Human Rights Equated With National Suicide
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Any nation that must abridge human rights to survive deserves to fall, and that includes Muslim and Christian nations. Via Al Jazeera English:
The Israeli government has repeatedly demanded that Palestinians recognise Israel as a “Jewish state”. Recent developments in the Knesset and High Court are exposing exactly what this means, and in doing so, throw the spotlight on the issue that the ‘peace process’ – and Western governments – refuse to tackle.
On Wednesday, Israel’s High Court rejected a legal challenge to the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law, by a six to five vote. The law, first passed as a ‘temporary’ measure in 2003 and renewed ever since, prevents Palestinians from the Occupied Territories (and those from ‘enemy states’) from living with their spouses in Israel.
For thousands of Palestinian families, Israel’s law means a choice between moving abroad, living apart, or living in Israel illegally. No wonder that the Association…
Mass Suicide Threat Results In Massive Lay-Offs For Foxconn Workers
Will Fan Boys finally rebuke their iPhones as more news of Foxconn’s inhumane treatment of workers surfaces in this ZNet article by Hana Stewart-Smith?
When 300 men and women climb onto a rooftop and threaten to commit suicide in protest over denied compensation, it is impossible not to wonder how a company could lead its employees into such desperation.
But Foxconn did.
A little over a week ago, 300 employees at Foxconn’s Technology Park in Wuhan, China threatened their own lives because they were denied a vital pay increase. Foxconn told them they could either keep their jobs without it, or they could quit and be compensated.
Many chose to quit, but the company terminated the agreement, and none of the former workers received the promised compensation.
Production at the company was temporarily halted. It was not until 9 pm the next day that the town’s mayor was able to talk the 300 down from the roof.
Foxconn…
Ten Reasons The U.S. Is No Longer The Land Of The Free
Jonathan Turley suggests some self-reflection for Americans, writing in the Washington Post:
Every year, the State Department issues reports on individual rights in other countries, monitoring the passage of restrictive laws and regulations around the world. Iran, for example, has been criticized for denying fair public trials and limiting privacy, while Russia has been taken to task for undermining due process. Other countries have been condemned for the use of secret evidence and torture.
Even as we pass judgment on countries we consider unfree, Americans remain confident that any definition of a free nation must include their own — the land of free. Yet, the laws and practices of the land should shake that confidence. In the decade since Sept. 11, 2001, this country has comprehensively reduced civil liberties in the name of an expanded security state. The most recent example of this was the National Defense Authorization Act, signed Dec. 31,…
Truly Free Healthcare: Is it Possible?
Krista Simpson describes a student-run, multi-discipline health care center, that requires no ID, no insurance, and no fees, for Torontoist. Is this a possible future model, not just for a marginalised identity-less population, but for Canada and the world at large?
At IMAGINE, a clinic organized and run by U of T students, multidisciplinary teams provide medical care to patients who would otherwise go without.
The life of someone studying in a medical field is a busy one, but for a group of University of Toronto students, even the hectic schedule does not stop them from taking on an extra project.
They are volunteers at a clinic called IMAGINE, an acronym for Interprofessional Medical and Allied Groups for Improving Neighbourhood Environments, which runs out of the Queen West Community Health Centre (168 Bathurst Street) on Saturdays. Patients do not need a health card or identification to be seen. Most who come through their…
Media Roots Radio: Ron Paul & GOP, Election Fraud, NDAA Update
Via Media Roots:
Abby and Robbie Martin discuss the Iowa Caucus: the GOP candidates, the corporate media’s coverage of the events, cherrypicking racist attributes among the contenders, the phasing out of Ron Paul as a “front runner”; election fraud: the fact that there is voting software designed to flip the vote; NDAA: an update of how the legislation was passed and breakdown of what it actually means for citizens living in the US.
Lakhdar Boumediene’s Guantanamo Nightmare
Someone forward this to Obama? In the New York Times, a Bosnian citizen and former humanitarian aid worker discusses being tortured and imprisoned at Guantanamo for seven years as an innocent man without facing charges, before the Supreme Court ordered him freed:
Wednesday, America’s detention camp at Guantánamo Bay will have been open for 10 years. For seven of them, I was held there without explanation or charge. During that time my daughters grew up without me. They were toddlers when I was imprisoned, and were never allowed to visit or speak to me by phone.
Some American politicians say that people at Guantánamo are terrorists, but I have never been a terrorist. Had I been brought before a court when I was seized, my children’s lives would not have been torn apart, and my family would not have been thrown into poverty. It was only after the United States Supreme Court…
President Pardons Thanksgiving Turkey; Murders U.S. Citizen Without Trial
Talk about your empty gestures. For seriously now, Eli, how do you expect to retain your own credibility after tolerating shenannigans like this?
