The high profile shutdown of file-hosting company MegaUpload on January 20, and the arrest of CEO Kim Schmitz (aka Kim Dotcom) and other executives for allegedly operating a global pirating network, is the latest shot in the war over freedom on the internet.
United States
If Bradley Manning had committed war crimes rather than exposing them, he wouldn't be in so much trouble.
He might even be hailed as an American hero. Instead, he's held at a military prison in Fort Leavenworth in Kansas, facing more than 20 charges, including "aiding the enemy".
Manning is the private who allegedly leaked sheaves of classified material to WikiLeaks while working as an army intelligence analyst in Iraq.
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez condemned the United States’ decision to expel the Venezuelan consul general in Miami as “arbitrary and unjustified” on January 9. Chavez derided the move as “another demonstration of the arrogance of ridiculous imperialism”.
Venezuelan diplomat Livia Acosta Noguera had reportedly been working in the US since March when she was ordered to leave on January 8 amid claims that she had discussed the possibility of orchestrating cyber attacks against the US government whilst serving as vice-secretary at the Venezuelan embassy in Mexico.
It took about 20 minutes after the last official US combat troops crossed the border from Iraq into Kuwait for the Potemkin village of “Iraqi stability and democracy”, carefully built by the occupation, to fall apart.
The regime of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki brought a terrorism indictment against the vice-president, Tariq al-Hashimi, who promptly headed north to autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan, where the central government’s hand doesn’t reach. Purges of university professors and arrests of political figures not favoured by the Maliki regime have begun.
In response to the news that the Philadelphia District Attorny's office has dropped its push to apply the death penalty to Mumia Abu-Jumal, framed for the 1981 murder of a police officer, FreeMumia.com released the statement below.
* * *
South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu has called for the release of Mumia Abu-Jamal: “Now that it is clear that Mumia should never have been on death row in the first place, justice will not be served by relegating him to prison for the rest of his life -- yet another form of death sentence.
What's striking about the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) Movement and its popular slogan “We are the 99%” is how much the central demand of the movement resonates with the Black community.
African Americans, with few exceptions, are in the bottom 20% of income and wealth. Double digit unemployment is the norm in “good” economic times.
Yet the social composition of most OWS occupations (some 10,000 including college campuses) has had few Black faces including in urban areas with large Black populations.
The article below is reprinted from a December 1 post at OccupyOakland.org. For more information on the December 12 shutdown, visit www.westcoastportshutdown.org.
* * *
As of November 27, the Occupy movement in every major West Coast port city: Occupy Los Angeles, Occupy San Diego, Occupy Portland, Occupy Tacoma, Occupy Seattle have joined Occupy Oakland in calling for and organising a coordinated West Coast Port Blockade and Shutdown on December 12.
The Occupy movement in the United States continues to gain strength, despite wide-scale repression. The article below is abridged from a US Socialist Worker editorial.
* * *
The raids, arrests and police violence against the Occupy movement that has been occurring across the United States are about trying to silence a movement giving voice to the accumulated discontent of the working-class majority.
They're also about showing who's the boss ― the political and business establishment.
The shocking image of a campus cop at the University of California (UC) Davis coldly circling in front of a line of seated protesters, taking aim and pepper-spraying them at point-blank range has now been seen around the world.
Here Comes Trouble: Stories From My Life
By Michael Moore
Allen Lane, 2011
427 pages, $29.95 (pb)
In 1968, the 14-year-old Michael Moore was expelled from the seminary where he was training to become a Catholic priest. His offense had been to ask awkward questions, like why can’t women become priests.
As Moore had to be reminded by Church authorities, “you either have to accept things or not”. For Moore, accepting the status quo was not an option, so authority would always be having trouble with Moore.
The main purpose of US President Barack Obama's November 16-17 visit to Australia was to announce with Prime Minister Julia Gillard the deployment of US soldiers in Darwin, new US air force and naval facilities in Northern Australia and more joint US-Australian training.
As if to dispel illusions he was less warlike than his predecessor, George W Bush, Obama stuck to military themes in his speeches: from endless historical examples of the US and Australia fighting wars together, to anecdotes from today’s battlefields, to the metaphors he used.
- Previous page
- Page 119
- Next page