[LAAMN] S. Brian Willson to Begin Guantanamo Hunger Strike/Vigil ~ Thursday, May 16th, 3:00 PM in Front of The City Hall in Portland, Oregon ~ In Solidarity with Guantanamo Prisoners!
S. Brian Willson Begins Guantanamo Hunger Strike/Vigil In Solidarity with Guantanamo Prisoners! Thursday, May 16th, 3:00 PM In Front of The City Hall in Portland, Oregon Look for a Large Colorful Banner and People Wearing Prison-Style Orange Jumpsuits. Questions Contact Dan Shea at: 503-750-7649 Seventy-one-year-old S. Brian Willson, a Viet Nam veteran member of Veterans For Peace, Portland Chapter 72, beginning Sunday, May 12 reduced his food intake by more than 85 percent, fasting on 300 calories a day in solidarity with the 130 uncharged Guantanamo prisoner hunger strikers now in deteriorating health, many of whom are being force-fed. Willson, a trained lawyer and criminologist, anti-war activist and author, lives by the mantra: We are not worth more; They are not worth less. He joins 65-year-old grandmother Diane Wilson, a fifth-generation Texas shrimper, anti-war activist and author, who began an open-ended, water-only fast on May 1 outside the White House, and intends to fast until the prisoners are freed. There are more than 1,200 people around the country participating in a rolling hunger strike to bring attention to the plight of the fasting prisoners at Guantanamo, who have been illegally detained for over ten years with little recourse. May 16 is the 100th day of the hunger strike. The hunger strike/fast demands President Obama take immediate action to close the prison and release the prisoners. Colonel Morris Davis, a 25-year veteran of the U.S. Air Force and one-time Chief Prosecutor for the terrorism trials at Guantanamo, has collected 200,000 signatures to be submitted to the White House, appealing to President Obama to close the Medieval detention center.* A total 166 prisoners from 25 countries remain housed in the U.S.-constructed operated gulag (2002) at Guantanamo, located on Cuban soil without Cuba's permission. Most have been jailed tortured for eleven years without charges, without trials, with no contact with families only limited legal counsel when lawyers persist to overcome military obstruction. Although the U.S. is a signatory to the U.N. Convention against Torture Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment, its maltreatment of these detainees openly violates international laws its own Constitution. Currently as many as 130 of the prisoners are on a hunger strike in protest of their medieval conditions. Stripped of their dignity, their bodies are the only place where they retain some control, yet even this is taken away as their U.S. captors have induced force-feeding to keep them alive in their misery. The American Medical Association and the World Medical Association both declared that force-feeding of competent patients/prisoners is in violation of international law. These prisoners' names and home countries are now identified. Eighty-six of them were cleared for release several years ago, yet remain incarcerated. Fifty-six of these are from Yemen and President Obama has imposed a ban on releasing them. President Obama could use his bully leverage to close Guantanamo and release all the prisoners, despite his blaming Congress. U.S. Professor of Law Marjorie Cohn describes forced feeding as follows: They strap you to a chair, tie up your wrists, your legs, your forehead and tightly around the waist, Fayiz Al-Kandari told his lawyer, Lt. Col. Barry Wingard. Al-Kandari, a Kuwaiti held at Guantanamo for 11 years, has never been charged with a crime. The tube makes his eyes water excessively and blood begins to trickle from the nose. Once the tube passes his throat the gag reflex kicks in. Warm liquid is poured into the body for 45 minutes to two hours. He feels like his body is going to convulse and often vomits, Wingard added. Death is Preferable to Life at Obama's Guantanamo, Global Research, news site of Centre for Research on Globalization, May 10, 2013. www.globalresearch.ca/death-is-preferable-to-life-at-obamas-guantanamo/53345 56 The larger context: Of the 2,300,000 prisoners warehoused in 9,000 U.S. jails and prisons, nearly 1,400,000 are racial and ethnic minorities. As many as 80,000 are held in solitary confinement. More than 30,000 immigrants are languishing in indefinite detention. The U.N. Special Rapporteur on Torture has concluded that physical isolation of 22-24 hours one day or longer for young people constitutes cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment. Force-feeding is not unique to Guantanamo; some U.S. prisoners are routinely and systematically force fed. The U.S. possesses but 4.6 percent of the world's population, but incarcerates 25 percent of the world's prisoners, owning the highest per capita detention rate of any country in the world. www.change.org/petitions/president-obama-close-detention-facility-at-guantan amo-bay?utm_campaign=petition_invitationutm_content=controlutm_medium=emai lutm_source=share_petition#share Important Links for S. Brian Willson You Can Email Brian at:
[LAAMN] Protest New Women's Jail in LA County ~ This Saturday, May 18th at Noon ~ At Pitchess Detention Center, North Facility - 29320 The Old Road, Castaic - 38 Miles from Downtown LA ~ Carpool at 10
