Day: April 12, 2010

The Battle for Net Neutrality: Corporate Takeover or Opportunity? By Megan Tady

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Media Channel 2.0 – Freepress.net

Women’s International Perspective
On Tuesday, April 6th a federal court decision put the Internet, and your ability to use it, in jeopardy. It’s a major setback for free speech online and for the prospects of connecting the entire country to broadband.

The Washington DC Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) lacks the current authority to enforce rules that keep Internet service providers from blocking and controlling Internet traffic – a principle called Net Neutrality.

The court ruled in favor of the Internet service provider Comcast, which was caught blocking the file sharing service BitTorrent in 2007 and contested the FCC’s attempts to stop the company. The decision makes it nearly impossible for the FCC to follow through with plans to create strong Net Neutrality protections that keep the Internet out of the hands of corporations. Additionally, without authority over broadband, the FCC could be unable to implement portions of its just released National Broadband Plan designed to bridge the digital divide.

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On the border By Michel Warschawski

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12 April, 2010 — The Real News Network

On the border Pt.6
Warschawski: Settlements around Jerusalem intended to make it a Jewish city April 12, 2010

On the border Pt5
Warschawski: In ’67 army was told to carve out a Jerusalem with few Palestinians April 10, 2010

On the border Pt.4
M. Warschawski: The Wall is a symbol of a philosophy that seeks a state as ethnically pure as possible April 9, 10

On the border Pt.3
Report from Middle East: Warschawski – Racist rhetoric and measures are now part of Israeli mainstream April 8, 2010

On the border Pt.2
Report from the Middle East: What happened to the Israeli peace movement? April 6, 2010

On the border Pt.1
Report from the Middle East: M. Warschawski on growing up in Jerusalem. April 5, 2010

Bio
Michel Warschawski is a journalist and writer and a founder of the Alternative Information Center (AIC) in Israel. His books include On the Border and Towards an Open Tomb – the Crisis of Israeli Society.

The Story of Stuff by Annie Leonard

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4 February, 2008 — Yes Magazine

From its extraction through sale, use and disposal, all the stuff in our lives affects communities at home and abroad, yet most of this is hidden from view. The Story of Stuff is a 20-minute, fast-paced, fact-filled look at the underside of our production and consumption patterns. The Story of Stuff exposes the connections between a huge number of environmental and social issues, and calls us together to create a more sustainable and just world. It’ll teach you something, it’ll make you laugh, and it just may change the way you look at all the stuff in your life forever.

stuff-1.jpgCHAPTER 1:
INTRODUCTION
stuff-2.jpgCHAPTER 2:
EXTRACTION
stuff-3.jpgCHAPTER 3:
PRODUCTION
stuff-4.jpgCHAPTER 4:
DISTRIBUTION
stuff-5.jpgCHAPTER 5:
CONSUMPTION
stuff-6.jpgCHAPTER 6:
DISPOSAL
stuff-7.jpgCHAPTER 7:
ANOTHER WAY

READ:  Our Review of the Film, by Cecile Andrews

UNDERSTAND:  The Bigger Picture  gain a deeper understanding of consumption with these YES! Articles

TAKE ACTION:  10 Little and Big Things You Can Do  and YES! Stories of real people making changes

The Story of Stuff website has many more resources, including an annotated script of the movie, a detailed glossary, facts, tips for holding a screening in your classroom or community, and more.

Israeli soldiers Fire “the skunk” into Houses in Nabi Salih By Joseph Dana

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10 April 2010 — josephdana.com

The weekly protest against the stealing of farm land took place once again yesterday in Nabi Salih. The IDF escalated its repression of the protest by firing a highly toxic chemical called the “skunk” into several houses in the village of Nabi Salih in an effort to break the resistance that is forming. The skunk has been used against other protests throughout the West Bank but never, to my knowledge used in houses. The houses will have to be evacuated for several weeks because of the damage done by the chemical. Below is footage captured by Israel Puternam.

Medical Aid for Palestinians Newsletter No.18

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12 April 2010 — MAP

NEWS

MAP at the Palestinian film festival
Medical Aid for Palestinians is pleased to announce the UK premiere of Fatenah, at the London Palestine Film Festival on 2 May.

