Could A U.S. Government Crackdown Take America Off The Internet?
I’m sure this has been on the minds of many following the ongoing events in Egypt. An io9 article discusses the possibility:
With the threat of today’s protests looming in Egypt, on Thursday Egyptian authorities cut the nation off the internet. No online communication could pass in or out of the country. We investigated whether a similar lockdown could happen in America.
How the Egyptian government erased its citizens from the internet
No one is completely certain what happened to the Egyptian internet, but it appears that the shutdown started off early in the week with the country blocking Twitter and Facebook access for those within its borders. Then, shortly after Thursday midnight local time, the country simply disappeared from the internet. With a few exceptions like the stock exchange, Egyptian websites and services were unreachable; the network traffic over Egyptian borders dropped by an astonishing 90 percent. Cell phone networks were also down. Today…
Universal Studios Singapore Stages Simulated Terror Attack
Channel News Asia reports:
Singapore authorities simulated a terror attack on Tuesday evening to test the emergency preparedness of the Home Team and the security teams from Resorts World Sentosa, one of the Singapore’s newest tourist attractions.
It was the first time that one of the two Integrated Resorts was participating in such a large-scale exercise.
It started with a suspicious package in an auditorium that no one noticed. Soon smoke filled the room and guests were evacuated.
Not long after, a second parcel exploded outside the theater and three gunmen stormed into the Universal Studios theme park, opening fire, and leaving scores injured and dead.
Security agencies were alerted and deployed to the scene.
The simulated exercise involved some 400 Resorts World staff and officers from the various Home Team agencies, including the Special Operations command team which later subdued the gunmen.
Witnessing the event was Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office, Lim Swee Say, who said…
No Internet In Egypt As Protests Escalate
By Ronnie Kerr at Vator.tv:
First Facebook and Twitter were made inaccessible, now the entire Web. Blocking access to Twitter and Facebook just wasn’t enough for the Egyptian government. Around 11 hours ago — or a little after midnight in Egypt — the Internet went completely dark.
Source: Vator.tv
Now protesters all across Egypt must find a way to organize without the Web and, in Cairo, with an elite special operations force deployed to put a stop to massive demonstrations that have rippled across the state, ignited by a revolt in Tunisia that successfully toppled the regime there.
Both were drastic measures taken as preemptive steps by the Egyptian government ahead of possibly the largest demonstrations yet, which Reuters says are planned for Friday after weekly prayers.
But neither the people taking to the streets in Tunisia nor those in Iran during the summer of 2009 ever had to face a complete blackout of the Internet, a…
Muslim Prejudice Becomes ‘Socially Acceptable’ in UK
BBC News reports:
Prejudice against Muslims has “passed the dinner-table test” and become socially acceptable in the UK, a senior Conservative is to say.
Baroness Warsi, co-chairman of the Tory Party, will warn against dividing Muslims into moderates and extremists.
The baroness, the first Muslim woman to serve in the cabinet, will say such labels fuel misunderstanding.
She will use a speech at Leicester University to accuse the media of superficial discussion of Islam.
Baroness Warsi will say anti-Muslim prejudice is now seen by many Britons as normal and uncontroversial, and she will use her position to fight an “ongoing battle against bigotry”.
In extracts of the speech, published in the Daily Telegraph, the peer blames “the patronising, superficial way faith is discussed in certain quarters, including the media”, for making Britain a less tolerant place for believers.
She is expected to reveal that she raised the issue of Islamophobia with Pope Benedict XVI during his visit to…
Mexico’s Ex-President Vicente Fox: Legalize Drugs
Vicente Fox
TIME reports:
As Mexico drowns in drug-related bloodshed — suffering almost 12,000 murders in 2010 — it is perhaps unsurprising that government critics have turned up their screaming that the war on drugs isn’t working. But it was a bit of a bombshell when former President Vicente Fox added his voice to the chorus. The cowboy-boot-wearing leader, who ruled Mexico from 2000 to 2006, once declared the “mother of all battles” against crime and rounded up drug kingpins.