From Global Women's Strike/LA: l...@allwomencount.net Protest Against a New Women's Jail in Castaic This Saturday, May 18th at Noon At The Pitchess Detention Center - North Facility 29320 The Old Road, Castaic 91384 - 38 Miles from Downtown LA Free Carpool at 10:00 AM from Chuco's Justice Center 1137 E. Redondo Blvd, Inglewood 90302 and Skid Row (Email for Details) To RSVP for the Action http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2c=4T4Kae5vOPj6giC6qZRKGYAh89FL4RSE Here! For Free Carpool or Questions, Please Email: c...@criticalresistance.org Dear Friends, Global Women’s Strike/LA is supporting actions including the action in Castaic this Saturday to stop the building of a new women’s jail in LA County. With the safety net in shreds including the dismantling of welfare as a right for the most impoverished mothers and with minimum wage levels so low that families cannot survive, women are the fastest growing population of those going to prison. When welfare is cut the number of women arrested for prostitution increases. The vast majority of women being incarcerated are single mothers with a disproportionate impact on women of color. Single mothers and our children are the fastest growing population among the homeless in LA County. As the economic crisis deepens, women are forced to do whatever we can to keep a roof over our heads feed our children resulting in increasing numbers of moms being criminalized. And those who are criminalized face discrimination in the waged work force and are also not eligible for compensation if they are raped or suffer other violence. Additionally mothers who are incarcerated are vulnerable to losing their parental rights with their children ending up in foster care or adopted out to strangers. We say no to money for new jails and yes to money for welfare, housing and other resources to keep families together, rather than tearing families apart! - - - http://img.ymlp214.net/wfhla_image001_50.jpg http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2c=NJoytjSCc0mtcVq%2Fcu4uyoAh89FL4RSE Please let us know if you can make it! http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2c=mV8EnVHtlyDnqv7hm0V%2BtIAh89FL4RSE RSVP Here http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2c=qCA385RU73H9eyChst7k64Ah89FL4RSE http://img.ymlp214.net/wfhla_image002_316.jpg LA County Sheriff Baca wants to spend $100 million to expand the Pitchess Detention Center in the City of Castaic. His proposed expansion would cage over 1,000 women, girls, and trans people—most of them from poor and working communities of color. LA County Board of Supervisors is giving him time to shore up his schemes. If they think that we’ll sit by and watch a thousand more people from our communities get locked up, we need to prove them wrong! Come out to Castaic on Saturday, May 18th, and stand against this jail. Defeating the jail in Castaic helps defend against the negative impacts of imprisonment in Los Angeles County—and it helps us to strengthen our ability to fight for the healthy, stable communities we want and deserve! What: Protest Against a New Women's Jail in Castaic When: Saturday, May 18th at Noon Where: Pitchess Detention Center, North Facility, 29320 The Old Road, Castaic, CA 91384 (38 miles from downtown LA) Carpool: at 10am from Chuco's Justice Center (1137 E. Redondo Blvd, Inglewood, CA 90302) and Skid Row (email for details) To RSVP for the action http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2c=4T4Kae5vOPj6giC6qZRKGYAh89FL4RSE Here! For free carpool or questions, please email mailto:c...@criticalresistance.org c...@criticalresistance.org. Who: Critical Resistance, No More Jails LA, Youth Justice Coalition, Coalition to End Sheriff Violence, Global Women's Strike, Californians United for a Responsible Budget and more. In solidarity, http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/o/51040/images/Headshots%20and%20Signatures/DianaZuniga.pnghttp://img.ymlp214.net/wfhla_image005_11.jpg Diana Zuñiga LA No More Jails Californians United for a Responsible Budget (CURB) P.S. If you haven't already, please check out our CURB's 2012 Annual Report http://salsa3.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2c=BcV%2Bgbl4ra%2F2S09Rv2x7cHvufXcuXESD ! [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] --- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --- Unsubscribe: mailto:laamn-unsubscr...@egroups.com --- Subscribe: mailto:laamn-subscr...@egroups.com --- Digest: mailto:laamn-dig...@egroups.com --- Help: mailto:laamn-ow...@egroups.com?subject=laamn
[LAAMN] Fw: GP RELEASE Green Party calls Monsanto a top risk to public health the environment, seeks restraints on GMOs
GREEN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES http://www.gp.org Release online at http://www.gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=618 For Immediate Release: Thursday, May 16, 2013 Contacts: Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-904-7614, mcla...@greens.org Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starl...