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Help us rent a billboard for Bradley Manning in Washington DC!
Sign the "I am Bradley Manning" photo petition at iam.bradleymanning.org
Help us rent a billboard for Bradley in Washington DC
Bradley will soon have his own billboard in the Washington DC metro area, if we step up. We're launching this campaign to rent the high-profile ad space to coincide with the soon-expected start of his pre-trial court martial in the DC area.
View the billboards, donate, and help choose the design:
epicstep.com/campaign/239/support-bradley
View the new 90 second "I am Bradley Manning" video:
I am Bradley Manning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-P3OXML00s
Courage to Resist
484 Lake Park Ave. #41
Oakland, CA 94610
510-488-3559
couragetoresist.org
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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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Sat. May 21, 7pm
ANSWER Coalition Office, 2969 Mission St.
btwn 25th and 26th Sts., San Francisco
Community Forum
Mexico in Struggle
A discussion on the crises in Mexico and the role of U.S. intervention
• Elvira Villescas Sánchez - activist and founding member of the community organization "Las Hormigas" in Cuidad Juarez
• Frank Lara - activist from the Calexico-Mexicali border and organizer for the May Day Coalition and ANSWER Coalition
• David Bacon - renowned activist, journalist and photographer of the labor and immigrant struggle in Mexico and the U.S.
A donation of $5 to $10, no one turned away for lack of funds
Sponsored by BALASC (Bay Area Latin American Solidarity Coalition)
For more information, visit: www.balasc.org, 415-821-6545
Sab. 21 de mayo, 7pm
Oficina de Coalición ANSWER, Calle Mision #2969
entre 25 y 26th, San Francisco
Foro Comunitario
México en Lucha
Una discusión sobre las crises en México y el papel de intervención por los EE.UU.
• Elvira Villescas Sánchez - activista y fundadora de la organización comunitaria "La Hormigas" en Ciudad Juarez
• Frank Lara - activista de la frontera Calexico-Mexicali y organizador para la Coalición Día de Mayo y la Coalición ANSWER
• David Bacon - activista, periodista, y fotógrafo reconocido de la lucha inmigrante y de labor en México y los EE.UU.
Una donación de $5 a $10, nadie se rechazará por falta de fondos
Patrocinado por BALASC (Coalición de la Bahía por la Solidaridad con América Latina)
Para mas información, visite: www.balasc.org, 415-821-6545
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.AnswerCoalition.org
http://www.AnswerSF.org
Answer@AnswerSF.org
2969 Mission St.
415-821-6545
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Next UNAC general meeting is Sunday, June 12, 2:00 PM at Redstone Bldg., 16th Street and Capp. (Capp Street is one block or so below Mission Street.) Third Floor Conference Room, San Francisco. MARK YOUR CALENDAR NOW!
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Save the Date!
NATIONAL LABOR-COMMUNITY CONFERENCE TO DEFEAT THE CORPORATE AGENDA AND FIGHT FOR A WORKING PEOPLE'S AGENDA
Kent State University
Kent, Ohio
June 24-26, 2011
Working people across the country -- from Wisconsin and Ohio to New York, Oregon, and California -- are facing unprecedented attacks by corporations and the rich with the help of the federal, state and local politicians that they fund.
The corporate agenda is clear: It is to bust unions and cut workers' pay and benefits -- both in the private and public sectors. It is to erode and privatize Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. It is to dismantle the public sector and social services by denying funds for job creation, education, health care, environmental protection, and rebuilding the infrastructure. It is to ensure that taxes on the wealthy are constantly lowered while the bite on workers and the poor is constantly increased. It is to perpetuate U.S. wars and occupations whenever it serves the interests of the multinationals. It is to divide the working class by race, gender, national origin, religion, and sexual orientation. It is also to limit and restrict constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties. The list goes on.
In state capitals, communities and workplaces across the country, workers are fighting back. But if we're going to be successful in pushing back the attacks on collective bargaining, stopping the budget cuts and concessions, creating jobs, and defending social services and education, we need to build unity within our movement, including forging stronger ties with labor's allies: communities of color, students and youth, single-payer advocates, environmentalists, antiwar activists, immigrant rights supporters, and other progressive forces.
Relying on politicians to defend us -- the so-called "friends of labor" -- has proven to be disastrous. During the past three decades, working people have suffered a dramatic decline in their standard of living while the rich have amassed an unprecedented amount of wealth at the top, regardless of which of the major parties was running the government. We have had every combination imaginable: Republicans occupying the White House with a majority in Congress, Democrats occupying the White House with a majority in Congress, or some kind of "divided government." But in each case the result for working people has been the same: conditions got worse for workers while the corporations prospered even more. Why should we continue this vicious cycle?
The working class has the power to put an end to this situation. And as the debate over the debt and the deficit intensifies, the need has never been greater for an organized campaign to demand "No Cuts, No Concessions!" whether in regard to social programs or workers' wages and benefits. We say place the burden for solving the financial crises squarely where it belongs: on the rich. They caused the crisis, let them pay for it!
The Emergency Labor Network (ELN) was initiated earlier this year at a historic meeting of 100 union leaders and activists from around the country. Join us June 24-26, 2011 at Kent State University in Ohio for a national labor-community conference to spur the campaign to build a more militant fight-back movement and to launch a national campaign for an alternative agenda for working people. Together we can move forward on both fronts.
This conference is open to all who agree with its purpose, as explained in this Call. To register for the conference, please go to our website at www.laborfightback.org. If you prefer to register offline, write emergencylabor@aol.com or call 216-736-4715 for a registration form.
For more information, e-mail emergencylabor@aol.com or call 216-736-4715.
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Oct. 7 - Protest, March & Die-In on 10th Anniversary of Afghanistan War
Friday, Oct. 7, 2011, 4:30-6:30pm
New Federal Building, 7th & Mission Sts, SF
Protest & Die-In on 10th Anniversary of Afghanistan War
End All the Wars & Occupations-Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine, Libya, Haiti . . .
Money for Jobs, Healthcare & Schools-Not for the Pentagon
Friday, October 7, 2011 will be the exact 10th anniversary of the U.S./NATO war on the people of Afghanistan. Hundreds of thousands of Afghani people have been killed, wounded and displaced, and thousands of U.S. and NATO forces killed and wounded. The war costs more than $126 billion per year at a time when social programs are being slashed.
The true and brutal character of the U.S. strategy to "win hearts and minds" of the Afghani population was described by a Marine officer, quoted in a recent ANSWER Coalition statement:
"You can't just convince them [Afghani people] through projects and goodwill," another Marine officer said. "You have to show up at their door with two companies of Marines and start killing people. That's how you start convincing them." (To read the entire ANSWER statement, click here)
Mark your calendar now and help organize for the October 7 march and die-in in downtown San Francisco. There are several things you can do:
1. Reply to this email to endorse the protest and die-in.
2. Spread the word and help organize in your community, union, workplace and campus.
3. Make a donation to help with organizing expenses.
Only the people can stop the war!
A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition
http://www.AnswerCoalition.org
http://www.AnswerSF.org
Answer@AnswerSF.org
2969 Mission St.
415-821-6545
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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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Bruised Tear: Aiyana Jones Spoken Word Poem
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=lIyGGOdlZOg
This piece is to commemorate the death of 7 year old Aiyana Jones who was murdered by the Detroit Police Department. The poem is introduced by the F.B.I.'s first president, J. Edgar Hoover, that he sent out to the COINTELPRO in 1968. Please share, so that we might awaken more eyes to this great injustice!
Police Brutality: Cop Kills 7yr.old Aiyana Jones - Cover Up!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZH7iYaQSAE&NR=1&feature=fvwp
DETROIT READY TO EXPLODE! http://www.cnn.com/video/data/2.0/video/crime/2010/05/18/bts.detroit.girl.shot.briefing.wdiv.html
An attorney representing the family of a 7-year-old girl shot to death Sunday in a police raid is accusing the Detroit Police Department of misrepresenting the incident.
In an interview with WDIV on Monday, Michigan attorney Geoffrey Fieger said he obtained video footage of the incident captured by a crew filming for the A&E network show, "The First 48."
Fieger, who didn't say how he received the tape, said it shows officers rushing the home and throwing a flash grenade through a window before one officer fires into the home from the front porch.
However, according to Assistant Police Chief Ralph Godbee, preliminary information indicates that members of the Detroit Police Special Response Team approached the house and announced themselves as police. Godbee cited the officers involved and at least one independent witness.
Godbee said officers used a "flash bang" device, entered the home and encountered a 46-year-old female inside the front room.
"Exactly what happened next is a matter still under investigation, but it appears the officer and the woman had some level of physical contact," Godbee said in a statement Sunday. "At about this time, the officer's weapon discharged one round which, tragically, struck 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley Jones in the neck/head area."
Police were executing a search warrant in the search for the suspect in a shooting Friday that killed a high school student.
Godbee said the 34-year-old suspect was found and arrested at the home where the girl was shot. In addition, a vehicle and a moped matching the descriptions of those involved in the shooting of 17-year-old Jarean Blake were also found, he said.
Fieger called the explanation from police "entirely false."
"Of course, I have seen the videotape and the videotape vividly portrays the fact that a percussion grenade device was thrown through the front window and a shot was fired immediately from the outside from the porch," he said.
"No murder suspect was found in Aiyana's house," Fieger said in Monday's interview. "In fact, there's an upstairs apartment next door which the police did not have a search warrant for and that is where he surrendered, they went into that house too. But he was not in Aiyana's house."
Aiyana's father, Charles Jones, also has denied that the suspect was in his home.
Detroit police spokesman Phillip Cook told reporters Monday that he was not aware of the video and declined to comment. The investigation, he said, has been taken over by state police to preserve the "community's trust."
A source at A&E, who asked not to be identified citing company policy, confirmed that a crew was on the scene and that the footage was confiscated by police. He would not comment on what the crew had captured on video.
Another police spokesman said the department would not identify the suspect in Blake's shooting death until he has been formally charged by prosecutors. The suspect remains in custody.
Godbee, in his statement Sunday, said he wished to "express to the family of Aiyana Jones the profound sorrow that we feel within the Detroit Police Department and throughout this community. We know that no words can do anything to take away the pain you are feeling at this time."
Police obtained the "high-risk search warrant" based on intelligence, and it was approved by the prosecutor and a magistrate, Godbee said. "Because of the ruthless and violent nature of the suspect in this case, it was determined that it would be in the best interest of public safety to execute the search warrant as soon as possible and detain the suspect ... while we sought a murder warrant.
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Labor Beat: May Day Weekend
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xiitdOiO6kA
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Paradise Gray Speaks At Jordan Miles Emergency Rally 05/06/2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wJOLz1EYDYE&feature=player_embedded
Police Reassigned While CAPA Student's Beatdown Investigated
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qK-6IsP3dUg&NR=1&feature=fvwp
Pittsburgh Student Claims Police Brutality; Shows Hospital Photos
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B_j_AVsTXZc&feature=relmfu
Justice For Jordan Miles
By jasiri x
http://justiceforjordanmiles.com/
Monday, May 9, 2011 at 3:22 pm
Even though Pittsburgh Police beat Jordan Miles until he looked like this: (Photo at website)
And even though Jordan Miles, an honor student who plays the viola, broke no laws and committed no crimes, the Federal Government decided not to prosecute the 3 undercover Pittsburgh Police officers who savagely beat him.
To add insult to injury, Pittsburgh's Mayor and Police Chief immediately reinstated the 3 officers without so much as a apology. An outraged Pittsburgh community called for an emergency protest to pressure the local District Attorney to prosecute these officers to the fullest extent of the law.
Below is my good friend, and fellow One Hood founding member Paradise Gray (also a founding member of the Blackwatch Movement and the legendary rap group X-Clan) passionately demanding Justice for Jordan Miles and speaking on the futility of a war of terror overseas while black men are terrorized in their own neighborhoods.
For more information on how you can help get Justice For Jordan Miles go to http://justiceforjordanmiles.com/
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Nation Behind Bars Mass Incarceration And Political Prisoners In the U.S. - Efia Nwangaza, Malcolm X Center for Self-Determination
Black is Back Conference on the Other Wars, March 26, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBKfFEqaoSs&feature=email
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Tier Systems Cripple Middle Class Dreams for Young Workers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=09pQW6TW8m4&feature=youtu.be
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Cindy Sheehan has turned her grief into an anti-war crusade, even questioning the death of Osama bin Laden. From HLN's Dr. DREW Show Thurs. 5/5/11:
http://911blogger.com/news/2011-05-06/cindy-sheehan-mothers-war-war
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Epidemiologist, Dr. Steven Wing, Discusses Global Radiation Exposures and Consequences with Gundersen
Epidemiologist, Dr. Steven Wing and nuclear engineer, Arnie Gundersen, discuss the consequences of the Fukushima radioactive fallout on Japan, the USA, and the world. What are the long-term health effects? What should the government(s) do to protect citizens?
http://vimeo.com/22706805
Epidemiologist, Dr. Steven Wing, Discusses Global Radiation Exposures and Consequences with Gundersen from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.
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New Video - Lupe Fiasco ft. Skylar Grey - 'Words I Never Said'
Thu, Apr 28 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22l1sf5JZD0
Lupe Fiasco addresses some heavy issues in the latest video for his new single, 'Words I Never Said,' featuring Skylar Grey. In the 5 minute and 45 second dose of reality, Lupe tackles issues such as the war on terrorism, devastation, conspiracy theories, 9/11 and genocide. From the opening lyrics of "I really think the war on terror is a bunch of bullsh*t", Lupe doesn't hold back as he voices his socio-political concerns.
"If you turn on TV all you see's a bunch of what the f-ks'
Dude is dating so and so blabbering bout such and such
And that ain't Jersey Shore, homie that's the news
And these the same people that supposed to be telling us the truth
Limbaugh is a racist, Glenn Beck is a racist
Gaza strip was getting bombed, Obama didn't say s-t
That's why I ain't vote for him, next one either
I'm a part of the problem, my problem is I'm peaceful."
Skylar Grey (who also lends her vocals to Dirty money's 'Coming Home' and Eminem's 'I Need A Doctor') does an excellent job of complementing the Alex Da Kid produced track.
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BREAKING ALERT: Mass Arrests, Tear Gas, Sound Weapons used Against WIU Students
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufKv-5t0t4E
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Union Town by Tom Morello: The Nightwatchman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5ZT71DxLuM&feature=player_embedded
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MAY DAY 1886-International Workers Day
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SF-ADtNerPM&feature=player_embedded
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Labor Beat: We Are One - Illinois
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dOntwNsWHac
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BRADLEY MANNING "BROKE THE LAW" SAYS OBAMA!
"He broke the law!" says Obama about Bradley Manning who has yet to even be charged, let alone, gone to trial and found guilty. How horrendous is it for the President to declare someone guilty before going to trial or being charged with a crime! Justice in the U.S.A.!
Obama on FREE BRADLEY MANNING protest... San Francisco, CA. April 21, 2011-Presidential remarks on interrupt/interaction/performance art happening at fundraiser. Logan Price queries Barack after org. FRESH JUICE PARTY political action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfmtUpd4id0&feature=youtu.be
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More troops join anti-government protests in Yemen
More soldiers have been joining anti-government protests on the streets of the capital Sana'a.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=6658
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W.E. A.L.L. B.E.: Miss. Medical Examiner Dr. Adel Shaker On Frederick Carter Hanging (4/19/2011)
http://blip.tv/file/5057532
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Egyptian Soldiers Join Protest Demanding End to Military Dictatorship
Adam Hanieh: Class struggle in Egypt enters a new stage
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=6626
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Row over Wikileaks leaker Bradley Manning treatment (12Apr11)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vv8xyHhDKkY&feature=related
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AP writer--State Department on Human Rights Abuse of Bradley Manning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUctxdsKk9Q
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Max Romeo - Socialism Is Love
http://youtu.be/eTvUs4rY4to
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Cuba: The Accidental Eden
http://video.pbs.org/video/1598230084/
[This is a stunningly beautiful portrait of the Cuban natural environment as it is today. However, several times throughout, the narrator tends to imply that if it werent for the U.S. embargo against Cuba, Cuba's natural environmet would be destroyed by the influx of tourism, ergo, the embargo is saving nature. But the Cuban scientists and naturalists tell a slightly different story. But I don't want to spoil the delightfully surprising ending. It's a beautiful film of a beautiful country full of beautiful, articulate and well-educated people....bw]
Watch the full episode. See more Nature.
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VIDEO: SWAT Team Evicts Grandmother
Take Back the Land- Rochester Eviction Defense March 28, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2axN1zsZno&feature=player_embedded
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B. D. S. [Boycott, Divest, Sanction against Israel]
(Jackson 5) Chicago Flashmob
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4tXe2HKqqs&feature=player_embedded
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Afghans for Peace
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ror0qPcasM&NR=1
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The Kill Team
How U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan murdered innocent civilians and mutilated their corpses - and how their officers failed to stop them. Plus: An exclusive look at the war crime photos censored by the Pentagon
Rolling Stone
March 27, 3011
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-kill-team-20110327
Afghans respond to "Kill Team"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3guxWIorhdA
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END THE U.S./UN/NATO KILL TEAM NOW!
WARNING: THESE ARE HORRIFIC, DISGUSTING, VIOLENT CRIMES COMMITTED BY THE U.S. MILITARY MAKING THE UPCOMING APRIL 10 [APRIL 9 IN NEW YORK] MARCH AND RALLY AGAINST THE WARS A FIRST PRIORITY FOR WE, THE PEOPLE OF THE U.S. WE DEMAND OUT NOW! END THE WARS AGAINST WORKING PEOPLE HERE AND EVERYWHERE! BRING ALL THE TROOPS, UN/NATO/US/ and CONTRACTORS HOME NOW!
The Kill Team Photos More war crime images the Pentagon doesn't want you to see
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/photos/the-kill-team-photos-20110327
'Death Zone' How U.S. soldiers turned a night-time airstrike into a chilling 'music video'
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/photos/death-zone-20110327
'Motorcycle Kill' Footage of an Army patrol gunning down two men in Afghanistan
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/photos/motorcyle-kill-20110327
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BOB MARLEY - WAR
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=73zaNwyhXn0&playnext=1&list=PLA467527F8DD7DE1F
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LOWKEY - TERRORIST? (OFFICIAL MUSIC VIDEO)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmBnvajSfWU
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Frederick Alexander Meade on The Prison Industrial Complex
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1vqzfEYo6Lo
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BP Oil Spill Scientist Bob Naman: Seafood Still Not Safe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3VdxvMnDls
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Exclusive: Flow Rate Scientist : How Much Oil Is Really Out There?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zsHl3kn63ZA&NR=1
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Iraq Veterans Against the War in Occupied Capitol, Madison, WI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7K0wn73uJU
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Stop LAPD Stealing of Immigrant's Cars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0lf4kENkxo
On Februrary 19, 2011 Members of the Southern California Immigration Coalition (SCIC) organized and engaged in direct action to defend the people of Los Angeles, CA from the racist LAPD "Sobriety" Checkpoints that are a poorly disguised trap to legally steal the cars from working class people in general and undocumented people in particular. Please disseminate this link widely.
Venceremos,
SCIC
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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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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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Free Bradley Manning
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4eNzokgRIw&feature=player_embedded
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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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Julian Assange: Why the world needs WikiLeaks
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVGqE726OAo&feature=player_embedded
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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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"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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Mumia Wins Decision Against Re-Imposition Of Death Sentence, But...
The Battle Is Still On To
FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL!
The Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
PO Box 16222 • Oakland CA 94610
www.laboractionmumia.org
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ELLA BAKER CENTER FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
CLOSE PRISONS NOT SCHOOLS!
https://secure3.convio.net/ebc/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=164&utm_campaign=bnb_close_prisons_not_schools&utm_source=email-action&utm_medium=email&s_src=bnb_close_prisons_not_schools&s_subsrc=email-action&autologin=true&JServSessionIdr004=k3sp4vh2j4.app332b
Carlos* was only 14 years when he was locked up in a California youth prison. Growing up in a rough neighborhood in Northern CA, there were few resources for him or his younger brothers. Carlos was swept up by gangs and ended up serving a 10 year sentence in Division of Juvenile Justice (DJJ), leaving his siblings and childhood behind.
For 10 long years, our state spent millions of dollars to lock him up in a cell. Meanwhile, the state spent a tiny fraction of that amount providing an inadequate education to his younger brothers.
When Carlos was finally released earlier this year, he returned to a neighborhood that hasn't changed. Resources for youth are still scarce. He worries about his little brothers growing up in a society that would rather lock them up than invest in their educations and future.
Carlos' experience is only one example of why California ranks near the bottom in education spending and performance, but we're #1 in prison spending. DJJ drains much-needed resources from California's schools and the vital community programs that would help our State thrive. It's time to close the expensive, abusive DJJ and redirect those resources into our schools.
Join Books Not Bars in calling on Governor Brown to protect our schools by closing the Division of Juvenile Justice.
On May 10, join Books Not Bars, teachers, students, and other concerned Californians at the Capitol to save our schools. For more information or if you plan on attending, please contact Jennifer Kim at Jennifer@ellabakercenter.org, or (510) 285-8234.
If you can't join us in person, take action now, then sign up for join our online rally next Tuesday by sending Gov. Brown an email now.
Justice for families.
Sumayyah Waheed
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
*Carlos' name has been changed to protect his privacy.
Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
www.ellabakercenter.org | 510.428.3939
1970 Broadway, Suite 450 | Oakland, CA | 94612
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U.S. Attorney Escalates Attacks on Civil Liberties of Anti-War,
Palestinian Human Rights Activists
Call U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald first thing Monday morning! (contact info at bottom of this email)
On Friday, May 6, the U.S. government froze the bank accounts of Hatem Abudayyeh and his wife, Naima. This unwarranted attack on a leading member of the Palestinian community in Chicago is the latest escalation of the repression of anti-war and Palestinian community organizers by the FBI, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder. Hatem Abudayyeh is one of 23 activists from Minnesota, Michigan, and Illinois subpoenaed to a federal grand jury in Chicago, and his home was raided by the FBI in September of last year. Neither Hatem Abudayyeh nor Naima Abudayyeh have been charged with any crime.
One of the bank accounts frozen was exclusively in Naima Abudayyeh's name. Leaders of the national Committee to Stop FBI Repression, as well as Chicago's Coalition to Protect People's Rights are appalled at the government's attempt to restrict the family's access to its finances, especially so soon before Mothers' Day. Not only does the government's action seriously disrupt the lives of the Abudayyehs and their five-year-old daughter, but it represents an attack on Chicago's Arab community and activist community and the fundamental rights of Americans to freedom of speech.
The persecution of the Abudayyeh family is another example of the criminalization of Palestinians, their supporters, and their movement for justice and liberation. There has been widespread criticism of the FBI and local law enforcement for their racial profiling and scapegoating of Arab and Muslim Americans. These repressive tactics include infiltration of community centers and mosques, entrapment of young men, and the prominent case of 11 students from the University of California campuses at Irvine and Riverside who have been subpoenaed to a grand jury and persecuted for disrupting a speech by Michael Oren, Israeli Ambassador to the US. The government's attempt to conflate the anti-war and human rights movements with terrorism is a cynical attempt to capitalize on the current political climate in order to silence Palestinians and other people of conscience who exercise their First Amendment rights in a manner which does not conform to the administration's foreign policy agenda in the Middle East.
The issuance of subpoenas against the 23 activists has been met with widespread opposition and criticism across the country. Six members of the U.S. Congress, including five in the past month, have sent letters to either Holder or President Obama, expressing grave concern for the violations of the civil liberties and rights of the 23 activists whose freedom is on the line. Three additional U.S. representatives have also promised letters, as thousands of constituents and other people of conscience across the U.S. have demanded an end to this assault on legitimate political activism and dissent. Over 60 Minnesota state legislators also issued a resolution condemning the subpoenas.
The Midwest activists have been expecting indictments for some time. The freezing of the Abudayyeh family's bank accounts suggests that the danger of indictments is imminent.
Take action:
Call U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald at 312-353-5300.
Then dial 0 (zero) for the operator and ask to leave a message with the Duty Clerk.
Demand Fitzgerald
-- Unfreeze the bank accounts of the Abudayyeh family and
-- Stop repression against Palestinian, anti-war and international solidarity activists.
In solidarity,
The Committee to Stop FBI Repression and
The Coalition to Protect People's Rights
For more info go to StopFBI.net
follow on Twitter | friend on Facebook | forward to a friend
Copyright (c) 2011 Committee to Stop FBI Repression, All rights reserved.
Thanks for your ongoing interest in the fight against FBI repression of anti-war and international solidarity activists!
Our mailing address is:
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
PO Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55415
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Abolish the Death Penalty Blog
http://www.ncadp.org/blog.cfm?postID=165
Abolish the Death Penalty is a blog dedicated to...well, you know. The purpose of Abolish is to tell the personal stories of crime victims and their loved ones, people on death row and their loved ones and those activists who are working toward abolition. You may, from time to time, see news articles or press releases here, but that is not the primary mission of Abolish the Death Penalty. Our mission is to put a human face on the debate over capital punishment.
You can also follow death penalty news by reading our News page and by following us on Facebook and Twitter.
1 Million Tweets for Troy! April 12, 2011
Take Action! Tweet for Troy!
The state of Georgia is seeking to change the drugs they use to carry out executions so they can resume scheduling execution dates, including that of Troy Davis, a man with a strong claim of innocence. Doubts in the case persist, including the fact that no physical evidence links him to the murder, most of the witnesses have recanted or contradicted their testimony and newer testimony implicates a different person (including an eyewitness account).
The Davis case has already generated hundreds of thousands of emails, calls, and letters in support of clemency, including from leaders such as the Pope, Jimmy Carter and former FBI chief Bill Sessions. We need to continue to amass petitions in support of clemency, demonstrating the widespread concern about this case and what it represents.
Please help us send a message to Georgia officials that they can do the right thing - they can intervene as the final failsafe by commuting Davis' sentence. Please help us generate 1 million tweets for Troy Davis!
Share this tweet alert with your friends and family that care about justice and life as soon as you can.
More information about the case is available at www.justicefortroy.org
Here are some sample tweets:
When in doubt, don't execute!! Sign the petition for #TroyDavis! www.tinyurl.com/troyepetition
Too much doubt! Stop the execution! #TroyDavis needs us! www.tinyurl.com/troyepetition
No room for doubt! Stop the execution of #TroyDavis . Retweet, sign petition www.tinyurl.com/troyepetition
Case not "ironclad", yet Georgiacould execute #TroyDavis ! Not on our watch! Petition: www.tinyurl.com/troyepetition
No murder weapon. No physical evidence. Stop the execution! #TroyDavis petition: www.tinyurl.com/troyepetition
7 out of 9 eyewitnesses recanted. No physical evidence. Stop the execution of Troy Davis www.tinyurl.com/troyepetition #TroyDavis
Thanks!
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FREE BRADLEY MANNING! HANDS OFF JULIAN ASSANGE!
In a recent New York Daily News Poll the question was asked:
Should Army pfc Bradley Manning face charges for allegedly stealing classified documents and providing them for WikiLeaks?
New York Daily News Poll Results:
Yes, he's a traitor for selling out his country! ...... 28%
No, he's a hero for standing up for what's right! ..... 62%
We need to see more evidence before passing judgment.. 10%
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2011/03/05/2011-03-05_wikileaks_private_loses_his_underwear.html?r=news
Sign the Petition:
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
Stand with Bradley!
A 23-year-old Army intelligence analyst, Pfc. Manning faces decades in prison for allegedly leaking a video of a US helicopter attack that killed at least eleven Iraqi civilians to the website Wikileaks. Among the dead were two working Reuters reporters. Two children were also severely wounded in the attack.
In addition to this "Collateral Murder" video, Pfc. Manning is suspected of leaking the "Afghan War Diaries" - tens of thousands of battlefield reports that explicitly describe civilian deaths and cover-ups, corrupt officials, collusion with warlords, and a failing US/NATO war effort.
"We only know these crimes took place because insiders blew the whistle at great personal risk ... Government whistleblowers are part of a healthy democracy and must be protected from reprisal," noted Barack Obama while on the campaign trail in 2008. While the President was referring to the Bush Administration's use of phone companies to illegally spy on Americans, Pfc. Manning's alleged actions are just as noteworthy. If the military charges against him are accurate, they show that he had a reasonable belief that war crimes were being covered up, and that he took action based on a crisis of conscience.
After nearly a decade of war and occupation waged in our name, it is odd that it apparently fell on a young Army private to provide critical answers to the questions, "What have we purchased with well over a trillion tax dollars and the deaths of hundreds of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan?" However, history is replete with unlikely heroes.
If Bradley Manning is indeed the source of these materials, the nation owes him our gratitude. We ask Secretary of the Army, the Honorable John M. McHugh, and Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army, General George W. Casey, Jr., to release Pfc. Manning from pre-trial confinement and drop the charges against him.
http://standwithbrad.org/
Bulletin from the cause: Bradley Manning Support Network
Go to Cause
Posted By: Tom Baxter
To: Members in Bradley Manning Support Network
A Good Address for Bradley!!!
We have a good address for Bradley,
"A Fort Leavenworth mailing address has been released for Bradley Manning:
Bradley Manning 89289
830 Sabalu Road
Fort Leavenworth, KS 66027
The receptionist at the military barracks confirmed that if someone sends Bradley Manning a letter to that address, it will be delivered to him."
http://www.bradleymanning.org/news/update-42811
This is also a Facebook event
http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=207100509321891#!/event.php?eid=207100509321891
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The Arab Revolutions:
Guiding Principles for Peace and Justice Organizations in the US
Please email endorsement to ekishawi@yahoo.com
We, the undersigned, support the guiding principles and demands listed in this statement. We call on groups who want to express solidarity with the Arab revolutions to join our growing movement by signing this statement or keeping with the demands put forward herewith.