But before he left office, he witnessed the first big spike in violence as the narcos retaliated. Last August, evidence surfaced that his vision had changed when he wrote on his blog that prohibition wasn’t working. Now, in an interview with TIME in his hometown in central Mexico, he says his views have indeed moved toward the other end of the spectrum: favoring full-on legalization of the production, transit and sale of prohibited drugs.…
A Look Into DR Congo’s Comic Book Industry
Panel from 'Luve ya muntu' by Bruno Luya Muzuka.
Fascinating stories and art from a country which has seen incredible unrest. Thomas Hubert reports from Kinshasa for BBC News:
For comic book fans around the world, a handful of cities evoke strong images: superheroes jumping from skyscrapers in New York; Tintin running across a building in a Brussels mural; wide-eyed schoolgirls looking for romance in Tokyo.
But colourful cityscapes, designed by local artists, are finally putting an African capital city on the comic map. The place is Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and it is not difficult to see why.
Complete with dusty boulevards, monster traffic jams in blazing sunsets and so-called shegue, or street children, such comic portraits of the Congolese capital are among the main features of the style developed by home-grown talent.
Decades of shared colonial history with comic-mad Belgium certainly had an influence on the emergence of the Congolese comic…
Hu’s On First: It’s China-U.S. Summit Time
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Hu Jintao. Photo: www.kremlin.ru. (CC)
On the eve of the Chinese President’s visit to the United States, and the intense speculation about his intentions—and ours—I found myself a dark room at the Anthology Film Archive in New York’s East Village watching a spectacular documentary by Chinese filmmaker Zhao Liang called Petition.
It’s about the tens of thousands of people with grievances who seek redress in China at offices ostensibly set up to resolve their problems.
The right to petition is guaranteed by the Chinese Constitution—yes China has a Constitution, but it is unevenly enforced like our own. Falun Gong first tried, but failed, to bring its human rights claims to a Petition office like the bureaucratic centers shown in the film as do a small army of individuals who every day, bravely—sometimes fanatically—insist it is their human right to be heard. (In Falun Gong’s case, they were outlawed and systematically repressed for more…
Assange: Many Arab Leaders Closely Aligned With CIA
Julian Assange claims that numerous high-ranking officials in Arab countries work closely with the CIA in secret — “[They] are spies for the US in their countries” — and says their names will be released if he is killed. Will the threat be enough to save him from the United States’ wrath? A decidedly miffed Business Insider reports:
Julian Assange has set the ultimate dead man’s switch: Arrest or kill him and thousands of files will be automatically released, including documents that out CIA-backed Arabs.
The Wikileaks leader had previously claimed to have files on auto-release. That he had info on CIA ties was first-mentioned in an interview yesterday with Al-Jazeera.
This is exactly the type of information that lead people to condemn Wikileaks as dangerous. If released it would certainly endanger many American operatives and cause a massive political disruption.
On the Edge with Max Kaiser – Latest on Global Financial Crisis
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts and Max Keiser sum it up. I’m moving to Sweden. [Dr. Roberts is a former assistant secretary to the U.S. Treasury.]
Mort Zuckerman Slams United States
Mort Zuckerman, the Canadian-born American magazine editor, newspaper publisher, and real estate billionaire, uses his stuttering weekly news mag, U.S. News & World Report, to deliver an obituary for the U.S. economy. Generally speaking, when capitalist fanboys like Zuckerman say there’s something rotten in the state of Denmark, it’s wise to take them seriously:
The modern world has for centuries been dominated economically, intellectually, and physically by the civilization that arose in Western Europe in the wake of the Renaissance and Reformation and spread across the Atlantic.
Will that one day be seen as a passing phenomenon doomed to ascend ever upward and then slowly fizzle out like a firework?
It is nearly a century since that gloomy German mathematician and philosopher Oswald Spengler published his 1918 classic The Decline of the West. His arguments were complex, but basically he suggested that the future of the West was not as limitless as his…
The United States: Superbroke, Superfrugal, Superpower?