@gp.org Green Party calls Monsanto a top risk to public health and the environment, urges a moratorium on genetically modified food crops • March Against Monsanto planned for May 25 in cities throughout the world • Green Party Speakers Bureau: Greens available to speak on ecological sustainability: http://www.gp.org/speakers/speakers-ecological.php • Green Shadow Cabinet: http://greenshadowcabinet.us WASHINGTON, DC -- Green Party leaders said today that biotech giant Monsanto and other powerful biotech companies and agribusinesses are wreaking havoc with the environment, exploiting farmers, and endangering the health of plants, animals, and humans throughout the world. Monsanto has gained enormous political power in the U.S., with its tentacles wrapped around Congress and the Obama Administration, said Nancy Allen, former co-chair of the Green Party of the United States and Maine Green Independent Party, and organic small farmer for 40 years. The reckless introduction of GMOs [genetically modified organisms] into agriculture is turning small farmers into serfs under Monsanto's control, damaging biodiversity, and yielding crops that pose health risks to consumers, as well as livestock and plant populations. Greens said that the biotech industry has grown into a monopolistic cartel, with Monsanto and two other corporations controlling more than half of the world's commercial seed market (http://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/seed-diversity-in-trouble-zwfz1303zkin.aspx). Occupy Monsanto has organized a March Against Monsanto to take place on May 25 in capitals and other cities in 41 countries (http://occupy-monsanto.com / http://occupymonsanto360.org/2013/05/10/march-against-monsanto-may-25-2013 / Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarchAgainstMonstanto). We must hold Monsanto and its executives accountable for the damage they're causing around the world. We must reform campaign finance laws that have given such companies so much influence over Congress and the White House. We also need further research into the effects of GMOs and a moratorium on their use in food crops until these effects are better known. And we demand that GMO products be labeled accurately so that consumers can make informed decisions about what they buy and eat, said Frank Raymond Cetera, Co-Founder and Vice-President of the Alchemical Nursery (http://www.alchemicalnursery.org) and a New York Green. The plank on agriculture in the Green Party's national platform reads Applying the Precautionary Principle to genetically modified organisms (GMOs), we support a moratorium until safety can be demonstrated by independent (non-corporate funded), long-term tests for food safety, genetic drift, resistance, soil health, effects on non-target organisms, and cumulative interactions. (http://www.gp.org/index.php/green-party-platform-table-of-contents/17-platform/40-iii-ecological-sustainability.html#ag) Green Party leaders listed several ways in which Monsanto and other biotech firms are abusing their power and threatening public health: • GMO crop strains designed to resist Monsanto's RoundUp herbicide (glyphosate) and GMO animal feed have led to new and more virulent plant, animal, and human diseases. See Ten Ways Monsanto and Big Ag Are Trying to Kill You - And the Planet by Alexis Baden-Mayer Ronnie Cummins, Organic Consumers Association, February 1, 2012 (http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_24800.cfm). • Monsanto and other companies have benefited from generous government subsidies, promotion by the U.S. State Department, and other political favors. On May 13, the Supreme Court ruled that an Indiana farmer must pay Monsanto $84,000 for using the company's genetically engineered RoundUp Ready seeds that were mixed into other seeds he had purchased, even though the GMO seeds were not labeled as such (Bowman v. Monsanto Co.; see http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/05/13-3). See also Biotech Ambassadors: How the U.S. State Department Promotes the Seed Industry’s Global Agenda, Food Water Watch (http://documents.foodandwaterwatch.org/doc/Biotech_Report_US.pdf). • Monsanto's lobbyists have persuaded President Obama and Congress to pass the Farmer Assurance Provision in the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act (2013), nicknamed the Monsanto Protection Act because it blocks the power of federal courts to halt the sale or planting of GMO seeds, regardless of any harmful health effects caused by the seeds. Greens support the repeal of irrelevant sections of this legislation. • Monsanto's influence has resulted in the appointment
[LAAMN] Nakba Day, Photos more + Israeli law seeks to protect IDF from 'defamation'
http://www.middleeastmonitor.com/blogs/politics/6033-israeli-law-seeks-to-protect-idf-from-defamation Israeli law seeks to protect IDF from 'defamation' Ramona Wadi Thursday, 16 May 2013 14:30 - [image: Print]http://www.middleeastmonitor.com/blogs/politics/6033-israeli-law-seeks-to-protect-idf-from-defamation?tmpl=componentprint=1layout=defaultpage= 0 0 0 1 The Israeli Ministerial Law Committee has approved a law developed by Yoni Chetboun of Jewish Home party, which would enable the IDF to press charges against individuals or entities propagating libellous information about the soldiers without the prior approval of the Attorney General. Claiming that the IDF has been erroneously represented in the media, particularly by activists pertaining to the BDS Movement, the law is supposed to enable soldiers to 'enter the public debate'. The move drew criticism from Tzipi Livni and Yael German, who declared the IDF as 'strong enough to defend itself without the need for Knesset legislation. Advocates have praised the law, describing as the culmination of fulfilling 'an unwritten contract between the people and the IDF ... The Knesset, in providing legal recourse for soldiers, has taken a very moral step'. The law is closely tied to the case of alleged defamation of the IDF's portrayal in the film Jenin Jenin (2002) directed by Mohammed Bakri. The invasion of Jenin during Operation Defensive Shield elicited accusations of war crimes from international