition toward democracy in Egypt. But human rights advocates say that so far Mr. Suleiman, who also is in charge of Egyptian intelligence, has shown no sign of discontinuing the practice of extra-legal detention of political opponents - a hallmark of President Hosni Mubarak's nearly 30-year rule that is a central grievance of the protesters in the streets.
"We have been seriously concerned about the arrests and harassment of human rights workers and youth activists who are around the demonstrations," said Heba Morayef, a researcher with Human Rights Watch in Cairo. "These are exactly the same practices that inspired the Jan. 25 demonstrations in the first place, not a departure."
The continuing pattern is one reason many of the opposition leaders and protesters in the streets say they are determined not to back down until Mr. Mubarak leaves office: if he stays, they say, they risk imprisonment, torture and death.
The most notable example is the long disappearance of Wael Ghonim, a Google executive and leader of the young Internet activists who started the revolt. Believed by many to be the anonymous host of the Facebook page that first called for the Jan. 25 protest that kicked off the Egyptian uprising, he wrote that day on his Twitter account, "We got brutally beaten up by police people," and later, "Sleeping on the streets of Cairo, trying to feel the pain of millions of my fellow Egyptians."
"Very worried as it seems that government is planning a war crime tomorrow against people," he wrote two days later. "We are all ready to die." He disappeared soon after, and after a thorough search of area hospitals, his family and human rights workers have concluded that he was taken by Egyptian security forces.
The pattern was most evident last Thursday, when the authorities rounded up scores of journalists and human rights workers all around Cairo. Though most foreigners appear to have been released, many Egyptians are still out of sight or in custody.
Around 8:45 on Thursday evening, for example, a group of about 10 young online political organizers - part of the group that started the revolt with an online call to protest - sat down for dinner at a coffee shop here after a meeting at the home of Mohamed ElBaradei, a Nobel Prize-winning diplomat who has become a spokesman for the democracy movement.
One of the young organizers, Ahmed Eid, was talking on his mobile phone when he saw an army officer and a police officer approaching his friends' table. "I thought at first that it was just to check their IDs," he later wrote in a group e-mail to human rights workers. "When I found that it is taking longer than usual and that they had 3 plain-clothed men with them, I felt that they were going to be arrested. I decided to stand afar and follow up with them over the phone."
After one of their wives confirmed that the group had been arrested, a human rights lawyer went to the Haram police station to inquire about their defense. He, too, was arrested. On Saturday night, a human rights worker said they had been released, but there were no details given.
The government has also detained without charges and subsequently released dozens of foreign journalists, holding many overnight.
Officials of the Muslim Brotherhood say security forces recently raided the office of its Web site, and over the weekend they reportedly raided a Cairo office of the pan-Arab news network Al Jazeera as well.
In another notable raid, a group of men with clubs accompanied by a handful of soldiers stormed the Hisham Mubarak Legal Center, breaking windows, rifling desks and confiscating two safes, a person present said. Screaming and yelling at the roughly 35 human rights workers and civil rights lawyers present, the men forced them to the ground and handcuffed their hands behind their backs.
"This is the real Egypt! This is the real Egypt!" one of them said, pointing to the human rights workers prone on the floor, recalled Dan Williams, a researcher with Human Rights Watch who was among those captured. He said the man seemed to be saying: "The real Egypt is, we can do whatever we want with Egyptians. We come in, we manacle you, and you sit down and you do what we say."
Unlike the online political organizers who started the revolt, however, the 35 or so human rights workers and legal advocates were released Sunday morning, after the potential for another violent crackdown appeared to have passed.
Mr. Williams said a white van from the security services dropped him off at a full hotel in an outer neighborhood of the city, forcing him to risk harassment or worse at makeshift checkpoints throughout the city as he searched for a bed for the night.
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14) Inflation, an Old Scourge, Plagues Argentina Again
"High inflation - a weakness of the Argentine economy for decades - is soaring again. Independent economists say inflation rose by 25 to 30 percent in 2010, the highest level since the calamitous 2002 devaluation that sent the economy into a tailspin. This time around, the pain is already being felt by the poor. Food-price increases began to outstrip wage increases in 2010, leading Argentines to buy less food, private economists say. And many in the middle and upper classes are leaning more heavily on credit cards, helping push up levels of personal debt."