More heedless heresy, from the usual suspects at: Dystopia Diaries
Egyptians March In Support Of Occupy Oakland
American politicians and pundits have scoffed at the notion that there’s any connection to be drawn between the Occupy Wall Street protests and the “Arab Spring” of the past year. At least some involved in the Middle East uprisings would disagree. From journalist Mohammed Maree, via Boing Boing:
As they vowed earlier this week to do, Egyptian protesters marched from Tahrir square to the U.S. Embassy [on Friday] in support of Occupy Oakland—and against police brutality witnessed in Oakland on Tuesday night, and commonly experienced in Egypt.
Slavoj Zizek: ‘Now The Field is Open’
A most cogent analysis, by one of the most cerebral of philosophers. From the good people at Al Jazeera English:
Anonymous Busts Child Porn Ring
Funny, how the mainstream media isn’t all over this one, given Anonymous has been a great punching bag for them. Think they are still upset about the Stock Exchange? … Sara Yin reports in PC Magazine:
Hacker group Anonymous briefly crashed a large collection of child pornography Web sites, and published the names of its patrons.
Last week, the cyber vigilantes, better known for targeting large corporations and oppressive government regimes, used a brute force attack to infiltrate a server called Freedom Hosting, which housed about 40 child porn sites. The biggest site was Lolita City, which contained more than 100GB of content.
According to a timeline of events posted on Pastebin, Anonymous said before taking down the sites, it issued a warning to Freedom Hosting to remove the illegal content. When it failed to do so, Anonymous attacked. The sites were down for about five minutes before an admin restored them, upon which…
Prisoners Help Build Patriot Missiles
File this in the “in case you missed it” news cycle. Why should the government not hire unemployed Americans to do this …? Noah Shachtman reported back in March on the excellent WIRED’s Danger Room:
This [past] spring, the United Arab Emirates is expected to close a deal for $7 billion dollars’ worth of American arms. Nearly half of the cash will be spent on Patriot missiles, which cost as much as $5.9 million apiece.
But what makes those eye-popping sums even more shocking is that some of the workers manufacturing parts for those Patriot missiles are prisoners, earning as little as 23 cents an hour.
The work is done by Unicor, previously known as Federal Prison Industries. It’s a government-owned corporation, established during the Depression, that employs about 20,000 inmates in 70 prisons to make everything from clothing to office furniture to solar panels to military electronics.
One of the company’s high-tech specialties: Patriot…
Big Alternative Medicine Threatens Suit Against Skeptical Blogger
The alt-med controversy is often framed as a David-and-Goliath clash between small-time distributors of natural heath products, on one hand, and “big pharma” on the other. It is worth considering, however, that alt-med has become a lucrative industry in its own right, capable of engaging in the same abuses often associated with powerful pharmaceutical companies.
In Europe, draconian libel laws are increasingly being used to intimidate bloggers who question the validity of specific alt-med products or modalities. The most recent case involves the multinational homeopathy manufacturer Boiron and an amateur blogger in Italy. Steven Novella at Science-Based Medicine writes:
There have been many cases now of big companies or organizations, or wealthy individuals, threatening to sue or actually suing a blogger for libel. The most famous case is that of Simon Singh who was sued by the British Chiropractic Association over comments he made in an article. Simon braved through the expensive and exhaustive…
West Memphis Three “Plead Guilty”, Freed After 18 Years
The trio of teenage friends were accused and convicted of several child murders in Arkansas in 1993, with the evidence more or less amounting to their interest in heavy metal music and dark-colored clothing. DNA evidence since confirmed their innocence, turning them into a cause célèbre as symbols of legal injustice, ’90s-era hysteria over provocative music, and, more broadly, the human tendency to scapegoat outsiders. The Los Angeles Times writes:
The three men known as the “West Memphis 3,” who have been imprisoned for 18 years for a notorious 1993 child-murder case, have won their freedom in an Arkansas courtroom.
In an agreement with prosecutors, Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley and Jason Baldwin pleaded guilty to the murders of three 8-year-old boys in May 1993, but are able to claim they are innocent, an arrangement known as an “Alford plea.” The three men were released Friday after serving sentences of 18 years plus credit…
‘Kids For Cash’ Judge Gets 28-Year Prison Sentence
Pennsylvania Judge Mark Ciavarella jailed teenagers for minor offenses (e.g. satirizing a teacher on Myspace) in return for over $1 million in kickbacks from the area’s for-profit youth prison. Mother Sandy Fonzo alleges that Judge Ciavarella is only “the tip of the iceberg” in a practice that is occurring across the country. Fonzo’s star-wrestler son, whom Ciavarella sentenced, committed suicide after spending six months imprisoned among violent offenders as punishment for being caught with a marijuana pipe. In her words, “Judge Ciavarella is proof that for-profit incarceration cannot happen.”
The Kids For Cash scandal involved more than 30 state and local government officials and contractors, says ABC News.