organisations and Israel refused to allow a UN fact finding mission to access the area. The film focuses on Palestinians' testimony of the Israeli invasion at a time when the media was prohibited from approaching the area. The film was banned and declared 'libellous and offensive to the public' by the Israeli Film Ratings Board. Five IDF soldiers filed charges against Bakri for defamation however; the lack of personal slander throughout the film led to a dismissal of the case. Bakri was also deemed to have failed to substantiate the allegations portrayed in the film by reports from human rights organisation. Seen within the wider context of Israel's occupation of Palestine, the law furthers a culture of impunity which strengthens the existing loopholes allowing violators to escape punishment for any infringement of human rights. Independent investigations into human rights violations are never carried out, paving the way for internal investigations which always elicit the identical verdict of innocence. Witness accounts in these 'trials' do not include narration of events from victims, thus enhancing secrecy which, in turn, promulgates the facade of a 'moral army'. While allegedly protecting the IDF from 'severe damage' due to the myth of having no access for recourse, it is worth noting that the law effectively strives to silence criticism and outrage by also distorting the definition of the military into that of a targeted civilian minority community. Activism has recently been more vociferous on a global level, reflecting an awareness of the occupation's repression of Palestinians. With the approved amendment, Israel's reality which is entrenched in impunity, may strive to further shun the Palestinian narrative, already disregarded as fictitious due to the powerful propaganda of the occupying power. Considering the legal ramifications designed by Israel, the approved law is a continuation of the processes which render the military an untouchable and glorified entity. Despite that within the parameters of defending security for Israeli citizens, there lurks the unspoken truth of guarding the establishment and ensuring the continuity of the occupation. http://972mag.com/the-nakba-addressing-israeli-arrogance/71504/ The Nakba: Addressing Israeli arrogancehttp://972mag.com/the-nakba-addressing-israeli-arrogance/71504/Tom Pessah http://972mag.com/author/972blog/ http://972mag.com/the-nakba-addressing-israeli-arrogance/71504/ Noam Sheizaf http://972mag.com/author/noams/Despite efforts to erase it, the Nakba's memory is more present than ever in Israelhttp://972mag.com/despite-efforts-to-erase-it-the-nakbas-memory-is-more-present-than-ever-in-israel/71468/ http://972mag.com/despite-efforts-to-erase-it-the-nakbas-memory-is-more-present-than-ever-in-israel/71468/Published May 14, 2013 +972 Resources http://972mag.com/author/927resources/Report: Forced displacement on both sides of the Green Linehttp://972mag.com/report-forced-displacement-on-both-sides-of-the-green-line/71568/ http://972mag.com/report-forced-displacement-on-both-sides-of-the-green-line/71568/Published May 16 -- By Activestills http://972mag.com/author/activestills/ |Published May 16, 2013PHOTOS: Palestinians commemorate Nakba Day in rallies and protests
[LAAMN]
(JAI: This was recommended by a comrade, S.Artesianhttp://thewolfatthedoor.blogspot.com/2013/05/a-minimal-program.htmlwho wrote: I don't think I can summarize the evidence, the findings or conclusions in the article. That would be like summarizing the findings of an investigation into conditions at Auschwitz... -- JAI RAC-LA) ___ [image: The New York Times] http://www.nytimes.com/ -- May 12, 2013 How Austerity Kills By DAVID STUCKLER and SANJAY BASU EARLY last month, a triple suicidehttp://www.cnn.com/2013/04/05/world/europe/italy-triple-suicidewas reported in the seaside town of Civitanova Marche, Italy. A married couple, Anna Maria Sopranzi, 68, and Romeo Dionisi, 62, had been struggling to live on her monthly pension of around 500 euros (about $650), and had fallen behind on rent. Because the Italian governments austerity budget had raised the retirement age, Mr. Dionisi, a former construction worker, became one of Italys esodati (exiled ones) older workers plunged into poverty without a safety net. On April 5, he and his wife left a note on a neighbors car asking for forgiveness, then hanged themselves in a storage closet at home. When Ms. Sopranzis brother, Giuseppe Sopranzi, 73, heard the news, he drowned himself in the Adriatic. The correlation between unemployment and suicide has been observed since the 19th century. People looking for work are about twice as likely to end their lives as those who have jobs. In the United States, the suicide rate, which had slowly risen since 2000, jumped during and after the 2007-9 recession. In a new book, we estimate that 4,750 excess suicides that is, deaths above what pre-existing trends would predict occurred from 2007 to 2010. Rates of such suicides were significantly greater in the states that experienced the greatest job losses. Deaths from suicide overtook deaths from car crashes in 2009. If suicides were an unavoidable consequence of economic downturns, this would just be another story about the human toll of the Great Recession. But it isnt so. Countries that slashed health and social protection budgets, like Greece, Italy and Spain, have seen starkly worse health outcomes than nations like Germany, Iceland and Sweden, which maintained their social safety nets and opted