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO
February 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/world/americas/06argentina.html?ref=world
BUENOS AIRES - Damian Vásquez used to regularly update the prices of household cleaning products on the sign outside his store. Today he often does not bother. Inflation has been causing prices to rise so fast that he grew tired of the effort to keep up.
"When prices stabilize a little, I write the new prices," said Mr. Vásquez, 27. "But lately prices have been changing almost weekly."
High inflation - a weakness of the Argentine economy for decades - is soaring again. Independent economists say inflation rose by 25 to 30 percent in 2010, the highest level since the calamitous 2002 devaluation that sent the economy into a tailspin.
This time around, the pain is already being felt by the poor. Food-price increases began to outstrip wage increases in 2010, leading Argentines to buy less food, private economists say. And many in the middle and upper classes are leaning more heavily on credit cards, helping push up levels of personal debt.
While a return to the kind of hyperinflation that swept Argentina in the 1970s and 1980s - when retailers sometimes updated prices hourly - seems unrealistic to most, inflation shows no sign of abating and is calling into question the success of efforts for more "social inclusion" by President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, who is expected to seek re-election in October.
Inflation has reared its head elsewhere in Latin America as well. Brazil, which was ravaged by hyperinflation of more than 2,000 percent as recently as 1994, has become increasingly concerned that inflation will exceed 5.5 percent this year. In Venezuela, inflation is 27.2 percent, according to Venezuela's Central Bank, the highest in Latin America, and President Hugo Chávez has blamed "speculators" for raising prices there.
In Argentina, it has become a heated political issue. Mrs. Kirchner insists inflation is not a problem, even in the face of substantial evidence presented by private economists and local officials that the government's national statistics agency has been grossly underreporting inflation and poverty for four years.
The government's official 10.9 percent inflation rate is less than half the estimate of private economists and firms like Ecolatina, which put inflation at 26.6 percent in a report last month. The official 12 percent number for poverty is also well below independent estimates of about 30 percent.
The economy minister, Amado Boudou, said in November that inflation was a problem of "the middle and upper classes," and blamed companies for raising prices. Inflation "is not an issue of big proportions that the Argentine population is criticizing," he said in a radio interview.
But some economists and pollsters say rising prices of food and clothing affect the poor most, especially those in the informal economy, in which 40 percent of Argentines make their living.
"It is clear that inflation weighs heaviest on Argentines on fixed incomes and especially those in the informal economy that don't have a union to defend their interests," said Sergio Berensztein, a political analyst with Poliarquía, a consulting firm in Buenos Aires.
Even as the government says Argentina's economy grew by 9.5 percent in 2010, the nation's poverty level topped 30 percent of the population, the highest since poverty exceeded 50 percent after the 2001-2 economic crisis, private economists said.
"The poverty level is higher now than the worst moments of the 1990s," said Domingo Cavallo, a former economy minister. "Without a doubt, inflation is increasing poverty."
In early 2007, the government of President Néstor Kirchner, Mrs. Kirchner's husband, who died last year, began manipulating data from the statistics agency, said Martín Redrado, who was president of Argentina's Central Bank at the time.
Mr. Kirchner replaced personnel at the statistics agency in a bid to "improve operations," he said. Two of the agency's directors were fired or resigned after refusing to manipulate economic figures, Mr. Redrado said.
In the years since then, the cumulative rate of inflation has been 120 percent, private economists said, though the government has reported it to be 39 percent in the four-year period, according to a comparison in the newspaper La Nación last month.
The manipulation of the statistics has drastically increased Argentina's risk profile, driven away foreign investors and complicated the country's efforts to return to the credit markets, even as it moves to settle $100 billion in debt from a 2001 default.
Mr. Redrado said he resigned from the Central Bank in early 2010 after refusing Mrs. Kirchner's request to tap bank reserves. After his departure, the government started borrowing heavily from the Central Bank.