Murat Kurnaz: Nightmare At Guantanamo
Russia Today speaks with Murat Kurnaz, a German man (of Turkish decent) whom the United States arrested and imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay for five years before releasing him without charge or explanation. Before arriving at Guantanamo, Kurnaz was shipped to Afghanistan, where, in an effort to make him sign a confession, he says he was given electrical shocks, water-boarded, hung from the ceiling in chains for days on end, kept naked in freezing cold, and saw many other prisoners tortured to death.
Kurnaz’s detainment occurred while he was visiting Pakistan with a pacifist anti-poverty organization. He suspects his name was randomly given to authorities by someone in order to receive the $3,000 reward for reporting terrorists. The whole ordeal recalls the Spanish Inquisition:
Court Rules Citizens Allowed to Sue Rumsfeld for Torture
Two U.S. citizens were arrested, detained, held in captivity for months and tortured by the military after blowing the whistle on the now defunct private contractor they worked for. An Illinois court has upheld a motion to allow the pair to sue Donald Rumsfeld and other unnamed officials, but expect fierce resistance from the Obama administration. Aaron Cynic writes at Chicagoist:
The Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled Monday two men can move forward with a civil lawsuit against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The Tribune reports the Court upheld a decision from a federal judge allowing a lawsuit which holds Rumsfeld personally responsible for the torture of Donald Vance and Nathan Ertel, two former defense contractors in Iraq.
In 2006, while Vance and Ertel were working in Iraq for Shield Group Security, a private contractor, they began to suspect their employer of involvement in illegal arms trading, bribery, and other…
Last “Pink Triangle” Holocaust Survivor Dies At 98
Reports Agence France-Presse via the Raw Story:
Rudolf Brazda, last known survivor of the so-called “Pink Triangles” — gays interned in Nazi camps because of their homosexuality — died in France Wednesday aged 98, officials said. “Rudolf passed on peacefully in his sleep at dawn on August 3″ at an old people’s hospital in Bantzenheim, eastern France, said Philippe Couillet, a friend and associate of the deceased.
Brazda, born in 1913, was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp in August 1942 and reamined there until it was liberated by US troops in 1945. After the war he moved to Alsace, the eastern French region that borders Germany, and lived there until his death. He was awarded France’s Legion of Honour in April this year.
Tens of thousands of people were convicted under Nazi Germany’s laws that made homosexual acts a crime. Those who were sent to concentration camps had to wear a pink…
India’s Illegal ‘Human Safari Park’
Andaman Islands. Photo: _e.t (CC)
Via Wanderlust:
The Andaman Trunk Road was ordered to be closed by India’s Supreme Court in 2002 but it still remains open and poses a high threat to the indigenous community who have a population of just 365.
‘Survival’, an organisation which campaigns for tribal people’s rights worldwide, has called for travellers to boycott the road which runs through the Andaman Islands, a destination growing in popularity among tourists.
Rules to protect the Jarawa reserve and its community are routinely broken and thousands of tourists — both Indian and international — travel along the road each month, making the reserve in effect, a human safari park.
The hunter-gatherer Jarawa, have only had friendly contact with outsiders since 1998 so there is a high risk of tourists passing on diseases to the community who have little immunity.
In 1999 and 2006, the Jarawa suffered an outbreak of measles, which historically has decimated…
Indian Company Produces Flat-Pack, $700 Houses
Reports Agence France-Presse via Raw Story:
The Indian company that launched the world’s cheapest car has unveiled its latest product for the fast-growing nation: a flat-pack house that costs just $700 and can be built in a week.
The Tata group, maker of the $2,500 Nano car, said that the 20-square-metre (215-square-foot) home comes from a pre-fabricated kit that includes doors, windows and a roof.
“We have already prepared two-three different designs based on discussions with users and are gathering more feedback,” Sumitesh Das, the head of the project at Tata, told reporters in Hyderabad.
“Hopefully, in the next six-eight months we should be able to roll it out in the market nationally.”
The basic model of a so-called “Nano” house will cost 32,000 rupees ($720) and will use coconut fibre or jute for wall cladding and interiors. It has a life expectancy of 20 years.
California Prisoners Stage Hunger Strike Over Conditions
David Edwards writes on The Raw Story:
Between 50 and 100 inmates in solitary confinement at California’s Pelican Bay State Prison have pledged to refuse to eat until officials agree to better conditions.
Isaac Ontiveros of the anti-prison group Critical Resistance explained the prisoners’ demands to DemocracyNow.
“End the use of group punishment and administrative abuse; abolish the debriefing policy and modify active/inactive gang status criteria; comply with the commission on safety and abuse in America’s prisons 2006 recommendations regarding an end to long-term solitary confinement; provide adequate and nutritious food; and expand and provide constructive programming and privileges for indefinite SHU status inmates.”