Background
The long-awaited Arab revolution has come. Like a geologic event with the reverberations of an earthquake, the timing and circumstances were unpredictable. In one Arab country after another, people are taking to the street demanding the fall of monarchies established during European colonial times. They are also calling to bring down dictatorships supported and manifested by neo-colonial policies. Although some of these autocratic regimes rose to power with popular support, the subsequent division and subjugation of the Arab World led to a uniform repressive political order across the region. The Arab masses in different Arab countries are therefore raising a uniform demand: "The People Want to Topple the Regimes!"
For the past two decades, the Arab people witnessed the invasion and occupation of Iraq with millions killed under blockade and occupation, Palestinians massacred with the aim to crush the anti-Zionist resistance, and Lebanon repeatedly invaded with the purposeful targeting of civilians. These actions all served to crush resistance movements longing for freedom, development, and self-determination. Meanwhile, despotic dictatorships, some going back 50 years, entrenched themselves by building police states, or fighting wars on behalf of imperialist interests.
Most Arab regimes systematically destroyed the social fabric of civil society, stifled social development, repressed all forms of political dissent and democratic expression, mortgaged their countries' wealth to foreign interests and enriched themselves and their cronies at the expense of impoverishing their populations. After pushing the Arab people to the brink, populations erupted.
The spark began in Tunisia where a police officer slapped and spat on Mohammad Bou Azizi, flipping over his produce cart for not delivering a bribe on time. . Unable to have his complaint heard, he self-immolated in protest, igniting the conscience of the Tunisian people and that of 300 million Arabs. In less than a month, the dictator, Zine El Abedine Ben Ali, was forced into exile by a Tunisian revolution. On its way out, the regime sealed its legacy by shooting at unarmed protestors and burning detention centers filled with political prisoners. Ben Ali was supported by the US and Europe in the fight against Islamic forces and organized labor.
Hosni Mubarak's brutal dictatorship fell less than a month after Tunisia's. The revolution erupted at a time when one half of the Egyptian population was living on less than $2/day while Mubarak's family amassed billions of dollars. The largest population recorded in Egyptian history was living in graveyards and raising their children among the dead while transportation and residential infrastructure was crumbling. Natural gas was supplied to Israel at 15% of the market price while the Rafah border was closed with an underground steel wall to complete the suffocation of the Palestinians in Gaza. Those who were deemed a threat swiftly met the fate of Khalid Said. 350 martyrs fell and 2,000 people were injured.
After Egypt and Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain, Oman, Iraq, Lebanon and Jordan exploded in protest. Some governments quickly reshuffled faces and ranks without any tangible change. Some, like Bahrain and Yemen, sent out their security forces to massacre civilians. Oman and Yemen represent strategic assets for the US as they are situated on the straits of Hormuz and Aden, respectively. Bahrain is an oil country that hosts a US military base, situated in the Persian Gulf. A new round of US funded blood-letting of Arab civilians has begun!
Libyan dictator Qaddafi did not prove to be an exception. He historically took anti-imperialist positions for a united Arab World and worked for an African Union. He later transformed his regime to a subservient state and opened Libya to British Petroleum and Italian interests, working diligently on privatization and political repression. He amassed more wealth than that of Mubarak. In the face of the Libyan revolution, Qaddafi exceeded the brutality of Ben Ali and Mubarak blind-folding and executing opponents, surrounding cities with tanks, and bombing his own country. Death toll is expected to be in the thousands.
Qaddafi's history makes Libya an easy target for imperialist interests. The Obama administration followed the Iraq cookbook by freezing Libyan assets amounting to 30% of the annual GDP. The White House, with the help of European governments, rapidly implemented sanctions and called for no-fly zones. These positions were precipitated shortly after the US vetoed a resolution condemning the illegal Israeli colonization of the West Bank. Special operations personnel from the UK were captured by the revolutionary commanders in Ben Ghazi and sent back. The Libyan revolutionary leadership, the National Council clearly stated: "We are completely against foreign intervention. The rest of Libya will be liberated by the people ... and Gaddafi's security forces will be eliminated by the people of Libya."
Demands of the Solidarity Movement with Arab Revolutions
1. We demand a stop to US support, financing and trade with Arab dictatorships. We oppose US policy that has favored Israeli expansionism, war, US oil interest and strategic shipping routes at the expense of Arab people's freedom and dignified living.
2. We support the people of Tunisia and Egypt as well as soon-to-be liberated nations to rid themselves of lingering remnants of the deposed dictatorships.
3. We support the Arab people's right to sovereignty and self-determination. We demand that the US government stop its interference in the internal affairs of all Arab countries and end subsidies to wars and occupation.
4. We support the Arab people's demands for political, civil and economic rights. The Arab people's movement is calling for:
a. Deposing the unelected regimes and all of its institutional remnants
b. Constitutional reform guaranteeing freedom of organizing, speech and press
c. Free and fair elections
d. Independent judiciary
e. National self-determination.
5. We oppose all forms of US and European military intervention with or without the legitimacy of the UN. Standing in solidarity with the revolution against Qaddafi, or any other dictator, does not equate to supporting direct or indirect colonization of an Arab country, its oil or its people. We therefore call for:
a. Absolute rejection of military blockades, no-fly zones and interventions.
b. Lifting all economic sanctions placed against Libya and allowing for the formation of an independent judiciary to prosecute Qaddafi and deposed dictators for their crimes.
c. Immediately withdrawing the US and NATO troops from the Arab region.
6. We support Iraq's right to sovereignty and self determination and call on the US to immediately withdraw all occupation personnel from Iraq.
7. We recognize that the borders separating Arab nations were imposed on the Arab people by the colonial agreements of Sykes-Picot and the Berlin Conference on Africa. As such, we support the anti-Zionist nature of this revolution in its call for:
a. Ending the siege and starvation of the Palestinian people in Gaza
b. Supporting the right of the Palestinian people to choose their own representation, independent of Israeli and US dictates
c. Supporting the right of the Lebanese people to defend their country from Israeli violations and their call to end vestiges of the colonial constitution constructed on the basis of sectarian representation
d. Supporting the right of the Jordanian people to rid themselves of their repressive monarchy
e. Ending all US aid to Israel.
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Committee to Stop FBI Repression
NATIONAL CALL-IN DAY -- ANY DAY
to Fitzgerald, Holder and Obama
The Grand Jury is still on its witch hunt and the FBI is still
harassing activists. This must stop.
Please make these calls:
1. Call U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald at 312-353-5300 . Then dial 0
(zero) for operator and ask to leave a message with the Duty Clerk.
2. Call U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder 202-353-1555
3. Call President Obama at 202-456-1111
Suggested text: "My name is __________, I am from _______(city), in
______(state). I am calling _____ to demand he call off the Grand Jury
and stop FBI repression against the anti-war and Palestine solidarity
movements. I oppose U.S. government political repression and support
the right to free speech and the right to assembly of the 23 activists
subpoenaed. We will not be criminalized. Tell him to stop this
McCarthy-type witch hunt against international solidarity activists!"
If your call doesn't go through, try again later.
Update: 800 anti-war and international solidarity activists
participated in four regional conferences, in Chicago, IL; Oakland,
CA; Chapel Hill, NC and New York City to stop U.S. Attorney Patrick
Fitzgerald's Grand Jury repression.
Still, in the last few weeks, the FBI has continued to call and harass
anti-war organizers, repressing free speech and the right to organize.
However, all of their intimidation tactics are bringing a movement
closer together to stop war and demand peace.
We demand:
-- Call Off the Grand Jury Witch-hunt Against International Solidarity
Activists!
-- Support Free Speech!
-- Support the Right to Organize!
-- Stop FBI Repression!
-- International Solidarity Is Not a Crime!
-- Stop the Criminalization of Arab and Muslim Communities!
Background: Fitzgerald ordered FBI raids on anti-war and solidarity
activists' homes and subpoenaed fourteen activists in Chicago,
Minneapolis, and Michigan on September 24, 2010. All 14 refused to
speak before the Grand Jury in October. Then, 9 more Palestine
solidarity activists, most Arab-Americans, were subpoenaed to appear
at the Grand Jury on January 25, 2011, launching renewed protests.
There are now 23 who assert their right to not participate in
Fitzgerald's witch-hunt.
The Grand Jury is a secret and closed inquisition, with no judge, and
no press. The U.S. Attorney controls the entire proceedings and hand
picks the jurors, and the solidarity activists are not allowed a
lawyer. Even the date when the Grand Jury ends is a secret.
So please make these calls to those in charge of the repression aimed
against anti-war leaders and the growing Palestine solidarity
movement.
Email us to let us know your results. Send to info@StopFBI.net
**Please sign and circulate our 2011 petition at http://www.stopfbi.net/petition
In Struggle,
Tom Burke,
for the Committee to Stop FBI Repression
FFI: Visit www.StopFBI.net or email info@StopFBI.net or call
612-379-3585 .
Copyright (c) 2011 Committee to Stop FBI Repression, All rights
reserved.
Our mailing address is:
Committee to Stop FBI Repression
PO Box 14183
Minneapolis, MN 55415
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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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DEFEND LYNNE STEWART!
Write to Lynne Stewart at:
Lynne Stewart #53504 - 054
Unit 2N
Federal Medical Center, Carswell
P.O. Box 27137
Fort Worth, TEXAS 76127
Visiting Lynne:
Visiting is very liberal but first she has to get people on her visiting list; wait til she 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.
Commissary Money:
Commissary Money is always welcome It is how Lynne pay for the phone and for email. Also 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 !)
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.
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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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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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
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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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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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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) Money Troubles Take Personal Toll in Greece
By LANDON THOMAS Jr.
May 15, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/16/business/global/16drachma.html?ref=world
2) Despite City Crackdown, Immigrants Still Are Often Cheated by Job Agencies
By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ
May 15, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/16/nyregion/immigrants-often-cheated-by-job-agencies-in-new-york.html?ref=nyregion
3) Appalling Greed: Richest 400 Average $270.5 Million Incomes, Pay Almost Nothing in Taxes
By Sam Pizzigati, Blog for Our Future
Posted on May 16, 2011, Printed on May 17, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/150956/appalling_greed%3A_richest_400_average_%24270.5_million_incomes%2C_pay_almost_nothing_in_taxes
4) Who is Delbert Orr Africa (in a snapshot)
by Yvonne Orr
Friday, May 13, 2011 at 1:07pm
See http://www.philly.com/philly/news/92093604.html for more
5) A Conflict Without End
New York Times Editorial
May 16, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/opinion/17tue1.html?hp
6) Japanese Officials Ignored or Concealed Dangers
By NORIMITSU ONISHI and MARTIN FACKLER
May 16, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/world/asia/17japan.html?hp
7) Miami Imam Will Plead Not Guilty to Aiding Terror Group, Lawyer Says
By DON VAN NATTA Jr.
May 16, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/us/17imams.html?ref=world
8) Peru: Presidential Candidate Hires Giuliani as Adviser
By REUTERS
May 16, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/world/americas/17briefs-Peru.html?ref=world
9) Search Allowed if Police Hear Evidence Being Destroyed
By ADAM LIPTAK
May 16, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/us/17scotus.html?ref=us
10) Obama Is a Millionaire, Records Show
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR
May 16, 2011, 6:30 pm
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/16/obama-is-a-millionaire-records-show/?ref=us
11) Some White House Workers Want to Join Union
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
May 16, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/us/17brfs-SOMEWHITEHOU_BRF.html?ref=us
12) In Japan Reactor Failings, Danger Signs for the U.S.
By HIROKO TABUCHI, KEITH BRADSHER and MATTHEW L. WALD
May 17, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/world/asia/18japan.html?hp
13) Afghan Protesters Clash With Police After NATO Raid
"At one point, the protesters carried the bodies of the four people killed in the raid through the streets, the governor said. They were buried later in the day. According to witnesses, the mob grew infuriated when a protester paraded a 10-year-old girl before it. 'This is the only remaining member of the family killed by foreigners last night,' the protester announced. Night raids have been a bitter source of tension between NATO and Afghan officials, including Mr. Karzai, who has said they frequently lead to civilian casualties and deepen distrust in the government and NATO forces."
By RAY RIVERA and SANGAR RAHIMI
May 18, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/world/asia/19afghanistan.html?hp
13) Sixth Soldier Charged in Afghan Killings
By WILLIAM YARDLEY
May 17, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/us/18soldier.html?ref=world
14) Flooding Takes Economic Toll, and It's Hardly Done
By CHRISTINE HAUSER
May 17, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/us/18river.html?ref=us
15) Chemical Suspected in Cancer Is in Baby Products
"Under current law, it is difficult for the federal Environmental Protection Agency to ban or restrict chemicals. Even now, the agency has yet to ban asbestos, widely known to cause cancer and other lung diseases. 'We can buy things that are BPA free, or phthalate free or lead free. We don'' have the choice to buy things that are flame-retardant free,' Dr. Stapleton said. "The laws protect the chemical industry, not the general public.'"
By ANDREW MARTIN
May 17, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/business/18chemical.html?ref=us
16) [SASI] Incredibly Important and Courageous Report on the Manufacturing of the 'Homegrown' Threat, issued and released by the The Center For Human Rights & Global Justice
VIA Email
17) Of Humans and Rights
Submitted by davidswanson
Sun, 2011-05-15 04:04
Civil Rights / Liberties
War is a Crime.org (formerly AfterDowningStreet)
http://warisacrime.org/content/humans-and-rights
18) 5 Mega-Banks May Have Defrauded Homeowners -- Will the Justice Department Actually Prosecute?
By Amy Goodman and Shahien Nasiripour, Democracy Now!
Posted on May 18, 2011, Printed on May 19, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/150994/5_mega-banks_may_have_defrauded_homeowners_--_will_the_justice_department_actually_prosecute
19) Secret FBI documents reveal attack on democratic rights of anti-war and international solidarity activists
Committee to Stop FBI Repression Statement (May 18, 2011)
For info go to StopFBI.net
20) America's Appalling Human Rights Record
By Stephen Lendman
May 18, 2011
http://www.opednews.com/articles/America-s-Appalling-Human-by-Stephen-Lendman-110518-701.html
21) LETTER TO PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA BY NOBEL PRIZE WINNER ADOLFO PEREZ ESQUIVEL, BUENOS AIRES, MAY 5, 2011:
May 14th, 2011 3:18 pm ET
http://www.examiner.com/nonpartisan-in-national/revolt-from-us-war-criminals-letter-from-a-real-nobel-peace-prize-laureate#ixzz1MjyVPw3M
22) Why Did US Medical Personnel Remove High-Value Detainee Abu Zubaydah's Eye?
Wednesday 18 May 2011
by: Jason Leopold, Truthout
http://www.truthout.org/abu-zubaydah-eye-removed-guantanamo/1305727623
23) The Great Switch by the Super Rich
By Robert Reich
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
http://robertreich.org/post/5583016733
24) Obama's Mideast Speech
May 19, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/world/middleeast/20prexy-text.html
25) Mine Owner's Negligence Led to Blast, Study Finds
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
May 19, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/us/20mine.html?hp
26) Many With New College Degree Find the Job Market Humbling
By CATHERINE RAMPELL
May 18, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/business/economy/19grads.html?hp
27) Private Prisons Found to Offer Little in Savings
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
May 18, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/us/19prisons.html?ref=us
28) U.S. Was Warned on Vents Before Failure at Japan's Plant
By MATTHEW L. WALD
May 18, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/science/earth/19nuke.html?ref=us
29) Afghan Detainee Is Found Dead at Guantánamo
By REUTERS
May 18, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/us/19guantanamo.html?ref=us
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1) Money Troubles Take Personal Toll in Greece
By LANDON THOMAS Jr.
May 15, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/16/business/global/16drachma.html?ref=world
ATHENS - His face contorted with anguish, Anargyros D. recounted how he had lost everything in the aftermath of the Greek economic collapse - the food-processing factory founded by his father 30 years ago, his house, his car, his Rolex, his pride and now, he said, his will to live.
"Many times I have thought of taking my father's car and driving it into a wall," he said, declining to give his last name because he was reluctant to draw attention to himself under these circumstances.
Hunched over and shaking, he sat last week in the spartan office of Klimaka, a social services organization here that provides help to the swelling numbers of homeless and depressed Greek professionals who have lost their jobs and their dignity.
"We were the people in Greece who helped others," he said. "Now we are asking for help."
It has been one year since Greece avoided bankruptcy when Europe and the International Monetary Fund provided a 110 billion euro ($155 billion) bailout. While no one expected the country to reverse its sagging fortunes quickly, the despair of Greeks like Anargyros D. reflects a level of suffering deeper than anyone here had anticipated.
Economists are predicting a 4 percent contraction in gross domestic product this year, and the data support the pessimism. Cement production is down 60 percent since 2006. Steel production has fallen, in some cases more than 80 percent in the last two years. Analysts say that close to 250,000 private sector jobs will have been lost by the end of the year, pushing the unemployment rate above 15 percent.
With headlines shouting of credit rating downgrades, panicky Greeks are taking their money from banks. Greece lost 40 billion euros of deposits last year, and bankers say withdrawals have increased recently.
These struggles have again made Greece an urgent matter for the 17-nation euro zone, whose finance ministers are to meet on Monday to discuss Greece and the debt crisis that has defied Europe's yearlong efforts to contain it. On the table will be whether Greece, which is now projected to miss its deficit target by as much as two percentage points of G.D.P. this year, will be granted another round of loans totaling as much as 60 billion euros, and what further budget cuts would be required in return.
But there is serious debate about whether this kind of prescription - subjecting Greece to more cuts and sacrifice in order to justify a second installment of funds from a reluctant Europe - is the right one.
This form of remedy violates two basic economic principles, according to Yanis Varoufakis, an economics professor and blogger at the University of Athens. "You do not lend money at high interest rates to the insolvent and you do not introduce austerity into a recession," he said. "It's pretty simple: the debt is going up and G.D.P. is going down. Have we not learned the lesson of 1929?"
The arrest on Saturday of Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the I.M.F., on charges related to sexual assault could create new uncertainty about a push for more severe austerity. Mr. Strauss-Kahn generally favored a less onerous approach, and if he is forced to resign it is possible that tougher conditions preferred by Germany will be imposed.
But while the debate over how to fix the Greek economy has played out in public, the ways in which this slump is tearing at the country's social fabric are less well known. The transformation has been jarring to a citizenry long accustomed to a generous welfare state.
Social workers and municipal officials in Athens report that there has been a 25 percent increase in homelessness. At the main food kitchen in Athens, 3,500 people a day come seeking food and clothing, up from about 100 people a day when it first opened 10 years ago.
The average age of those who show up is now 47, down from 60 two years ago, adding to evidence that those who are suffering now are former professionals. The unemployment rate for men 30 to 60 years old has spiked to 10 percent from 4 percent since the crisis began in 2008.
Aris Violatzis, Anargyros D.'s counselor, says that calls to the Klimaka charity's suicide help line have risen to 30 a day, twice the number two years ago.
"We cannot imagine this," Mr. Violatzis said. "We were once the 29th-richest country in the world. This is a nation in deep emotional shock."
Evidence of the emotional and social shock was abundant in Athens last week. Even as I.M.F. and European banking officials worked with Greek officials to hash out the contours of a second bailout package, a nicely dressed middle-aged woman with silver buckles on her shoes sifted through the garbage cans outside the five-star hotels where many of these officials were staying.
At dusk, riot police fired tear gas at rock-throwing protesters as tourists and workers on their way home took cover.
Laid off construction workers have holed up in abandoned villas. A security guard fired by one of the many downsizing Greek companies said he had spent the last year sleeping in the back seat of his battered hatchback. And a chef trained in the premier cooking school in Athens spent 18 months sleeping on park benches after the restaurant where he worked eliminated his job. A homeless charity recently gave him shelter.
While aid workers refer to these people as a new generation of homeless, the Greek government does not officially recognize the homeless as a social category in need of assistance, says Anta Alamanu, who runs a privately financed shelter for Klimaka, the social services group.
As a result there are no government-supported homeless shelters as they exist in other parts of Europe or in the United States.
When Kostas DeLazaris, 47, lost his tourism job on the island of Corfu in 2007, he joined a construction firm in Athens, only to lose that job 10 months ago as the once-buoyant building industry ground to a halt. Now he sleeps on the floor in an abandoned house, sharing the space with two Greek women and a family of Bangladeshi immigrants.
He was a dedicated union man when he worked in tourism, serving as vice president of his local branch. But on the same day last week that his former peers marched on Parliament in protest, he said he would not be joining them.
"I feel betrayed," he said, his voice rising in anger. "I paid my dues. I was part of the masses, and now I am on the streets."
He snorts at the possibility of a new deal with Europe.
"That is a dead end," he said. "There will be an earthquake instead and blood will be spilt."
Indeed, there are analysts who argue that a social flare-up is in the making, fueled by the divide between the hard-hit private sector and a public work force of about one million strong that so far has not experienced significant job losses.
"This is an explosive situation, and there could well be violence," said Stefanos Manos, a former economy minister who has advocated more aggressive spending cuts. "Especially as those who lost their jobs were earning 50 percent less than those who kept them."
There is mounting criticism that Prime Minister George A. Papandreou, after a burst of changes last year, has lost his nerve. A plan to raise 50 billion euros by 2015 by privatizing the publicly owned power and train companies has been a bitter disappointment. Those companies, home to powerful unions that protect what some view as thousands of excess workers, remain largely untouched by reforms.
Mr. Papandreou has achieved some success in opening up closed professions and reforming the country's pension and retirement systems. And he still retains the support of many Greeks, who believe that there is no better alternative.
But his critics say he may be avoiding the difficult choices in the belief that, as the saying goes here, the god of Greece will save Greece by means of a fresh European bailout.
That is what Richard Parker, a political economist from Harvard who is serving as one of Mr. Papandreou's top outside advisers, thinks should happen. Germany, he says, has to overcome its Calvinist instincts and write Greece one big check so that it can continue its economic overhaul process.
"Greece's debt is just 3 percent of the euro zone G.D.P.," said Mr. Parker, who has known Mr. Papandreou for more than 40 years. "And the price of tipping over Europe will be much larger. My attitude is, give them the money."
Greece may well get the assistance, with strings attached, of course. But whether that will help lift Anargyros D. out of his despondency remains unclear. At age 41, he lives off his father's monthly pension of 962 euros, which is down from 1,500 euros a year ago, and he must borrow money for the bus from his home in the Peloponnese region to his counseling sessions in Athens.
"Everything was coming up roses," he said, mashing a cigarette into the ashtray before him. "And then the banks took it all away from us."
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2) Despite City Crackdown, Immigrants Still Are Often Cheated by Job Agencies
By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZ
May 15, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/16/nyregion/immigrants-often-cheated-by-job-agencies-in-new-york.html?ref=nyregion
Cristina Rivas, 49, an immigrant from El Salvador, thought her one-year search for steady work had finally come to an end. A Queens employment agency that she had paid $120 said it had found her a job as a waitress at an upscale restaurant. She needed only to show up.
But when Ms. Rivas arrived at the "restaurant" last year, she encountered an atmosphere far different from what had been promised. Men whistled at female employees. Tips were offered for private dances. Distraught, she asked for a refund from the agency, but it refused.
"They exploited me," Ms. Rivas said in Spanish. "They didn't act like human beings. They treated me like a slave."
In some of the poorest neighborhoods across the city, immigrants hoping to land jobs through employment agencies have routinely been cheated out of money. They are often charged hundreds of dollars in fees, promised jobs that do not exist, and sent to abusive working environments.
Three years ago, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, responding to an influx of complaints about employment agencies, pledged to root out wrongdoing through undercover inspections and mandatory training for the agencies. "The city is putting a stop to the widespread abuse and fraudulent behavior that for too long has cheated New Yorkers in need," he said at the time.
But achieving that goal has proved vexing, complicated by what is often a fly-by-night business culture and by the reluctance of many immigrants to speak up. The city is up against an industry that has multiplied rapidly during the economic downturn - there are officially 350 agencies, but some advocates say the number exceeds 1,000. In the past six years, 36 have been shut down, but about 200 complaints a year come in, only a fraction of the probable violations.
"This is the tip of the iceberg," said Jonathan B. Mintz, commissioner of the city's Department of Consumer Affairs, which is leading the effort to crack down on abusive agencies. "Achieving compliance in this industry is quite difficult."
Owners of employment agencies acknowledge that there is abuse in the industry, but they say the city's campaign has harmed the reputation of honest enterprises and hurt business.
"We are not here to exploit people," said Antonio Ruiz, owner of Éxito Agencia de Empleo in Queens. "We are here to help them find work."
For immigrants looking for a foothold in the economy, employment agencies are often the first stop. Many of these agencies are concentrated in Chinatown and Jackson Heights, Queens, both home to large immigrant communities.
Customers usually pay a fee of at least $100 to be placed in a job. The help in writing résumés and translating paperwork is especially enticing for illegal immigrants, who do not qualify for unemployment benefits.
Under city law, employment agencies are prohibited from guaranteeing applicants that they will find them jobs, and they are not permitted to place people in jobs that pay below minimum wage. Agencies are also required to provide a written contract, a detailed job description, and information on refunds and labor laws.
Consumers frequently complain that agencies require non-English speakers to sign contracts in English, or demand upfront payments, which in most cases are illegal. City officials say they have encountered agencies that plotted with businesses to dupe consumers and steal their money, and cases of women being sent for work to strip clubs, rather than to restaurants as they thought.
Adela Valdez, a community activist in Queens, said she had been cheated several times by employment agencies, including once when she was asked to work at a laundry for a one-week trial and was never compensated. She said elected officials should have done more to regulate the industry.
"Who are the laws for?" she said. "Those that have more money? We are the ones who have to work."
Julissa Bisono, an organizer for Make the Road, a nonprofit immigrant advocacy group, said she often heard complaints from families about agencies that collected money one day and disappeared the next.
"It's like you gave money to a ghost," Ms. Bisono said. "Sometimes those are the last $100 that they have."
Her group has begun an effort to educate immigrants about consumer rights and the perils of employment agencies.
Some state lawmakers are proposing legislation to increase fines against employment agencies to $500, from $100, for each day a violation continues, and to make it a misdemeanor to accumulate three or more violations in a five-year span.
State Senator Adriano Espaillat, a Democrat who has sponsored a bill requiring employment agencies to prominently post information about the rights of applicants, said many immigrants did not know where to turn for help. In Washington Heights, Mr. Espaillat said, he has noticed a new scheme: agencies that arrange work and transportation for immigrants but withhold their paychecks. "They're taking advantage of folks that don't know their rights," said Mr. Espaillat, who represents parts of Manhattan and the Bronx. "It's very dehumanizing."
For Ms. Rivas, the immigrant from El Salvador, the job search continued. After calling the city's 311 help line, she was able to get her money refunded. In all, the city has recovered more than $300,00 for customers cheated by employment agencies since 2005. She eventually found work as a nanny through another agency, working seven days a week to support her two children.
"We don't have another way of finding work," she said. "If you don't speak English, you have to put your trust in them."
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3) Appalling Greed: Richest 400 Average $270.5 Million Incomes, Pay Almost Nothing in Taxes
By Sam Pizzigati, Blog for Our Future
Posted on May 16, 2011, Printed on May 17, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/150956/appalling_greed%3A_richest_400_average_%24270.5_million_incomes%2C_pay_almost_nothing_in_taxes
In 2008, the IRS revealed last week, 400 Americans reported at least $110 million in income on their federal tax returns. These 400, in a year that ended with millions of Americans out of work and home, averaged $270.5 million each, the second-highest U.S. top 400 average income on record.
The IRS only started reporting top 400 income calculations in 2003, and the agency's official "top 400" totals just go back to 1992. But older IRS data reports do make top 400 estimates from some earlier years possible. And these earlier figures leave the latest IRS numbers in even starker relief.
In 1955, for instance, America's top 400 averaged - in 2008 dollars - $13.3 million. In other words, the top 400 in 2008 reported incomes that, after taking inflation into account, amounted to more than 20 times the incomes of America's top 400 a half-century ago.
But 1955's top 400 didn't just make far less than 2008's top 400. The rich in 1955 paid far more of their income in taxes than today's rich. In 2008, the new IRS data show, the top 400 paid only 18.1 percent of their total incomes in federal income tax. The top 400 in 1955 paid 51.2 percent of their total incomes in tax.
After taxes, and after adjusting for inflation, 2008's top 400 had a staggering $85 billion more left in their pockets than 1955's most awesomely affluent.
You don't have to go all the way back to 1955 to see how little today's top 400 are paying in taxes. In 1992, the IRS stats detail, only 33 of the top 400 paid less than 20 percent of their incomes in federal income tax. In 2008, 253 did.
The main reason: Today's rich are getting more and more of their income from capital gains - the profits from buying and selling stocks, bonds, and other assets - and these capital gains now face a substantially lower tax rate than they did two decades ago.
Some specifics: In 1992, the top 400 grabbed 26 percent of their income from paychecks and 36 percent from capital gains. In 2008, by contrast, only 8 percent of top 400 income came from salary - 88 of the year's top 400 didn't even have jobs - and 57 percent came from capital gains.
These 2008 capital gains faced only a 15 percent tax rate, down from a 1992 rate almost twice that high.
Incomes for the 2008 top 400 did dip from top 400 levels in 2007, a year that saw the top 400 average $344.8. But the dropoff from 2007 to 2008 turned out to be less steep than the dip in 2000 after the dot-com bust.