Critics say the government is also refusing to print bills in denominations larger than 100 pesos because that would be an acknowledgment of soaring prices and could revive memories of hyperinflation, when the Central Bank issued notes of up to 1 million pesos.
To keep up with the demand for more bills, the government has contracted with Brazil to print 16 billion pesos in banknotes, the first time Argentina has turned to Brazil for printing money, said a spokesman at the Central Bank.
The Kirchner government has tried to quell concerns about mounting inflation by continuing to keep the economy growing at China-like rates, largely fueled by high soybean prices. The government also says the country is in the midst of a consumption boom, pointing to domestic car sales that reached record levels in 2010, and it has protected itself by keeping substantial foreign reserves of dollars.
"Argentina is in a formidable moment economically," Florencio Randazzo, the interior minister, said on the radio last month.
But that may be part of the problem, economists say. Domestic consumption is surpassing the limits of production, causing inflation. The government has not inspired the kind of confidence that would help increase investment and, by extension, the supply of goods. And by tinkering with the economic data, the government has created an environment in which suppliers and producers, operating absent reliable numbers, feel the freedom to raise prices seemingly at will, economists say.
Salary increases have averaged more than 20 percent a year, yet they are still struggling to keep pace with rising food prices. In 2010, Argentines bought fewer units of beverages, fruits and vegetables, a sign that inflation was finally taking a toll, said Mr. Redrado, the former Central Bank president.
"People have lived under a monetary illusion that is fading away, when the salary increases do not allow you to pay for the food products that you need," he said.
Argentines are certainly spending, but many are doing so on credit, buying cars, appliances and televisions before they become more expensive. Banks are aggressively issuing credit cards, offering discounts and interest-free payment plans stretching up to 50 months.
Credit card debt rose by 45 percent in November from the year before, up from a 20 percent rise from 2008 to 2009, according to Esteban Fernández Medrano, an economist at MacroVision Consulting. But Argentina still has the lowest ratio of private debt to gross domestic product in Latin America, around 10 to 20 percent, compared with about 40 percent in Brazil and 65 to 70 percent in Chile, according to estimates by several different economists.
"People aren't saving anything anymore," said Mercedes Fontao, 31, while shopping at the Alto Avellaneda mall last month. "They are spending what they have and living for the moment, and going into heavy debt on cards to keep it going."
But some are trying to economize. In Pinamar, an Argentine beach town, business has been down this summer for some restaurants as more people eat at home.
Carlos Bermejo, 74, said he was bargain hunting, taking advantage every Wednesday of a 15 percent discount when using a debit card at the supermarket. But he said he still had to go into debt on his credit cards every month to get by.
"I've lived through inflation many times," said Mr. Bermejo, who owns an apartment in Pinamar. "The young people don't have that experience. They are going into debt thinking they will beat inflation. But you can never beat inflation."
Charles Newbery contributed reporting from Pinamar, Argentina.
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15) Three Cases of Cholera Confirmed by [New York] City Officials
By AL BAKER
February 5, 2011, 6:36 pm
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/05/city-confirms-three-cases-of-cholera/?ref=world
The first known cases of cholera in New York since the outbreak of the disease in Haiti last year were confirmed on Saturday by city officials.
A commercial laboratory notified health officials on Friday that three New Yorkers had developed diarrhea and dehydration, classic symptoms of the disease, after returning from a wedding on Jan. 22 and 23 in the Dominican Republic, where the government has been trying to prevent the disease from spreading from neighboring Haiti.
The three who contracted cholera were adults who returned to the city within days of the wedding.
None were hospitalized. Dr. Sharon Balter, a medical epidemiologist for the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, said on Saturday that the victims had all recovered.
Officials declined to release the names of the patients or where they lived.
City health officials are now working with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta to determine what the New York victims ate and to see if the strain of the disease they contracted is linked to the cholera epidemic that has ravaged Haiti, killing thousands since October and infecting many more.
"We're providing support to the state, with lab testing, in determining which strain" is at issue, said Candice Burns Hoffmann, a spokeswoman for the C.D.C. "And I know there is an investigation in the Dominican Republic, as well, for that wedding, and the C.D.C. is there to support the state health department and also international organizations."
