Free Gaza and the Spirit of Humanity prevented from leaving Cyprus for Gaza

June 25, 2009Leave a comment

25 June, 2009 – GazaFriends

Public Advisory – We did not leave Cyprus today

25 June 2009, LARNACA) – This is not the statement we in the Free Gaza Movement intended to release today. We had hoped to announce that our two ships, the Free Gaza and the Spirit of Humanity, departed from Larnaca Port on a 30-hour voyage to besieged Gaza, carrying human rights activists who have travelled to Cyprus from all across the world for this journey, 3 tons of medical supplies, and 15 tons of badly needed concrete and reconstruction supplies.

Nobel peace laureate Mairead Maguire, returning for her second trip to Gaza aboard one of our ships, said “[The people of Gaza] must know that we have not and will not forget them.”

That was our hope, but that is not what happened.

Instead, our ships were not given permission to leave today due to concerns about our welfare and safety. Our friends in Cyprus tell us that the voyage to Gaza is too dangerous, and they are worried we will be harmed at sea.

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McKinney Rejoins Voyage to Defy US-Israeli Blockade of Gaza – “Sink Us or Arrest Usl”

June 25, 2009Leave a comment

24 June, 2009 – Black Agenda Report

Cynthia McKinney

When the Free Gaza Movement attempted to send a boatload of supplies to Gaza last December, the Israeli Navy rammed the vessel, the Dignity, almost sinking it. This week, activists will send two boats on the voyage from Cyprus to Gaza, carrying cement, toys and 38 passengers, among them former U.S. Rep. Cynthia Mckinney, who was also aboard the Dignity. Ms. McKinney sent a letter to President Obama, filling him in on the Gaza mission.

Former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and the Free Gaza Movement vow to defy Israel’s blockade by sending two ships to Gaza on Thursday. ‘We will give Israel two choices – either sink our ship or arrest us,’ said Free Gaza Movement head Huwaida Arraf. ‘But we will not retreat whatever happens.’

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Housmans Radical Books, Events in London during July 2009

June 25, 2009Leave a comment

CONTENTS:

NEWS

1. New London Pacifism and Nonviolence Discussion Group

2. Come to the Peace News summer camp!

3. Housmans on the radio

EVENTS IN JULY & AUGUST

‘London’s Burning’: a celebration of radical London

4. River Fleet walk with Laura Oldfield Ford
Saturday 4th July – 2.00pm

5. ‘Blake: London’s Visionary Anarchist’ with Peter Marshall
Wednesday 15th July – 7pm till 8.30pm

6. ‘Visionaries, Dissenters and Rebels: a walk through Islington’s history’ with David Rosenberg
Saturday 18th July – 11am

7. London Pacifism and Nonviolence Discussion Group: How Peaceful is Pacifism?
Tuesday 14th July – 7pm till 8.30pm

8. ‘Dockers and Detectives’ with Ken Warpole
Saturday 18th July – 5pm till 6.30pm

9. ‘Michael X’ with John Williams
Wednesday 22nd July – 7pm till 8.30pm

10. ‘The London Perambulator’ with John Rogers and Nick Papadimitriou
Saturday 25th July – 5pm till 6.30pm

11. Alternative Press in London
Wednesday 29th July – 7pm till 8.30pm

12. ‘Avenues & Alleyways, Courtyards & Slaughteryards’ – a walk with Tony Gee
Saturday 8th August – 2.30pm

13. ‘The London Free School: Notting Hill 1966 – Counter Culture, Community Action and Carnival Roots’ slideshow and talk by Tom Vague
Wednesday 12th August – 7pm till 8.30pm

14. ‘Local Housing Campaigns in Context’ with Sarah Glynn
Saturday 15th August – 5pm till 6.30pm

15. ‘Violent London: 2000 Years of Riots, Rebels and Revolts’ with Clive Bloom
Saturday 22nd August – 5pm till 6.30pm

16. Merlin Coverley & Friends – ‘Books that London Forgot’
Wednesday 26th August – 7pm to 8.30pm

17. ‘A Historical Walk Through The Radical Jewish East End’ with David Rosenberg
Saturday 29th August – 11am

18. ‘London Stories: Personal Lives, Public Histories’ with Hilda Kean
Saturday 29th August – 5pm till 6.30pm

BOOKS

19. London Writing

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Illusion, Reality & Courage in Iran By Carl Bloice

June 25, 2009Leave a comment

25 June, 2009 – The Black Commentator – June 25, 2009 – Issue 330

In the movie ‘The Year of Living Dangerously’ the little guy Billy Kwan, brilliantly played by Linda Lee, gives a news reporter Guy Hamilton, played by Mel Gibson, a talk about Indonesian puppets – the kind on sticks, which you can now sometime find in import shops in this country. The figures as shown are shadows from behind a screen. What you, see – thousands of protestors in the streets, police repression, official statements and the like – the guide explains, is the image; what is really going on behind the screen you cannot see. ‘Look at the shadows, not at the puppet,’ Kwan tells Hamilton.

At the time of this writing former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, an opponent of officially-reelected President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is holed up in the religious center of Qum. Speculation is that he is contemplating his next move as members of his family including his daughter, Faezeh Hashemi are arrested held for several hours and then released. What’s that all about? Who knows? It’s one many mysteries inside mysteries made more illusory by the regime’s near complete media ban instituted while the police and militia thugs beat and murder supporters of officially defeated opposition presidential candidate Mir Hussein Mousavi.

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School of the Americas: A Thoroughly Un-American Institution

June 25, 2009Leave a comment

24 June, 2009 – Council on Hemispheric Affairs

Today, June 24, 2009, Congress will vote on an amendment to the Defense Authorization Act which would require the School of the Americas/WHINSEC to release to the public the names, ranks, countries of origin, courses taken and dates of attendance of all the students and instructors at the institute.

The School of the America’s, renamed WHINSEC, is an organization founded with the explicit purpose of teaching its students the science of torture and interrogation techniques. Its records have been concealed, and for the most part its dealings shrouded in mystery.

Opened in 1946 at Fort Gulick in the former U.S. Panama Canal Zone, the School of the Americas (SOA) has, over its lifetime, trained more than 64,000 Latin American and Caribbean members of the uniformed armed forces in an extensive program of military operations. Its graduates have included ten different Latin American military officers who would later become some of the most notorious strongmen and dictators in the hemisphere, as well as hundreds of senior and mid-level officers who would later be revealed as gross human rights abusers, serial torturers, drug traffickers and confederates of organized crime.

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