America's richest came roaring back, fairly fast, from that dot-com setback. How fast will the next comeback be for America's super rich? We won't know for sure until next spring, when the IRS releases top 400 income figures for 2009.
We can, in the meantime, do some reasonable surmising. Next year's top 400 figures for 2009, we can predict with some confidence, figure to be real stunners. One statistic behind that confidence: In 2009, we already know, the financial industry's top 25 hedge fund managers averaged a record $1.01 billion, over double the $464 million hedge fund top 25 average in 2008.
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4) Who is Delbert Orr Africa (in a snapshot)
by Yvonne Orr
Friday, May 13, 2011 at 1:07pm
See http://www.philly.com/philly/news/92093604.html for more
Delbert Orr Africa is a political prisoner who has been wrongfully incarcerated for over 30 years. Delbert Orr was born June 21, 1951 (this is the media published date, NOT the real one which will remain undisclosed...for the record, my dad is actually 65...do the math =). As a young man he joined the Chicago Chapter of the Black Panther Party, where he met my mom. A loving relationship ensued with her being a feisty officer of the BPP and him being a nubuck in the game of stand-up-for-yourself revolution. In 1969 the FBI put forth false warrants on the Chicago BPP leadership, including my parents. They and others then fled to Canada and birthed One Phoenix Rising...they originally named me Malaika. They struggled to get any financial support while in exile and started carrying out bank expropriations to sustain themselves. I was born in a shack, by the water with no medical personnel...just a young woman (who had finished high school at 16, college at 19 and been declared a Mensa member) dead set on ensuring that I would have a life.
In October of 1969 Delbert had been back in Chicago. As he was driving back to Canada he crashed and ended up in the hospital. Later, my mom got word that he was the sole survivor of the accident and unable to walk. She spoke of bringing me back to Chicago, but he warned of raids being enacted against the BPP in Chicago. In December 1969, Fred Hampton, Sr. was murdered and they knew we had to head elsewhere.
In March of 1970 Delbert and three other friends decided to head down to Philadelphia because one of them was originally from there. It was there in Philadelphia that he met members of the MOVE organization. He was inspired by their uplifting approach to revolution and stayed on with them. My mom stayed in Philly for a few years and brought me back to Chicago in 1973. Meanwhile, Delbert ended up becoming Minister of Confrontation and Security for the MOVE Organization.
MOVE vs. The police
After countless false charges, ongoing harassment and many altercations, police finally decided that it was time for MOVE to be vanquished. When the police raided the MOVE house in August 1978, Delbert was the one videotaped being beaten brutally by police. He suffered a broken jaw and fractured eye socket from the attack.
Life in Prison
Delbert started his prison sentence out in the "hole" for 6 years in a Dallas prison for refusing to break his religious beliefs and cut his hair. I was not allowed to visit with him during this time. In fact, on one occasion my Granny-- who didnt' drive-- enlisted her girlfriend to drive us from Texas to Philly after getting word that we could see him. Some 20 odd hours later, we were denied because my birth certificate "didn't look right". We traveled back with me in tears. I did get to see him a year 1/2 later, though, making the same trek as before. In December 1989 he was transferred out of Dallas, they had riots at Camp Hill prison, which though he wasn't even a part of, the state prison used as an excuse to send him to the Federal system. We didn't get word of his transfer for 11 months! In federal prison he was under 23 hour lock up, 24 hours lock up on weekends where they wouldn't even let him out for yard. He stayed in long-term solitary confinement until May of that year. Then they transferred him to another prison (again without informing his family).
At the new prison he was offered a job in the printing shop. They were mystified when he turned them down because pay was good for prison work- $86 a month. Delbert explained the situation,
"I said, 'Naw, I don't want that.' They said, 'Wait a minute. This is just starting off, you can move right on up.' I said, 'Look, I've been in the hole for 6 years. I want some air! I don't want no career in the prison.' So they assigned me to the yard detail. And that was it, I loved that. I stayed in there a year and they shipped me back to state. When I got back they put me in the hole for about 3 weeks, then I got out, they put me in population.
That "population" consists of repeat rapists, serial killers, true murderers and gang thugs. What I have learned through my father/daughter relationship is that I am loved (despite the distance & circumstances) by two parents. I've never heard anything remotely cult-ish come out of my father's mouth. He's never "strongly encouraged" me to join MOVE. He's been an educator, mentor, protector and father as best as he could given his situation. I love him, have no shame to claim him and will forever be bound by our blood.
The May 13, 1985 bombing of the MOVE house wasn't justice! The bombing resulted in 11 deaths, including 5 children and the group's leader John Africa. Only 2 occupants survived, Ramona, an adult and Birdy, a child. In addition, 60 homes were destroyed in the resulting fires. There does come a time when HUMANITY should take precedence over political agendas.
Shame on us all for allowing many others beyond the MOVE 9 to be wrongfully incarcerated as well.
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5) A Conflict Without End
New York Times Editorial
May 16, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/opinion/17tue1.html?hp
Osama bin Laden had been dead only a few days when House Republicans began their efforts to expand, rather than contract, the war on terror. Not content with the president's wide-ranging powers to pursue the archcriminals of Sept. 11, 2001, Republicans want to authorize the military to pursue virtually anyone suspected of terrorism, anywhere on earth, from now to the end of time.
This wildly expansive authorization would, in essence, make the war on terror a permanent and limitless aspect of life on earth, along with its huge potential for abuse.
The Authorization for Use of Military Force, approved by Congress a week after Sept. 11, 2001, gives the president the power to go after anyone who committed or aided in the 9/11 attacks, or who harbored such people, to prevent acts of terrorism. It was this document that authorized the war in Afghanistan and the raid on Bin Laden's compound.
A new bill, approved last week by the House Armed Services Committee and heading for the floor this month, would go much further. It would allow military attacks against not just Al Qaeda and the Taliban but also any "associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States." That deliberately vague phrase could include anyone who doesn't like America, even if they are not connected in any way with the 2001 attacks. It could even apply to domestic threats.
It allows the president to detain "belligerents" until the "termination of hostilities," presumably at a camp like the one in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Since it does not give a plausible scenario of how those hostilities could be considered over, it raises the possibility of endless detention for anyone who gets on the wrong side of a future administration.
The bill, part of the National Defense Authorization Act, was introduced by the committee chairman, Howard McKeon of California, who said it simply aligns old legal authorities with current threats. We've heard that before, about wiretapping and torture, and it was always untrue.
These powers are not needed, for current threats, or any other threat. President Obama has not asked for them (though, unfortunately, the administration has used a similar definition of the enemy in legal papers). Under the existing powers, or perhaps ignoring them, President George W. Bush abused his authority for many years with excessive detentions and illegal wiretapping. Those kinds of abuses could range even more widely with this open-ended authorization.
As more than 30 House Democrats protested to Mr. McKeon, a declaration of "global war against nameless individuals, organizations, and nations" could "grant the president near unfettered authority to initiate military action around the world without further Congressional approval." If a future administration wanted to attack Iran unilaterally, it could do so without having to consult with Congress.
This measure is unnecessary. The Bush administration demonstrated how dangerous it could be. The Democrats were right to demand the House conduct hearings on the measure, which was approved with little scrutiny. If it passes, the Senate should amend it out of existence, and President Obama should make clear he will veto it.
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6) Japanese Officials Ignored or Concealed Dangers
By NORIMITSU ONISHI and MARTIN FACKLER
May 16, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/world/asia/17japan.html?hp
OMAEZAKI, Japan - The nuclear power plant, lawyers argued, could not withstand the kind of major earthquake that new seismic research now suggested was likely.
If such a quake struck, electrical power could fail, along with backup generators, crippling the cooling system, the lawyers predicted. The reactors would then suffer a meltdown and start spewing radiation into the air and sea. Tens of thousands in the area would be forced to flee.
Although the predictions sound eerily like the sequence of events at the Fukushima Daiichi plant following the March 11 earthquake and tsunami, the lawsuit was filed nearly a decade ago to shut down another plant, long considered the most dangerous in Japan - the Hamaoka station.
It was one of several quixotic legal battles waged - and lost - in a long attempt to improve nuclear safety and force Japan's power companies, nuclear regulators, and courts to confront the dangers posed by earthquakes and tsunamis on some of the world's most seismically active ground.
The lawsuits reveal a disturbing pattern in which operators underestimated or hid seismic dangers to avoid costly upgrades and keep operating. And the fact that virtually all these suits were unsuccessful reinforces the widespread belief in Japan that a culture of collusion supporting nuclear power, including the government, nuclear regulators and plant operators, extends to the courts as well.
Yuichi Kaido, who represented the plaintiffs in the Hamaoka suit, which they lost in a district court in 2007, said that victory could have led to stricter earthquake, tsunami and backup generator standards at plants nationwide.
"This accident could have been prevented," Mr. Kaido, also the secretary general of the Japan Federation of Bar Associations, said of Fukushima Daiichi. The operator of the plant, Chubu Electric Power Company, temporarily shut down Hamaoka's two active reactors over the weekend, following an extraordinary request by Prime Minister Naoto Kan.
After strengthening the plant's defenses against earthquakes and tsunamis, a process that could take a couple of years, the utility is expected to restart the plant.
Japan's plants are all located in coastal areas, making them vulnerable to both quakes and tsunamis. The tsunami is believed to have caused the worst damage at the Fukushima plant, though evidence has begun emerging that the quake may have damaged critical equipment before the waves struck.
The disaster at Fukushima Daiichi, the worst nuclear accident since Chernobyl, directly led to the suspension of Hamaoka here in Omaezaki, a city about 120 miles southwest of Tokyo. But Mr. Kan's decision was also clearly influenced by a campaign, over decades, by small groups of protesters, lawyers and scientists, who sued the government or operators here and elsewhere.
They were largely ignored by the public. Harassment by neighbors, warnings by employers, and the reluctance of young Japanese to join antinuclear groups have diminished their numbers.
But since the disaster at Fukushima and especially the suspension of Hamaoka, the aging protesters are now heralded as truth-tellers, while members of the nuclear establishment are being demonized.
On Friday, as Chubu Electric began shutting down a reactor at 10 a.m., Eiichi Nagano, 90, and Yoshika Shiratori, 78, were battling strong winds on the shoreline leading to the plant here. Mr. Shiratori, a leader of the lawsuit, led the way as Mr. Nagano followed with a sprightly gait despite a bent back. The two men scrambled up a dune, stopping only before a "No Trespassing" sign.
"Of course, we're pleased about the suspension," Mr. Nagano said, as the strong wind seemed to threaten to topple him. "But if we had done more, if our voices had been louder, we could have prevented the disaster at Fukushima Daiichi. Fukushima was sacrificed so that Hamaoka could be suspended."
Unheeded Warnings
In 1976, a resource-poor Japan still reeling from the shocks of the oil crisis was committed fully to nuclear power to achieve greater energy independence, a path from which it never strayed despite growing doubts in the United States and Europe.
That year, as Hamaoka's No. 1 reactor started operating and No. 2 was under construction, Katsuhiko Ishibashi, a seismologist and now professor emeritus at Kobe University, publicized research showing that the plant lay directly above an active earthquake zone where two tectonic plates met. Over the years, further research would back up Mr. Ishibashi's assessment, culminating in a prediction last year by the government's own experts that there was a nearly 90 percent chance that a magnitude 8.0 quake would hit this area within the next 30 years.
After the 1995 Kobe earthquake, residents in this area began organizing protests against Chubu Electric. They eventually sued the utility in 2003 to stop the plant's reactors, which had increased to four by then, arguing that the facility's quake-resistance standards were simply inadequate in light of the new seismic predictions.
In 2007, a district court ruled against the plaintiffs, finding no problems with the safety assessments and measures at Hamaoka. The court appeared to rely greatly on the testimony of Haruki Madarame, a University of Tokyo professor and promoter of nuclear energy, who since April 2010 has been the chairman of the Nuclear Safety Commission of Japan, one of the nation's two main nuclear regulators.
Testifying for Chubu Electric, Mr. Madarame brushed away the possibility that two backup generators would fail simultaneously. He said that worrying about such possibilities would "make it impossible to ever build anything." After the Fukushima Daiichi disaster, Mr. Madarame apologized for this earlier comment under questioning in Parliament. "As someone who promoted nuclear power, I am willing to apologize personally," he said.
In the early days of nuclear power generation in Japan, the government and nuclear plant operators assured the public of the safety of plants by promising that they would not be located on top of active fault lines, Mr. Ishibashi, the seismologist, said in an interview.
But he said that advances in seismology have led to the gradual discovery of active fault lines under or near plants, creating an inherent problem for the operators and the government and leading to an inevitable conclusion for critics of nuclear power.
"The Japanese archipelago is a place where you shouldn't build nuclear plants," Mr. Ishibashi said.
Advances in seismology also led to lawsuits elsewhere. Only two courts have issued rulings in favor of plaintiffs, but those were later overturned by higher courts. Since the late 1970s, 14 major lawsuits have been filed against the government or plant operators in Japan, which until March 11 had 54 reactors at 18 plants..
In one of the two cases, residents near the Shika nuclear plant in Ishikawa, a prefecture facing the Sea of Japan, sued to shut down a new reactor there in 1999. They argued that the reactor, built near a fault line, had been designed according to outdated quake-resistance standards.
A district court ordered the shutdown of the plant in 2006, ruling that the operator, Hokuriku Electric Power Company, had not proved that its new reactor met adequate quake-resistance standards, given new knowledge about the area's earthquake activity.
Kenichi Ido, the chief judge at the district court who is now a lawyer in private practice, said that, in general, it was difficult for plaintiffs to prove that a plant was dangerous. What is more, because of the technical complexities surrounding nuclear plants, judges effectively tended to side with a national strategy of promoting nuclear power, he said.
"I think it can't be denied that a psychology favoring the safer path comes into play," Mr. Ido said. "Judges are less likely to invite criticism by siding and erring with the government than by sympathizing and erring with a small group of experts."
That appears to have happened when a higher court reversed the decision in 2009 and allowed Hokuriku Electric to keep operating the reactor. In that decision, the court ruled that the plant was safe because it met new standards for Japan's nuclear plants issued in 2006.
Critics say that this exposed the main weakness in Japan's nuclear power industry: weak oversight.
The 2006 guidelines had been set by a government panel composed of many experts with ties to nuclear operators. Instead of setting stringent industrywide standards, the guidelines effectively left it to operators to check whether their plants met new standards.
In 2008, the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, Japan's main nuclear regulator, said that all the country's reactors met the new quake standards and did not order any upgrades.
Concealing Facts
Other lawsuits reveal how operators have dealt with the discovery of active fault lines by underestimating their importance or concealing them outright, even as nuclear regulators remained passive.
For 12 years, Yasue Ashihara has led a group of local residents in a long and lonely court battle to halt operations of the Shimane nuclear plant, which sits less than five miles from Matsue, a city of 200,000 people in western Japan.
Ms. Ashihara's fight against the plant's operator, Chugoku Electric Power, revolves around not only the discovery of a previously unknown active fault line, but an odd tug of war between her group and the company about the fault's length, and thus the strength of the earthquakes it is capable of producing.
The utility has slowly accepted the contention of Ms. Ashihara's group by repeatedly increasing its estimate of the size of the fault. Yet a district court last year ruled in favor of Chugoku Electric Power, accepting its argument that its estimates were based on the better scientific analysis.
"We jokingly refer to it as the ever-growing fault line," said Ms. Ashihara, 58, who works as a caregiver for the elderly. "But what it really means is that Chugoku Electric does not know how strong an earthquake could strike here."
Her group filed the lawsuit in 1999, a year after the operator suddenly announced that it had detected a five-mile-long fault near the plant, reversing decades of claims that the plant's vicinity was free of active faults.
Chugoku Electric said the fault was too small to produce an earthquake strong enough to threaten the plant, but Ms. Ashihara's suit cited new research showing the fault line could in fact be much longer, and produce a much stronger earthquake. It got a boost in 2006, when a seismologist announced that a test trench that he had dug showed the fault line to be at least 12 miles long, capable of causing an earthquake of magnitude 7.1.
After initially resisting, the company reversed its position three years ago to accept the finding. But a spokesman for the Chugoku Electric said the plant was strong enough to withstand an earthquake of this size without retrofitting.
"This plant sits on solid bedrock," said Hiroyuki Fukada, assistant director of the visitor center for the Shimane plant, adding that it had a 20-foot, ferro-concrete foundation. "It is safe enough for at least a 7.1 earthquake."
However, researchers now say the fault line may extend undersea at least 18 miles, long enough to produce a magnitude 7.4 earthquake. This prompted Ms. Ashihara's group to appeal last year's ruling.
Ms. Ashihara said she has waged her long fight because she believes the company is understating the danger to her city. But she says she has at times felt ostracized from this tightly bound community, with relatives frowning upon her drawing attention to herself.
Still, she said she hoped the shutdown of Hamaoka would help boost her case. She said local residents had already been growing skeptical of the Shimane plant's safety after revelations last year that the operator falsified inspection records, forcing it to shut down one of the plant's three reactors.
In Ms. Ashihara's case, the nuclear operator acknowledged the existence of the active fault line in court. In the case of Kashiwazaki-Kariwa nuclear plant in Niigata, a prefecture facing the Sea of Japan, Tokyo Electric Power Company, or Tepco, the utility that also operates Fukushima Daiichi, did not disclose the existence of an active fault line until an earthquake forced it to.
In 1979, residents sued the government to try overturn its decision granting Tepco a license to build a plant there. They argued that nuclear regulators had not performed proper inspections of the area's geology - an accusation that the government would acknowledge years later - and that an active fault line nearby made the plant dangerous. In 2005, the Tokyo High Court ruled against the plaintiffs, concluding that no such fault line existed.
But in 2007, after a 6.8-magnitude earthquake damaged the plant, causing a fire and radiation leaks, Tepco admitted that, in 2003, it had determined the existence of a 12-mile-long active fault line in the sea nearby.
Weighing the Chances
The decision to suspend Hamaoka has immediately raised doubts about whether other plants should be allowed to continue operating. The government based its request on the prediction that there is a nearly 90 percent chance that a magnitude 8.0 earthquake will hit this area within the next 30 years. But critics have said that such predictions may even underestimate the case, pointing to the case of Fukushima Daiichi, where the risk of a similar quake occurring had been considered nearly zero.
"This is ridiculous," said Hiroaki Koide, an assistant professor at the Research Reactor Institute at Kyoto University. "If anything, Fukushima shows us how unforeseen disasters keep happening. There are still too many things about earthquakes that we don't understand."
Until March 11, Mr. Koide had been relegated to the fringes as someone whose ideas were considered just too out of step with the mainstream. Today, he has become an accepted voice of conscience in a nation re-examining its nuclear program.
For the ordinary Japanese who waged lonely battles against the nuclear establishment for decades - mostly graying men like Mr. Nagano and Mr. Shiratori - the Hamaoka plant's suspension has also given them their moment in the sun.
The two worried, however, that the government will allow Hamaoka to reopen once Chubu Electric has strengthened defenses against tsunamis. Chubu Electric announced that it would erect a 49-foot high seawall in front of the plant, which is protected only by a sand dune.
"Building a flimsy seawall isn't enough," Mr. Shiratori said. "We have to keep going after Chubu Electric in court and shut down the plant permanently."
"That's right," Mr. Nagano said, the smallness of his bent frame emphasized by the enormous plant behind him. "This is only the beginning."
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7) Miami Imam Will Plead Not Guilty to Aiding Terror Group, Lawyer Says
By DON VAN NATTA Jr.
May 16, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/us/17imams.html?ref=world
MIAMI - The 76-year-old imam of South Florida's oldest mosque will plead not guilty to charges of financing terrorism in Pakistan, his defense lawyer said on Monday.
After a hearing in Federal District Court here, Khurrum Wahid, the lawyer for the imam, Hafiz Muhammed Sher Ali Khan, pleaded with the community not to prejudge his client.
Mr. Khan, the leader of the Miami Mosque in west Miami, was charged along with two of his sons and three other people with providing material assistance to the Pakistani Taliban from 2008 to 2010.
"The public may have preconceived notions," Mr. Wahid said. "I would ask the public to keep an open mind, and remember that everyone is innocent until proven guilty in this country."
As he sat in the jury box's first row in Magistrate Judge Barry L. Garber's courtroom, Mr. Khan, who has a long, snow-white beard and wears thick, black-rimmed glasses, appeared frail and confused (the proceedings were translated in Mr. Khan's native Urdu). On at least two occasions, Mr. Khan tried to say something to court personnel and he struggled to walk to the lectern to face the judge.
He suffers from a heart condition, failing eyesight and diabetes, his lawyer said. "We're very concerned about his health," Mr. Wahid said.
One of Mr. Khan's sons, Izhar Khan, 24, the imam of a mosque in Margate, Fla., sat near his father in the jury box. Both men appeared in court for the first time since their federal indictment was unsealed late last week. Neither man entered a plea.The indictment says the defendants conspired to provide material support to a conspiracy to murder, maim and kidnap people overseas, including planning to funnel at least $50,000 to the Pakistani Taliban.
The Pakistani Taliban, which the State Department has named a terrorist organization, took responsibility for a suicide attack in Pakistan on Friday that killed more than 80 cadets from a government paramilitary force.
Of the 50 largest terrorism cases in the United States since Sept. 11, 2001, about 70 percent have involved financing or other support for terrorist groups, according to the Center on Law and Security at the New York University School of Law.
But in a number of high-profile cases, prosecutors have discovered that proving material support for terrorist organizations is a challenge, legal experts say.
Family and friends of the Khans have asserted that all money sent to Pakistan was intended to help poor family members and support a madrasa in northwest Pakistan.
But legal experts say the fact that cash contributions might have been intended for humanitarian purposes is no longer a defense to supporting terrorism because money is so easily transferred.
"The key difficulty in prosecuting cases under this provision is proving that the contribution was made 'knowingly,' " said Victor Comras, a Fort Lauderdale lawyer and former State Department official who writes frequently about Al Qaeda and terrorism financing cases.
Mr. Comras said that in past cases against accused terrorism financiers, prosecutors have struggled to prove intent unless they have clear evidence like recorded statements.
According to the indictment, a tape-recorded phone conversation has Mr. Khan calling for an attack on the Pakistani Assembly similar to a suicide bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, Pakistan, on Sept. 20, 2008.
Prosecutors say that in another phone conversation, Mr. Khan "declared his wish that God kill 50,000" American soldiers.
Mr. Khan's lawyer declined to discuss the specific charges.
In recent years, prosecutors have had mixed success in terrorism-financing prosecutions.
The prosecution in Dallas of the Holy Land Foundation, accused of supporting the Palestinian militant group Hamas, is one example. Several defendants were acquitted in 2007 at the first trial, which ended in a mistrial for others. During a retrial in 2008, prosecutors won guilty verdicts against the Holy Land Foundation and five individuals for giving more than $12 million to Hamas, which the United States designated as a terrorist organization in 1995.
Three of those indicted last week in Miami are still in Pakistan. The fourth is Irfan Khan, the 37-year-old son of Hafiz Khan who appeared on Monday in federal court in Los Angeles.
Since the charges were publicized on Saturday, the Miami Mosque, known as the Flagler Mosque, has received two telephone threats, said Nezar Hamze, the executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, in Pembroke Pines, Fla. On Monday evening, a van was parked in front of the mosque bearing a sign that said it should be burned down.
"This is the type of backlash that occurs," Mr. Hamze said. "We are telling the community to remain on alert." The police have set up a 24-hour presence at both mosques, he added.
A pretrial detention hearing for Hafiz Khan and Izhar Khan is scheduled for May 23.
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8) Peru: Presidential Candidate Hires Giuliani as Adviser
By REUTERS
May 16, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/world/americas/17briefs-Peru.html?ref=world
Peru's presidential front-runner, Keiko Fujimori, has hired former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York as an adviser, trying to bolster her law-and-order credentials and distance herself from her father, former President Alberto Fujimori, who is in prison. Ms. Fujimori said Mr. Giuliani would help her design public safety programs. After vigorously defending her father for years, Ms. Fujimori apologized last month for what she called the excesses of his authoritarian rule. Pollsters say those comments have helped her move slightly ahead of the left-wing candidate Ollanta Humala. The election is June 5.
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9) Search Allowed if Police Hear Evidence Being Destroyed
By ADAM LIPTAK
May 16, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/us/17scotus.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON - The police do not need a warrant to enter a home if they smell burning marijuana, knock loudly, announce themselves and hear what they think is the sound of evidence being destroyed, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday in an 8-to-1 decision.
The issue as framed by the majority was a narrow one. It assumed there was good reason to think evidence was being destroyed, and asked only whether the conduct of the police had impermissibly caused the destruction.
Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., writing for the majority, said police officers do not violate the Fourth Amendment's ban on unreasonable searches by kicking down a door after the occupants of an apartment react to hearing that officers are there by seeming to destroy evidence.
In dissent, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote that the majority had handed the police an important new tool.
"The court today arms the police with a way routinely to dishonor the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement in drug cases," Justice Ginsburg wrote. "In lieu of presenting their evidence to a neutral magistrate, police officers may now knock, listen, then break the door down, never mind that they had ample time to obtain a warrant."
The case, Kentucky v. King, No. 09-1272, arose from a mistake. After seeing a drug deal in a parking lot, police officers in Lexington, Ky., rushed into an apartment complex looking for a suspect who had sold cocaine to an informant.
But the smell of burning marijuana led them to the wrong apartment. After knocking and announcing themselves, they heard sounds from inside the apartment that they said made them fear that evidence was being destroyed. They kicked the door in and found marijuana and cocaine but not the original suspect, who was in a different apartment.
The Kentucky Supreme Court suppressed the evidence, saying that any risk of drugs being destroyed was the result of the decision by the police to knock and announce themselves rather than obtain a warrant.
The United States Supreme Court reversed that decision on Monday, saying the police had acted lawfully and that was all that mattered. The defendant, Hollis D. King, had choices other than destroying evidence, Justice Alito wrote.
He could have chosen not to respond to the knocking in any fashion, Justice Alito wrote. Or he could have come to the door and declined to let the officers enter without a warrant.
"Occupants who choose not to stand on their constitutional rights but instead elect to attempt to destroy evidence have only themselves to blame," Justice Alito wrote.
Justice Alito took pains to say that the majority was not deciding whether an emergency justifying an exception to the warrant requirement - an "exigent circumstance," in legal jargon - actually existed. He said that the Kentucky Supreme Court "expressed doubt on this issue" and that "any question about whether an exigency actually existed is better addressed" by the state court.
All the United States Supreme Court decided, Justice Alito wrote, was when evidence must be suppressed because the police had created the exigency. Lower courts had approached that question in some five different ways.
The standard announced Monday, Justice Alito wrote, had the virtue of simplicity.
"Where, as here, the police did not create the exigency by engaging or threatening to engage in conduct that violates the Fourth Amendment," he wrote, "warrantless entry to prevent the destruction of evidence is reasonable and thus allowed."
But "there is a strong argument," Justice Alito added, that evidence would have to be suppressed where the police did more than knock and announce themselves. In general, he wrote, "the exigent circumstances rule should not apply where the police, without a warrant or any legally sound basis for a warrantless entry, threaten that they will enter without permission unless admitted."
Justice Ginsburg, dissenting, said the majority had taken a wrong turn.
"The urgency must exist, I would rule," she wrote, "when the police come on the scene, not subsequent to their arrival, prompted by their own conduct."
Justice Ginsburg then asked a rhetorical question based on the text of the Fourth Amendment.
"How 'secure' do our homes remain if police, armed with no warrant, can pound on doors at will and, on hearing sounds indicative of things moving, forcibly enter and search for evidence of unlawful activity?" she asked.
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10) Obama Is a Millionaire, Records Show
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR
May 16, 2011, 6:30 pm
http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/16/obama-is-a-millionaire-records-show/?ref=us
President Obama is a millionaire with assets that could reach as much as $12 million, mostly from proceeds from his two best-selling books, according to financial disclosure forms made public by the White House on Monday.
The disclosures require only that Mr. Obama and his wife, Michelle, list the value of their assets in wide ranges. For example, the president lists royalties from his memoir "Dreams From My Father" as between $1 million and $5 million.
Mr. Obama's financial disclosures have remained largely the same since he took office in 2009. The financial disclosure forms can be seen at the URL listed above at the New York Times.
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11) Some White House Workers Want to Join Union
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
May 16, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/17/us/17brfs-SOMEWHITEHOU_BRF.html?ref=us
About half of the career work force at the Office of Management and Budget filed a petition on Monday seeking to join the nation's largest federal employee union. A spokesman for the American Federation of Government Workers said that the White House employees, who are often called in on evenings and weekends, want more input over working conditions. The union would not represent political appointees, supervisors or managers. If the petition is approved by a federal agency, a vote could come this summer. A budget office spokesman said the Obama administration supported the right of workers to unionize.
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12) In Japan Reactor Failings, Danger Signs for the U.S.
By HIROKO TABUCHI, KEITH BRADSHER and MATTHEW L. WALD
May 17, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/world/asia/18japan.html?hp
TOKYO - Emergency vents that American officials have said would prevent devastating hydrogen explosions at nuclear plants in the United States were put to the test in Japan - and failed to work, according to experts and officials with the company that operates the crippled Fukushima Daiichi plant.
The failure of the vents calls into question the safety of similar nuclear power plants in the United States and Japan. After the venting failed at the Fukushima plant, the hydrogen gas fueled explosions that spewed radioactive materials into the atmosphere, reaching levels about 10 percent of estimated emissions at Chernobyl, according to Japan's nuclear regulatory agency.
Venting was critical to relieving pressure that was building up inside several reactors after the March 11 tsunami knocked out the plant's crucial cooling systems. Without flowing water to cool the reactors' cores, they had begun to dangerously overheat.