Thomas Friedman makes some good points about the debt-laden nation that leads — or used to lead — the world, in the New York Times:
In recent years, I have often said to European friends: So, you didn’t like a world of too much American power? See how you like a world of too little American power — because it is coming to a geopolitical theater near you. Yes, America has gone from being the supreme victor of World War II, with guns and butter for all, to one of two superpowers during the cold war, to the indispensable nation after winning the cold war, to “The Frugal Superpower” of today. Get used to it. That’s our new nickname. American pacifists need not worry any more about “wars of choice.” We’re not doing that again. We can’t afford to invade Grenada today.
Ever since the onset of the Great Recession of 2008, it has been clear that the nature of being a leader — political or corporate — was changing in America. During most of the post-World War II era, being a leader meant, on balance, giving things away to people. Today, and for the next decade at least, being a leader in America will mean, on balance, taking things away from people…
Are Nations Obsolete?
In an article for Foreign Policy, Parag Khanna argues that as mega-cities wield increasing political and economic power, the structures and sovereignty of the “countries” that contain them becomes less important. In other words, global power struggles will be less America vs. China vs. Russia and more London vs. Mumbai vs. Tokyo, with the people outside of the super-cities being of little consequence.
In an age that appears increasingly unmanageable, cities rather than states are becoming the islands of governance on which the future world order will be built. This new world is not — and will not be — one global village, so much as a network of different ones.
Time, technology, and population growth have massively accelerated the advent of this new urbanized era. Already, more than half the world lives in cities, and the percentage is growing rapidly. But just 100 cities account for 30 percent of the world’s…
The Last Ten Years: The Best Era In Humanity’s History
Between the financial crisis, sexting, and the Gulf oil spill, it may seem like the world has been going to pieces in recent years. But that’s only because you’re a pessimistic jerk who’s looking at everything all wrong. For the globe as a whole, the last decade has actually been a time of previously-unknown prosperity, health, and peace. Foreign Policy explains:
Consider that in 1990, roughly half the global population lived on less than $1 a day; by 2007, the proportion had shrunk to 28 percent — and it will be lower still by the close of 2010. That’s because, though the financial crisis briefly stalled progress on income growth, it was just a hiccup in the decade’s relentless GDP climb. Indeed, average worldwide incomes are at their highest levels ever, at roughly $10,600 a year — and have risen by as much as a quarter since 2000.
Even the wars of the…
Police State Lockdown In Toronto For G20 Summit
Photo: Sherurcij
Here we go again, another suspension of civil liberties as the elite nations of the world gather in Toronto. Why do we put up with it, and if Canada, usually a bastion of human rights, allows it, who’s going to call a foul? Report from the Globe & Mail:
At City Hall, employees arrived at work to find a burly security guard demanding their access pass before they entered the normally unlocked doors. At a downtown law firm, lawyers were told to leave their suits and high heels at home and dress casual-like to avoid being set upon by anti-capitalist rioters. At one provincial government office, bureaucrats were told in late afternoon that the building was going under “lockdown” because protesters were in the neighbourhood. Many scooted for exits to avoid being trapped in the closed-up building.
All of a sudden on Monday, our calm, mild, pacific city took on…
Bilderberg 2010: Post-Meeting Summary
Map of countries by the number of politicians, which have attended one or more conferences organized by the Bilderberg Group.
Charlie Skelton wraps up his coverage for the Guardian:
Weary and bramble-scratched, elated by the press coverage, and sick of riot vans and lukewarm Spanish omelette baguettes, we return from Bilderberg 2010 with the following thoughts uppermost in our tired mind:
• ‘Global cooling’ is on the cards
Check out the agenda for Bilderberg 2010: “Financial reform, security, cyber technology, energy, Pakistan, Afghanistan, world food problem, global cooling, social networking, medical science, EU-US relations.” That list is a window into your future. Don’t think for one minute that it isn’t. And don’t ignore it, because it isn’t ignoring you.