for stimulus over austerity. (Germany preaches the virtues of austerity for others.) As scholars of public health and political economy, we have watched aghast as politicians endlessly debate debts and deficits with little regard for the human costs of their decisions. Over the past decade, we mined huge data sets from across the globe to understand how economic shocks from the Great Depression to the end of the Soviet Union to the Asian financial crisis to the Great Recession affect our health. What weve found is that people do not inevitably get sick or die because the economy has faltered. Fiscal policy, it turns out, can be a matter of life or death. At one extreme is Greece, which is in the middle of a public health disaster. The national health budget has been cut by 40 percent since 2008, partly to meet deficit-reduction targets set by the so-called troika the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank as part of a 2010 austerity package. Some 35,000 doctors, nurses and other health workers have lost their jobs. Hospital admissions have soared after Greeks avoided getting routine and preventive treatment because of long wait times and rising drug costs. Infant mortality rose by 40 percent. New H.I.V. infections more than doubled, a result of rising intravenous drug use as the budget for needle-exchange programs was cut. After mosquito-spraying programs were slashed in southern Greece, malaria cases were reported in significant numbers for the first time since the early 1970s. In contrast, Iceland avoided a public health disaster even though it experienced, in 2008, the largest banking crisis in history, relative to the size of its economy. After three main commercial banks failed, total debt soared, unemployment increased ninefold, and the value of its currency, the krona, collapsed. Iceland became the first European country to seek an I.M.F. bailout since 1976. But instead of bailing out the banks and slashing budgets, as the I.M.F. demanded, Icelands politicians took a radical step: they put austerity to a vote. In two referendums, in 2010 and 2011, Icelanders voted overwhelmingly to pay off foreign creditors gradually, rather than all at once through austerity. Icelands economy has largely recovered, while Greeces teeters on collapse. No one lost health care coverage or access to medication, even as the price of imported drugs rose. There was no significant increase in suicide. Last year, the first U.N. World Happiness Reporthttp://www.livescience.com/19486-world-happiness-united-nations.htmlranked
[LAAMN] Fw: Beyond Pro-Nuclear propaganda, lots of actions, more
PLEASE FORWARD to all your friends! May 16, 2013 NEW! Busting the pro-nuclear propaganda Please download and distribute — or request copies from Beyond Nuclear — our new report, Pandora’s False Promises: busting the pro-nuclear propaganda. Each section contains fully-referenced bullet points that counter and disprove the prevalent pro-nuclear propaganda in circulation generally and advanced in the new documentary, Pandora’s Promise, which opens theatrically next month. We encourage you to bird-dog the screenings, and use these materials to rebut the false pro-nuclear arguments. The full report is large and can be downloaded here. A two-page summary and a press release are also available. Back to top The nuclear resisters need our support! As we reported last week, the Transform Now Plowshares activists who successfully breached security at the atomic bomb factory - the Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge, TN - have been convicted of sabotage, considered an “act of violence” against the United States, and are currently jailed, although sentencing is not expected until late September. You can help! The Nuclear Resister asks that you send letters of solidarity and support, not only to Greg Boertje-Obed, Sister Megan Rice and Michael Walli in Tennessee but to other imprisoned anti-nuclear and anti-war activists listed on their website. More Back to top Coalition confronts Congressman, NRC, and Entergy at Palisades' front entrance Environmental groups, including Beyond Nuclear, and concerned local residents held a vigil outside perhaps the single most problem-plagued of Entergy's dirty dozen atomic reactors -- Palisades, on the Lake Michigan shore -- as U.S. House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI) and NRC Commissioner Kristine Svinicki toured the plant and held a press conference. Upton and Svinicki refused to meet with representatives from the coalition. Their high-profile, hastily-scheduled emergency visit came a week after an 82.1 gallon spill of radioactive water into Lake Michigan, but the latest in a long list of leaks, breakdowns, and accidents in the past few years alone at this four decade old atomic reactor, deep into its breakdown phase.More Back to top NRC muddies public hearing process on restart of crippled California reactor An Atomic Safety Licensing Board (ASLB) of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) ruled in favor of Friends of the Earth (FoE) that the proposed restart of the damaged Unit 2 at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) limited at 70% of its capacity rating is an “experiment.” The Board determined that such tests and experiments with public safety require inquiry and disclosure through the federal agency’s public hearing process before the reactor is allowed to fire up. In response to its own licensing board Order and Memorandum, NRC Office of Public Affairs spokesman