American officials had said early on that reactors in the United States would be safe from such disasters because they were equipped with new, stronger venting systems. But Tokyo Electric Power Company, which runs the plant, now says that Fukushima Daiichi had installed the same vents years ago.
Government officials have also suggested that one of the primary causes of the explosions was a several-hour delay in a decision to use the vents, as Tokyo Electric managers agonized over whether to resort to emergency measures that would allow a substantial amount of radioactive materials to escape into the air.
But the release this week of company documents and interviews with experts provides the most comprehensive evidence yet that mechanical failures and design flaws in the venting system also contributed to delays. The documents paint a picture of increasing desperation at the plant in the early hours of the disaster, as workers who had finally gotten the go-ahead to vent realized that the system would not respond to their commands.
While venting would have allowed some radioactive materials to escape, analysts say that those releases would have been far smaller than those that followed the explosions at three of the plant's reactors, which blew open containment buildings meant to serve as a first line of defense against catastrophe. The blasts may also have been responsible for breaches in containment vessels that have complicated efforts to cool the fuel rods and contain radioactive leaks from the site.
One reason the venting system at the plant, which was built by General Electric, did not work is that it relied on the same sources of electricity as the rest of the plant: backup generators that were in basements at the plant and vulnerable to tsunamis. But the earthquake may also have damaged the valves that are part of the venting system, preventing them from working even when operators tried to manually open them, Tokyo Electric officials said.
In either case, regulators in the United States and Japan will now need to determine if such systems at similar plants designed by G.E. need to undergo expensive and time-consuming retrofitting or redesign to allow them to function even in severe accidents.
"Japan is going to teach us lessons," said David Lochbaum at the Union of Concerned Scientists. "If we're in a situation where we can't vent where we need to, we need to fix that."
Officials from General Electric did not comment on Tuesday.
The seriousness of the crisis at the Fukushima plant became evident within hours of the quake and the tsunami that rushed over the plant's sea wall.
Just 12 hours after the quake, the pressure inside Reactor No. 1 had reached roughly twice the maximum pressure the unit had been designed to withstand, raising fears that the vessels that house fuel rods would rupture, setting a possible meltdown in motion. With the pressure high, pumping in additional cooling water also was not possible.
The government became rattled enough that it ordered Tokyo Electric to begin venting. But even then, Tokyo Electric's executives continued to deliberate, according to a person close to government efforts to bring the reactors under control. The exchanges became so heated, the person said, that the company's nuclear chief, Vice President Sakae Muto, and the stricken plant's director, Masao Yoshida, engaged in a "shouting match" - a rarity in reserved Japan.
Mr. Yoshida wanted to vent as soon as possible, but Mr. Muto was skeptical whether venting would work, the person said, requesting anonymity because he is still an adviser to the government and is not permitted to comment publicly. "There was hesitation, arguments and sheer confusion over what to do," he said.
The executives did not give the order to begin venting until Saturday - more than 17 hours after the tsunami struck and 6 hours after the government order to vent.
As workers scrambled to comply with their new directive, they faced a cascading series of complications.
The venting system is designed to be operated from the control room, but operators' attempts to turn it on failed, most likely because the power to open critical valves was out. The valves are designed so they can also be opened manually, but by that time, workers found radiation levels near the venting system at Reactor No. 1 were already too high to approach, according to Tokyo Electric's records.
At Reactor No. 2, workers tried to manually open the safety valves, but pressure did not fall inside the reactor, making it unclear whether venting was successful, the records show. At Reactor No. 3, workers tried seven times to manually open the valve, but it kept closing, the records say.
The results of the failed venting were disastrous.
Reactor No. 1 exploded first, on Saturday, the day after the earthquake. Reactor No. 3 came next, on Monday. And No. 2 exploded early Tuesday morning.
With each explosion, radioactive materials surged into the air, forcing the evacuation of tens of thousands of earthquake survivors living near the plant, contaminating crops and sending a faint plume of radioactive isotopes as far as the United States within days. Aerial photos of the reactor buildings showed No. 1 and 3 had been blown apart and another was seriously damaged.
As the troubles mounted, Tokyo Electric and government officials conducted a series of news conferences that began to suggest the scope of the damage. The blasts, they said, probably caused breaches in containment vessels that are among the final layers of protection against meltdowns and even larger releases of radioactive materials.
Tokyo Electric in recent days has acknowledged that damage at the plant was worse than previously thought, with fuel rods most likely melting completely at Reactors 1, 2 and 3 in the early hours of the crisis, raising the danger of more catastrophic releases of radioactive materials. The company also said new evidence seemed to confirm that at Reactor No. 1, the pressure vessel, the last layer of protection, was broken and leaking radioactive water.
The improved venting system at the Fukushima plant was first mandated for use in the United States in the late 1980s as part of a "safety enhancement program" for boiling-water reactors that used the Mark I containment system, which had been designed by General Electric in the 1960s. Between 1998 and 2001, Tokyo Electric followed suit at Fukushima Daiichi, where five of six reactors use the Mark I design.
The company said that was the case this week, after a review of Japanese regulatory filings made in 2002 showed that the vents had been installed.
The fortified venting system addressed concerns that the existing systems were not strong enough to channel pent-up pressure inside the reactors in an emergency. Pressure would be expected to rise along with temperature, damaging the zirconium cladding on the fuel rods at the reactor core and allowing them to react chemically with water to produce zirconium oxide and hydrogen gas.
The new vents were designed to send steam and gas directly from the reactor's primary containment, which houses the reactor vessel, racing past the usual filters and gas treatment systems that would normally slow releases of gas and eliminate most radioactive materials.
But the emergency vents were fitted with numerous safeguards, some of which require electricity to work, rendering them useless when all power is lost at a nuclear plant, experts say.
The most important of those safeguards are the valves, operated from a switch under lock and key in the control room, that must be opened for the vents to work. When a key is inserted into the keyboard in the nuclear reactor's control room and turned, the valves are supposed to open, letting gases rush out of the reactor building.
Tokyo Electric has said the valves did not work at Fukushima Daiichi after the power failed.
That would suggest that operators of similar plants in the United States and Japan could protect reactors by moving generators to higher floors if the equipment is currently in places that could be affected by tsunamis or flooding from rivers.
But a redesign of the venting system itself might also be necessary.
The design is the result of conflicting schools of thought among United States nuclear officials, said Michael Friedlander, a former senior operator at several American nuclear power plants.
Mr. Friedlander said, referring to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission: "You have the N.R.C. containment isolation guys who want containment closed, always, under every conceivable accident scenario, and then you've got the reactor safety guys who need containment to be vented under severe accident scenarios. It is a very controversial system."
Hiroko Tabuchi reported from Tokyo, Keith Bradsher from Hong Kong, and Matthew L. Wald from Washington.
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13) Afghan Protesters Clash With Police After NATO Raid
"At one point, the protesters carried the bodies of the four people killed in the raid through the streets, the governor said. They were buried later in the day. According to witnesses, the mob grew infuriated when a protester paraded a 10-year-old girl before it. 'This is the only remaining member of the family killed by foreigners last night,' the protester announced. Night raids have been a bitter source of tension between NATO and Afghan officials, including Mr. Karzai, who has said they frequently lead to civilian casualties and deepen distrust in the government and NATO forces."
By RAY RIVERA and SANGAR RAHIMI
May 18, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/world/asia/19afghanistan.html?hp
KABUL, Afghanistan - A normally peaceful northern city erupted in violence Wednesday, as thousands of protesters clashed with security forces after a NATO night raid that local officials claim killed four civilians. NATO defended the night operation and said the four people who were killed, two of them women, were armed insurgents who fired on its troops.
At least a dozen people were killed Wednesday as protesters armed with Kalashnikov rifles, axes, grenades and petrol bombs battled with police on the streets of Taliqan, the capital of Takhar Province, in the northeast, then assaulted a small NATO base on the city's outskirts, local officials and witnesses said.
The protesters chanted "death to Americans" and "death to Karzai," referring to President Hamid Karzai, as they hurled fire bombs and rocks at the German-run NATO outpost, officials said. Some also fired guns. Smoke rising from the base could be seen across the city.
Security forces brought the riot under control after several hours, but not before dozens of people, including women and children, had been injured or killed. Dr. Hassan Baseej, head of the provincial health department, said that the provincial hospital had received 12 dead and 80 wounded by early afternoon and that more were coming.
Two German soldiers and three Afghan guards were also wounded in the attack, said Abdul Jabar Taqwa, the provincial governor. It was not immediately known whether NATO forces were involved in trying to subdue the protesters, or opened fire on them.
Governor Taqwa condemned the NATO raid that precipitated the riot but also blamed Taliban agents for stirring up the crowd of about 3,000 to 4,000 people in what was intended to be a peaceful demonstration.
"This tragedy is much bigger than the one done last night by coalition forces," he said, promising to find the people who incited the violence.
At one point, the protesters carried the bodies of the four people killed in the raid through the streets, the governor said. They were buried later in the day. According to witnesses, the mob grew infuriated when a protester paraded a 10-year-old girl before it.
"This is the only remaining member of the family killed by foreigners last night," the protester announced.
Night raids have been a bitter source of tension between NATO and Afghan officials, including Mr. Karzai, who has said they frequently lead to civilian casualties and deepen distrust in the government and NATO forces.
"With all the repeated warnings that have been given by the president of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in regards to the prevention of these willful operations by NATO forces, it seems these types of operations have not been stopped," Mr. Karzai's office said in a statement Wednesday.
In its own statement, NATO said the combined Afghan and coalition raid was aimed at a man accused of providing weapons and explosives to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan - an group linked to Al Qaeda that has been responsible for numerous attacks in northern Afghanistan.
The team was preparing to search a family compound when a woman wearing an ammunition rack and carrying an AK-47 pointed the rifle at the team and, after ignoring several commands to drop it, was killed, the statement said. The second woman was killed shortly afterward when she rushed out of the compound and pointed a pistol at coalition forces, the statement said.
It added that a suicide vest rigged with 30 millimeter rounds and a detonation chord were found in a search of the compound. Though rare, women have been known to join insurgent fighting forces and have acted as suicide bombers.
In addition to the four people killed, two other suspected insurgents were detained.
But local officials insisted that the four who were killed were not insurgents.
"It was a wrong operation based on wrong intelligence information," said Shah Jahan Noori, the police chief of Takhar Province. "These kinds of operations are increasing the gap between the people and the government."
An acquaintance of one of the men killed said he was a religious scholar and ran a tailoring shop in the city. "He has nothing to do with the Taliban or anyone else," said the acquaintance, Asadullah, 38, a tailor who like many Afghans uses only one name.
The city of about 200,000 has been largely peaceful but Takhar Province, which borders Tajikistan, is one of several northern provinces that, according to NATO, has seen increased activity by the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. But this is not the first time government officials have accused NATO of misidentifying members of the movement, underscoring the difficulties of identifying Afghan insurgents.
The most notable incident occurred in September when NATO attacked the convoy of a candidate for Parliament who was campaigning in Takhar with his uncle and several campaign workers. His uncle was killed along with at least nine others.
NATO forces maintain that the candidate's uncle was a Taliban deputy shadow governor of Takhar and that they are sure of his identity. However, Mr. Karzai and local officials in Takhar said that the target was not a Taliban deputy shadow governor and that those killed were civilians. An exhaustive report by the Afghanistan Analysts Network, a Kabul-based research organization, found that the man who was targeted had been living peacefully in Kabul for more than two years and was well known there.
The man who was the real Taliban leader in Takhar Province was located by the Afghanistan Analysts Network in the tribal areas of Pakistan, where a colleague of the author of the report interviewed him. However, NATO has continued to maintain that it had the right person.
Elsewhere on Wednesday, a suicide attacker rammed a car packed with explosives into a minibus carrying Afghan National Police trainers in the Beshud district in the eastern province of Nangarhar. Initial accounts said the attack killed 6 to 13 people and wounded 21. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.
Alissa J. Rubin contributed reporting from Kabul, and employees of The New York Times from Taliqan and eastern Afghanistan.
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13) Sixth Soldier Charged in Afghan Killings
By WILLIAM YARDLEY
May 17, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/us/18soldier.html?ref=world
SEATTLE - A sixth soldier was charged Tuesday in connection with what Army prosecutors have described as the sport killings of three Afghan civilians last year, officials at Joint Base Lewis-McChord near here said.
The soldier, Staff Sgt. David D. Bram, was charged with solicitation to commit premeditated murder, engaging in murder scenario conversations with subordinates, aggravated assault with a dangerous weapon, planting evidence near the body of an Afghan national and failing to report crimes including murder.
The Army did not release more details, but Sergeant Bram has often been mentioned in testimony by witnesses in the case, including other soldiers who have been charged with murder. In January, in a plea agreement, Specialist Jeremy N. Morlock described Sergeant Bram as giving him clearance to commit the first of the three murders, in January 2010.
In March, Specialist Morlock was sentenced to 24 years in prison for his role in all three killings. Sergeant Bram watched the proceeding in the same room as reporters who were covering it.
Four other soldiers charged in the murders await court-martial proceedings. Sergeant Bram had already faced lesser charges, along with six other soldiers from the same unit, part of a Stryker Brigade deployed near Kandahar in 2009 and 2010. The earlier charges include striking a soldier who many in the unit had worried would tell superiors about their crimes.
The Army said Tuesday that Sergeant Bram could face 21 years in prison if he is convicted on all charges.
An Army lawyer who has represented Sergeant Bram did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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14) Flooding Takes Economic Toll, and It's Hardly Done
By CHRISTINE HAUSER
May 17, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/us/18river.html?ref=us
The swollen Mississippi River, already spilling over into wide areas of the Mississippi Delta, has dealt the South a heavy economic blow that is seeping into every possible corner of the region's commercial and agricultural life.
From Tennessee to Louisiana, the arteries and tributaries that normally supply the lifeblood of trade and business to the communities along the river's banks are now paralyzing them. The engorged river has disrupted waterway commerce, delaying barge traffic and forcing some cargo to be trucked overland. Grain elevators, a crucial link to the nation's grain exports, have been swamped. Early corn and soybean plantings on delta farms are submerged.
Like the very nature of water, the trickle-down effects of the historic flooding are leaving no corner untouched. Retail gasoline prices, already at two-year highs, and food prices could rise in the region because of supply disruptions. Tens of thousands of people are unemployed, shut out of jobs at establishments that are literally under water. State and local government coffers, strained because of the economic downturn, may lose many millions of dollars in revenue from tourism and taxes.
In about a dozen interviews, economists, farmers and industry officials said they expected hundreds of millions of dollars in damages including crop and infrastructure destruction in communities along the 740 miles of river that meanders from Memphis to New Orleans. But while the final bill has yet to be determined, the costs are already being felt.
In Yazoo County, Miss., John Phillips, a 61-year-old farmer, said thousands of acres of his cotton and corn crops had been destroyed. "In our area in the south delta, it is a widespread and very economically devastating disaster," he said in a telephone interview, as he tried to run a pump. He said his annual revenue would be reduced by 40 percent because it was too late to replant.
In Louisiana, oyster beds have been flushed with fresh water from the river after spillways were opened. Already, the state's crucial seafood industry had been reeling from the BP oil spill.
"Oysters are getting crucified," said Harlon H. Pearce Jr., the executive director of Louisiana Seafood Promotion and Marketing Board. "This water hit at the absolute worst time."
Along the river, barge operators are weathering the economic turbulence. It costs an operator about $10,000 a day when there is a delay with a tow, which helps the unwieldy barges, sometimes up to 45 of them tied together, navigate.
"One barge has the capacity of 16 rail cars or 70 trucks," said Anne D. Burns, a spokeswoman at American Waterways Operators. The river's barge traffic, Ms. Burns added, "is one of the significant building blocks of our economy."
With the recent flooding, barges are running lighter loads and traveling during the day because navigation markers are submerged. Delays can have ripple effects throughout the economy, like slower coal deliveries to utilities, where costs can be passed on to consumers, or disruptions to the nation's grain exports that travel down the river, she added.
"All those things are slowing down the delivery of these commodities," Ms. Burns said.
The flooding has affected other states, including Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky and Missouri. In addition to farming, businesses including catfish farms, hunting and fishing tourism, and casinos up and down the river have been affected.
About 100,000 acres of croplands, some planted with sugar cane and rice, flooded over the weekend in the Atchafalaya Basin in Louisiana when the Morganza spillway was opened, but the damage assessment has not been completed, said an Army Corps economist, Lee Robinson.
The economic hardships facing the affected areas would be traumatic to residents at any time, but they are also taking place when the nation is trying to recover from the 2008 financial crisis.
Economists are only just beginning to assess the potential headwinds of the Mississippi River flooding. An academic study released last week said the cost to the Memphis area, including the city and the 630,000 people in 18 counties that feed into the urban area in jobs or spending, could reach $753 million in damages to crops, residences, and commercial and public infrastructure.
An author of the study, Michael J. Hicks, the director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University, said there were losses to the region's consumer base and trade disruptions in a region that connects the manufacturing heartland of the Midwest with routes traveling between the East and the West.
"I am going to estimate in the $6 billion to $9 billion range for total damages from Memphis southward to the gulf," Mr. Hicks said.
Between 2.1 million to 2.2 million acres of farmland have so far been affected by the flooding in the delta region, or about 1 percent of all United States cropland, according to estimates from the Army Corps of Engineers.
While acknowledging the regional devastation, however, government economists say they do not expect a national grain shortage because there are plentiful stocks. A lot will depend on whether farmers will be able to replant.
Oil companies have also been affected. In the Memphis area, Valero's refinery is located on a bluff, and another one west of New Orleans is protected by levees. But with memories still fresh from Hurricane Katrina, Valero moved up its hurricane preparedness plans, securing equipment or moving it to higher ground, said a spokesman, Bill Day.
Exxon Mobil shut the docks at its refinery and petrochemical complex in Baton Rouge, La., and is only using its pipeline for operations. Its second refinery in Chalmette, near New Orleans, was not affected, said Kevin Allexon, a company spokesman.
Mr. Allexon said the company had contingency plans, like outside storage capacity. "We have invested a lot of resources to prepare and plan for this situation," he said. "If you operate in the Gulf of Mexico region you need to be ready for weather-related events, whether it is flooding or hurricanes or both."
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15) Chemical Suspected in Cancer Is in Baby Products
"Under current law, it is difficult for the federal Environmental Protection Agency to ban or restrict chemicals. Even now, the agency has yet to ban asbestos, widely known to cause cancer and other lung diseases. 'We can buy things that are BPA free, or phthalate free or lead free. We don'' have the choice to buy things that are flame-retardant free,' Dr. Stapleton said. "The laws protect the chemical industry, not the general public.'"
By ANDREW MARTIN
May 17, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/18/business/18chemical.html?ref=us
More than 30 years after chemical flame retardants were removed from children's pajamas because they were suspected of being carcinogens, new research into flame retardants shows that one of the chemicals is prevalent in baby's products made with polyurethane foam, including nursing pillows, car seats and highchairs.
The research does not determine if children absorbed the chemical, chlorinated Tris, from the products. But in an article to be published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, the researchers suggest that infants who use the products have higher exposure to the chemical than the government recommends.
Earlier research by one of the article's authors, Arlene Blum, a biophysical chemist, contributed to the elimination of Tris flame retardants, including chlorinated Tris, in children's pajamas in the 1970s. Although the chemical was not banned at that time, the Consumer Product Safety Commission now says that it "may pose a significant health risk to consumers."
The new research found that foam samples from more than a third of the 101 baby products that were tested contained chlorinated Tris. Over all, 80 of the products contained chemical flame retardants of some kind, some of which are considered toxic, though legal to use. In one instance, flame retardants represented 12 percent of the weight of the foam in a changing pad; most products were closer to 3 to 5 percent.
Among the products examined were changing table pads, sleep positioners, portable mattresses, baby carriers, rocking chairs and highchairs.
Fourteen of the products contained the flame retardant TCEP, which the State of California describes as a cancer-causing agent. Four of them contained Penta-BDE, a flame retardant that builds up in human tissue and that manufacturers voluntarily phased out in 2004; it is banned in many countries, but not the United States, and in some states, including New York.
"Why do you need fire retardant in a nursing pillow?" said Dr. Blum, who is the executive director of the Green Science Policy Institute, a nonprofit organization that brings scientific data about toxic chemicals to policy makers.
"The whole issue is, they are toxic chemicals that are in our homes at high levels; and right now, people don't know much about it," she said.
Asked about the new research, the Juvenile Products Manufacturers Association, an industry trade group, said all nursery products sold in the United States conform to "tough federal safety standards."
"Not only do these safety standards contain flammability requirements, they also restrict the use of substances that are harmful or toxic and to which children might be exposed," the association said in a statement.
The association also noted that chlorinated Tris was not banned by the government, but rather a related compound, brominated Tris, also found in the pajamas decades ago. "This study does not support allegations that the banned retardant Tris is in use," the association said.
Gordon L. Nelson, a chemistry professor at Florida Institute of Technology, said the new research was interesting but hardly proof that the flame retardants were doing harm. He noted that some children's products that use foams have plastic covers around them, which would prevent flame retardants from leaching out.
"The question is, in actual use, does the flame retardant come out?" Dr. Nelson said. He says he has done research on fire safety for decades and occasionally accepts research money or consulting fees from the industry.
In addition, Dr. Nelson maintained that fire retardants have vastly reduced the number of fire deaths caused by upholstered furniture, a point that critics of the chemicals dispute.
The new research is being released amid a broader, and often bitter, debate about flame retardants and a California flammability rule that has become the de facto national standard.
The California standard, passed in 1975, requires that polyurethane foam in upholstered furniture be able to withstand an open flame for 12 seconds without catching fire. Because there is no other state or federal standard, many manufacturers comply with the California rule, usually by adding flame retardants with the foam, Dr. Blum said.
Last year, California exempted strollers, nursing pillows and baby carriers from the flammability standard. Dr. Blum characterized the exemption as a positive step, though she noted that many other baby products were not exempted and it was not yet clear if manufacturers had stopped using flame retardants in those products.
Dr. Blum is among a group of academics and environmentalists who argue that the California standard exposes people and their pets to toxic chemicals. The flame retardants can migrate from furniture to household dust, and can be ingested by people and pets.
Some of the chemicals used in flame retardants are suspected carcinogens, and studies have linked the chemicals to variety of health issues, including problems with fertility and neurological development, the authors of Wednesday's journal article said.
Heather M. Stapleton, an assistant professor of environmental chemistry at Duke University and the lead author, complained that current federal oversight of chemicals is so weak that manufacturers are not required to label products with flame retardants nor are they required to list what chemicals are used.
Under current law, it is difficult for the federal Environmental Protection Agency to ban or restrict chemicals. Even now, the agency has yet to ban asbestos, widely known to cause cancer and other lung diseases.
"We can buy things that are BPA free, or phthalate free or lead free. We don't have the choice to buy things that are flame-retardant free," Dr. Stapleton said. "The laws protect the chemical industry, not the general public."
In a statement, the American Chemistry Council, which represents manufacturers of flame retardants, said the products are "well studied and provide important safety benefits."
"This study attempts to examine the existence of certain flame retardants in a small sampling of children's products," the council said, in a statement. "It does not address exposure or risk."
The Consumer Product Safety Commission has been working on a federal flammability standard for upholstered furniture for 16 years. The current proposal would allow manufacturers to meet the flammability standard without fire retardants. An agency spokesman said that "additional research looking into consumer exposure and the impact of chemical alternatives is needed."
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16) [SASI] Incredibly Important and Courageous Report on the Manufacturing of the 'Homegrown' Threat, issued and released by the The Center For Human Rights & Global Justice
hey everyone,
Our very own Amna Akbar is, as some of you know, the senior fellow at the Center For Human Rights & Global Justice at NYU. In collaboration with a number of dedicated law students, Amna has been working on a truly necessary and courageous report on the issues of Entrapment, Informants, and Preemptive Prosecution as they impact Muslims in America. The Report does a fantastic job of tacking back and forth between the general (horror) and particular (horror) of these issues, through its focus on three cases: The Newburgh Four, Shehawar Siraj Matin, and The Fort Dix 5.
On these lists, we are community of scholars, activists, lawyers, students, journalists, broadcasters, etc. Let's do what we can to ensure that a report like this is widely cited, written and spoken about. These narratives are direct and powerful challenges to the violence of the mainstream narrative, the so called 'Big' history being produced about this moment-- a history of ommissions and misconstructions.
The report was launched this morning, and can be accessed live here (or see attachment):
http://www.chrgj.org/projects/docs/targetedandentrapped.pdf
More media coverage is to follow in the upcoming days, but even prior to the reports release, the Village Voice wrote this:
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/05/shahawar_matin.php
Press Release Below:
U.S. Must Stop Targeting Muslims in Counterterrorism Investigations
CHRGJ: Use of Paid Informants, Surveillance, and Manufactured Plots Raises Serious Human Rights Concerns
(New York, May 18, 2011)-The U.S. government must stop its discriminatory targeting of Muslim communities in counter-terrorism investigations said the Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) at NYU School of Law today, as it released a report on the issue. The government's use of intrusive surveillance, untrained paid informants, and manufactured terrorism plots raise serious human rights concerns that must immediately be addressed, said the group.
The Report, Targeted and Entrapped: Manufacturing the "Homegrown Threat" in the United States, critically examines three high-profile domestic terrorism prosecutions and raises serious questions about the role of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the New York City Police Department (NYPD) in constructing the specter of "homegrown" terrorism through the deployment of paid informants to encourage terrorist plots in Muslim communities.
"The government's responsibility is to investigate crimes, not to instigate plots in already vulnerable communities," said Amna Akbar, CHRGJ's Senior Research Scholar & Advocacy Fellow. "It is abusive to pay government informants to go into Muslim communities, collect information, and then try to incite young men to consider violence and particular plots. The government must immediately stop these perverse practices."
Focusing on the government's cases against the Newburgh Four, the Fort Dix Five, and Shahawar Matin Siraj, the Report relies on court documents, media accounts, and interviews with family members of the defendants to critically assess the government's practices and lays bare the devastating toll these practices have had on the families involved.
In all three cases examined in Targeted and Entrapped, government informants played a critical role in instigating and constructing the plots that eventually led to prosecution. In all three, the government also sent paid informants into Muslim communities, without any basis for suspicion of current or eventual criminal activity. The government's informants introduced, cultivated, and then aggressively pushed ideas about violent jihad, encouraging the defendants to believe that it was their duty to take action against the United States. The informants also selected or encouraged the proposed locations that the defendants would later be accused of targeting, and provided the defendants with-or encouraged the defendants to acquire-material evidence, such as weaponry or violent videos, which would later be used to convict them. The defendants in these cases have all been convicted and currently face prison sentences ranging from 25 years to life.
A number of cases around the country raising similar concerns suggest that these practices are illustrative of larger patterns of law enforcement activities targeting Muslim communities. The Report considers key trends in counterterrorism law enforcement policies that have facilitated these practices, including the government's promulgation of so-called radicalization theories that justify the abusive targeting of entire communities based on the unsubstantiated notion that Muslims in the U.S. are "radicalizing." The prosecutions that result from these practices are central to the government's claim that the country faces a "homegrown threat" of terrorism, and have bolstered calls for the continued use of informants in Muslim communities.
Alicia McWilliams is the aunt of David Williams, a defendant in the prosecution against the Newburgh Four. The government targeted David and his codefendants with offers of $250,000, a BMW, and more to get them involved in a plot to plant bombs at a local synagogue. The informant provided the weaponry and suggested the target for the constructed plot.
"Newburgh is an extremely impoverished town," said Alicia in a recent interview with CHRGJ. "How much money did they spend on this whole production? They need to be investing in our communities for the future, not spending millions of dollars on a fake case that makes nobody safer."
Targeted and Entrapped evaluates the fundamental human rights affected by these counterterrorism policies. It concludes with policy recommendations aimed at ensuring that the U.S. government lives up to its obligations to guarantee, without discrimination, the rights to: a fair trial; freedom of religion, expression, and opinion; and an effective remedy. In particular, CHRGJ calls on the government to stop discriminating against Muslims in counterterrorism investigations; to hold hearings on the impacts that current law enforcement practices are having on Muslim communities; and to revise the guidelines that currently govern FBI and NYPD activities and allow for such abusive practices to go unchecked.
To read more about the Center's work on racial profiling and U.S. counter-terrorism policies, please see: http://www.chrgj.org/projects/profiling.html
About CHRGJ
The Center for Human Rights and Global Justice (CHRGJ) at New York University School of Law was established in 2002 to bring together the law school's teaching, research, clinical, internship, and publishing activities around issues of international human rights law. Through its litigation, advocacy, and research work, CHRGJ plays a critical role in identifying, denouncing, and fighting human rights abuses in several key areas of focus, including: Business and Human Rights; Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; Caste Discrimination; Human Rights and Counter-Terrorism; Extrajudicial Executions; and Transitional Justice. Philip Alston and Ryan Goodman are the Center's Faculty Chairs; Smita Narula and Margaret Satterthwaite are Faculty Directors; Jayne Huckerby is Research Director; and Veerle Opgenhaffen is Senior Program Director.
The International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC)-a project of the Center-is directed by Professor Smita Narula. Amna Akbar is Senior Research Scholar and Advocacy Fellow and Susan Hodges is Clinic Administrator. The Report was researched and written by CHRGJ and IHRC members and staff.