I love how “social networking” must fry the Bilderbergian mind. On the one hand, as Zuckerberg of Facebook says, privacy is no longer a social norm so it’s okay to milk the networking sites for information, social…
Bilderberg 2010: Between The Sword And The Wall
The Catalan police are refreshingly friendly. But if the time for action comes, the Guardian’s Charlie Skelton asks whose side will they be on:
The enormous bald detective in beach shorts took the camera from my wife. “Let me see.” He scrolled through the photographs, just taken, of me being detained at the campsite gates. He scrolled past, to see a photo of a limousine convoy, whooshing up the hill to Bilderberg. “I don’t like this,” he said, and waved a huge, disgruntled hand towards the conference hotel.
Map of countries by the number of politicians, which have attended one or more conferences organized by the Bilderberg Group.
“Do you know how much this is costing?” asked Hannah. “Do you think the Spanish economy can afford all this?” Grimly, the enormous bald detective started deleting images of his comrades with his giant thumb. “Your opinion,” he growled, “is right.”
He handed the camera back…
The Trilateral Commission Calls For War With Iran
Trilateral Commission logo
Don’t ask me how Jim Tucker knows this stuff (put it down to the tricks of his trade, perhaps), but here is his report from Dublin, at American Free Press:
Trilateral Commission (TC) members, angry over their failure to establish a world government and the economic crisis they generated, called for war with Iran when they gathered behind closed doors here in Dublin, Ireland May 7-10.
War plans were revealed by Mikhail Slobodovsici, a chief adviser to the Russian leadership, when he strolled off the grounds of the Four Seasons resort, where TC had hunkered down behind armed guards and locked doors. He thought he was talking to a TC colleague when speaking with Alan Keenan, who operates the web site WeAreChange.org.
“We are deciding the future of the world,” Slobodovsici said. “We need a world government,” he said, but, referring to Iran, said “we need to get rid of them.”
Clearly,…
Super Surprising Facts About ‘Our Enemy’ Iran Remind Us That We Don’t Know Squat
American’s aren’t exactly known for our knowledge of things like history and geography… This article from Alternet reminds us of how little we have bothered to learn about Iran:
What can possibly justify the relentless U.S. diplomatic (and mainstream media) assault on Iran ?
It cannot be argued that Iran is an aggressive state that is dangerous to its neighbors, as facts do not support this claim. It cannot be relevant that Iran adheres to Islamic fundamentalism, has a flawed democracy and denies women full western-style civil rights, as Saudi Arabia is more fundamentalist, far less democratic and more oppressive of women, yet it is a U.S. ally. It cannot be relevant that Iran has, over the years, had a nuclear research program, and is most likely pursuing the capacity to develop nuclear weapons, as Pakistan, India, Israel and other states are nuclear powers yet remain U.S. allies—indeed, Israel deceived the U.S. while…
Smoke Bomb Egg Fight in Ukraine Parliament
Russia Today reports:
Ukraine’s parliament has ratified a new naval base agreement with Russia despite the opposition’s resistance. The vote was mired with a fistfight, smoke bombs and hooliganism. The document has been approved with 236 votes. It extends the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s stay at its base in Crimea until 2042 in exchange for a considerable gas price discount.
The opposition believes that the agreement undermines Ukraine’s national security and wanted the document to be denounced at any cost. At the session some deputies threw eggs at Speaker Vladimir Litvin, but he was saved from having his suit ruined by fellow MPs with umbrellas.
Ahead of the session the opposition faction of Yulia Timoshenko covered their seats with huge national flags and a banner saying “No treason of the motherland!”
The Middle Class Game Is Up: We’re Heading to a Slave Labor Planet
From Alternet:
Thanks to globalization, the American, Australian and European promises of middle-class prosperity are on their way to extinction.
Class solidarity was such a good idea. It really was. Obviously, most of the people who need solidarity are in the world’s laboring classes. After all, the rich have more than enough solidarity already, as was recently demonstrated by their successful execution of the greatest global financial heist in history. Oh sure, we’ll see some state sponsored mock show trials of a few of them — they always throw a few of their own out of the sleigh to the wolves during their escapes. The big heist was big news. Working Americans will be applying Preparation H to their keisters for a long time to come.
But the ultimate accomplishment of the already rich, the newly rich and the corporate rich, has been their global solidarity on the corporate/financial front. It’s been a…