Scott Burnell put their own spin on the practical effect of the Order in saying the staff current restart review is its own independent process. The press office’s interpretation says that the staff can green light the nuke’s restart despite an Order. The Board can appeal to the five member Commission. But, it would not be unprecedented for politically appointed Commissioners to overrule a licensing board determination. More Back to top stay in touch * join list * donate * facebook * twitter take action Final reminder: comments opposing Mobile Chernobyl due by May 24th! Please submit comments to U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Ron Wyden's (D-OR) staff by May 24th, expressing opposition to parking lot dumps for high-level radioactive waste, and the risky irradiated nuclear fuel shipments they would launch onto our roads, rails, and waterways! More Help Stop the Great Lakes Nuclear Dump! On May 24th, Canadian federal decision makers will close the public comment and question period regarding the proposed Deep Geologic Repository for burying low and intermediate level radioactive wastes from 20 Ontario reactors at the Bruce Nuclear Complex, a mere 400 yards from the waters of Lake Huron, and just 50 miles from Michigan. This dump could easily open the door for a national high-level radioactive waste dump at the same location. Please send in comments and questions opposing this grave threat to the Great Lakes, 20% of the world's surface fresh water, drinking water for 40 million people. More Please share the Bulletin with friends! [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] --- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --- Unsubscribe: mailto:laamn-unsubscr...@egroups.com --- Subscribe:
[LAAMN] Fwd: NY Times: How Austerity Kills
(JAI: Apologize for double posting but had forwarded posting w/o 'Subject' description..) -- Forwarded message -- From: John A Imani johnaima...@gmail.com Date: Thu, May 16, 2013 at 11:08 AM Subject: [rac-la] To: rac...@lists.riseup.net rac...@lists.riseup.net, rac-lasupport...@lists.riseup.net, copwatc...@lists.riseup.net copwatc...@lists.riseup.net Cc: dope_x_resistanc...@yahoogroups.com dope_x_resistanc...@yahoogroups.com, LAAMN laamn@yahoogroups.com, actio...@lists.riseup.net actio...@lists.riseup.net (JAI: This was recommended by a comrade, S.Artesianhttp://thewolfatthedoor.blogspot.com/2013/05/a-minimal-program.htmlwho wrote: I don't think I can summarize the evidence, the findings or conclusions in the article. That would be like summarizing the findings of an investigation into conditions at Auschwitz... -- JAI RAC-LA) ___ [image: The New York Times] http://www.nytimes.com/ -- May 12, 2013 How Austerity Kills By DAVID STUCKLER and SANJAY BASU EARLY last month, a triple suicidehttp://www.cnn.com/2013/04/05/world/europe/italy-triple-suicidewas reported in the seaside town of Civitanova Marche, Italy. A married couple, Anna Maria Sopranzi, 68, and Romeo Dionisi, 62, had been struggling to live on her monthly pension of around 500 euros (about $650), and had fallen behind on rent. Because the Italian governments austerity budget had raised the retirement age, Mr. Dionisi, a former construction worker, became one of Italys esodati (exiled ones) older workers plunged into poverty without a safety net. On April 5, he and his wife left a note on a neighbors car asking for forgiveness, then hanged themselves in a storage closet at home. When Ms. Sopranzis brother, Giuseppe Sopranzi, 73, heard the news, he drowned himself in the Adriatic. The correlation between unemployment and suicide has been observed since the 19th century. People looking for work are about twice as likely to end their lives as those who have jobs. In the United States, the suicide rate, which had slowly risen since 2000, jumped during and after the 2007-9 recession. In a new book, we estimate that 4,750 excess suicides that is, deaths above what pre-existing trends would predict occurred from 2007 to 2010. Rates of such suicides were significantly greater in the states that experienced the greatest job losses. Deaths from suicide overtook deaths from car crashes in 2009. If suicides were an unavoidable consequence of economic downturns, this would just be another story about the human toll of the Great Recession. But it isnt so. Countries that slashed health and social protection budgets, like Greece, Italy and Spain, have seen starkly worse health outcomes than nations like Germany, Iceland and Sweden, which maintained their social safety nets and opted for stimulus over austerity. (Germany preaches the virtues of austerity for others.) As scholars of public health and political economy, we have watched aghast as politicians endlessly debate debts and deficits with little regard for the human costs of their decisions. Over the past decade, we mined huge data sets from across the globe to understand how economic shocks from the Great Depression to the end of the Soviet Union to the Asian financial crisis to the Great Recession affect our health. What weve found is that people do not inevitably get sick or die because the economy has faltered. Fiscal policy, it turns out, can be a matter of life or death. At one extreme is Greece, which is in the middle of a public health disaster. The national health budget has been cut by 40 percent since 2008, partly to meet deficit-reduction targets set by the so-called troika the International Monetary Fund, the European Commission and the European Central Bank as