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17) Of Humans and Rights
Submitted by davidswanson
Sun, 2011-05-15 04:04
Civil Rights / Liberties
War is a Crime.org (formerly AfterDowningStreet)
http://warisacrime.org/content/humans-and-rights
U.S. newspapers sometimes print what they call the total death count from one or more of our wars, and all the dead who are listed are Americans. They aren't all the Americans. They don't include contractors or suicides or various other categories of dead Americans. They certainly don't include those who died for lack of basic needs while we dumped half of our public treasury into wars.
But they also don't include anyone from that 95% of humanity that's not from the United States. In our current wars, well over 95% of the dead, even in the short-term, are from the countries where the wars are fought. Some get labeled combatants and some civilians, but they're all left out of most body counts, and when they are counted they are counted low. Our government pretends not to count them at all, and only thanks to Wikileaks do we know otherwise, that the military has counted some of them.
This may be a step up from the Vietnam War, when the deaths of Vietnamese were officially celebrated. But it's not a step all the way to considering everyone human. The dead are still dead and unmourned. The official collection of ears in Vietnam has evolved into the unofficial collection of fingers in Afghanistan. This is not the progress we ultimately need.
Some humans seem to have no business existing, even before they die. Nearly five million Iraqis have been turned into refugees by our so-called liberation of their country. To acknowledge their existence doesn't fit our narrative. The global policeman doesn't chase people out of their homes or render whole pieces of the earth's surface uninhabitable. Are the women of Fallujah, told by doctors to stop having children because so many are born with horrible defects, human? Are they as human as the British royal couple or the U.S. president's family? Do we hear about them as much? Or at all?
I recently read the script of a play dramatizing the stories of some Iraqi refugees. By doing so, common understanding would hold that I went through a process of what's called humanizing people. Five million refugees is just a number. But the story of one of them who has had specific and somewhat familiar troubles, the loss of loved ones, the loss of self-respect, and a struggle to endure, a story full of detail including the person's name, appearance, voice, manners, and personality -- well, that humanizing story makes that person and the four million nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand and nine hundred and ninety-nine others more than a number. They have all now been humanized. Or so it is commonly believed.
I don't deny that such humanization works. But I question whether we must necessarily be so incredibly obtuse that it is necessary. Do we really doubt that any human lacks a specific human story until we hear it? While we should want to know the details of others' lives, do we have to know them before we can believe that those people are human and act accordingly? I'd like to propose a definition for human being that goes in the opposite direction: A human is anyone at all, but especially those you know the least about or know the most unpleasant things about. The person least like you is the most human, and you should work hardest to get that person human rights. After all, people you know well need not be described in such general terms as "she's a human being."
Our president recently began a war for the supposed benefit of the people of Libya, ceasing to arm and support Muammar Gadaffi and switching our government's support to his opponents. To gain Saudi Arabia's backing for this humanitarian war, our government told Saudi Arabia it had our blessing to move troops into Bahrain where they would attack civilians. Were the Libyans more human than the Bahrainis? What about the Libyans whom U.S. and NATO bombs are killing? Are they less human than other Libyans? Are the Libyans on our side of the war the most human, except for the ones employing child soldiers, and the racist murderers, and the ones who fought against the United States in Iraq, and the ones we may poison with depleted uranium, but especially Khalifa Hiftar, the rebel leader who has spent the past 20 years living in Virginia near CIA headquarters with no visible means of support? And what about Libyans who try to come to Europe, or who die of thirst and starvation on a ship while a U.S. aircraft carrier leaves them to their fate? Are they the least human Libyans? Reuters printed this headline this week: "Libya may be using migrants as weapon against EU- UN." Remember when the Pentagon viewed suicides at Guantanamo as acts of war? For Libyans and other Africans, just existing and being sent or sending oneself in the direction of Europe is an act of war. These humans are imagined into objects deployed like bullets from a gun. They disappear as human beings. And we learn nothing. If we'd known the Iraq War produced refugees, perhaps we'd have known the Libyan War would do the same. The UN Refugee Agency estimates 1,200 have died on boats fleeing the humanitarian war in Libya. Survivors say a U.S. aircraft carrier and other ships have left them to their fate.
Other humans are not erased, but rather demonized. Whole races and nations and religions of people are hated. While some back wars as humanitarian acts, others back the same wars as a way to kill evil beings. Before he dropped atomic bombs on Japan, before he became president or vice president, Harry Truman was a senator who stood up in the U.S. Senate and said that if the Germans were beating the Russians we should help the Russians, and if the Russians were beating the Germans we should help the Germans. That way, he said, more of the whole lot of them would die.
We think of the genocide committed by the Germans in their World War II camps as invented out of whole cloth. It actually built on the colonial and imperial policies and thoughts of Germany, Belgium, France, Spain, England, and the United States. Spanish murder and disease wiped out the inhabitants of the Canary Islands between 1478 and 1496, followed by the European elimination of humans from many parts of the Americas, the Pacific, and Asia. In 1829, all non-Europeans in Tasmania were concentrated in one area and hunted down. You know what the United States did to its native peoples. The term "concentration camp" had been invented by the Spanish in Cuba in 1896, used by Americans, and used by the British in the Boer War. In 1904, the Germans used it as they wiped out the Herero people of Southwest Africa.
The Nazis killed several million civilians in camps and became the model for all things evil, but the war they started killed some 70 million people worldwide, each and every one of them a human being, and each a victim of the very worst thing we've ever created: war, and this war like every war the result of years and decades of predictably dangerous decisions.
The Nazis are our model for evil, but we put their top living officials on trial in courts of law and declared, however hypocritically, that we would expect to be treated identically if charged with the same crimes in the years to come. Germany just convicted another former Nazi this week. The Nazis were evil, but human. The people our propaganda now demonizes as this month's Adolf Hitler or next month's Adolf Hitler are depicted as sub-human. Prisoners are bound and hooded and treated as animals, communicating the inability to reason with them, softening us up to accept their torture. If the President of Bahrain were demonized on our televisions for his nation's abuses of innocent people, a good many Americans would want to bomb Bahrain, despite the fact that most of the victims of our bombs would not be the demonized president. Of course, that scenario won't happen with Bahrain hosting a U.S. Naval fleet. But it happens all the time in nations that our nation's government wants to bomb, with bin Laden, Gadaffi, Hussein, Milosevic, Noriega, and many others.
We've been reduced to arguing that we should try alleged criminals in courts of law, rather than murdering them, for our own sake. We should do it to avoid lowering ourselves to what we understand as their level. We admit that they are subhuman monsters, but we prefer to give them trials because that is who we are. I don't think this is good enough. Nor do I think it takes full account of our own monstrous foreign policies. Every human is a human, even the cruel, sadistic, murderous ones. They have blood on their hands and legitimate grievances at the same time. They have caused widespread suffering, often with our government's support before it switched sides, and they have families and friends who love them at the same time. Simple-minded hatred impedes our understanding of the world and our ability to take actions that will make the world better. Rather than using crimes as excuses for wars or assassinations, we should consider adopting policies that make crime less likely and taking an approach to criminal punishment that looks at deterrence, prevention, restitution, and reconciliation, rather than immediate satisfaction of passions for vengeance regardless of the consequences.
Italy a couple of years back convicted a couple of dozen CIA agents in absentia of kidnapping a man in Italy to have him tortured in Egypt. They are all free and living in the United States. Terrorists convicted of attacks on Cuba live in Florida. Presidents Bush and Obama, who have overseen illegal wars abroad, are on the loose despite open confessions of crimes like assassination and torture. If an Italian or Cuban or Iraqi or Afghan or Pakistani death squad were to murder an American they considered a criminal, would Americans view that as law enforcement? Would our president declare that justice had been served?
We have one standard for five percent of humanity and a different one for the other 95 percent. And when we do consider the possible ramifications of having killed a likely mass murderer like bin Laden, we still fail to consider that what we did to him with bullets we do to others with missiles all the time. Our drone war in Pakistan has been denounced as illegal by the U.N. investigator on extrajudicial killings. Five days after killing bin Laden with a gun, the United States tried to kill U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki with a drone. Awlaki is an American, but a Muslim; he speaks English, but he lives abroad. So, is he a human? He has not been charged with a crime. Neither had the two people who were killed in the failed attempt to kill him. Two days before that strike, U.S. drones killed 15 people in Pakistan. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan says that 957 civilians were killed by U.S. drones there in 2010.
Drone victims may not look like humans to the drone pilots sitting comfortably thousands of miles away in Nevada or Virginia. But we have soldiers at comfortable desk jobs dying of suicide. Suicide is the number one cause of death for U.S. military participants in our wars. It may be that while our policies don't recognize all humans as humans, those executing our policies do. It may be that our double standards aren't fooling even ourselves.
We've made one set of laws for our country and another for the rest of the world. We hear a lot in Washington about Israel's sovereign right to attack Iran if it sees fit, while the idea of an Iranian sovereign right to attack someone is treated with appropriate scorn. We've packed our prisons beyond what any other country has attempted, but our political criminal class has complete immunity, and the very first representative of the Wall Street gang that has recently stripped away so much of our nation's wealth, Raj Rajaratnam, was convicted this week and is appealing. A couple of weeks ago, I merely suggested to former Senator Alan Simpson that corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share of taxes, and he flew into a rage denouncing a mythical poor man who bought four houses with nothing down. Threatening those with power leads to demonizing those without. This, too, is a problem of who counts as humans. But I'm not sure it's fooling anybody.
Are future generations whose world we are damaging as human as we are? Does the rest of the natural world get as much consideration as the humans? While we laugh at nations like Ecuador giving rights to the environment, we give rights, human rights, free speech rights (including the right to bribe electoral candidates) to corporations. Corporations have no flesh or blood at all, and we treat them better than we treat a lot of human beings, and other living things.
We have to drop racism and resist demonization. A horrible crime by a person or a small group of persons tells us nothing about a race or a religion or a nationality. We have to actively oppose fear and the manipulation it allows. We have to speak up for Muslims, for immigrants, for whistleblowers, for activists, for death row prisoners, for gays and lesbians, and for every human being who is treated as something less. This means we have to speak up, as well, for criminals, for murderers, for those we believe guilty of the most horrible crimes. They must have the right to a fair trial. They must not be placed into the box of non-humans called "enemy combatants." Murdering murderers -- not to mention using their crimes as an excuse for decades of war -- generates more hatred and more violence. Exposing and documenting, and then punishing, the crimes of murderers generates understanding, credibility, and respect.
Once we decide it's OK to abuse foreigners we don't know, it's a short step to the lawless killing of Americans who live abroad like Anwar al-Awlaki. Once we decide it's OK to strip Americans abroad of any rights, it's a short step to the lawless imprisonment and torture of an American whistleblower at home like Bradley Manning.
We have to start stepping in the other direction. Bradley Manning should be freed and honored. Anwar al-Awlaki should be given a fair trial if charged with a crime. And Dick Cheney should be given several fair trials as well.
Spanish prosecutor Baltasar Garzon is rightly honored for his efforts to enforce international laws. The internet is bringing the international pursuit of justice closer to us, and in fact humanizing humans at a pace our government can't keep up with. Our future comes out of a square in Cairo, not a drone command in Las Vegas. Today an international effort called the Stay Human Convoy leaves Tahrir Square to bring aid to the people of Gaza. Can we keep those people and ourselves part of the same humanity?
Eugene Debs showed his understanding of humanity when he said, "While there is a lower class I am in it; while there is a criminal element I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free."
From here on out, let's have no more celebrations of anyone's death, but on that glorious day on which our government does not kill a single human being anywhere on earth, not with guns or drones or electric chairs, then let us sing and dance in the streets.
WHAT GIVES YOU THE RIGHT?
We often think of rights in terms of negative freedoms. We demand the right not to be interfered with. We want to be left free to speak and to assemble, or free to choose what we can afford from among the merchandise that corporations offer up for sale, or even free to leave our guns where our kids can accidentally get at them.
There's actually a lot to be said for the freedom to be left alone. The right not to be locked up without a swift, fair, open trial by a jury of one's peers is a crucial foundation of a decent society. Losing it, as we are losing it, is extremely frightening.
Marcus Tullius Cicero lived in a time when imperialism threatened rights, but he had a very different idea of freedom. Freedom, he said, is participation in power.
Here we are exercising our freedom of speech, but are we participating in power? After eight years of bringing democracy to Iraq, Iraq has banned public protests. We still have the right to protest, as long as we're not too close to the people we're protesting. We've been left free to assemble here today, but are we free by Cicero's definition? Unlike every other wealthy nation on earth, we Americans are left blissfully free of national health coverage. We're free to get sick and die if we take a fancy to it, and nobody can stop us, damn it. But does that make us free by Cicero's standard, or is it -- on the contrary -- evidence of our lack of freedom?
What if freedom isn't something we're born with that might be taken away, but something we have to create together? If we conceive of free speech as a right to meaningful participation in power, then the freedom to talk at a festival without police interference and to post our talks on Youtube is important, but it's just not sufficient. The majority of the speech that reaches Americans' ears and eyes through a corporate media cartel that dominates television and other news ownership is representative of the voices of a very small minority, and is in fact contemptuous of majority opinion on most political issues.
A majority of Americans wants our wars ended, wants corporations stripped of the power to buy our elections, wants the rich taxed, wants estates and investments and excessive profits taxed, wants war profiteering banned, wants Social Security and Medicare protected, wants major investment in green energy and education, wants the minimum wage raised, wants warrentless spying banned, wants voting rights restored to ex-felons, and indeed wants national health coverage for all. Tell me when you last encountered those majority views being represented as mainstream or even as respectable in a television or newspaper news report. These are views held despite, rather than because of, our communications system. And this means that most of the people holding these majority views falsely believe themselves to be in a minority. That's disempowering, not empowering, not free.
Meaningful free speech means the ability to communicate to others in significant numbers through a communications system where the popularity of an idea, rather than its acceptance by major multinational media corporations, dictates its prominence, and where a variety of views is encouraged rather than shut out. As important as the right to meaningful free speech is the right to meaningful free hearing. We're not dealing here with the right to vent or to stand on a stage and mouth off as I'm doing now. We're talking about the right to know what is happening in the world, what others are thinking, and -- in particular -- what our government is doing in our name. A right to government transparency is a necessary component of a right to free speech. So, when the ACLU defends the right of corporations to buy our elections, in the name of free speech, it is not actually defending free speech.
Our privatized military and privatized illegal spying apparatus, and all of our other privatized government services are terrific for channeling public dollars into election campaigns, but are terrible for transparency. And the current administration, just like the last one, is the most secretive we've yet seen. We have very little idea what our government does, and when a whistleblower passes some information about what our government does to Wikileaks, our televisions tell us to vehemently defend our right to be left in the dark. We may be free to shout or curse, we may have 35 choices of prepackaged breakfast cereal at the store, we may have 113 channels of shit on the TV to choose from, but if our military is in action in 75 countries and we can't even find out which ones, we're not free. If a commissioner of the Federal Communications Commission can push through a merger between NBC and Comcast and four months later be hired as a super-well-paid lobbyist for NBC-Comcast, she may be free but the rest of us are not.
What if we go out of our way to research everything we can on the internet, and we learn some good fraction of what our government does in our name with our money, then are we halfway free? I don't think so. Exercising power, otherwise known as freedom, through a representative government means being able to have a meaningful impact on that representation. And that means more than just communication. We don't have a right to vote. People are blocked from voting because they didn't jump through hoops to register and stay registered, or because of criminal records. We don't have a right to run for elected office. No one who lacks huge amounts of money or who is unwilling to take huge amounts of money from those who have it can meaningfully run for state-wide or national office in most states. When 400 Americans have over half the country's money, participation in power is extremely concentrated too.
No one operating outside of two very large and corrupt political parties can reasonably put their name on a ballot or participate in debates or communicate through major media outlets in most state and national elections. Electronic voting machines make it impossible to verify which candidates receive how many votes. Just ask former U.S. senator Max Cleland. If you can't run for office, and nobody you know can run for office, and your U.S. representatives are supposedly going to represent 700,000 people, and none of the viable choices to represent you comes anywhere close to representing you, then you're not participating in power, no matter how much speech and knowledge you can pull together. You're not free.
And if, on top of those problems, your misrepresentatives in Washington have ceded the bulk of their power to a single individual, to whoever is president at the moment, it seems to me you're another degree removed from being free. Americans spend a lot of time cheering for and condemning politicians based on which political party they are a member of. And the two parties do disagree on cultural issues and on matters where their corporate funders have no interest or themselves disagree. But on many of the biggest questions there is beautiful bipartisan harmony, so harmonious in fact that we may not survive it. Republicans are not sure if Barack Obama was born in this country or if he might be a Muslim or a Communist or a space alien, but Republican Congressman Buck McKeon and Republican Senator John McCain are advancing legislation that would give President Obama the power to single-handedly and unconstitutionally launch just about any war and imprison just about any person. Building on the work of his 43 predecessors, President Obama has already claimed and used those powers. But legislating them won't help undo them.
The U.S. Constitution denied presidents the power to launch wars and placed that power in the Congress. In 1938 the Congress very nearly gave that power to the people, advancing an amendment that would have required a public referendum before a war could begin. Franklin Roosevelt stopped that effort. Congress hasn't declared a war since 1941, and its pretenses of being involved in such decisions have diminished over time. Obama carefully avoided any consultation of Congress before launching a war in Libya. Now McKeon and McCain want to legislate presidential war power for as long as the so-called war on terrorism lasts. In fact, they are also thereby handing presidents the power to determine how long it will last. And that of course makes it likely to last until our empire is finished.
And this is despite the war makers having just lost the scariest propaganda poster they had during the past decade. This should be the time for ending this endless war, not giving the power to enlarge it to a single person and whatever presidents follow him in that office.
I was in Afghanistan in April and spoke with a member of Parliament named Ramazan Bashardost. He described the same problems in his government that we have in ours: financial corruption, partisanship, a poor communications system, and power taken out of the legislature and concentrated in the hands of a single person. Afghans I spoke with longed for peace, but spoke first and foremost about participation. When we hear that our military may negotiate a sharing of power with the Taliban, our first thought may be that talking is better than bombing. And of course it is. But for at least some Afghans, the first thought is "Why are these new criminals negotiating with those old criminals? Where is OUR seat at the table? When do we get to participate in shaping our own future?"
This is what people want and need all over the world. They want it and need it on almost the same level on which they want and need peace and food and water. The Iraqi people have wanted us out of their country for several years now, not because they hate us or fail to appreciate our culture, and not because they expect paradise to quickly follow our departure, but because they want power over their own country.
And by the way, the bulk of the U.S. occupation has now been withdrawn from Iraq, so give yourself some credit if you pushed for that to happen. Our pressure was so great in 2006, that the Republican leader of the Senate privately urged Bush to end that war, even while publicly talking it up.
But an occupation is not over until it's over, so get ready to raise some hell when the complete withdrawal deadline of this December 31st is violated.
Returning to the topic of rights: Self-determination is a fundamental right, and it requires peace, almost by definition. When we bomb countries in the name of women's rights, we violate the right of women, men, and children not to be bombed, the right to exist free of that threat and to pursue additional rights without interference. There are ways in which we can help others expand their rights, and types of help that tend to be appreciated and gratefully accepted. But war is usually not one of them. Expanding women's rights around the world is the key to halting the population explosion as well as being a moral imperative for its own sake. But the people of Egypt seem to have done more for women's rights with nonviolence in a couple of weeks than the United States and NATO have done with violence in Afghanistan for 10 years.
Which brings us back to the problem that our own limited rights do not permit us to control our own government. If we did control it, we could not only relate to the rest of the world in better ways, but we could expand our rights in many ways in which we have lost them, as well as in ways that some parts of the world have developed their rights beyond what we have ever known.
I was thinking recently about some of the rights that are now threatened in the United States, because I was comparing Daniel Ellsberg and Bradley Manning. Do you all know who Dan Ellsberg is? How about Bradley Manning? If anyone doesn't, Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers documenting Vietnam War lies 40 years ago. Bradley Manning allegedly leaked evidence of war crimes in Iraq and around the world to Wikileaks. President Obama, who as a candidate said he would reward whistleblowers, instead put Manning into a solitary 6' by 12' cell where he was forced to sleep and stand at attention naked. Dan Ellsberg, in contrast, was left free on his own personal recognizance pending a civilian trial. We can't even be sure than Manning is facing a trial. He's been charged, but no trial date set. He has been held for almost a year. He was recently moved following intense protest to supposedly better conditions, but not freed or tried. President Nixon's gang tried to secretly murder Ellsberg; these were no angels. But they did not believe they could simply imprison and abuse him.
There were other differences as well. More Americans learned much more of the information that Ellsberg made public. We had a relatively good communications system back then. We had a Congress. We had relatively good courts, and courts outside the military were in play. If Manning is given a trial it will be a military trial conducted by subordinates of a commander in chief who has already declared Manning guilty. President Obama claims that Manning leaked information more highly classified than what Ellsberg leaked. The reverse is true. The information that Ellsberg leaked was more top secret than Manning's and known to a handful of people, whereas literally millions of personnel had access to what Manning allegedly leaked. That fact is perhaps most telling. Would millions of Americans have failed to do what Manning did had this happened 40 years ago? I suspect there would have been at least several Daniel Ellsbergs in that size crowd.
Our government prosecuted but failed to convict Ellsberg or the New York Times. Last week the New York Times' lawyer in the Pentagon Papers case published a letter in the Wall Street Journal arguing against prosecuting Wikileaks' Julian Assange under the Espionage Act. He wrote:
"Under the First Amendment, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange cannot be successfully prosecuted for a violation of the Espionage Act unless the publication of WikiLeaks constitutes a clear and present danger to the national security of the U.S. This would be impossible for the government to prove. No one in the government has pointed to any particular leak that Mr. Assange or the New York Times has published as even 'damaging' national security."
Of course, laws mean what judges choose to say they mean, and nothing is so clear cut. But where would this leave Bradley Manning? Our nation now recognizes a category of person who has no right to be freed and no right to be tried. In fact, many Americans are terrified of these people. Moving Guantanamo's prisons from Cuba to Illinois would have done very little for human rights but would probably have caused some heart attacks in Illinois. Can you imagine if Osama bin Laden had been put on trial in the United States? How many terrified television viewers would have been rushed to the hospital? Would bin Laden have been permitted to air his grievances against U.S. foreign policy? Would U.S. failures to prevent the 9-11 attacks have been discussed? What about U.S. support for bin Laden in the 1980s? There was no way in the world that trial would be held, which is why we could be sure the Navy SEALs had been ordered to kill bin Laden even before that fact was reported. For similar reasons of manufactured fear, there is little chance that Manning will be released. He'd have to be put into a witness protection program if he were. So, if a case cannot be developed to prove his guilt, then what . . . ?
And just as we routinely kill people in Pakistan with missiles but pay attention to the killing of bin Laden with a gun, just as we grow outraged at abuses of foreign prisoners that were developed in U.S. prisons, so the treatment of Bradley Manning, the isolation, the lengthy pre-trial imprisonment, is not far removed from how numerous victims of our domestic justice system are treated all the time.
The one right most clearly guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution, prior to the Bill of Rights, is the right of habeas corpus, the right not to be kidnapped or detained or imprisoned without charge and trial. This right was won by nobles from a king of England 800 years ago. Last year a Robin Hood movie gave Robin Hood most of the credit, and I'm sure audiences cheered. But we're losing this right. In 2009, President Obama stood in front of the Constitution and the Magna Carta at the National Archives and declared he would, like President Bush, imprison people indefinitely without trial. In fact, Obama would make that abuse into formal and respectable law, or what passes for law these days. He did so with an executive order on March 7th of this year.
Our Bill of Rights, such as it is, is tattered and torn. We lack meaningful freedom of the press. Protesters are preemptively detained prior to big events, or herded into so-called free-speech zones. Never go into one of those, by the way. The whole world is our free speech zone. The right against warrantless searches and seizures has been done away with in practice and now in legislation too. The Fourth Amendment requires a warrant describing specifically what is to be searched, and requires that the warrant be based on probable cause. FISA (the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) permits, and always permitted even before it was routinely violated and then amended, retroactive warrants based on the flimsiest of evidence.
Our Fifth through Seventh amendments give us the right to grand jury, due process, just compensation for property taken, protection against double jeopardy or self-incrimination, the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial local jury, to be informed of the charges against you, to confront witnesses against you, to compel witnesses in your favor to appear, and to have the assistance of counsel. These rights are being eroded through the vindictive, retributive nature of our domestic justice system as well as through the fear mongering of never-ending war. If a president puts your name on a list of enemies, and Anwar al-Awlaki is not the only American on that list right now, then these rights vanish. Nine years ago, Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee (now a federal judge for life) and Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo (now a law professor and media pundit) wrote a pair of secret memos denying an American citizen named Jose Padilla these rights on the grounds that he was guilty of various offenses. But the memos themselves served as his trial as well as his sentence; Padilla had never been charged with the crimes, much less found guilty. The new Justice Department, at President Obama's direction, has worked very hard to protect Yoo, as well as Bush, Cheney, and the rest of that gang from suits like one that Padilla brought against Yoo, and from any criminal prosecution at home or abroad.
But we need look no further than the case of Troy Davis to see the same rights substantively missing in domestic cases unrelated to charges of terrorism. A justice system that cannot correct itself and that imposes no penalties on its officials when their abuses of justice are exposed can at best provide a formal pretense of due process. I'm glad to see that the people of Georgia are protesting the injustice done and threatened against Troy Davis.
Our Constitution didn't ban the death penalty, but it was written in the 18th century and we've barely tweaked it since. Most of the world has abolished the death penalty, including Canada, Mexico, all of Central America, half of South America, all of Europe, Australia, and much of Africa and Asia, as well as some of our states. The big users of the death penalty are the United States, China, and the nations we call the Middle East. The death penalty is, of course, an action that cannot be corrected.
Our due process rights must be restored to their intended state and then expanded to include protections unavailable in the eighteenth century, including the videotaping of all interrogations and confessions.
The very few ways in which we've expanded constitutional rights in additional amendments still need upkeep as well. We have the right against slavery except as punishment for crime, but we use prison labor, including to produce our weapons and including where the prisoners are not criminals but immigrants. We buy merchandise made by slave labor and in situations very close to slave labor in distant lands, some of them U.S. territories like the Marianas Islands. Farms in this country have held immigrant workers by force and compelled them to work with no compensation. Groups like the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in Florida I know have made great progress, but they've had to work for it. Slavery should of course be banned even as a punishment for crime, and that ban should be enforced. Racial profiling, as contained in these new immigration laws, should be banned as well.
There are other rights we need added to our Constitution.
We need an individual national right to vote, allowing the creation of national uniform standards for elections, and the right to directly elect the president, vice president, and all other elected officials, and to have one's vote publicly and locally counted in a manner that can be repeated and verified if questioned (effectively requiring hand-counted paper ballots), and the right to paid time off work to vote on election day.
We need to strengthen or create some additional rights for those who find themselves within our criminal justice system, including the right to presumption of innocence until proven guilty of a crime, the right to be told the charges against you at the time of your arrest, the right not to be detained without being arrested and charged, the right to obtain and to use in court a videotape of any relevant interrogations or confessions, the right of the accused to be detained separately from those already convicted, the right of juveniles to be detained separately from adults, the right not to be imprisoned for inability to fulfill a contract, the right to a penal system aimed at reformation and social rehabilitation, and the right to compensation for false conviction and punishment.
We need, at long last, to place in our Constitution comprehensive equal rights for women, including the right to equal pay for equal work. We need comprehensive rights for all children, including the right to have their interests given primary consideration in public actions that concern them, and a ban on harmful child labor. We need a right to special care and assistance for mothers, fathers, and children, including paid maternal and family leave. We need these things much more than we need to hear anyone preaching about "family values"!
We should have a right to free education of equal high quality from preschool through college. We should have a right to decent, safe, sanitary and affordable housing. We should have a right to health care of equal high quality -- a right that the state of Vermont may soon establish, if Washington, D.C., doesn't prevent it. And then watch the other 49 states scramble to catch up.
We should have the right to form and join a labor union and the right to strike, the right to employment (not to be confused with antilabor laws that go by the misleading name "right to work"), and the right to a living wage. We should have the right to basic welfare, whether employed or not. And we should have a right to a certain level of equality.
Let me explain that last one.
Surveys have found Americans' assessment of their level of happiness declining significantly. The United States contains 4.5 percent of the world's population and spends 42 percent of the world's health care expenses, and yet Americans are less healthy than the residents of nearly every other wealthy nation and a few poor ones as well. We spend more on criminal justice and have more crime. We're richer and have more poverty. We sell the most weapons to other countries and maintain our own military so enormous that it could be cut by 85 percent and still be the world's largest. We use far more than our share of fossil fuels. Among industrialized nations, the United States is at or near the worst ranking in employment, democracy, wellbeing, food security, life expectancy, education, and percentage of the population in prison, but right at the top in military spending whether measured per capita or as a percentage of GDP or in absolute terms. When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said that a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on the military than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death he wasn't warning us. He was warning our parents and grandparents. We're the dead.
But somehow we're still kicking. And there's one statistic that may help explain these other ones. The United States is also at the top of wealthy nations in terms of wealth and income disparity. You know, up through the Korean War, we raised taxes on the wealthy and corporations to pay for wars, and then reduced those taxes for peace time. Wars are what taxes were invented for in the first place. But during the so-called global war on terror, we've slashed taxes on the wealthy and corporations, and they're still at it up in Washington, with great bipartisan cooperation. We've created an aristocracy, we've forced people to envision their futures as more bleak rather than more prosperous. Developed societies with the healthiest and longest living people, extensive research shows, are not those with the highest average wealth, but those with the greatest equality of wealth. That's not us.
There are many ways to fix this, but one proposal I like is the maximum wage. Just set the maximum wage at 10 or 20 times the minimum wage. Tax income progressively up to 100% for income above the maximum wage. The maximum wage could be increased, but only by increasing the minimum wage.
