Politics and Legislation
Richard Stallman: CISPA really abolishes people’s right not to be unreasonably searched
Published on Apr 27, 2012 by RussiaToday
Soon, Americans may find every private email they write could be opened, copied and inspected by government snoopers. The latest cyber security bill – called CISPA – has passed the House of Representatives, coming a step closer to becoming law. President Barack Obama has threatened to veto the act, if it goes through in the Senate. He cited civil liberty concerns as the reason for his threat. CISPA has raised a massive outcry with internet users and freedom activists, who say it’s a hard hit on people’s privacy. Reaction now from Dr Richard Stallman, who’s President of the Free Software Foundation. He’s in Tunis.
Gerald Celente – The Corbett Report
Listening Post – When the cameras turned on the Murdochs
Published on Apr 28, 2012 by AlJazeeraEnglish
Listening Post examines the mega-media story ripping through Britain’s media and political elite.
Obama touts Osama kill on first anniversary
White House aides have repeatedly dismissed so-called “Hallmark holidays” in the past. But with the anniversary of the death of Osama bin Laden on Tuesday, President Obama is attempting to underline the achievement—and with something of an exclamation point.
In recent days, in the lead-up to the one-year anniversary, Team Obama is turning up the volume on one of the crowning moments of the president’s first term, mentioning bin Laden more by name in policy speeches and fundraising pitches.
The Obama campaign released a video—blatantly asking, “Which path would Mitt Romney have taken?”—where former president Bill Clinton touted the mission that took the life of the al Qaeda leader. Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan will make the rounds on the Sunday shows to mark the moment.
And Obama sat down with NBC’s Brian Williams in the White House Situation Room–a place journalists rarely, if ever, conduct interviews—to discuss the successful mission.
The push presents a bit of a contrast from the handling of the historic mission last year when Obama said, “we don’t trot out this stuff as trophies…we don’t need to spike the football.”
McCain: Shame on Obama for hyping the death of bin Laden
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) rebuked President Obama on Friday for using the anniversary of Obama bin Laden’s death to score political points, calling it a “shameless end-zone dance.”
“Shame on Barack Obama for diminishing the memory of September 11th and the killing of Osama bin Laden by turning it into a cheap political attack ad,” McCain said in a statement circulated by the Republican National Committee.
With the one-year anniversary of bin Laden’s killing approaching next week, Obama’s campaign released a video Friday suggesting that Mitt Romney, the putative GOP nominee, would not have ordered the risky incursion into Pakistan to nab the 9/11 mastermind.
The video doubled down on remarks that Vice President Biden made Thursday questioning whether Romney had the fortitude to pull off such an operation.
“This is the same President who said, after bin Laden was dead, that we shouldn’t ‘spike the ball’ after the touchdown,” McCain said. “And now Barack Obama is not only trying to score political points by invoking Osama bin Laden, he is doing a shameless end-zone dance to help himself get reelected.”
Egypt’s hardline Salafi group backs Abol Fotouh for president
Saturday, 28 April 2012
By Al Arabiya With Agencies
An influential Egyptian hardline Islamist movement, the Salafi Call, will back moderate Islamist Abdel Moneim Abol Fotouh for president, a founding member of the movement told Reuters on Saturday, dealing a blow to the Muslim Brotherhood’s chances.
“The Salafi Call has decided by majority vote to back Abdel Moneim Abol Fotouh in the presidential elections,” Yasser Borhamy, the senior founding member of the movement, said.
“The al-Nour Party, the political wing of the Salafi Call, has also voted to back Abol Fotouh,” he added.
The leader of the al-Nour party, Emad Abdel-Ghafour, said that the decision to back Abol Fotoh was designed to allay fears among Egyptians over the growing prowess of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Abolfotoh is a moderate Islamist who is also popular among some liberals.
Islamist groups emerged as powerful players following the ouster of longtime Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak last year.
The Muslim Brotherhood and the al-Nour party garnered 70 percent of the seats in the parliamentary elections. But many Egyptians worry that the Brotherhood is overreaching.
Qaddafi’s regime ‘agreed’ to fund Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign
Saturday, 28 April 2012
By AFP
PARIS
Muammar Qaddafi’s regime agreed to fund French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s 2007 election campaign to the tune of 50 million euros, a news website reported Saturday, publishing what it said was documentary evidence.
The 2006 document in Arabic, which website Mediapart said was signed by Qaddafi’s foreign intelligence chief Mussa Kussa, referred to an “agreement in principle to support the campaign for the candidate for the presidential elections, Nicolas Sarkozy, for a sum equivalent to 50 million euros.”