Fatenah will be shown alongside two short films, highlighting the impact of closures on the West Bank, and the blockade of Gaza. Following the screenings, MAP will be hosting a panel including Ahmad Habash, the director of Fatenah, Mahmoud Daher from the World Health Organisation in Gaza, and Miri Weingarten of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel.

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Ramzy Baroud UK Tour-Don’t miss it!

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12 April, 2010 — Gilad Atzmon 

Internationally respected Palestinian/American writer Ramzy Baroud is touring Britain with his phenomenal new book “My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story’ (Pluto Press 2010).

REVIEWS:

Noam Chomsky: “Ramzy Baroud’s sensitive, thoughtful, searching writing penetrates to the core of moral dilemmas that their intended audiences evade at their peril”

Gilad Atzmon: “Ramzy Baroud’s “My Father Was A Freedom Fighter” is more than a book, it is actually a masterpiece .. Ramzy’s father Mohammed, was a freedom fighter. He didn’t win a single war, not even a battle, yet, against all odds, in spite of his poverty and illness, he managed to educate his children and to plant hope in their young souls”

Cindy and Craig Corrie, The Rachel Corrie Foundation: “This book should be read by all who struggle to understand the Middle East and to find passage to a just peace in the region.”

 
 
DATES:

Sunday 18th April (12.00 – onward) Talk and book signing, Waterstones Richmond, West London
Monday 19th April (12:00 –15:00) Glasgow University
Monday 19th  6 pm April – Annual Hetherington lecture, Stirling University
Tuesday 20th  7 pm April – Dundee University
Wed 21st  April (7:00 –9:30 pm) Jews for Justice for Palestinians @ YMCA Fitzroy Sq
Thurs 22nd April (7-9 pm) – Richmond & Kingston PSC United Reform Church
Fri 23rd  April (6:30-8:15 pm) – Bookmarks 1 Bloomsbury Street, London
Sunday 25th  April (7.45pm – ) Chapel Arts Centre, Halifax
Monday 26th April (6.30 pm-), with Gilad Atzmon – Albion Beatnik Bookshop, 34a Walton Street, Jericho, Oxford.
 
To watch a promotional video:
 
http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/ramzy-baroud-uk-tour-dont-miss-it.html

'Solar Radiation Management' or Manhattan Project 2.0? By Jutta Schmitt

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11 April, 2010 — VHeadline

  • Shielding Electronics from Electromagnetic Pulses

Every technology on the market today is based on alternating current technologies in relation with semiconductor technologies and if these were seriously threatened this would mean, in the final analysis, that everything that we nowadays need to live, work and recreate ourselves, could be destroyed. — Uwe Behnken

University of Los Andes (ULA) senior lecturer in political sciences, Jutta Schmitt writes: It’s intriguing. Just barely a week after the Asilomar Conference on Climate Intervention Technologies had taken place in Pacific Grove, California, we heard honorable knights for the defense of global climate integrity, such as the American Enterprise Institute’s Resident Fellow and Co director of the AEI geo-engineering Project Lee Lane, advocate a global imposition of geo-engineering technologies on behalf of the advanced, industrialized states of the world in the firm conviction, that “geo-engineering experiments shouldn’t require global agreement,” because these would in any case be guided by the shining light of the government of the United States and its noble constitutional obligation to promote the welfare of the American people. This is how Lane evokes ‘American national interest,’ this magic, self-sufficient concept that justifies the use of any means in order to obtain, that is, impose the desired objective. (1)

Expanded Military Powers of Deportation in West Bank; Palestinian Leaders Charge “Ethnic Cleansing”

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12 April, 2010 — The Only Democracy

A military order to take effect April 13th so drastically expands the IDF’s power to deport people from the West Bank that it threatens mass arrests and exile, according to Hamoked Center for the Defense of the Individual in Israel.

In a request to the military commander, Hamoked asks that implementation of the order be delayed until there is input from the non-military sector of Israel, including human rights organizations like Hamoked.