The United States could be very creative in developing new rights, but it doesn't need to be. We are currently hold-outs on international treaties agreed to by most of the rest of the world, treaties which if ratified and upheld could expand our rights and integrate us into a world community in which we respect the rights of others.
The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights went into effect in 1976 and has been ratified by 159 nations but not the United States. U.S. ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights included major exceptions and qualifications that rendered it toothless, and the United States has not ratified two additional protocols. The United States is the only wealthy nation that has not ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women or the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The United States and Somalia are the only two nations that have not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child. And so forth.
That we are holding out as a rogue state on numerous treaties does not mean we are violating them all or that every other nation is actually complying with them. But it means we insist on the right to violate such standards if we choose. We refuse to join the other 95% of humanity on equal terms. Adopting that radically different attitude and position will be key to enriching our own rights and to establishing them as human rights rather than American rights. If we can do that, we will be inclined as well to respect the rights of non-American humans. We will be obliged not only to try to help others, but more importantly and more urgently to do no harm, to cease approaching the world through the force of war and economic exploitation. We would not just cease supporting U.S.-friendly brutal dictators when they stopped being U.S. friendly or when their people threw them out of power. We would back democracy in substance as well as in rhetoric. We would view the Arab Spring not as a threat to Pax Americana but as a welcome expansion of human rights.
Tunisia and Egypt are where we in this country should be looking for inspiration, just as nonviolent organizers there have looked to the U.S. civil rights movement.
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18) 5 Mega-Banks May Have Defrauded Homeowners -- Will the Justice Department Actually Prosecute?
By Amy Goodman and Shahien Nasiripour, Democracy Now!
Posted on May 18, 2011, Printed on May 19, 2011
http://www.alternet.org/story/150994/5_mega-banks_may_have_defrauded_homeowners_--_will_the_justice_department_actually_prosecute
The Huffington Post has revealed that a set of confidential federal audits accuse the nation's five largest mortgage companies of defrauding taxpayers in their handling of foreclosures on homes purchased with government-backed loans. The audits conclude the banks cheated the government by overvaluing their losses on foreclosed homes and submitting faulty and defective documents to get federal reimbursement. According to the audit, the banks-Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Financial-violated the False Claims Act, which protects the government from fraudulent billing. The findings have been referred to the U.S. Department of Justice.
AMY GOODMAN: The Huffington Post has revealed a set of confidential federal audits accuse the nation's five largest mortgage companies of defrauding taxpayers in their handling of foreclosures on homes purchased with government-backed loans. The audits conclude the banks cheated the government by overvaluing their losses on foreclosed homes and submitting faulty and defective documents to get federal reimbursement. According to the audit, the banks violated the False Claims Act, which protects the government from fraudulent billing. The findings have been referred to the Justice Department.
The companies named are Bank of America, JPMorgan Chase, Wells Fargo, Citigroup and Ally Financial. Two of the banks, including Bank of America, refused to cooperate with investigators. The audit concludes Bank of America failed to correct its practices even after renewing foreclosures following a brief moratorium last year. The moratorium was imposed following revelations bank employees had approved thousands of foreclosure affidavits and other documents without proper vetting. State officials are hoping to use the audit's findings as leverage in their ongoing talks with the banks to settle the foreclosure fraud allegations.
For more, we're joined by Shahien Nasiripour, a senior business reporter for the Huffington Post. He has been reporting extensively on the talks over the settling of the foreclosure fraud allegations and broke the latest story on the audit's findings.
Welcome to Democracy Now!
SHAHIEN NASIRIPOUR: Thanks for having me.
AMY GOODMAN: Explain it in full detail.
SHAHIEN NASIRIPOUR: In terms of this particular audit? So, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, which-they oversee the FHA, the Federal Housing Administration-they have an internal auditor, the inspector general. So the inspector general went back, and they reviewed foreclosures on homes that were purchased with government-backed loans. And they looked to see how-you know, when the banks repossess these homes, and if they sell for the value that's less than the outstanding mortgage, they'll file with FHA a claim for reimbursement, because they're insured by the government. And so, the HUD IG went back and looked at how the foreclosures were being processed, whether they used defective documents, false affidavits, any other kind of faulty documents which may not have conformed with state or local laws or federal rules. And for these five institutions, they found that they submitted false documents, and they claimed government reimbursement, and so taxpayers suffered losses. And because they defrauded the government, the government is now alleging they broke the False Claims Act, which is a Civil War-era law used to go after folks who swindle taxpayers. And so, that's where we're at right now.
AMY GOODMAN: So, who's being held accountable right now? How does this fit into the settlement talks that the government is engaged in with these banks?
SHAHIEN NASIRIPOUR: So, the HUD IG referred these to Justice. So nothing can really happen unless Justice brings charges. But now the pressure is on the Department of Justice, because now we know the existence of these reports. In terms of the ongoing settlement discussions, the states and their federal partners who are involved in talking with the five institutions, they were hoping to use these audits, kind of keep them in their back pocket as leverage, if-you know, last week, the banks gave what was perceived as a lowball offer, $5 billion, to settle all claims, all mortgage-related probes. And state and federal officials deemed that far too low. And so, now we have these audits that are on the table, and the banks know that essentially the government is here to play ball, and they're not messing around.
AMY GOODMAN: Talk about Bank of America, in particular, Shahien.
SHAHIEN NASIRIPOUR: So, Bank of America, back last autumn, they halted all home seizures in judicial foreclosure states. These are states where you have to actually go to court to repossess someone's homes. And they kind of expanded their moratorium because there were revelations that they employ so-called robo-signers and they used faulty and defective documents. When you go to seize someone's home, essentially you've got to cross all your T's and dot all your I's. You have to swear before the court that you've reviewed all the documents, all the documents are truthful, you've gone over everything. And they allegedly didn't do so, and they didn't do so on a mass scale. And so, they halted home seizures. About 10 days later, they start them up, and they say that they had fixed everything and that everything was on the up and up. Well, the HUD IG says that it's actually not true. They didn't correct all their problems. They still had deficiencies. Yet they still went through and claimed that everything was OK. That's one thing.
The second thing is, BofA is one of two firms that allegedly did not cooperate with investigators, which-you know, on one hand, firms like BofA, Wells Fargo, Citi, JPMorgan Chase, they're subject to thousands of lawsuits and thousands-God knows how many regulatory investigations. So it's interesting that while they make bank employees available, they make documents available, they apparently chose not to cooperate with this one. That's something I'm still trying to dig into. I'm actually not clear on how they didn't cooperate. A lot of the details really aren't clear, because these are confidential audits.
AMY GOODMAN: The State of New York has also launched an investigation into Bank of America, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley over the mortgage security operations at the three banks.
SHAHIEN NASIRIPOUR: Correct. So, the New York Attorney General, Eric Schneiderman, he's empowered with the Martin Act, which is this law that's actually kind of amazing, because the New York Attorney General can really investigate whatever he wants with respect to Wall Street and with respect to securities. He's not hamstrung like other states who don't have these-they don't have these statutes on the books. And so, he can look at pretty much anything he wants. And right now he's focused on mortgages. So he's looking at essentially predatory lending, how these loans were bundled and packaged into securities, whether they followed the law, whether they deceived investors-the whole gamut.
AMY GOODMAN: One last question, Shahien, and that's about banks foreclosing illegally on active-duty soldiers.
SHAHIEN NASIRIPOUR: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: The significance of this? A review of about 2,000 loans that experienced foreclosure, what, about 50 active-duty soldiers, their homes were foreclosed on?
SHAHIEN NASIRIPOUR: Well, that's what we know of. That's based on-government regulators looked at 2,800 loans. They looked at 14 mortgage firms.
AMY GOODMAN: We have 10 seconds.
SHAHIEN NASIRIPOUR: OK. Out of two of those 14, they found almost 50. So who knows how many actually were illegally foreclosed on?
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Shahien Nasiripour is senior business reporter for the Huffington Post.
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19) Secret FBI documents reveal attack on democratic rights of anti-war and international solidarity activists
Committee to Stop FBI Repression Statement (May 18, 2011)
For info go to StopFBI.net
Below is the statement for our press conference today where we publicized FBI documents left behind after the Sept. 24 raids.
FBI agents, who raided the home of Mick Kelly and Linden Gawboy, took with them thousands of pages of documents and books, along with computers, cell phones and a passport. By mistake, they also left something behind; the operation plans for the raid, “Interview questionsâ€_ for anti-war and international solidarity activists, duplicate evidence collection forms, etc. The file of secret FBI documents was accidently mixed in with Gawboyâ€(tm)s files, and was found in a filing cabinet on April 30. We are now releasing them to the public.
The raid at the Kelly/Gawboy home was one of the many coordinated raids at Minneapolis homes and the offices of the Anti-War Committee on September 24, 2010. Two additional homes were raided in Chicago. To date, 23 anti-war and international solidarity activists have received subpoenas to appear in front of a Chicago Grand Jury headed by U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.
Taken as a whole, the secret FBI file shows the willful disregard for the rights of anti-war and international solidarity activists - particularrly the first amendment rights to freedom of speech and association. The documents make it clear that legal activity in solidarity with the peoples of Colombia and Palestine is being targeted. The documents use McCarthy-era language, which gives one the feel that the 1950s red scare has returned. And finally, the documents show the chilling plans for the armed raid that took place at the home of Kelly and Gawboy on September 24, 2010.
The documents show that public advocacy for the people of Colombia was the genesis of the FBI investigation. The ‘Operations Orderâ€(tm) for the FBI SWAT Team states “The captioned case was initially predicated on the activities of Meredith Aby and Jessica Rae Sundin in support of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, a U.S. State Department designated foreign terrorist organization (FTO), to include their travel to FARC controlled territory.â€_
While we have no way of knowing if it was speaking tours or educational events on Colombia that got them so riled up, there is something we can state with certainty: There is nothing illegal about traveling to Colombia, or visiting the areas where the FARC is in charge. This is something that journalists, including U.S. journalists, do, and we have yet to hear of their doors being broken down. Upon returning from Colombia, Aby and Sundin spoke at many public events about their experiences.
The FBI interview questions for Meredith Aby ask “1) Have you ever met Lilia [sic] Obando? 2) Where? 3) When? 4) Why?â€_ Liliana Obando is a well-known Colombian trade unionist who spoke in the Twin Cities at an event organized by the Anti-War Committee. She received a visa to travel in the U.S. from the U.S. government. She spoke about the sickening human rights violations that were being carried out by the Colombian government and its paramilitary allies.
While we understand that the Colombian government is the third largest recipient of U.S military aid, and that government officials would prefer that that people here in the U.S. donâ€(tm)t get a chance to hear about human rights abuses committed with their tax dollars, the fact remains: there is nothing criminal in trying to learn the truth. The FBI is attacking the right of anti-war activists to speak out against U.S. foreign policy.
Likewise, the “interview questionsâ€_ make a big deal about delegations that visited Palestine. The Israeli authorities try to disrupt these trips because people return from them and expose the gross human rights violations that are carried out in the context of the military occupation. But once again - this is a legal activity that activists have every riight to engage in.
The documents show how the FBI investigation expanded outwards, starting with Colombia and soon focusing on Palestine. How did the FBI get involved? The most likely explanation is that a undercover police officer going by the name “Karen Sullivanâ€_ infiltrated the Anti-War Committee shortly before the 2008 Republican National Convention. Among the first people she met were Meredith Aby and Jess Sundin, who often spoke at public events about what they saw in Colombia. Karen Sullivan - the professional liar - then gave her reports to the FBI, paving the road to the September 24 raids.
The New McCarthyism
When Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy went on a red-baiting witch hunt in the 1950s, communists, socialists and progressives of all stripes were hounded out of jobs, housing, the entertainment industry and institutions of higher education. More than a few people were jailed for their ideas. The secret FBI documents indicate an investigation is underway that takes its cues from this shameful past.
The FBI documents include 57 interview questions about Freedom Road Socialist Organization, the organization that some of those who were raided or subpoenaed to the Grand Jury are members of. The questions include; “Are you a member?â€_ “How many members are there?â€(tm)â€(tm) “Who are the leaders?â€_ And on and on and on. It is like pages of the calendar have been turned back 60 years.
In the United States there is a constitutional right to association. Like-minded people are allowed to form groups and political parties that promote their views. FRSO members, along with others, were very active in organizing the massive anti-war protests at the Republican National Convention. They participate in the labor movement, community organizing, and the anti-war movement too. And they advocate that capitalism should be abolished and replaced with socialism. Given the bank bailout, continuous wars and the economic crisis it is not unreasonable to see these activities and views as a breath of fresh air.
“Dangerousâ€_ raid
In the documents, the “Operations orderâ€_ for FBI SWAT for “Operation Principal Partsâ€_ the raid on the Kelly/Gawboy home has the word “DANGEROUSâ€_ in underlined bold type at the top of the page. FBI agents were told to bring assault rifles, machine guns and two extra clips of ammunition for each of their side arms. Two paramedics were to stand by in the event of causalities. Other documents include photos of Kelly and Gawboy, as well as pictures of stairs leading to their front door and the front door itself.
What transpired on September 24 was this. Gawboy was awoken by the FBI pounding on the door. When she stated she wanted to see the search warrant, agents used a battering ram on the door, breaking the hardware and shattering a fish tank in the process. Gawboy was taken down the front steps in her nightgown while the FBI swat team entered her home.
The justification for this armed home invasion is given in the “Operations planâ€_ - “Kelly is believed to be the owner of an unknown number of firearms which may be at his residence...â€_
Kelly, who learned to shoot while in Boy Scouts, owns guns - just liike a lot of Minnesotans. The “Operation Planâ€_ also claims that Kelly “offered to provide weapons trainingâ€_ - an outright lie that originated with the police infiltrator “Karen Sullivanâ€_ or a fiction writer at the FBI office.
The bottom line is this: there can be no justification for the raid in the first place, and still less for it to be done by agents smashing doors and wielding machine guns. This is a recipe for people getting hurt or killed.
The events of September 24 and the ongoing grand jury are not about “material support of terrorism,â€_ as any normal person would understand it. What is happening is this: anti-war and international solidarity activists are being targeted for practicing our rights to speak out and organize. We have done nothing wrong. Our activism is making this world a better place.
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20) America's Appalling Human Rights Record
By Stephen Lendman
May 18, 2011
http://www.opednews.com/articles/America-s-Appalling-Human-by-Stephen-Lendman-110518-701.html
Coincidental with high-level US - China May 9 and 10 talks, the Atlantic magazine quoted Hillary Clinton calling China's human rights record "deplorable." She also suggested possible unrest erupting like in the Middle East, then added:
"They're worried, and they are trying to stop history, which is a fool's errand. They cannot do it. But they're going to hold it off as long as possible," ignoring America's scandalous human rights record, by far the world's worse.
Each year, the State Department publishes human rights reports for over 190 countries. Its April 8-released 2010 China assessment can be accessed through the following link:
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/160451.pdf
Unsparing in its harshness, it calls China "an authoritarian state in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) constitutionally is the paramount authority," practicing:
-- "Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Life;
-- Disappearance(s);
-- Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment;"
-- Harsh and Degrading "Prison and Detention Center Conditions;
-- Arbitrary Arrest(s) or Detention(s);"
-- Repressive and Corrupt "Police and Security Apparatus" Practices;
-- Harsh "Arrest Procedures and Treatment While in Detention;
-- Denial of Fair Public Trial(s);"
-- Incarcerating "Political Prisoners and Detainees;
-- Arbitrary Interference with Privacy, Family, Home, or Correspondence;"
-- Limited "Freedom of Speech and Press;"
-- Limited "Academic Freedom;"
-- Restricted "Freedom of Assembly and Association;"
-- Lack of Free "Elections and Political Participation;
-- Official Corruption and (Lack of) Government Transparency;
-- Discrimination, Societal Abuse, and Trafficking in Persons;
-- Societal Abuses, Discrimination, and Acts of Violence Based on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity;
-- (Restricted) Worker Rights;"
-- Repression in Tibet;
-- Restricted Freedom in Hong Kong;
-- Restricted Freedom in Macau;
-- and more in a 145 page report.
China Responds
Indeed, China's no model human rights champion. However, America's record is far worse at home and abroad, yet self-criticism is absent. Moreover, rarely do major media reports discuss abuses. Instead they regurgitate managed news, suppressing full and accurate disclosure of Washington's most deplorable human and civil rights record at home and abroad.
On April 10, two days after the State Department's report, China's Information Office of the State Council published its own comprehensive report titled, "The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2010," saying:
"As in previous years, (US assessments) are full of distortions and accusations of the human rights situation in more than 190 countries and regions including China. However, (America) turned a blind eye to its own terrible human rights situation and seldom mentioned it."
China did, explaining internally suppressed information about:
-- America's scandalous human rights record;
-- a society in social crisis;
-- a domestic armed camp under police state laws, suppressing democratic freedoms, criminalizing dissent, spying illegally, controlling information, and persecuting political prisoners unjustly by denying them due process and judicial fairness;
-- torture, other abuses, and ill-treatment as official US policy at home and abroad;
-- having the world's largest global gulag;
-- systematic targeted killings and illegal detentions;
-- permanent wars for unchallengeable global dominance:
-- targeting nonbelligerent nations illegally without cause;
-- committing ruthless state terror;
-- endangering world stability and peace;
-- illegally transferring public wealth to America's aristocracy;
-- stealing elections;
-- institutionalizing two-party duopoly control, mocking the notion of democratic elections; and
-- as a result, is hated and feared globally, as well as to a growing extent at home.
In its report, State Department charges were mostly without corroboration. In contrast, China, under six major headings, used data from the US Justice Department (DOJ), FBI, other US agencies, state ones, and think tanks, as well as international and US media reports. They reveal a far different America than official Washington and managed major media reports, concealing dark side truths important to reveal.
(1) Life, Property and Personal Security
According to the Justice Department, one in five Americans are crime victims annually, by far the world's highest percentage. In 2009:
-- an estimated 4.3 million violent crimes were committed;
-- another 15.6 million property crimes; and
-- 133,000 million personal thefts against US residents aged 12 or older.
Easy access to guns exacerbates the problem, Reuters saying America ranks first globally on number of privately-owned firearms, an estimated 200 million, or two for every three residents. The fallout includes about 12,000 annual gun murders. Weapons are used in over one-fifth of violent crimes and nearly half of all robberies.
(2) Civil and Political Rights
Severe violations occur regularly, including:
-- privacy abuses; according to ACLU figures, more than 6,600 travelers were subjected to electronic device searches from October 1, 2008 - June 2, 2010, about half US citizens;
-- lawsuits were filed against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for authorizing search and seizures of laptops, cellphones and other electronic devices, without reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing;
-- refused entry into America, Colombian journalist Hollman Morris lost a Harvard fellowship by being unjustifiably accused of "terrorist activities;" many others are treated the same way;
-- the ACLU, Asian Law Caucus, and San Francisco Bay Guardian sued for release of FBI records on its repressive investigation and surveillance of Bay Area Muslim communities because of their faith and ethnicity, not suspicion of criminality;
-- in October 2010, Transportation Security Administration (TSA) officials ordered subjecting airport passengers to intrusive full-body scanning or pat-downs; they constitute a violation of privacy, civil liberties, and freedom of religion in some cases;
-- torture, other abuses, and ill-treatment are major problems in state and federal detentions to unjustly punish and extract information and confessions; reports surface regularly like on May 12, 2010, the Chicago Tribune saying local police were charged with arresting people without warrants, shackling them to walls or metal benches, withholding food, denying bathroom breaks, and providing no bedding; brutal beatings are also common, especially against people of color and Muslims;
-- at about 2.4 million, America, by far, has the world's largest prison population, mostly for nonviolent offenses; Blacks and Latinos are especially affected; overcrowding is a serious problem as well as torture, beatings, other abuses, and confinement of an estimated 25,000 inmates in isolation, another form of torture that turns human beings to mush;
-- political prisoners and wrongful convictions are also common, including false charges of terrorism and murder, mostly against Blacks, Latinos, and Muslims;
-- calling itself a "beacon of democracy," it's the best money can buy, electoral success depending heavily on raising the largest amount;
-- "while advocating Internet freedom," strict cyberspace restrictions are imposed, including by the Senate in June 2010 approving the Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act; if enacted, it will give authorities "absolute power" to shut down the Internet under a declared national emergency, whether or not one exists; a February 17, 2011 Foreign Policy magazine article said federal Internet policies are "full of problems and contradictions;"
(3) Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
-- real unemployment remains stubbornly high at over 20%, way above official figures; so is true inflation at about 10% because of sharply rising food, energy, medical, college tuition, and other costs excluded or downplayed in official figures;
-- record high poverty exists, up to double US Census Bureau numbers based on real cost of living estimates;
-- hunger is a growing problem with a record numbers of people on food stamps, millions more food insecure, many others needing emergency help, and growing numbers not sure about their next meal;
-- homelessness also rose sharply, many hundreds of thousands affected nationally;
-- households without health insurance exceed 50 million people; a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) November 2010 report showed 22% of Americans aged 16 - 64 had no coverage; in California, it's nearly one in four.
(4) Racial Discrimination
-- a longstanding problem, it affects all aspects of social life, but rarely reported; a May 2010 AP/Univision Poll found 61% of Hispanics and 52% of Blacks affected; on October 28, 2010, The New York Times said more than 60% of Latinos call discrimination a "major problem;"
-- American minorities enjoy fewer political rights, experience much higher unemployment, have lower incomes, fewer benefits, higher poverty, and growing inequality in education;
-- they also lack proper healthcare, face law enforcement and judicial discrimination, and are victimized most often by hate crimes;
-- Latino immigrant rights are seriously compromised, including unjustifiable detentions, interrogations, and targeting for appearing to be Mexican, Latin American, or indigenous non-whites;
(5) Rights of Women and Children
Gender discrimination is widespread;
-- in August 2010, the London Daily Mail said 90% of US women endure workplace discrimination;
-- only 3% of Fortune 500 CEOs are women;
-- women in comparable jobs to men earn only three-fourths as much on average;
-- companies like Wal-Mart have a disgraceful gender discrimination history;
-- millions of US women are victimized by sexual assaults and violence;
-- an October 2010 National Institute of Justice report estimated 20 million annual rape victims;
-- female prisoners are extremely vulnerable to rape, mostly by guards and prison officials;
-- 25% of women experience domestic violence at some time in their lives;
-- women's health rights aren't properly protected, especially for people of color;
-- child poverty is severe;
-- on November 21, 2010, the Washington Post said 25% of children endure hunger, citing the US Department of Agriculture;
-- over 60% of public school teachers say hunger affects children in their classrooms;
-- violence against children is widespread; according to Love Our Children USA, an estimated nine million are victimized; and
-- children's physical and mental health are insecure as a result of neglect, violence, sexual abuse, and societal indifference to their status.
(6) US Human Rights Violations Against Other Nations
America's longstanding human rights record abroad is appalling. As a result, in the last two decades alone, US wars, sanctions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan caused millions of deaths and overall depravation and human misery, mostly affecting civilian men, women and children. Moreover, in both countries, the death toll mounts daily, often by cold-blooded murder.
On September 18, 2010, for example, the Washington Post said a 5th Stryker Combat Brigade "kill team" targeted civilians, committing random murders, dismembering corpses, and hoarding human bones as trophies.
Indefinite detentions and torture are rampant. According to a joint May 2010 UN Human Rights Council/Special Rapporteur report titled, "Joint Study on Global Practices in Relation to Secret Detention in Relation in the Context of Counterterrorism," America commits appalling human rights abuses, including:
-- extraordinary renditions;
-- disappearances;
-- secret detentions;
-- torture, other abuses, and ill-treatment;
-- cold-blooded murder; and
-- various other crimes against humanity.
Despite promising to close Guantanamo and end these practices, they continue seamlessly under Obama, showing as much contempt for human rights as Bush II.
In fact, the rights of numerous nations are violated. For example, Cuba's been embargoed for half a century, harming the welfare of its citizens. On October 26, 2010, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a resolution titled, "Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba" for the 19th consecutive time. Only Washington and Israel voted against it.
Under the UN Genocide Convention's Article II, America stands guilty. So does Israel for blockading Gaza. Both countries repeatedly violate, abuse and ignore international law.
Moreover, Washington never ratified:
-- the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights;
-- the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women;
-- the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities; and
-- the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
On November 5, 2010, the UN Universal Periodic Review (UPR) enumerated serious US human rights violations, including:
-- failure to ratify key human rights conventions;
-- the rights of ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples;
-- racial discrimination; and
-- maintaining Guantanamo and other overseas torture prisons.
The UN Human Rights Council and most countries condemned America for these policies, noting that while paying lip service to human rights, Washington grievously violates them.
At the same time, it points fingers, enumerates abuses globally, yet turns a blind eye to its own arrogantly, glaringly and hypocritically.
As a result, its most abusive practices continue abroad and at home, a different reality than the sanitized major media, film, academia, and other dominant versions of a nonexistent fictional America.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at Email address removed. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/ .=
Author's Bio: I was born in 1934, am a retired, progressive small businessman concerned about all the major national and world issues, committed to speak out and write about them.
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21) LETTER TO PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA BY NOBEL PRIZE WINNER ADOLFO PEREZ ESQUIVEL, BUENOS AIRES, MAY 5, 2011:
May 14th, 2011 3:18 pm ET
http://www.examiner.com/nonpartisan-in-national/revolt-from-us-war-criminals-letter-from-a-real-nobel-peace-prize-laureate#ixzz1MjyVPw3M
Below is a voice that you should consider for your highest expression of citizen virtue. What I have to say are in these two articles:
Open proposal for US revolution: end unlawful wars, parasitic economics
Common Sense for new American Revolution: revolt from US government by dicts
LETTER TO PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA BY NOBEL PRIZE WINNER ADOLFO PEREZ ESQUIVEL, BUENOS AIRES, MAY 5, 2011:
FROM NOBEL TO NOBEL
Dear Barack,
In addressing you I do it fraternally and, at the same time, to express my concern and indignation after witnessing the destruction and death caused in several nations in the name of "freedom and democracy", two words that have been twisted and stripped of meaning, and how you end up justifying murder, which was cheered up as if you were talking about a sports event.
My indignation refers to the big celebration of this assassination by North American social sectors, chiefs of state in Europe and other countries...a murder ordered by your administration and the satisfaction in your smiling face while stating that it was "in the name of justice".
You didn't intend to seize and judge him for his alleged crimes, which makes us believe that your real intent was to assassinate him.
The dead are mute and fearing that Bin Laden could disclose compromising facts for the USA, you decided to kill him, ensuring his permanent silence, unaware that by doing this you have reinforced our suspicions.
When you were granted the Nobel Prize I sent you a letter which read: "Barack, I am astounded by your having been presented with the Nobel Prize, but now that you have it you must use to promote peace among nations; you have all the possibilities to do it...to end the wars and begin correcting the severe crisis in your own country and the world".
Unfortunately, you have increased hatred and betrayed the principles you assumed during your electoral campaign, such as ending the invasions in Afghanistan and Iraq; closing the prisons in Guantanamo and Abu Graib, but you haven't done it, quite to the contrary, you decided to start another war in Libya, backed up by NATO and the shameful resolution by UNO to support you, when this organization, diminished and weak, has lost its path and has been subjugated to the whims and interests of the dominant powers.
The foundational premise of the UNO is to defend and promote peace and dignity among nations. Its Chart begins saying: "Us, the peoples of the world..." currently ignored by this organization.
I would like to recall a mystic and teacher who has meant a great influence in my life: priest Thomas Merton of the Abbey of Gethsemane in Kentucky, who stated: "The greater necessity of our time is to cleanse the enormous mass of mental garbage in our consciousness, which has turned public life into a mass disease. Without this domestic cleansing we will be unable to start seeing... and if we can't see, we can't think".
You were very young, Barack, during the Vietnam war; maybe you don't remember the huge opposition of the North American people to such war.
The dead, injured, and maimed in Vietnam are painful consequences...
Thomas Merton also said while analyzing a mail stamp exhibiting the legend: "el ejército norteamericano es clave para la paz" (The U.S. Army, key to peace"). No country possesses the key to anything other than war...power has nothing to do with peace. The more men are destined to the military, more destruction and violations occur.
I have shared with and accompanied Vietnam veterans, in particular Brian Wilson and his mates, all of them victims of that and all wars.
Life is unpredictable and surprising; it possesses the fragrance and beauty God gave us and must protect to ensure a fair and fraternal life for future generations; to reinstate balance in our Mother Earth.
If we don't react and change the current situation of suicidal pride, dragging the peoples to deep corners where hope is death, it will be very hard to see the light. Mankind deserves a better fate.
You know that hope is like the flower who flourishes in mud and blossoms in all splendor exhibiting its beauty. Leopoldo Marechal, the notorious Argentine writer, used to say that "you get off the maze climbing to the top".
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I believe, Barack, that after erring the way, you find yourself within a maze, unable to find the exit and instead, you submerge deeper and deeper in violence, uncertainty...devoured by the thirst for power; dragged by the huge corporations, and the military, thinking that you possess the might to do whatever you want, and that the world must surrender to the USA, because you have the weaponry and invade countries in total impunity. This is painful reality but there is also the valiant resistance of the people who don't yield to the greed of the dominant powers.
So huge are the atrocities perpetrated by your country that it could take a long time to discuss them; they are also a challenge to historians who would have to peer deeper to understand the behavior, the politics, the greatness and pettiness which have led North America to dominate the minds of its society preventing them to see other realities.