Officials at the C.D.C. have noted a few cases of cholera in the past three or four months from travelers who arrived in the United States from Haiti or the Dominican Republic, Ms. Hoffmann added.
While cholera can spread swiftly where sanitation is poor and clean drinking water is unavailable, the possibility of transmitting the disease in New York is considered low.
The likelihood of person-to-person transmission is also low, as one would have to drink large amounts of water contaminated with Vibrio cholerae, the cholera-causing bacteria, to get sick.
"People get cholera by drinking water or eating food that is contaminated with cholera," said Erin Hughes, a spokeswoman for the city's health department.
Those with cholera can recover rapidly, particularly if they rehydrate by drinking water with salt or sugar. In some cases, intravenous treatment and antibiotics might be required.
In New York, the occasional cholera case is not unusual. Officials see an average of one a year, particularly among those traveling to regions where the disease is common, Dr. Balter said.
But, until now, no cases have emerged since the outbreak in Haiti, she said.
Federal health officials had put city health authorities on notice before the confirmation of the three cases on Friday. But city health officials had already been watching for cases to emerge and had sent alerts to doctors, Dr. Balter said.
"We work closely with the C.D.C. on these cases, so we know about the outbreaks and we expected cases," Dr. Balter said. "We may see more cases. We probably will see more cases. And we always see cases related to travel."
Dr. Balter stressed the importance of learning about the risk of cholera in the parts of the world where it is most prevalent and taking steps to prevent contracting the disease if traveling abroad. She also urged speaking with a physician before traveling and drinking bottled water once at a destination.
Ms. Hoffmann said that travelers could also reduce their risk by "eating only food that has been cooked and served hot, paying vigorous attention to hand washing with soap and avoiding swimming or bathing in rivers."
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16) Protesters Vow to Escalate Pressure on Mubarak
"The young organizers whose Facebook page fomented the revolt made their public debut at a news conference to declare that their protests would only grow until the government met the movement's demands, including Mr. Mubarak's ouster, the dissolution of the one-party parliament and rewriting the one-party Constitution. Of that group of a half-dozen doctors, lawyers and other professionals, several had been released late last night from three days of extra-legal police detention. Their resolve marked a new and uncharted stage in Egypt's unexpected uprising. Having beaten back assaults by armies of armed police and gangs of plain-clothes toughs, the protesters said they had no intention to back down in the face of either Western support for Mr. Suleiman or the Egyptian government's attempts to wait them out and wear them down. 'The government played all the dirty games that they had,' said Shady el-Ghazaly Harb, a 32-year-old surgeon. 'We are betting on the people.'"
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
February 6, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/07/world/middleeast/07egypt.html?ref=world
CAIRO - Representatives of the Egyptian democracy movement vowed Sunday to escalate their pressure for the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak, even as his government sought to portray itself as well on the way to successfully negotiating an end to the uprising now in its 13th day.
State television reported the emergence of a new consensus on reform after Vice President Omar Suleiman met with about 50 prominent citizens, opposition politicians, youth organizers and - in a historic first - representatives of the outlawed Muslim Brotherhood.
The encounter itself was remarkable for bringing together members of the brotherhood - Egypt's biggest opposition movement - and the autocratic government that has for decades repressed it as an Islamist threat.
But the results appeared less momentous. The statement Mr. Suleiman released after the meeting - widely reported on state television and instantly a focal point in Washington - did not allude to the fundamental disagreement over Mr. Mubarak's ouster or the military-backed dictatorship. While it said the meeting had produced a "consensus" about the path to reform, the details laid out were roughly those President Mubarak outlined in his last speech to the country, including a new limitation on the number of terms a president can serve.
The government has consistently tried to woo moderate Egyptians away from the protesters by publicizing concessions that fall short of the demonstrators' demands.
The opposition groups, a disparate array that has no central leadership but has unified around the demand for Mr. Mubarak's ouster, said swiftly dismissed the government's claim of progress as mere propaganda. Brotherhood leaders said they were meeting with Mr. Suleiman - the intelligence chief who has become the public face of the Mubarak government - only to reiterate the movement's demands and show they were not refusing to talk.