In order to clarify the extremity of the orders, we shall state at this early point that according to their wording, every living person in the West Bank would become a criminal who faces a penalty of three to seven years imprisonment. Additionally, according to the orders, the West Bank could be emptied of all its inhabitants in a fast track three-day procedure, which, prima facie, does not require any judicial review. In view of the conduct of military officials and the positions they have presented to the court, there is grave concern that this scenario will become a reality, despite lacking any legal basis.

 The order amends an  existing Order to Prevent Infiltration, changing the definition of infiltrator from referring to one who enters the Area  from an unfriendly country, to “ a person who is present in the Area and who does not hold a permit as required by Law.”  The permit must be “issued by the commander of IDF forces in the Judea and Samaria area or someone acting on his behalf”. 

Ha’aretz reports on the Orders and their ramifications, including the likelihood that the people most likely to be immediately targeted are people born in Gaza, those whose residency status has not been renewed, often because of deliberate Israeli inaction, and foreign-born spouses of Palestinians. 

In an International Middle East Media Center Report, Fateh Central Committee Member Nabil Shaath described the Orders as ”yet another episode of ethnic cleansing” of the Palestinian people.  Chief Palestinian Negotiator, Dr. Saeb Erekat, sent letters of protest to the U.S. Administration and the European Union, the United Nations and Russia.

See ‘IDF order will enable mass deportation from West Bank’

Breaking in with intent to terrorise, by Haggai Matar

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12 April, 2010 — The Only Democracy – Translation from Hebrew By Dimi Reider

There was one point that stood out for me in Uri Blau’s recollection of his pursuit by the Shin Bet in the Anat Kamm affair. Blau, Haaretz’s outstanding investigative reporter, recalls how as he was traveling in the Far East he got a call saying his house was broken into. “It looks like they were looking for something,” said the policeman on the phone. Reading this reminded me how they broke into my home, too.

breakins.jpg
A resident of Nilin is trying to restore a room in his house, completely wrecked by soldiers during a 4-day punitive curfew in response to protests, July 2008. The soldiers entered the residence while the owners were locked up in another house. Photo: Activestills.org

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IDF order will enable mass deportation from West Bank By Amira Hass

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11 April, 2010 – Haaretz

A new military order aimed at preventing infiltration will come into force this week, enabling the deportation of tens of thousands of Palestinians from the West Bank, or their indictment on charges carrying prison terms of up to seven years.

When the order comes into effect, tens of thousands of Palestinians will automatically become criminal offenders liable to be severely punished.

Given the security authorities’ actions over the past decade, the first Palestinians likely to be targeted under the new rules will be those whose ID cards bear home addresses in the Gaza Strip – people born in Gaza and their West Bank-born children – or those born in the West Bank or abroad who for various reasons lost their residency status. Also likely to be targeted are foreign-born spouses of Palestinians.

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Israel’s shock doctrine

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11 April, 2010 — The Real News Network

OECD finds Israel has biggest poverty rate of developed world. Economists blame neo liberal reforms.

This week, the OECD will decide whether to include Israel as its 31st member state. The OECD is an organization of the developed nations of the world and in January it conducted its first economic review of Israel. The OECD’s secretary general Angel Guria congratulated Israeli Prime Minster while presenting the review for his dedication to neo liberal reforms and noted that Israel would be welcome in the organization. The review, which according to internal OECD documents used misleading statistics, found that if it were to be accepted, Israel would be the country with the biggest poverty rate in the organization. The Real News’ Lia Tarachansky spoke to Israeli economists Shir Hever and Shlomo Swirski to understand how Israel came to develop such a poverty rate.

Bio
Shlomo Swirski is an economist and the founder of the Adva Center, a non-partisan policy analysis institute whose mandate is to examine Israeli society from the perspective of equality and social justice. He is also the author of Politics and Education in Israel and Politics and Education in Israel: Comparisons with the United States.

Shir Hever is an economist at the Alternative Information Center, a joing Palestinian-Israeli organization based in Jerusalem and Beit-Sahour, Palestine. Researching the economic aspect of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, some of his research topics include international aid to the Palestinians and Israel, the effects of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories on the Israeli economy, and the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns against Israel. He is a frequent speaker on the topic of the economy of the Israeli occupation.