Bin Laden, alleged author of the attack to the Twin Towers, has been made the Satan who has terrorized the world and the USA propaganda has identified him as the "core of evil" which has served you well to wage the wars so craved by the military industry to merchandise their murderous trinkets.
Did you know that those who have investigated the painful events of September 11 have declared that such attacks were self-inflicted...the crash of a plane against the Pentagon and the evacuation of the Towers the previous day...all of it concocted to justify the invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan, and now against Libya, based on lies and arrogance...that you are entitled to "save the peoples in the name of "freedom and the defense of democracy", cynically stating that the deaths of women and children are "collateral damage". I experienced all this in Iraq, in Iran, when you bombarded their cities and hospitals and a shelter for children victimized and deemed "collateral damage".
Pronouncing a speech void of values and meaning, you dub assassination as "death" and boast that "finally, Bin Laden is "dead". By no means, am I defending Bin Laden, as I have always been against terrorism by both, armed gangs and the government which your country exerts in several regions of the world, generating violence to maintain your control world-wide, and I wonder: if there is a "core of evil" how would you call it?
Could all of this be the reason for the fear North Americans live in...afraid of the vengeance from those dubbed as the "core of evil"...the superficiality and hypocrisy used to justify the unjustifiable.
Peace is a practice of life; the harmonic relations among peoples; it is a challenge to mankind's consciousness; its path is difficult but hopeful; a path where people construct their own history. Peace is not something you give away...is something you build...and this is precisely what you don't have, lad: courage to assume your historical responsibility towards your country and the world.
You cannot live immersed in a labyrinth of fear and control from those who truly rule the USA, ignoring international treaties, conventions and protocols of governments who sign but don't comply with any agreement and hypocritically speak in the name of freedom and law.
How dare you speak of peace if you don't want to honor your commitments, except those to benefit the USA?
How dare you talk about freedom when you keep innocent people in your prisons of Guantanamo, USA, Iraq, Abu Graib, and Afghanistan?
How dare you speak of human rights and dignity when you violate them permanently and fight all those who don't share your ideology and, instead, must endure your abuse?
How dare you send soldiers to Haiti after a devastating earthquake, instead of sending humanitarian aid to that suffering country?
How dare you speak of freedom when you massacre the peoples in the Middle East and foster wars and torture in endless violence which hurt Palestinians and Israeli?
Barack: try to look at the top of the maze...you may find the star that guides you, even knowing you will never reach it,quoting Eduardo Galeano. Try to be consistent with what you say and do...this is the only way to avoid losing the way.
The Nobel Prize is a tool which must be used to serve the peoples, but never for personal vanity
I wish you find the strength and hope, and also wish you find the courage to mend your ways to attain wisdom and peace.
Our appreciation to Patricia Barba Avila for this translation. Also, to Camilo Perez Bustillo, Law professor at UNAM and lead Attorney for the 'International Tribunal of Conscience' Pueblos en Movimiento
Continue reading on Examiner.com: Revolt from US War Criminals: letter from a real Nobel Peace Prize Laureate - National Nonpartisan | Examiner.com http://www.examiner.com/nonpartisan-in-national/revolt-from-us-war-criminals-letter-from-a-real-nobel-peace-prize-laureate#ixzz1Movg70M5
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22) Why Did US Medical Personnel Remove High-Value Detainee Abu Zubaydah's Eye?
Wednesday 18 May 2011
by: Jason Leopold, Truthout
http://www.truthout.org/abu-zubaydah-eye-removed-guantanamo/1305727623
Shortly after he was captured in March 2002 at a safe house in Faisalabad, Pakistan, following an early morning raid jointly conducted by the CIA, FBI, Pakistani police and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), Abu Zubaydah woke up at a black site prison in Thailand and discovered that his left eye had been surgically removed.
Zubaydah, who is wearing an eye patch in a photograph included in his Guantanamo threat assessment file released by WikiLeaks last month, apparently never consented to the medical procedure and to this day has no idea why it was done, according to one of Zubaydah's attorneys.
"I can tell you that Abu Zubaydah has no explanation for the loss of his eye," said Brent Mickum, who has represented Zubaydah since 2007. "He continually wants me to make inquiries to try and determine the circumstances for which he lost his eye, but no one has been forthcoming."
Zubaydah, the first high-value detainee captured in the "war on terror" whom the Bush administration had falsely claimed helped plan the 9/11 attacks and was the "No. 3" person in al-Qaeda, was shot in the leg, groin and stomach with an AK-47 during the March 28, 2002, raid. He allegedly attempted to evade capture by trying to jump from the rooftop of his safe house to the roof of a neighboring house. But the wounds he sustained did not include injuries to his eyes, face or head, according to intelligence officials and photographs of Zubaydah taken as he lay unconscious in a pool of blood, teetering on the brink of death, following the raid.
Retired CIA officer John Kiriakou, who was the head of counterterrorism operations in Pakistan and led the team involved in Zubaydah's capture, told Truthout recently that Zubaydah "had both eyes" when the suspected terrorist was escorted from a Pakistani hospital to a Gulf Stream jet a day or so after the raid where a trauma surgeon from Johns Hopkins University the CIA tapped to perform surgery on the suspected terrorist was waiting.
So, what happened?
A US counterterrorism official, responding to a query from Truthout, said, "Zubaydah had a preexisting eye condition when he was captured" and "American medical personnel treated the condition, [but] he ultimately lost the eye."
The revelation stands as the first piece of new medical information related to Zubaydah's case to surface in years.
But Mickum doesn't believe the government is being truthful.
"It is patently false to state Zubaydah lost his eye due to a preexisting condition and that is belied by the evidence that I have from [Zubaydah], which I can't discuss due to the government's protective order," said Mickum. "My client had two good eyes before he was seized. I'm aware of no information from my client, the government or any other source that he had a 'preexisting eye condition.'"
The counterterrorism official, who was speaking on behalf of the US government, did not respond to follow-up questions about what Zubaydah's pre-existing condition was, when the surgery to remove his eye took place, who performed it and where it was done, whether officials at the CIA (who had custody of Zubaydah) signed off on the procedure, whether measures were taken to try and save Zubaydah's eye and whether the CIA or any other intelligence official told Zubaydah why his eye was being removed.
Evisceration or Enucleation?
Dr. Jonathan Macy, who runs the Macy Eye Center in Los Angeles and is an associate clinical professor of ophthalmology at UCLA and the University of Southern California, said the "indications for removal of an eye include trauma, infection, pain, tumor and sympathetic ophthalmia," where a piercing injury to one eye results in inflammation of the uninjured eye.
"If the eye is removed primarily at the time of trauma, the indication is a blind eye that cannot be put back together," Macy said. "An alternative scenario would involve primary repair of the ruptured globe and the subsequent development of infection or pain in a blind eye."
Macy added that "removal of eyes is done with either evisceration or enucleation."
"Evisceration is usually the preferred procedure," Macy said. "With evisceration, the contents of the globe are removed, but the outer wall, or sclera of the eye in retained. A silicone ball implant is inserted within the sclera to create volume. The volume within the orbit allows proper fitting of a prosthesis. When the whole globe must be removed, that is an enucleation."
But Macy said it is unknown which procedure Zubaydah underwent because the counterterrorism official would only say that "he ultimately lost the eye."
A 1998 passport picture of Zubaydah, which for years was the only photograph available, shows him wearing a pair of glasses and what appears to be a shadow or scar over his left eye, possibly the result of a shrapnel wound he suffered a decade prior to his capture.
Macy said in that photograph Zubaydah's "left orbit may have already contained a prosthesis," but Macy did not take a position as to whether that was the case.
"When one eye is normal and the other eye has a prosthesis, they rarely appear symmetrical," he said. Zubaydah's "eyes look slightly different from one another, but not to any marked degree."
Macy also viewed the photograph of Zubaydah lying unconscious that was taken immediately following the raid and said Zubaydah's eyes appears to be "fine."
"I do not see any see any cuts or big lacerations and no cuts around the face or nose," Macy said.
Regarding the counterterrorism official's account about Zubaydah's pre-existing eye condition and the circumstances that led to his left eye being removed, Macy said the scenario is conceivable.
"If the eye had suffered significant direct trauma, there are usually signs of injury to the surrounding skin," Macy said. "The photos don't show collateral damage. Therefore, the official explanation is very plausible."
"Rather than perforation causing infection, an infection of the cornea may lead to perforation of the globe," Macy added. "In this case, as there is a claim of a preexisting condition, [Zubaydah] may have suffered a previous corneal ulcer that thinned and weakened the globe. He may have had a bacterial infection or herpes of the cornea. This is almost always a unilateral process. Such infections may be severe enough to perforate the eye, rendering it blind. The offending agent must be removed, leading to evisceration or enucleation."
Zubaydah's medical records would likely explain the pre-existing eye condition, but those files are classified. The government has refused to share Zubaydah's medical files with his legal team, all of whom have top secret clearance, because it contends that doing so would amount to a violation of the detainee's privacy rights, an assertion that Mickum said is "so ludicrous that it is not even laughable at this stage."
Mickum said Zubaydah now wears a prosthetic eye, but it sometimes irritates him so he takes it out and instead wears the eye patch.
Shrapnel Wound
The only known pre-existing condition that may have affected Zubaydah's eye was the shrapnel wound to his head he suffered from a mortar attack while "on the front lines" in Afghanistan fighting Soviet forces a decade prior to his capture, according to the government's classified Detainee Assessment Brief released by WikiLeaks.
That file says Zubaydah "stated he had to relearn fundamentals such as walking, talking and writing; as such, he was therefore considered worthless to al-Qaida."
Last year, the government finally admitted in court documents that Zubaydah's diaries seized during the raid of the safe house "indicate that he suffered cognitive impairment from a shrapnel injury for a number of years."
But when former Justice Department attorney John Yoo prepared one of the August 2002 torture memos, authorizing the CIA to subject Zubaydah to ten brutal torture techniques, which included waterboarding and repeatedly slamming him into a wall, Yoo wrote: "Zubaydah does not have any pre-existing mental conditions or problems that would make him likely to suffer prolonged mental harm from your proposed interrogation methods."
"Through reading his diaries and interviewing him, you [CIA] have found no history of mood disturbance or other psychiatric pathology ... 'thought disorder' ... enduring mood or mental health problems," Yoo wrote.
One of the interrogation memos Yoo drafted for the Department of Defense (DoD) that was used by military personnel and contractors conducting interrogations at Guantanamo and other prison facilities operated by the DoD stated that "gouging" a prisoner's eyes out was arguably legal under the president's executive powers unless "specific intent" to harm the prisoner could be proven.
"Infected Eye"
Details about Zubaydah's eye appear to have first surfaced in a 2008 FBI inspector general's report that contained details of his interrogation conducted by CIA contractors, which former FBI special agent Ali Soufan, identified in the report by the pseudonym "Thomas," said amounted to "borderline torture."
In the report, the then-FBI Inspector General Glenn Fine said Soufan's colleague, FBI special agent Steve Gaudin, identified by the pseudonym "Gibson," disclosed to his fiancé in 2002 or 2003 that he accompanied Soufan to the black site prison in Thailand to "interview a notorious terrorist."
Soufan had interrogated Zubaydah at the CIA's black site prison in Thailand in April 2002, before CIA contractors took over, and had tended to his wounds.
Gaudin's fiancé at the time, identified in the report as "Morehead," "stated the terrorist was missing an eye. [Gaudin] told [the FBI during an interview into the matter] that Zubaydah had an infected eye, sometimes wore an eye patch and eventually got a glass eye," which seems to indicate that Zubaydah's eye may have already been removed by the time both agents arrived at the black site in April 2002.
Truthout tried to reach Gaudin's ex-fiancé to determine if Gaudin disclosed additional information to her about Zubaydah's eye and his medical condition in general, but she did not return emails or voice mail messages left on her cell phone.
Daniel Freedman, who works as director of strategy for policy and analysis at Soufan's consulting firm, The Soufan Group, said Soufan confirmed that Zubaydah had a "preexisting eye condition."
"I checked with [Soufan] and the [counterterrorism official's] account is correct," Freedman told Truthout in an email.
Neither Freedman nor Soufan elaborated.
Kiriakou, who wrote a book about his tenure at the CIA and the capture of Zubaydah, said, "I now recall that when [Zubaydah] first opened his eyes, his left eye was cloudy, like it had a significant cataracts film over it."
"Zubaydah spent most of the time with his eyes closed and I just forgot about it," said Kiriakou, who was surprised to learn Zubaydah's eye had been removed. "It looked like a really bad cataract. I was with him about 48 hours when the plane came. I do not recall the Pakistani doctors paying any attention at all to his eye. They were so focused on his wounds that they didn't pay any attention to anything else."
Zubaydah Blames Interrogators
Zubaydah seems to be under the impression that he lost his eye as a result of abusive treatment.
During his Combatant Status Review Tribunal hearing, Zubaydah said the interrogators subjected him to "months of suffering and torture, physically and mentally, they did not care about my injuries that they inflicted to my eye, to my stomach, to my bladder and my left thigh and my reproductive organs."
The counterterrorism official also said that any suggestion that Zubaydah "lost the eye while being captured or as a result of interrogation would be flat wrong."
But other detainees' claimed there were attempts to gouge out their eyes.
In a recent interview with The Guardian UK, Omar Deghayes said a Guantanamo guard "pushed his fingers inside my eyes" and blinded him in his right eye.
"I didn't realise what was going on until the guy had pushed his fingers inside my eyes and I could feel the coldness of his fingers," Deghayes told The Guardian UK, explaining that the incident took place when he protested a policy that called for detainees to walk around without pants. "Then I realised he was trying to gouge out my eyes."
Shaaker Aamer, the last British detainee who remains imprisoned at Guantanamo, told his attorney he also experienced similar treatment. Aamer said naval military police brutally tortured him for two and a half hours on June 9, 2006, "gouged his eyes" and "held his eyes open and shined a maglite in them for minutes on end, generating intense heat," during a brutal two-and-a-half hour beating on June 9, 2006, after he refused to provide his captors with a retina scan and fingerprints.
Mickum said the loss of Zubaydah's eye and the government's rationale that it was the result of a "preexisting eye condition" only raises additional questions about Zubaydah's treatment.
"The only way to rule out that anything nefarious took place is to look at Zubaydah's medical records," Mickum said. "Until that occurs, the jury is way out and the government is not entitled to any credibility. They've lied consistently starting with the fact that they said Zubaydah was never tortured. The only inference one can draw is that he lost his eye as a result of mistreatment by the government and that he received poor medical treatment in the aftermath of his injury."
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23) The Great Switch by the Super Rich
By Robert Reich
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
http://robertreich.org/post/5583016733
Forty years ago, wealthy Americans financed the U.S. government mainly through their tax payments. Today wealthy Americans finance the government mainly by lending it money. While foreigners own most of our national debt, over 40 percent is owned by Americans - mostly the very wealthy.
This great switch by the super rich - from paying the government taxes to lending the government money - has gone almost unnoticed. But it's critical for understanding the budget predicament we're now in. And for getting out of it.
Over that four decades, tax rates on the very rich have plummeted. Between the end of World War II and 1980, the top tax bracket remained over 70 percent - and even after deductions and credits was well over 50 percent. Now it's 36 percent. As recently as the late 1980s, the capital gains rate was 35 percent. Now it's 15 percent.
Not only are rates lower now, but loopholes are bigger. 18,000 households earning more than a half-million dollars last year paid no income taxes at all. In recent years, according to the IRS, the richest 400 Americans have paid only 18 percent of their total incomes in federal income taxes. Billionaire hedge-fund and private-equity managers are allowed to treat much of their incomes as capital gains (again, at 15 percent).
Meanwhile, more and more of the nation's income and wealth have gone to the top. In the late 1970s, the top 1 percent took home 9 percent of total national income. Now the top 1 percent's take is more than 20 percent. Over the same period, the top one-tenth of one percent has tripled its share.
Wealth is even more concentrated at the top - more concentrated than at any time since the Gilded Age of the late 19th century.
So what are America's super rich doing with all this money? They're investing it all over the world, wherever they can get the best return for any given level of risk. Treasury bills - essentially loans to the U.S. government - have proven good and safe investments, particularly during these last few tumultuous years.
You hear a lot of worries about foreigners dumping Treasuries if they lose confidence in the dollar because of our future budget deficits. What you hear less about are these super-rich Americans, who are just as likely to abandon Treasuries if spooked by future budget deficits.
The great irony is if America's super rich financed the U.S. government the way they used to - by paying taxes rather than lending the government money - that long-term budget deficit would be far lower.
This is why a tax increase on the super rich must be part of any budget agreement. Otherwise the great switch by the super rich will make the income and wealth gap far wider.
Worse yet, average working Americans who can least afford it will either lose the services they depend on, or end up with a tax burden they cannot bear.
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24) Obama's Mideast Speech
May 19, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/world/middleeast/20prexy-text.html
Following is a text of President Obama's prepared speech on the Middle East, delivered on Thursday in Washington, as released by the White House:
I want to thank Hillary Clinton, who has traveled so much these last six months that she is approaching a new landmark - one million frequent flyer miles. I count on Hillary every day, and I believe that she will go down as of the finest Secretaries of State in our nation's history.
The State Department is a fitting venue to mark a new chapter in American diplomacy. For six months, we have witnessed an extraordinary change take place in the Middle East and North Africa. Square by square; town by town; country by country; the people have risen up to demand their basic human rights. Two leaders have stepped aside. More may follow. And though these countries may be a great distance from our shores, we know that our own future is bound to this region by the forces of economics and security; history and faith.
Today, I would like to talk about this change - the forces that are driving it, and how we can respond in a way that advances our values and strengthens our security. Already, we have done much to shift our foreign policy following a decade defined by two costly conflicts. After years of war in Iraq, we have removed 100,000 American troops and ended our combat mission there. In Afghanistan, we have broken the Taliban's momentum, and this July we will begin to bring our troops home and continue transition to Afghan lead. And after years of war against al Qaeda and its affiliates, we have dealt al Qaeda a huge blow by killing its leader - Osama bin Laden.
Bin Laden was no martyr. He was a mass murderer who offered a message of hate - an insistence that Muslims had to take up arms against the West, and that violence against men, women and children was the only path to change. He rejected democracy and individual rights for Muslims in favor of violent extremism; his agenda focused on what he could destroy - not what he could build.
Bin Laden and his murderous vision won some adherents. But even before his death, al Qaeda was losing its struggle for relevance, as the overwhelming majority of people saw that the slaughter of innocents did not answer their cries for a better life. By the time we found bin Laden, al Qaeda's agenda had come to be seen by the vast majority of the region as a dead end, and the people of the Middle East and North Africa had taken their future into their own hands.
That story of self-determination began six months ago in Tunisia. On December 17, a young vendor named Mohammed Bouazizi was devastated when a police officer confiscated his cart. This was not unique. It is the same kind of humiliation that takes place every day in many parts of the world - the relentless tyranny of governments that deny their citizens dignity. Only this time, something different happened. After local officials refused to hear his complaint, this young man who had never been particularly active in politics went to the headquarters of the provincial government, doused himself in fuel, and lit himself on fire.
Sometimes, in the course of history, the actions of ordinary citizens spark movements for change because they speak to a longing for freedom that has built up for years. In America, think of the defiance of those patriots in Boston who refused to pay taxes to a King, or the dignity of Rosa Parks as she sat courageously in her seat. So it was in Tunisia, as that vendor's act of desperation tapped into the frustration felt throughout the country. Hundreds of protesters took to the streets, then thousands. And in the face of batons and sometimes bullets, they refused to go home - day after day, week after week, until a dictator of more than two decades finally left power.
The story of this Revolution, and the ones that followed, should not have come as a surprise. The nations of the Middle East and North Africa won their independence long ago, but in too many places their people did not. In too many countries, power has been concentrated in the hands of the few. In too many countries, a citizen like that young vendor had nowhere to turn - no honest judiciary to hear his case; no independent media to give him voice; no credible political party to represent his views; no free and fair election where he could choose his leader.
This lack of self determination - the chance to make of your life what you will - has applied to the region's economy as well. Yes, some nations are blessed with wealth in oil and gas, and that has led to pockets of prosperity. But in a global economy based on knowledge and innovation, no development strategy can be based solely upon what comes out of the ground. Nor can people reach their potential when you cannot start a business without paying a bribe.
In the face of these challenges, too many leaders in the region tried to direct their people's grievances elsewhere. The West was blamed as the source of all ills, a half century after the end of colonialism. Antagonism toward Israel became the only acceptable outlet for political expression. Divisions of tribe, ethnicity and religious sect were manipulated as a means of holding on to power, or taking it away from somebody else.
But the events of the past six months show us that strategies of repression and diversion won't work anymore. Satellite television and the Internet provide a window into the wider world - a world of astonishing progress in places like India, Indonesia and Brazil. Cell phones and social networks allow young people to connect and organize like never before. A new generation has emerged. And their voices tell us that change cannot be denied.
In Cairo, we heard the voice of the young mother who said, "It's like I can finally breathe fresh air for the first time."
In Sanaa, we heard the students who chanted, "The night must come to an end."
In Benghazi, we heard the engineer who said, "Our words are free now. It's a feeling you can't explain."
In Damascus, we heard the young man who said, "After the first yelling, the first shout, you feel dignity."
Those shouts of human dignity are being heard across the region. And through the moral force of non-violence, the people of the region have achieved more change in six months than terrorists have accomplished in decades.
Of course, change of this magnitude does not come easily. In our day and age - a time of 24 hour news cycles, and constant communication - people expect the transformation of the region to be resolved in a matter of weeks. But it will be years before this story reaches its end. Along the way, there will be good days, and bad days. In some places, change will be swift; in others, gradual. And as we have seen, calls for change may give way to fierce contests for power.
The question before us is what role America will play as this story unfolds. For decades, the United States has pursued a set of core interests in the region: countering terrorism and stopping the spread of nuclear weapons; securing the free flow of commerce, and safe-guarding the security of the region; standing up for Israel's security and pursuing Arab-Israeli peace.
We will continue to do these things, with the firm belief that America's interests are not hostile to peoples' hopes; they are essential to them. We believe that no one benefits from a nuclear arms race in the region, or al Qaeda's brutal attacks. People everywhere would see their economies crippled by a cut off in energy supplies. As we did in the Gulf War, we will not tolerate aggression across borders, and we will keep our commitments to friends and partners.
Yet we must acknowledge that a strategy based solely upon the narrow pursuit of these interests will not fill an empty stomach or allow someone to speak their mind. Moreover, failure to speak to the broader aspirations of ordinary people will only feed the suspicion that has festered for years that the United States pursues our own interests at their expense. Given that this mistrust runs both ways - as Americans have been seared by hostage taking, violent rhetoric, and terrorist attacks that have killed thousands of our citizens - a failure to change our approach threatens a deepening spiral of division between the United States and Muslim communities.
That's why, two years ago in Cairo, I began to broaden our engagement based upon mutual interests and mutual respect. I believed then - and I believe now - that we have a stake not just in the stability of nations, but in the self determination of individuals. The status quo is not sustainable. Societies held together by fear and repression may offer the illusion of stability for a time, but they are built upon fault lines that will eventually tear asunder.
So we face an historic opportunity. We have embraced the chance to show that America values the dignity of the street vendor in Tunisia more than the raw power of the dictator. There must be no doubt that the United States of America welcomes change that advances self-determination and opportunity. Yes, there will be perils that accompany this moment of promise. But after decades of accepting the world as it is in the region, we have a chance to pursue the world as it should be.
As we do, we must proceed with a sense of humility. It is not America that put people into the streets of Tunis and Cairo - it was the people themselves who launched these movements, and must determine their outcome. Not every country will follow our particular form of representative democracy, and there will be times when our short term interests do not align perfectly with our long term vision of the region. But we can - and will - speak out for a set of core principles - principles that have guided our response to the events over the past six months:
The United States opposes the use of violence and repression against the people of the region.
We support a set of universal rights. Those rights include free speech; the freedom of peaceful assembly; freedom of religion; equality for men and women under the rule of law; and the right to choose your own leaders - whether you live in Baghdad or Damascus; Sanaa or Tehran.
And finally, we support political and economic reform in the Middle East and North Africa that can meet the legitimate aspirations of ordinary people throughout the region.
Our support for these principles is not a secondary interest- today I am making it clear that it is a top priority that must be translated into concrete actions, and supported by all of the diplomatic, economic and strategic tools at our disposal.
Let me be specific. First, it will be the policy of the United States to promote reform across the region, and to support transitions to democracy.
That effort begins in Egypt and Tunisia, where the stakes are high -as Tunisia was at the vanguard of this democratic wave, and Egypt is both a longstanding partner and the Arab World's largest nation. Both nations can set a strong example through free and fair elections; a vibrant civil society; accountable and effective democratic institutions; and responsible regional leadership. But our support must also extend to nations where transitions have yet to take place.
Unfortunately, in too many countries, calls for change have been answered by violence. The most extreme example is Libya, where Moammar Gaddafi launched a war against his people, promising to hunt them down like rats. As I said when the United States joined an international coalition to intervene, we cannot prevent every injustice perpetrated by a regime against its people, and we have learned from our experience in Iraq just how costly and difficult it is to impose regime change by force - no matter how well-intended it may be.
But in Libya, we saw the prospect of imminent massacre, had a mandate for action, and heard the Libyan people's call for help. Had we not acted along with our NATO allies and regional coalition partners, thousands would have been killed. The message would have been clear: keep power by killing as many people as it takes. Now, time is working against Gaddafi. He does not have control over his country. The opposition has organized a legitimate and credible Interim Council. And when Gaddafi inevitably leaves or is forced from power, decades of provocation will come to an end, and the transition to a democratic Libya can proceed.
While Libya has faced violence on the greatest scale, it is not the only place where leaders have turned to repression to remain in power. Most recently, the Syrian regime has chosen the path of murder and the mass arrests of its citizens. The United States has condemned these actions, and working with the international community we have stepped up our sanctions on the Syrian regime - including sanctions announced yesterday on President Assad and those around him.
The Syrian people have shown their courage in demanding a transition to democracy. President Assad now has a choice: he can lead that transition, or get out of the way. The Syrian government must stop shooting demonstrators and allow peaceful protests; release political prisoners and stop unjust arrests; allow human rights monitors to have access to cities like Dara'a; and start a serious dialogue to advance a democratic transition. Otherwise, President Assad and his regime will continue to be challenged from within and isolated abroad.
Thus far, Syria has followed its Iranian ally, seeking assistance from Tehran in the tactics of suppression. This speaks to the hypocrisy of the Iranian regime, which says it stand for the rights of protesters abroad, yet suppresses its people at home. Let us remember that the first peaceful protests were in the streets of Tehran, where the government brutalized women and men, and threw innocent people into jail. We still hear the chants echo from the rooftops of Tehran. The image of a young woman dying in the streets is still seared in our memory. And we will continue to insist that the Iranian people deserve their universal rights, and a government that does not smother their aspirations.
Our opposition to Iran's intolerance - as well as its illicit nuclear program, and its sponsorship of terror - is well known. But if America is to be credible, we must acknowledge that our friends in the region have not all reacted to the demands for change consistent with the principles that I have outlined today. That is true in Yemen, where President Saleh needs to follow through on his commitment to transfer power. And that is true, today, in Bahrain.
Bahrain is a long-standing partner, and we are committed to its security. We recognize that Iran has tried to take advantage of the turmoil there, and that the Bahraini government has a legitimate interest in the rule of law. Nevertheless, we have insisted publically and privately that mass arrests and brute force are at odds with the universal rights of Bahrain's citizens, and will not make legitimate calls for reform go away. The only way forward is for the government and opposition to engage in a dialogue, and you can't have a real dialogue when parts of the peaceful opposition are in jail. The government must create the conditions for dialogue, and the opposition must participate to forge a just future for all Bahrainis.
Indeed, one of the broader lessons to be drawn from this period is that sectarian divides need not lead to conflict. In Iraq, we see the promise of a multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian democracy. There, the Iraqi people have rejected the perils of political violence for a democratic process, even as they have taken full responsibility for their own security. Like all new democracies, they will face setbacks. But Iraq is poised to play a key role in the region if it continues its peaceful progress. As they do, we will be proud to stand with them as a steadfast partner.
So in the months ahead, America must use all our influence to encourage reform in the region. Even as we acknowledge that each country is different, we will need to speak honestly about the principles that we believe in, with friend and foe alike. Our message is simple: if you take the risks that reform entails, you will have the full support of the United States. We must also build on our efforts to broaden our engagement beyond elites, so that we reach the people who will shape the future - particularly young people.
We will continue to make good on the commitments that I made in Cairo - to build networks of entrepreneurs, and expand exchanges in education; to foster cooperation in science and technology, and combat disease. Across the region, we intend to provide assistance to civil society, including those that may not be officially sanctioned, and who speak uncomfortable truths. And we will use the technology to connect with - and listen to - the voices of the people.
In fact, real reform will not come at the ballot box alone. Through our efforts we must support those basic rights to speak your mind and access information. We will support open access to the Internet, and the right of journalists to be heard - whether it's a big news organization or a blogger. In the 21st century, information is power; the truth cannot be hidden; and the legitimacy of governments will ultimately depend on active and informed citizens.
Such open discourse is important even if what is said does not square with our worldview. America respects the right of all peaceful and law-abiding voices to be heard, even if we disagree with them. We look forward to working with all who embrace genuine and inclusive democracy. What we will oppose is an attempt by any group to restrict the rights of others, and to hold power through coercion - not consent. Because democracy depends not only on elections, but also strong and accountable institutions, and respect for the rights of minorities.