Youthful supporters of a leading democracy advocate, Mohamed ElBaradei, were among those who met with Mr. Suleiman, but, in an interview with CNN, Mr. ElBaradei said that he himself was not ready to negotiate with a government that had lost credibility.
Instead, Mr. ElBaradei called for a presidential council to serve during a year of transition as a caretaker government to prepare for elections and to take other steps.
"We need to abolish the present constitution," he said. "We need to dissolve the current parliament. These are all elements of the dictatorship regime, and we should not be - I don't think we will go to democracy through the dictatorial constitution."
The young organizers whose Facebook page fomented the revolt made their public debut at a news conference to declare that their protests would only grow until the government met the movement's demands, including Mr. Mubarak's ouster, the dissolution of the one-party parliament and rewriting the one-party Constitution. Of that group of a half-dozen doctors, lawyers and other professionals, several had been released late last night from three days of extra-legal police detention.
Their resolve marked a new and uncharted stage in Egypt's unexpected uprising. Having beaten back assaults by armies of armed police and gangs of plain-clothes toughs, the protesters said they had no intention to back down in the face of either Western support for Mr. Suleiman or the Egyptian government's attempts to wait them out and wear them down.
"The government played all the dirty games that they had," said Shady el-Ghazaly Harb, a 32-year-old surgeon. "We are betting on the people."
A spokesman for the Muslim Brotherhood, Gamal Nassar, said the huge and sometimes violent demonstrations that have paralyzed Cairo for almost two weeks, reverberating around the Middle East, would continue "until the political path can have a role in achieving the aspirations of the protesters" - an apparent reference to their goal of removing Mr. Mubarak.
Mr. Nassar said mediators had brokered the encounter with Mr. Suleiman, who Saturday received public backing from the Obama administration and other Western governments that confirmed him as the West's choice to guide any transfer of power.
"The brothers decided to enter a round of dialogue to determine how serious the officials are achieving the demands of the people," Mr. Nassar said. "The regime keeps saying we're open to dialogue and the people are the ones refusing, so the Brotherhood decided to examine the situation from all different sides."
While many of the protesters who gathered in Cairo's Tahrir Square, the epicenter of the protests, vented anger at the apparent American support for the Mr. Suleiman's promises of change under Mr. Mubarak, the revolt's instigators said they were unfazed because they had never banked on Western support. "If the United States supports the revolution, it is good for the United States," said Islam Lofty, 32, a lawyer. "If they do not, it is an Egyptian issue."
Mr. Suleiman pressed his portrayal of progress in an interview on ABC News, saying that a "transition" had already begun with his meeting with members of the opposition. But he also reiterated that Mr. Mubarak would stay in power, saying that if he left, "other people who have their own agenda will make instability in our country."
He also sought to undermine any sympathy for the opposition's calls for government accountability. Brushing aside the manifestly secular nature of the youth revolt shaking Egypt and the Middle East, Mr. Suleiman suggested unspecified "other people" and "an Islamic current" were in fact pushing the young people forward.
"It's not their idea," he said. "It comes from abroad."
That echoed a passage of the statement he released on the meeting with the opposition, in which he said participants had agreed on points including "the attempts at foreign intervention into purely Egyptian affairs and breaches of security by foreign elements working to undermine stability in implementation of their plots."
In the interview, he added that Egypt would not be ready for democracy until "the people here will have the culture of democracy."
To the protesters in the square, he said: "We can say only go home."
"We want to have normal life," he said. "We don't want anybody in the streets. Go to work. Bring back once again the tourists. Go to the normal life. Save the economy of the country."
On Sunday - the first day of the working week - Cairo seemed to be assuming some of the trappings of normalcy. Some banks reopened for several hours after a week of closures, with limits on withdrawals by customers who stood in line to access their accounts. The city's notoriously rambunctious traffic began to rebuild across bridges over the Nile that had been access routes to Tahrir Square for pro-democracy protesters and their adversaries.
But the number of protesters once again swelled to over 100,000, and their occupation of the square seemed to be taking on an air of semi-permanency with tents, food stalls, worship and music. Coptic Christians held a mass as Muslims stood guard, returning a favor after Copts stood guard for Muslim prayers on Friday.