part of a 2010 austerity package. Some 35,000 doctors, nurses and other health workers have lost their jobs. Hospital admissions have soared after Greeks avoided getting routine and preventive treatment because of long wait times and rising drug costs. Infant mortality rose by 40 percent. New H.I.V. infections more than doubled, a result of rising intravenous drug use as the budget for needle-exchange programs was cut. After mosquito-spraying programs were slashed in southern Greece, malaria cases were reported in significant numbers for the first time since the early 1970s. In contrast, Iceland avoided a public health disaster even though it experienced, in 2008, the largest banking crisis in history, relative to the size of its economy. After three main commercial banks failed, total debt soared, unemployment increased ninefold, and the value of its currency, the krona, collapsed. Iceland became the first European country to seek an I.M.F. bailout since 1976. But instead of bailing out the banks and slashing budgets, as the I.M.F. demanded, Icelands politicians took a radical step:
[LAAMN] Transform Now Ploughshares peace activists deemed terrorist saboteurs
May 15, 2013 http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/05/15/how-the-us-turned-three-pacifists-into-violent-terrorists/ The Persecution of the Oak Ridge Three How the US Turned Three Pacifists Into Violent Terrorists by FRAN QUIGLEY In just ten months, the United States managed to transform an 82 year-old Catholic nun and two pacifists from non-violent anti-nuclear peace protestors accused of misdemeanor trespassing into federal felons convicted of violent crimes of terrorism. Now in jail awaiting sentencing for their acts at an Oak Ridge, TN nuclear weapons production facility, their story should chill every person concerned about dissent in the US. Here is how it happened. In the early morning hours of Saturday June 28, 2012, long-time peace activists Sr. Megan Rice, 82, Greg Boertje-Obed, 57, and Michael Walli, 63, cut through the chain link fence surrounding the Oak Ridge Y-12 nuclear weapons production facility and trespassed onto the property. Y-12, called the Fort Knox of the nuclear weapons industry, stores hundreds of metric tons of highly enriched uranium and works on every single one of the thousands of nuclear weapons maintained by the U.S. Describing themselves as the Transform Now Plowshares, the three came as non-violent protestors to symbolically disarm the weapons. They carried bibles, written statements, peace banners, spray paint, flowers, candles, small baby bottles of blood, bread, hammers with biblical verses on them and wire cutters. Their intent was to follow the words of Isaiah 2:4: They shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. Sr. Megan Rice has been a Catholic sister of the Society of the Holy Child Jesus for over sixty years. Greg Boertje-Obed, a married carpenter who has a college age daughter, is an Army veteran and lives at a Catholic Worker house in Duluth Minnesota. Michael Walli, a two-term Vietnam veteran turned peacemaker, lives at the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker house in Washington DC. In the dark, the three activists cut through a boundary fence which had signs stating No Trespassing. The signs indicate that unauthorized entry, a misdemeanor, is punishable by up to 1 year in prison and a $100,000 fine. No security arrived to confront them. So the three climbed up a hill through heavy brush, crossed a road, and kept going until they saw the Highly Enriched Uranium Materials Facility (HEUMF) surrounded by three fences, lit up by blazing lights. Still no security. So they cut through the three fences, hung up their peace banners, and spray-painted peace slogans on the HEUMF. Still no security arrived. They began praying and sang songs like Down by the Riverside and Peace is Flowing Like a River. When security finally arrived at about 4:30 am, the three surrendered peacefully, were arrested, and jailed. The next Monday July 30, Rice, Boertje-Obed, and Walli were arraigned and charged with federal trespassing, a misdemeanor charge which carries a penalty of up to one year in jail. Frank Munger, an award-winning journalist with the Knoxville News Sentinel, was the first to publicly wonder, If unarmed protesters dressed in dark clothing could reach the plant's core during the cover of dark, it raised questions about the plant's security against more menacing intruders. On Wednesday August 1, all nuclear operations at Y-12 were ordered to be put on hold in order for the plant to focus on security. The security stand-down was ordered by security contractor in charge of Y-12, BW Y-12 (a joint venture of the Babcock and Wilcox Company and Bechtel National Inc.) and supported by the National Nuclear Security Administration. On Thursday August 2, Rice, Boertje-Obed, and Walli appeared in court for a pretrial bail hearing. The government asked that all three be detained. One prosecutor called them a potential danger to the community and asked that all three be kept in jail until their trial. The US Magistrate allowed them to be released. Sr. Megan Rice walked out of the jail and promptly admitted to gathered media that the three had indeed gone onto the property and taken action in protest of nuclear weapons. But we had to we were doing it because we had to reveal the truth of the criminality which is there, that's our obligation, Rice said. She also challenged the entire nuclear weapons industry: We have the power, and the love, and the strength and the courage to end it and transform the whole project, for which has been expended more than 7.2 trillion dollars, she said The truth will heal us and heal our planet, heal our diseases, which result from the disharmony of our planet caused by the worst weapons in the history of mankind, which should not exist. For this we give our lives for the truth about the terrible existence of these weapons. Then the government began increasing the