Such tolerance is particularly important when it comes to religion. In Tahrir Square, we heard Egyptians from all walks of life chant, "Muslims, Christians, we are one." America will work to see that this spirit prevails - that all faiths are respected, and that bridges are built among them. In a region that was the birthplace of three world religions, intolerance can lead only to suffering and stagnation. And for this season of change to succeed, Coptic Christians must have the right to worship freely in Cairo, just as Shia must never have their mosques destroyed in Bahrain.
What is true for religious minorities is also true when it comes to the rights of women. History shows that countries are more prosperous and peaceful when women are empowered. That is why we will continue to insist that universal rights apply to women as well as men - by focusing assistance on child and maternal health; by helping women to teach, or start a business; by standing up for the right of women to have their voices heard, and to run for office. For the region will never reach its potential when more than half its population is prevented from achieving their potential.
Even as we promote political reform and human rights in the region, our efforts cannot stop there. So the second way that we must support positive change in the region is through our efforts to advance economic development for nations that transition to democracy.
After all, politics alone has not put protesters into the streets. The tipping point for so many people is the more constant concern of putting food on the table and providing for a family. Too many in the region wake up with few expectations other than making it through the day, and perhaps the hope that their luck will change. Throughout the region, many young people have a solid education, but closed economies leave them unable to find a job. Entrepreneurs are brimming with ideas, but corruption leaves them unable to profit from them.
The greatest untapped resource in the Middle East and North Africa is the talent of its people. In the recent protests, we see that talent on display, as people harness technology to move the world. It's no coincidence that one of the leaders of Tahrir Square was an executive for Google. That energy now needs to be channeled, in country after country, so that economic growth can solidify the accomplishments of the street. Just as democratic revolutions can be triggered by a lack of individual opportunity, successful democratic transitions depend upon an expansion of growth and broad-based prosperity.
Drawing from what we've learned around the world, we think it's important to focus on trade, not just aid; and investment, not just assistance. The goal must be a model in which protectionism gives way to openness; the reigns of commerce pass from the few to the many, and the economy generates jobs for the young. America's support for democracy will therefore be based on ensuring financial stability; promoting reform; and integrating competitive markets with each other and the global economy - starting with Tunisia and Egypt.
First, we have asked the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund to present a plan at next week's G-8 summit for what needs to be done to stabilize and modernize the economies of Tunisia and Egypt. Together, we must help them recover from the disruption of their democratic upheaval, and support the governments that will be elected later this year. And we are urging other countries to help Egypt and Tunisia meet its near-term financial needs.
Second, we do not want a democratic Egypt to be saddled by the debts of its past. So we will relieve a democratic Egypt of up to $1 billion in debt, and work with our Egyptian partners to invest these resources to foster growth and entrepreneurship. We will help Egypt regain access to markets by guaranteeing $1 billion in borrowing that is needed to finance infrastructure and job creation. And we will help newly democratic governments recover assets that were stolen.
Third, we are working with Congress to create Enterprise Funds to invest in Tunisia and Egypt. These will be modeled on funds that supported the transitions in Eastern Europe after the fall of the Berlin Wall. OPIC will soon launch a $2 billion facility to support private investment across the region. And we will work with allies to refocus the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development so that it provides the same support for democratic transitions and economic modernization in the Middle East and North Africa as it has in Europe.
Fourth, the United States will launch a comprehensive Trade and Investment Partnership Initiative in the Middle East and North Africa. If you take out oil exports, this region of over 400 million people exports roughly the same amount as Switzerland. So we will work with the EU to facilitate more trade within the region, build on existing agreements to promote integration with U.S. and European markets, and open the door for those countries who adopt high standards of reform and trade liberalization to construct a regional trade arrangement. Just as EU membership served as an incentive for reform in Europe, so should the vision of a modern and prosperous economy create a powerful force for reform in the Middle East and North Africa.
Prosperity also requires tearing down walls that stand in the way of progress - the corruption of elites who steal from their people; the red tape that stops an idea from becoming a business; the patronage that distributes wealth based on tribe or sect. We will help governments meet international obligations, and invest efforts anti-corruption; by working with parliamentarians who are developing reforms, and activists who use technology to hold government accountable.
Let me conclude by talking about another cornerstone of our approach to the region, and that relates to the pursuit of peace.
For decades, the conflict between Israelis and Arabs has cast a shadow over the region. For Israelis, it has meant living with the fear that their children could get blown up on a bus or by rockets fired at their homes, as well as the pain of knowing that other children in the region are taught to hate them. For Palestinians, it has meant suffering the humiliation of occupation, and never living in a nation of their own. Moreover, this conflict has come with a larger cost the Middle East, as it impedes partnerships that could bring greater security, prosperity, and empowerment to ordinary people.
My Administration has worked with the parties and the international community for over two years to end this conflict, yet expectations have gone unmet. Israeli settlement activity continues. Palestinians have walked away from talks. The world looks at a conflict that has grinded on for decades, and sees a stalemate. Indeed, there are those who argue that with all the change and uncertainty in the region, it is simply not possible to move forward.
I disagree. At a time when the people of the Middle East and North Africa are casting off the burdens of the past, the drive for a lasting peace that ends the conflict and resolves all claims is more urgent than ever.
For the Palestinians, efforts to delegitimize Israel will end in failure. Symbolic actions to isolate Israel at the United Nations in September won't create an independent state. Palestinian leaders will not achieve peace or prosperity if Hamas insists on a path of terror and rejection. And Palestinians will never realize their independence by denying the right of Israel to exist.
As for Israel, our friendship is rooted deeply in a shared history and shared values. Our commitment to Israel's security is unshakeable. And we will stand against attempts to single it out for criticism in international forums. But precisely because of our friendship, it is important that we tell the truth: the status quo is unsustainable, and Israel too must act boldly to advance a lasting peace.
The fact is, a growing number of Palestinians live west of the Jordan River. Technology will make it harder for Israel to defend itself. A region undergoing profound change will lead to populism in which millions of people - not just a few leaders - must believe peace is possible. The international community is tired of an endless process that never produces an outcome. The dream of a Jewish and democratic state cannot be fulfilled with permanent occupation.
Ultimately, it is up to Israelis and Palestinians to take action. No peace can be imposed upon them, nor can endless delay make the problem go away. But what America and the international community can do is state frankly what everyone knows: a lasting peace will involve two states for two peoples. Israel as a Jewish state and the homeland for the Jewish people, and the state of Palestine as the homeland for the Palestinian people; each state enjoying self-determination, mutual recognition, and peace.
So while the core issues of the conflict must be negotiated, the basis of those negotiations is clear: a viable Palestine, and a secure Israel. The United States believes that negotiations should result in two states, with permanent Palestinian borders with Israel, Jordan, and Egypt, and permanent Israeli borders with Palestine. The borders of Israel and Palestine should be based on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed swaps, so that secure and recognized borders are established for both states. The Palestinian people must have the right to govern themselves, and reach their potential, in a sovereign and contiguous state.
As for security, every state has the right to self-defense, and Israel must be able to defend itself - by itself - against any threat. Provisions must also be robust enough to prevent a resurgence of terrorism; to stop the infiltration of weapons; and to provide effective border security. The full and phased withdrawal of Israeli military forces should be coordinated with the assumption of Palestinian security responsibility in a sovereign, non-militarized state. The duration of this transition period must be agreed, and the effectiveness of security arrangements must be demonstrated.
These principles provide a foundation for negotiations. Palestinians should know the territorial outlines of their state; Israelis should know that their basic security concerns will be met. I know that these steps alone will not resolve this conflict. Two wrenching and emotional issues remain: the future of Jerusalem, and the fate of Palestinian refugees. But moving forward now on the basis of territory and security provides a foundation to resolve those two issues in a way that is just and fair, and that respects the rights and aspirations of Israelis and Palestinians.
Recognizing that negotiations need to begin with the issues of territory and security does not mean that it will be easy to come back to the table. In particular, the recent announcement of an agreement between Fatah and Hamas raises profound and legitimate questions for Israel - how can one negotiate with a party that has shown itself unwilling to recognize your right to exist. In the weeks and months to come, Palestinian leaders will have to provide a credible answer to that question. Meanwhile, the United States, our Quartet partners, and the Arab states will need to continue every effort to get beyond the current impasse.
I recognize how hard this will be. Suspicion and hostility has been passed on for generations, and at times it has hardened. But I'm convinced that the majority of Israelis and Palestinians would rather look to the future than be trapped in the past. We see that spirit in the Israeli father whose son was killed by Hamas, who helped start an organization that brought together Israelis and Palestinians who had lost loved ones. He said, "I gradually realized that the only hope for progress was to recognize the face of the conflict." And we see it in the actions of a Palestinian who lost three daughters to Israeli shells in Gaza. "I have the right to feel angry," he said. "So many people were expecting me to hate. My answer to them is I shall not hate...Let us hope," he said, "for tomorrow."
That is the choice that must be made - not simply in this conflict, but across the entire region - a choice between hate and hope; between the shackles of the past, and the promise of the future. It's a choice that must be made by leaders and by people, and it's a choice that will define the future of a region that served as the cradle of civilization and a crucible of strife.
For all the challenges that lie ahead, we see many reasons to be hopeful. In Egypt, we see it in the efforts of young people who led protests. In Syria, we see it in the courage of those who brave bullets while chanting, 'peaceful,' 'peaceful.' In Benghazi, a city threatened with destruction, we see it in the courthouse square where people gather to celebrate the freedoms that they had never known. Across the region, those rights that we take for granted are being claimed with joy by those who are prying lose the grip of an iron fist.
For the American people, the scenes of upheaval in the region may be unsettling, but the forces driving it are not unfamiliar. Our own nation was founded through a rebellion against an empire. Our people fought a painful civil war that extended freedom and dignity to those who were enslaved. And I would not be standing here today unless past generations turned to the moral force of non-violence as a way to perfect our union - organizing, marching, and protesting peacefully together to make real those words that declared our nation: "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal."
Those words must guide our response to the change that is transforming the Middle East and North Africa - words which tell us that repression will fail, that tyrants will fall, and that every man and woman is endowed with certain inalienable rights. It will not be easy. There is no straight line to progress, and hardship always accompanies a season of hope. But the United States of America was founded on the belief that people should govern themselves. Now, we cannot hesitate to stand squarely on the side of those who are reaching for their rights, knowing that their success will bring about a world that is more peaceful, more stable, and more just.
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25) Mine Owner's Negligence Led to Blast, Study Finds
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
May 19, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/20/us/20mine.html?hp
WASHINGTON - In the first comprehensive state report on the 2010 coal mine disaster in West Virginia, an independent team of investigators put the blame squarely on the owner of the mine, Massey Energy, concluding that it had "made life difficult" for miners who tried to address safety and built "a culture in which wrongdoing became acceptable."
The report, issued Thursday by an independent team appointed by the former West Virginia governor, Joe Manchin III, and led by the former federal mine safety chief Davitt McAteer, echoed preliminary findings by federal officials that the blast could have been prevented if Massey had observed minimal safety standards.
But it was more pointed in naming Massey as the culprit, using blunt language to describe what it said was a pattern of negligence that ultimately led to the deaths of 29 miners on April 5, 2010, in what was the worst American mining disaster in 40 years.
"The story of Upper Big Branch is a cautionary tale of hubris," the report concluded. "A company that was a towering presence in the Appalachian coalfields operated its mines in a profoundly reckless manner, and 29 coal miners paid with their lives for the corporate risk-taking."
In a statement on Thursday, Massey Energy's general counsel, Shane Harvey, disputed some of the report's findings. Company executives invoked their Fifth Amendment rights, and refused to be interviewed by investigators.
The 120-page report chronicles the explosion and its aftermath, pieced together through months of interviews, documents, data and correspondence.
Workers at the mine had long known the conditions were risky, and the report opens with a passage about the fear that one miner felt the day before he died in the disaster.
"Man, they got us up there mining, and we ain't got no air," the miner, Gary Wayne Quarles, told his friend Michael Ferrell, who talked to investigators. "I'm just scared to death to go to work because I'm just scared to death something bad is going to happen."
The report goes on to say that a "perfect storm" was brewing inside the mine, combining poor ventilation, equipment whose safety mechanisms were not functioning and coal dust, which, contrary to industry rules, had been allowed to accumulate, "behaving like a line of gunpowder carrying the blast forward in multiple directions."
Investigators rejected the conclusion offered by Massey officials - that the explosion occurred when a giant burst of methane bubbled from the ground, a natural event that would have been impossible to predict or control.
The damage inside the mine was not consistent with that theory, investigators said. Among the evidence were the bodies of the miners in the area of the main explosion: only two had methane in their lungs.
"If, as Massey investigators maintained, one million cubic feet of methane had been suddenly released, the result would have been a five million cubic foot flame going across the face and throughout the tailgate entries in both directions," the report said, referring to areas of the mine.
It added, "Evidence found during the investigation does not suggest a force of this magnitude."
The deadliness, the report stated, was in fact because of the combustible coal dust that had been allowed to accumulate. The dust, which is explosive, carried the explosion into the far reaches of the mine, making it far deadlier for the miners than it otherwise would have been.
Mr. Harvey disputed that finding.
"We disagree with Davitt's conclusion that this was an explosion fueled by coal dust," he said. "Again, we believe that the explosion was caused by a massive inundation of methane-rich natural gas."
A mine the size of Upper Big Branch should have a team of several miners reducing coal dust, several times a day, the report said. Instead there was one miner, Nathaniel Jeter, who was often diverted to construction projects. What is more, the machine that was designed to dilute coal dust was often clogged, and miners were reduced to carrying rock dust, the diluting substance, into the mine by hand.
Mr. Jeter complained to senior management that the machine, known as a track duster, was broken. The response, he said, spoke volumes about the attitude toward safety: "Track duster? I didn't know we had a track duster."
Another area of Massey negligence, the report noted, was the mine's jury-rigged ventilation system, which received dozens of citations in the year leading up to the blast. Joe Mackowiak, a ventilation supervisor for the Mining, Safety and Health Administration, said the mine used a "Band-Aid approach" to ventilation, the report said, changing the bare minimum in order to pass inspections.
The lack of air in the nearly three miles of tunnels combined with coal dust and fumes turned the air hot, tormenting miners, the report found. One miner, Dean Jones, would come home so exhausted, that "I'd look over at the dinner table and he would be asleep," the report quoted his wife as saying.
"It literally felt like you were melting," said Michael Ellison, a roof bolter who called in sick the day of the accident. By an hour and a half into the shift, he said, "all of us looked like we had been standing out in a rainstorm, just soaking wet."
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26) Many With New College Degree Find the Job Market Humbling
By CATHERINE RAMPELL
May 18, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/business/economy/19grads.html?hp
The individual stories are familiar. The chemistry major tending bar. The classics major answering phones. The Italian studies major sweeping aisles at Wal-Mart.
Now evidence is emerging that the damage wrought by the sour economy is more widespread than just a few careers led astray or postponed. Even for college graduates - the people who were most protected from the slings and arrows of recession - the outlook is rather bleak.
Employment rates for new college graduates have fallen sharply in the last two years, as have starting salaries for those who can find work. What's more, only half of the jobs landed by these new graduates even require a college degree, reviving debates about whether higher education is "worth it" after all.
"I have friends with the same degree as me, from a worse school, but because of who they knew or when they happened to graduate, they're in much better jobs," said Kyle Bishop, 23, a 2009 graduate of the University of Pittsburgh who has spent the last two years waiting tables, delivering beer, working at a bookstore and entering data. "It's more about luck than anything else."
The median starting salary for students graduating from four-year colleges in 2009 and 2010 was $27,000, down from $30,000 for those who entered the work force in 2006 to 2008, according to a study released on Wednesday by the John J. Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers University. That is a decline of 10 percent, even before taking inflation into account.
Of course, these are the lucky ones - the graduates who found a job. Among the members of the class of 2010, just 56 percent had held at least one job by this spring, when the survey was conducted. That compares with 90 percent of graduates from the classes of 2006 and 2007. (Some have gone for further education or opted out of the labor force, while many are still pounding the pavement.)
Even these figures understate the damage done to these workers' careers. Many have taken jobs that do not make use of their skills; about only half of recent college graduates said that their first job required a college degree.
The choice of major is quite important. Certain majors had better luck finding a job that required a college degree, according to an analysis by Andrew M. Sum, an economist at Northeastern University, of 2009 Labor Department data for college graduates under 25.
Young graduates who majored in education and teaching or engineering were most likely to find a job requiring a college degree, while area studies majors - those who majored in Latin American studies, for example - and humanities majors were least likely to do so. Among all recent education graduates, 71.1 percent were in jobs that required a college degree; of all area studies majors, the share was 44.7 percent.
An analysis by The New York Times of Labor Department data about college graduates aged 25 to 34 found that the number of these workers employed in food service, restaurants and bars had risen 17 percent in 2009 from 2008, though the sample size was small. There were similar or bigger employment increases at gas stations and fuel dealers, food and alcohol stores, and taxi and limousine services.
This may be a waste of a college degree, but it also displaces the less-educated workers who would normally take these jobs.
"The less schooling you had, the more likely you were to get thrown out of the labor market altogether," said Mr. Sum, noting that unemployment rates for high school graduates and dropouts are always much higher than those for college graduates. "There is complete displacement all the way down."
Meanwhile, college graduates are having trouble paying off student loan debt, which is at a median of $20,000 for graduates of classes 2006 to 2010.
Mr. Bishop, the Pittsburgh graduate, said he is "terrified" of the effects his starter jobs might have on his ultimate career, which he hopes to be in publishing or writing. "It looks bad to have all these short-term jobs on your résumé, but you do have to pay the bills," he said, adding that right now his student loan debt was over $70,000.
Many graduates will probably take on more student debt. More than 60 percent of those who graduated in the last five years say they will need more formal education to be successful.
"I knew there weren't going to be many job prospects for me until I got my Ph.D.," said Travis Patterson, 23, a 2010 graduate of California State University, Fullerton. He is working as an administrative assistant for a property management company and studying psychology in graduate school. While it may not have anything to do with his degree, "it helps pay my rent and tuition, and that's what matters."
Going back to school does offer the possibility of joining the labor force when the economy is better. Unemployment rates are also generally lower for people with advanced schooling.
Those who do not go back to school may be on a lower-paying trajectory for years. They start at a lower salary, and they may begin their careers with employers that pay less on average or have less room for growth.
"Their salary history follows them wherever they go," said Carl Van Horn, a labor economist at Rutgers. "It's like a parrot on your shoulder, traveling with you everywhere, constantly telling you 'No, you can't make that much money.' "
And while young people who have weathered a tough job market may shy from risks during their careers, the best way to nullify an unlucky graduation date is to change jobs when you can, says Till von Wachter, an economist at Columbia.
"If you don't move within five years of graduating, for some reason you get stuck where you are. That's just an empirical finding," Mr. von Wachter said. "By your late 20s, you're often married, and have a family and have a house. You stop the active pattern of moving jobs."
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: May 19, 2011
An earlier version of this article included a photo caption that erroneously said the University of Michigan commencement was held in May.
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27) Private Prisons Found to Offer Little in Savings
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
May 18, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/us/19prisons.html?ref=us
PHOENIX - The conviction that private prisons save money helped drive more than 30 states to turn to them for housing inmates. But Arizona shows that popular wisdom might be wrong: Data there suggest that privately operated prisons can cost more to operate than state-run prisons - even though they often steer clear of the sickest, costliest inmates.
The state's experience has particular relevance now, as many politicians have promised to ease budget problems by trimming state agencies. Florida and Ohio are planning major shifts toward private prisons, and Arizona is expected to sign deals doubling its private-inmate population.
The measures would be a shot in the arm for an industry that has struggled, in some places, to fill prison beds as the number of inmates nationwide has leveled off. But hopes of big taxpayer benefits might end in disappointment, independent experts say.
"There's a perception that the private sector is always going to do it more efficiently and less costly," said Russ Van Vleet, a former co-director of the University of Utah Criminal Justice Center. "But there really isn't much out there that says that's correct."
Such has been the case lately in Arizona. Despite a state law stipulating that private prisons must create "cost savings," the state's own data indicate that inmates in private prisons can cost as much as $1,600 more per year, while many cost about the same as they do in state-run prisons.
The research, by the Arizona Department of Corrections, also reveals a murky aspect of private prisons that helps them appear less expensive: They often house only relatively healthy inmates.
"It's cherry-picking," said State Representative Chad Campbell, leader of the House Democrats. "They leave the most expensive prisoners with taxpayers and take the easy prisoners."
In the 1980s, soaring violent crime, tougher sentencing and overcrowding led lawmakers to use private prisons to expand. Then, as now, privatization advocates argued that corporations were more efficient. Over time, most states signed contracts, one of the largest transfers of state functions to private industry.
Nationally, the number of state inmates in private prisons grew by a third over the past decade to more than 90,000, but it has stagnated, and some states have reduced total prison populations - shifting nonviolent offenders to treatment programs while bolstering probation. Now, Ohio lawmakers want to privatize prisons with 6,000 inmates, and Florida will transfer institutions with 15,000 inmates to private management. The Arizona plan would add 5,000 private prison beds.
Matthew Benson, spokesman for Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona, a Republican, did not dispute the state research. But he said officials had a "pretty wide lens" to interpret the cost-savings mandate, like taking into account the ability of private companies to recoup hundreds of millions in construction costs over the life of contracts.
"It is a significant advantage to have a private firm be able to come in and front the costs," he said.
Privatization advocates play down the data. Leonard Gilroy, director of government reform for the Reason Foundation, a libertarian research organization, questioned whether all costs were included and said the figures were too narrowly drawn, particularly on medium-security prisons, to prompt conclusions. "It is looking at a limited slice," Mr. Gilroy said.
Competing studies - some financed by the prison industry - have argued over claims of savings. But when a University of Utah team including Mr. Van Vleet reviewed years of research, it concluded in 2007 that "cost savings from privatizing prisons are not guaranteed and appear minimal."
Steve Owen, spokesman for the largest operator, Corrections Corporation of America, said: "There is a mixed bag of research out there. It's not as black and white and cut and dried as we would like."
A number of states mandate that contracts save money. But Arizona is one of the few - if not only - places to measure the outcome so rigorously.
While private prisons collect a daily rate per inmate, some expenses disproportionately borne by states are not counted. The most significant are terms limiting sicker inmates.
Five of eight private prisons serving Arizona did not accept inmates with "limited physical capacity and stamina" or severe physical illness or chronic conditions, according to the state's analysis, issued last month. None took inmates with "high need" mental health conditions. Some inmates who became sick were "returned to state prisons due to an increase of their medical scores that exceeds contractual exclusions."
"Unlike the private contractors," the analysis said, the state "is required to provide medical and mental health services to inmates regardless of the severity of their condition." Medical costs averaged up to $2.44 a day more for state inmates, a third higher than private prisons.
That gap can be wider. In Florida, officials found that two private prisons spent only about half as much on health care per inmate as comparable state prisons, a difference of $9 million over two years. Florida officials say that the new plan will better balance costs, and that private prisons comply with a 7-percent-savings law. But skeptics like State Senator Mike Fasano, a Republican, fear cherry-picking may be the only way they can do that.
In Arizona, minimum-security state inmates cost 2.6 percent - or $1.39 per day - more than those in private prisons, before accounting for extra costs borne by the state. But after eliminating these, state prisoners cost only three cents more per day, the analysis found.
And state medium-security inmates cost 4.4 percent less before adjustments and 8.7 percent less afterward. That is more than $2 million annually at one prison, or $1,679 per inmate. Using 2009 corrections data, state auditors calculated the difference at up to $2,834 per inmate.
Charles L. Ryan, the Arizona corrections director, said private prisons "often negotiate restrictions on the type of inmates" and limit "inmates with medical conditions to a specific cost level." The new contracts seek to reduce this practice.
Mr. Owen did not dispute the Arizona research, but said the industry saved money. He pointed to a study - partly financed by the industry - that found states with private prisons had lower growth in public prison costs.
"We do provide value to our government partners," he said.
However, Mr. Owen acknowledged that most contracts had cost caps, and that terms barring the sickest prisoners were not unusual. He said his company never voiced a preference for such terms. "The myth is that we are somehow hand-selecting" inmates.
According to Arizona officials, the data account for costs as varied as guards' pensions and inmate food. They track past results publicized in the state, but those have not prompted any privatization rethinking: contracts on the state's expansion could be awarded by the summer.
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28) U.S. Was Warned on Vents Before Failure at Japan's Plant
By MATTHEW L. WALD
May 18, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/science/earth/19nuke.html?ref=us
WASHINGTON - Five years before the crucial emergency vents at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant were disabled by an accident they were supposed to help handle, engineers at a reactor in Minnesota warned American regulators about that very problem.
Anthony Sarrack, one of the two engineers, notified staff members at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission that the design of venting systems was seriously flawed at his reactor and others in the United States similar to the ones in Japan. He later left the industry in frustration because managers and regulators did not agree.
Mr. Sarrack said that the vents, which are supposed to relieve pressure at crippled plants and keep containment structures intact, should not be dependent on electric power and workers' ability to operate critical valves because power might be cut in an emergency and workers might be incapacitated. Part of the reason the venting system in Japan failed - allowing disastrous hydrogen explosions - is that power to the plant was knocked out by a tsunami that followed a major earthquake.
Copies of Mr. Sarrack's correspondence with the N.R.C. were supplied by David Lochbaum, a boiling-water-reactor expert who works for the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit group based in Cambridge, Mass., that is generally hostile to nuclear power.
"The Nuclear Regulatory Commission cannot claim ignorance about this one," he said.
Plant managers and nuclear regulators are warned about far more problems each year than actually occur, but in this case, the cautionary note was eerily prescient and could rekindle debate over whether automatic venting systems are safer alternatives.
While staff members at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission considered Mr. Sarrack's warning, they decided against changes.
On Wednesday, a commission spokesman, Scott Burnell, said the commission still believed that existing venting systems were a "reasonable and appropriate means" of dealing with a rise in pressure after an accident. But he has also said that the commission's staff members are studying the events at Fukushima Daiichi for "lessons learned," and that they had identified means of "reducing risk even further" by making the vents "more passive." He said the staff had not yet chosen a way to do that.
One way would be using rupture disks, relatively thin sheets of steel that break and allow venting without any operator command or moving parts when the pressure reaches a specified level. But many in the industry argue that using such a disk requires that there be a way to close the vent once pressure is relieved in order to hold in radioactive materials.
The accident at the Fukushima Daiichi plant was the first time the venting systems were put to the test.
Pressure began to build in three reactors soon after the tsunami hit because the plant's cooling system stopped operating when the electricity went off. Without an adequate flow of cool water in the reactors, the fuel rods began to overheat and produce explosive hydrogen gas.
Managers were worried about venting because it would release significant amounts of radioactive materials, but when they finally gave the order to do so - after being told to by the government - the workers found the venting system inoperable. With the power out, their commands from the control room did not open the valves. They then discovered that that radiation levels at one reactor were so high they could not attempt to manually open the valve. And at two other reactors, their attempts to open the valves failed, possibly because the equipment itself was damaged in the earthquake.
In Units No. 1 and No. 3, the gas leaked from primary containment structures and fueled explosions that ripped apart the reactor buildings, spewing radioactive material into the air. Unit No. 2 suffered a hydrogen explosion inside the primary containment.
Mr. Sarrack, reached by telephone, said that his proposal was opposed by the operations department officials at his company, who wanted direct control over the reactor rather than employing automatic systems. He was working at the time at the nuclear plant in Monticello, on the Mississippi River near Minneapolis.
He said he continued to believe that a passive system, like one using a rupture disk, would work better and could be set to rupture at a pressure just slightly less than the pressure at which the containment would rupture. In those cases, he said, venting is always preferable; the releases of radioactive materials during deliberate venting are expected to be lower than those resulting from explosions.
But the consensus in the nuclear industry supports the existing systems. Douglas E. True, the president of ERIN Engineering and Research of Walnut Creek, Calif., said: "In some cases you can argue it might be better to have a rupture disk. In other cases, it would certainly be better to have a manually controlled system." For example, he said, the disk is backed up by a valve that is normally in the open position. If the disk ruptured and there was no electricity, it might be impossible to close the valve, and the venting would be permanent.
The Fukushima plant was designed by General Electric, and the venting systems that failed in Japan exists at similar plants designed by G.E. in the United States.
In a statement, James Klapproth, the nuclear energy chief consulting engineer at GE Hitachi, said that his company believed that the venting system would have operated in an accident within the "design basis" of the plant," but that the Fukushima disaster was worse than what the plant was designed for. He said that the industry in this country had considered passive systems "at one time."
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29) Afghan Detainee Is Found Dead at Guantánamo
By REUTERS
May 18, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/19/us/19guantanamo.html?ref=us
MIAMI (Reuters) - An Afghan prisoner has died at the Guantánamo detention center in an apparent suicide, the United States military said Wednesday.
The prisoner, identified as Inayatullah, 37, who was accused of being a member of Al Qaeda, died early Wednesday, the military's Southern Command said in a statement.
He was found dead by guards conducting routine checks at the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the military said.
"The guards found the detainee unresponsive and not breathing," the statement said. "After extensive lifesaving measures had been exhausted, the detainee was pronounced dead by a physician."
Inayatullah is the eighth prisoner to have died at the detention center since the United States began sending foreign captives with suspected links to Al Qaeda or the Taliban to the American naval base in Guantánamo Bay in January 2002.
Five others died apparently of suicides, and two died of natural causes.
The prison camp has held 779 foreign captives since the United States invaded Afghanistan to oust Al Qaeda and its Taliban protectors after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It now holds 171.
The Naval Criminal Investigative Service will conduct an autopsy and Inayatullah's body will be prepared for repatriation, the military said.
Inayatullah was taken to Guantánamo in September 2007, according to the military.
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