The show of interfaith harmony came just weeks after a suicide bomber killed at least 21 people as a New Year's Eve Mass was ending in Alexandria.
Rashid Mohammed Rashid, a former minister of trade and industry, said in an interview with CNN's Fareed Zakaria that he believed it would be better for Mr. Mubarak to finish his term as president to ensure a smooth transition.
"I personally believe that he will push towards changes to be done, and it's not easy," Mr. Rashid said. "We all know it's not easy, but I believe that the alternative is chaos and the alternative is just jumping into the unknown, and I believe that he has the will to do that."
Mr. Rashid also acknowledged that the Muslim Brotherhood was strong, but that the impetus for the street protests was initiated by Egypt's youth who "were restricted despite the political reforms that have been happening of having a voice and a share."
"I believe that they will also be counterbalance to some of the few people who want to take extremist views, like the Muslim Brotherhood and others," he added.
Asked whether Mr. Mubarak was disappointed over American urgings that he step aside, Mr. Rashid said: "I think the position of President Obama, the position of the American government was extremely short-sighted, I don't want even to say stupid. There was so much interference. They shouldn't actually get involved in this."
Mona El-Naggar contributed reporting.
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17) Protest Threats Derail Bush Speech in Switzerland
By JAMES RISEN
February 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/06/world/europe/06bush.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON - A planned trip by former President George W. Bush to Switzerland this week has been canceled in the face of threatened large-scale protests and calls for an investigation into whether his administration committed human rights abuses in the fight against terrorism.
A spokesman for Mr. Bush said Saturday that the trip was canceled after the United Israel Appeal, an international Jewish charity organizing the Geneva event where he had been scheduled to speak next Saturday, told him on Friday that it was canceling the speech because of security concerns.
"We regret that the speech has been canceled," said David Sherzer, a spokesman for Mr. Bush. "President Bush was looking forward to speaking about freedom and offering reflections from his time in office."
The visit to Geneva was to have been Mr. Bush's first trip to Europe since his memoir, "Decision Points," was published in November, and the first since he publicly stated in interviews on his book tour that he had personally authorized the use of waterboarding in the questioning of terrorism detainees.
As a result, international human rights groups, including Amnesty International, seized on the scheduled visit to petition the Swiss authorities to open an investigation of Mr. Bush while he was in the country. The groups argued that he had admitted to torture and thus could be prosecuted in Switzerland and other countries that have signed on to the international convention banning torture.
"For a long time at Amnesty International, we have been calling for the Obama administration to investigate human rights abuses at Guantánamo, the C.I.A. black sites, and in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it is clear that's not happening," said Widney Brown, Amnesty International's senior director for international law and policy. "When we heard that he was traveling to Geneva, we wrote to the national authorities in Switzerland and the local prosecutor in Geneva to ask them to investigate Bush for torture."
Amnesty International sent Swiss authorities documents detailing their case for prosecuting Mr. Bush for torture, based on his admissions and other evidence concerning the waterboarding of two members of Al Qaeda, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Abu Zubaydah.
Swiss officials told human rights groups recently that they had no plans to try to prosecute Mr. Bush, Ms. Brown said. But the prospect of large demonstrations at the site of Mr. Bush's speech remained, and the event's organizers feared that protests could turn violent. Protest organizers were said to have asked demonstrators to carry shoes to the event, recalling how an Iraqi journalist threw a shoe at Mr. Bush in 2008 to protest his visit to Baghdad.
While Mr. Bush does not face any legal sanctions in Switzerland, this is not the first time officials from his administration have faced the threat of legal action in Europe for involvement in possible human rights abuses in the war on terror. Prosecutors and judges in several European countries, notably Spain and Germany, have in the past proved willing to pursue long-shot international legal cases against foreign leaders based on war crimes evidence, and in recent years some of them have turned their attention toward Bush administration officials.
In 2009, for instance, a Spanish court began a criminal investigation of six former administration officials, on grounds that they had violated international law in connection with the military prison at Guantánamo Bay. The Obama administration was apparently so concerned about the investigation that it pressured the Spanish government to make sure the case was derailed, according to State Department cables made public by the antisecrecy group WikiLeaks.