The left-wing investigative website made similar assertions on March 12, based on testimony by a former doctor of a French arms dealer alleged to have arranged the campaign donation, which Sarkozy slammed as “grotesque.”
It was not stated that any Libyan money was actually handed over.
The latest report comes as Sarkozy trails Socialist rival Francois Hollande in opinion polls ahead of the run-off second round of presidential elections on May 6.
His campaign spokeswoman Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet Saturday dismissed the latest report as “ridiculous” and a “clumsy diversion” orchestrated by Hollande’s camp.
In an email to AFP she said Sarkozy’s 2007 campaign funds had been cleared by the Constitutional Council after the elections with no queries.
But Hollande spokesman Bernard Cazeneuve called on Sarkozy to “explain himself to the French in the face of such serious elements backed up by new documents emanating from the entourage of the Libyan dictator himself.”
Mediapart said it had obtained the note from “former senior officials now in hiding.”
Feds criminalizing small family farms under ridiculous ‘labor laws’ that target children
By Ethan A. Huff,
(NaturalNews) For civilization to persist, each subsequent generation must be equipped by the previous one with the knowledge and skills to grow food, which traditionally occurs on family-scale farms from parent to child, or from seasoned expert to young amateur. But new labor laws being proposed by the U.S. Department of Labor (DoL) would prohibit children from performing many of the routine farm chores they have been involved with for centuries, which some see as a direct attack on small-scale…
Read Full Article Here
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Economy
Europe’s struggling workers turn to Argentina
Published on Apr 27, 2012 by AlJazeeraEnglish
Europe’s economic downturn has forced many workers to search for a new life in South America.
Crushing Cuts: Cops lash out as Spanish rally
Published on Apr 28, 2012 by RussiaToday
Spain has plunged into what the government calls a ‘crisis of huge proportions’, with its jobless rate rising towards a record one in four. Boasting the highest unemployment in Europe, the country’s deficit and the deteriorating economic situation are only likely to be met with a backlash from angry Spaniards. But as Jacob Greaves reports, the more public frustration grows, the harsher the authorities’ response becomes.
45 million people in 2011 received food stamps, a 70% increase from 2007
By J. D. Heyes,
(NaturalNews) In what can only be described as a sign of the harsh economic times, new data shows that tens of millions more Americans have been placed on public assistance since the Great Recession began in 2008. According to a report from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the number of Americans receiving Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits – formerly known as food stamps – grew to a staggering 45 million people in fiscal year 2011 (Oct. 1, 2010 – Sept…
Read Full Article Here
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Wars and Rumors of War
Israel’s former Shin Bet chief warns against ‘messianic’ war on Iran
Saturday, 28 April 2012
By Dan Williams
REUTERS / OCCUPIED JERUSALEM
A former Israeli spymaster has branded the country’s leaders unfit to tackle the Iranian nuclear program and “messianic” in the strongest criticism from a security veteran of threats to launch a pre-emptive war.
Other veterans have come out against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.
But the censure from Yuval Diskin, who retired as head of the Shin Bet domestic intelligence service last year, was especially strong and unusual in using the language of religious fervor that Israelis associate with Islamist foes.
“I have no faith in the prime minister, nor in the defense minister,” Diskin said in remarks broadcast by Israeli media on Saturday. “I really don’t have faith in a leadership that makes decisions out of messianic feelings.”
The Prime Minister’s Office and Defense Ministry had no immediate response to Diskin’s remarks. But Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman rebuked Diskin and questioned his motives.
The catastrophic terms with which Netanyahu and Barak describe the prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran have stirred concern in Israel and abroad of a possible strike against its uranium enrichment program. Iran says the project is entirely peaceful and has promised wide-ranging reprisals for any attack.
World powers, sharing Israeli suspicions Iran has a covert bomb-making plan, are trying to curb it through sanctions and negotiations. Those talks resume in Baghdad next month, but Barak on Thursday rated their chance of succeeding as low.
Although Israel has long threatened a pre-emptive strike if diplomacy fails, some experts believe that could be a bluff to keep up pressure on the Iranians, making it harder to interpret the swirl of comments from the security establishment.
In a commentary on Diskin’s remarks, Amos Harel of the liberal newspaper Haaretz wrote that the temperature was rising ahead of the nuclear talks.
“Nothing has been determined in the Iranian story, and the spring is about to boil over into another summer of tension,” he wrote.