[LAAMN] Video shows Burmese police standing by as Buddhists attack Muslims (Guardian)
Video shows Burmese police standing by as Buddhists attack Muslims Footage emerges of police failing to prevent violence in Burma as EU prepares to lift all sanctions permanently * guardian.co.uk, Monday 22 April 2013 09.45 EDT WARNING: this video contains violent scenes. Link to video: Burma violence: police look on as Buddhists wreck Muslim shop Video footage has emerged showing Burmese police standing by as Buddhist mobs wielding sticks and swords attack Muslims in Meikhtila – where last month more than 40 people were killed and 12,000 displaced – on the same day that the EU is expected to permanently lift all sanctions against the country. The footage, apparently shot by police officers, shows Buddhist crowds looting and ransacking a Muslim jewellery shop, cheering when Muslims are attacked, and setting fire to mosques and houses. Later, a man who has been set alight and is believed to be Muslim can be seen lying in the road, surrounded by a crowd of people. Pour water on him, a man in the crowd commands. Let him die, shouts another. No water for him. Both Buddhist monks and police can be seen through much of the footage – the monks often taking part in the violence, the police watching immobile as it progresses. The footage emerged on the day the EU is expected to permanently lift the remaining sanctions against Burma – which include travel restrictions on around 500 Burmese individuals, an asset freeze of 1,000 companies, and bans on EU investment in certain sectors such as timber and mining – in recognition of the country's remarkable process of reform. Sanctions had been suspended since April 2012, although the arms embargo remained – and is expected to remain – in place. A series of political and economic reforms have taken place in Burma since the president, Thein Sein, took office in 2011, such as the release of some political prisoners, the opening up of its economy and the easing of media restrictions. EU ambassadors last week agreed to permanently lift sanctions in order to open a new chapter in [the EU's] relations with [Burma], according to an official document seen last week by Reuters. Full ministerial approval is expected on Monday. Yet rights groups – as well as parliamentarians for the Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean), of which Burma is a member – say that permanently lifting sanctions would be a mistake. They point to EU benchmarks set out last year that were to be met if the sanctions were to be lifted completely, ranging from the unconditional release of all political prisoners to recognition of the stateless Rohingya and the end of conflict in areas such as Kachin state. International pressure has played a considerable role in encouraging reformers within the government in [Burma] to support the democratic steps we have witnessed over the past two years, said Eva Kusuma Sundari, president of the Asean Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus. A careful balance needs to be struck between encouragement and continued pressure. Permanently lifting EU sanctions now would be sending the wrong message. The new video footage also corroborates claims by Human Rights Watch (HRW) that security forces in Rakhine state, western Burma, failed to protect ethnic Rohingya Muslims in June and October last year, when 200 were killed and more than 100,000 forced to flee after intercommunal violence spread through the region. While the state security forces in some instances intervened to prevent violence and protect fleeing Muslims, more frequently they stood aside during attacks or directly supported the assailants, committing killings and other abuses, said an HRW report released on Monday. The failure to protect Burma's minority Muslims by the primarily Buddhist officials – and in some cases, the officials' complicity in the crimes themselves – has directly contributed to the religious violence that has since swept through the nation, from the mobs swarming the streets in Meikhtila to the anti-Muslim 969 campaign promoted by the militant Buddhist monk Wirathu, HRW's Phil Robertson told Reuters. What happened in [Rakhine] has helped spark radical anti-Muslim activity, Robertson said. People are allowed to incite and instigate [violence] in a co-ordinated campaign – this is the lesson taken in by others. The democracy icon and opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who has come under repeated fire for her silence on the issue, told students at Tokyo University last week that she was not a magician and that differences take a long time to sort out. Meanwhile, the International Crisis Group will on Monday night present Thein Sein with its top award for peace – lauding his visionary leadership to effect profound social, economic and political changes in Burma – a move that has been derided by rights groups and analysts alike. Pro-interfaith groups and individuals promoting peace in Burma were also targeted on Monday by a