As early as 2005, Donald H. Rumsfeld, the secretary of defense at the time, faced the threat of war crimes prosecution in Germany over human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Eventually, German prosecutors decided not to pursue the case, but only after Mr. Rumsfeld publicly said that he might not attend an international defense conference in Munich because of the legal threat he faced.
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18) WikiLeaks' Assange Faces Extradition Hearing
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
February 6, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/02/06/business/AP-EU-Britain-WikiLeaks-Assange.html?src=busln
Filed at 12:26 p.m. EST
LONDON (AP) - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his entourage of lawyers, supporters, protesters and journalists are headed back to a London court for a showdown between the secret-spilling computer hacker and Swedish authorities who want him extradited to face sex crimes allegations.
A two-day hearing that begins Monday will decide Assange's legal fate. It will also keep the spotlight away from WikiLeaks' revelations and on its opinion-dividing frontman.
Assange is accused of sexual misconduct by two women he met during a visit to Stockholm last year. At Belmarsh Magistrates' Court, a high-security judicial outpost beside a prison, defense lawyers will argue that he should not be extradited because he has not been charged with a crime, because of flaws in Swedish prosecutors' case - and because a ticket to Sweden could land him in Guantanamo Bay or on U.S. death row.
American officials are trying to build a criminal case against WikiLeaks, which has angered Washington by publishing a trove of leaked diplomatic cables and secret U.S. military files. Assange's lawyers claim the Swedish prosecution is linked to the leaks and politically motivated.
Preliminary defense arguments released by Assange's legal team claim "there is a real risk that, if extradited to Sweden, the U.S. will seek his extradition and/or illegal rendition to the USA, where there will be a real risk of him being detained at Guantanamo Bay or elsewhere."
The document adds that "there is a real risk that he could be made subject to the death penalty" if sent to the United States. Under European law, suspects cannot be extradited to jurisdictions where they may face execution.
Many legal experts say the Guantanamo claims are fanciful, and Sweden strongly denies coming under American pressure.
Nils Rekke, head of the legal department at the Swedish prosecutor's office in Stockholm, said Assange would be protected from transfer to the U.S. by strict European rules.
"If Assange was handed over to Sweden in accordance with the European Arrest Warrant, Sweden cannot do as Sweden likes after that," he said. "If there were any questions of an extradition approach from the U.S., then Sweden would have to get an approval from the United Kingdom."
Assange's lawyers will also battle extradition on the ground that he has not been charged with a crime in Sweden and is only wanted for questioning.
They argue that "it is a well-established principle of extradition law ... that mere suspicion should not found a request for extradition."
Lawyers for Sweden have yet to disclose their legal arguments.
WikiLeaks sparked an international uproar last year when it published a secret helicopter video showing a U.S. attack that killed two Reuters journalists in Baghdad. It went on to release hundreds of thousands of secret U.S. military files on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it later began publishing classified U.S. diplomatic cables whose revelations angered and embarrassed the U.S. and its allies.
The furor made Assange, 39, a global celebrity. The nomadic Australian was arrested in London in December after Sweden issued a warrant on rape and molestation accusations.
Released on bail on condition he live - under curfew and electronically tagged - at a supporter's country mansion in eastern England, Assange has managed to conduct multiple media interviews, sign a reported $1.5 million deal for a memoir, and pose for a magazine Christmas photo shoot dressed as Santa Claus.
He drew a large media scrum at a brief court appearance in London last month, where he vowed to step up the leak of a quarter million classified U.S. diplomatic cables.
The full extradition hearing should shed light on the contested events of Assange's trip to Sweden, where WikiLeaks' data are stored on servers at a secure center tunneled into a rocky Stockholm hillside. Two Swedish women say they met Assange when he visited the country and separately had sex with him, initially by consent.
In police documents leaked on the Internet, one of the women told officers she woke up as Assange was having sex with her, but let him continue even though she knew he wasn't wearing a condom. Having sex with a sleeping person can be considered rape in Sweden.