Hundreds of Syrian troops defect near Damascus, Latakia, as clashes flare
Saturday, 28 April 2012
Hundreds of soldiers defected from the Syrian armed forces on Sunday in the outskirts of Damascus and in the port city of Latakia, where large explosions were heard near the presidential palace, the Syrian Media Center reported.
Sima Malaki, spokesperson of the center, which represents the Syrian opposition, said dozens of soldiers defected from an army unit that was positioned near the presidential palace in Latakia.
The official news agency SANA reported that “one of the military units stationed off the coast of Latakia thwarted an attempt by an “armed terrorist group” trying to infiltrate from the sea,” quoting an unnamed military source.
Saudi Arabia recalls ambassador to Egypt, closes embassy in Cairo
Saturday, 28 April 2012
By AL ARABIYA
DUBAI
Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador to Egypt for “consultation” and temporarily closed its embassy and consulate in Cairo following protests in Egypt against the detention of an Egyptian activist by the Saudi authorities.
The Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported that the reason behind the diplomatic move was “unjustified protests” in Egypt and attempts to storm the Saudi embassy and consulates which “threatened the safety of its employees.”
Egyptians have been protesting outside the embassy against the arrest of an Egyptian lawyer and human rights activist, Ahmad al-Gazawi, in the kingdom.
Saudi Arabia said he was arrested for smuggling drugs.
Egyptian activists, however, said Gazawi was detained for filing a complaint against Saudi Arabia for its treatment of Egyptian citizens in Saudi prisons.
The Egyptian state news agency reported that Egypt’s military ruler Mohamed Hussein Tantawi contacted the Saudi government over its “surprise decision” to withdraw its envoy to Cairo.
The agency added that Tantawi was working to “heal the rift” that had resulted from the decision. “The Field Marshal conducted contacts with the Saudi authorities to work to contain the situation,” the state agency MENA said
A Saudi embassy statement said Gazawi has not been convicted or sentenced in any case. Instead they said he was being questioned by authorities after airport officials in Jeddah found more than 20,000 anti-anxiety pills hidden inside his luggage.
Syrian President Assad could be tried for war crimes, says ex-peace envoy
George Mitchell tells peace conference in Dublin that brutal crackdown on Syrian opposition may warrant Assad’s indictment
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Henry McDonald in Dublin
- guardian.co.uk, Saturday 28 April 2012 07.26 EDT
- Article history
The former US Middle East peace envoy, George Mitchell, has said that the Syrian president, Bashir al-Assad, could be tried as an alleged war criminal over the brutal crackdown on opponents of his rule.
Mitchell, who was the US special envoy for Middle East peace until last May, said Assad could be tried for war crimes in the same way as Charles Taylor, the former president of Liberia who was this week found to have “aided and abetted” war crimes by a UN-backed tribunal in The Hague.
Speaking at an international security conference in Dublin, Mitchell was asked if he could envisage Assad facing a special war crimes court as Taylor did.
“Certainly, I don’t think that anyone could rule that out at this time,” he said.
The retired US senator, who also oversaw the peace talks that led to the Good Friday Agreement in Northern Ireland, called on Assad to step down and “permit a free, open choice of leadership”.
He added that the international community should consider further sanctions against the Assad family and leading figures in his regime.
“I think there are more actions that could be directed at the regime and all those that are supporting what is occuring there particularly the grievous number of deaths and injuries at present.”
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Articles of Interest
New ISP will defend users from SOPA- CISPA- government spying
Published on Apr 27, 2012 by ravenise00
As the battle rages on over regulations for the Internet, one man is proposing a solution that could curb the concerns over online privacy. Legislation is being pushed in America right now that could stop online piracy, but would at the same time also infringe on the rights of many. Could all that change, though? One new Internet Service Provider will challenge the government if a user’s information is requested. Nicholas Merrill, executive director for The Calyx Institute, joins us to explain how he plans on changing the ISP landscape.
Feds criminalizing small family farms under ridiculous ‘labor laws’ that target children
By Ethan A. Huff, April 27 2012
(NaturalNews) For civilization to persist, each subsequent generation must be equipped by the previous one with the knowledge and skills to grow food, which traditionally occurs on family-scale farms from parent to child, or from seasoned expert to young amateur. But new labor laws being proposed by the U.S. Department of Labor (DoL) would prohibit children from performing many of the routine farm chores they have been involved with for centuries, which some see as a direct attack on small-scale…
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