Assange is also accused of sexual molestation and unlawful coercion against the second woman. The leaked documents show she accuses him of deliberately damaging a condom during consensual sex, which he denies.
The picture is more confused by the fact that one Stockholm prosecutor threw out the rape case, before a more senior prosecutor later reinstated it and asked for Assange's extradition from Britain so she could question him.
Assange's lawyers argue that amid the confusion, the European arrest warrant was improperly issued. They allege Assange "has been the victim of a pattern of illegal and/or corrupt behavior by the Swedish prosecuting authorities," who leaked his name to the media, rejected his requests to be interviewed from London, and failed to make the evidence against him available in English.
They also say the accusations against Assange would not constitute a crime in Britain, and complain they have not been given access to text messages and tweets by the two women which allegedly undermine their claims. They say text messages exchanged by the claimants "speak of revenge and of the opportunity to make lots of money."
Whatever happens in court this week, Assange's long legal saga - and his stay in the tranquil Norfolk countryside - is far from over. The extradition hearing is due to end Tuesday, but Judge Howard Riddle is likely to take several weeks to consider his ruling - which can be appealed by either side.
Assange, meanwhile, may be tiring of his nomadic life. On Friday he told a meeting in Melbourne by video link that Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard "should be taking active steps to bring me home."
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19) World Trade Unions Mobilising for Democracy in Egypt: 8 February Action Day
International Trade Union Confederation
February 4, 2011
http://www.ituc-csi.org/world-trade-unions-mobilising-for.html?lang=en
Trade unions around the world will join a Day of Action for Democracy in Egypt on 8 February, following a decision by the ITUC General Council meeting in Brussels today. Unions will organise demonstrations at Egyptian embassies, and continue to press their governments to demand democratic transition in Egypt and to ensure that those responsible for the violent repression of peaceful demonstrations are brought to justice.
"We will continue to push the international community to put pressure on the regime of Hosni Mubarak to respect the wishes of the Egyptian people. Our support for Egypt's independent trade unions and the other forces for democracy is unwavering, and we are determined that there shall be no impunity for the people responsible for the killings, assaults and intimidation of innocent people," said ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow.
INTERNATIONAL TRADE UNION CONFEDERATION GENERAL COUNCIL (ITUC)
REVISED DRAFT RESOLUTION ON EGYPT
Brussels, 2 - 4 February 201
http://www.ituc-csi.org/resolution-on-egypt.html
People across Egypt have risen in massive numbers to demand change, for democracy, justice, and fundamental rights and to insist on the end of the discredited Mubarak regime. Decades of repression, poverty, imprisonment of political opponents and violation of human rights including, through the imposition of state controlled organisations, the rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining have stifled social and economic progress, and denied social justice.
The ITUC expresses its full support and solidarity to the Egyptian people in their quest for respect for fundamental freedoms and rights and its deepest condolences to the many victims of the Mubarak regime's violent repression of the legitimate protest actions which have taken place throughout the country. It pays tribute to all those who have stood up for democracy, and insists that human values must prevail over geopolitical and economic interests.
As in Tunisia and elsewhere, worsening unemployment, particularly amongst young people, has combined with resentment at the lack of political freedom to catalyse popular mobilisation against the regime. The ITUC salutes the independent trade union movement, which has stood at the forefront of the mobilisation, and recognises the critical role that the independent unions must play in putting Egypt on the path to genuine democracy and in ensuring social and economic justice for the Egyptian people.
The General Council:
INSTRUCTS the General Secretary to continue to closely monitor the situation in Egypt, and to assist the development of the independent trade union movement there;
REQUESTS all affiliates to call upon their governments to exert maximum international pressure for democratic transition in Egypt including full respect for freedom of association, collective bargaining and the other core labour standards; and,
FURTHER REQUESTS all affiliates and solidarity support organisations to assist in every possible way the development of genuine, independent trade unions in Egypt and their actions to promote democracy, social justice, equality and decent work. INSISTS that those responsible for ordering physical attacks, or who sought in any way to use force to prevent people from exercising their right to freedom of expression or to demonstrate must be brought to trial and cannot remain unpunished.
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