Oregon militia

Jan 7, 2016

Mass attitudes towards the other are influenced by the Media. In this day and age of information overload our brains are struggling to keep up with the demands of the digital age. Moreover, the Media is not a neutral player, but an instrument of the power elite.  Thus, we are ripe for the simplifying power of the sound bite and the Media is more than willing to provide us with a boogeyman .

The neat and sharp-focused World offered by the establishment  – where God is on our side, and The Others are evil Muslims and political correct Marxists conspiring to take away our freedom and wealth-  is compelling and comforting; we have the firepower to do what needs to be done.

While the political ideology of the Tea Party is not an exact match of the European fascism of the 1930´s, there are troubling parallels between the events that lead to the Second World War and the circumstances of the early Twenty-First Century. The Tea Party movement shares with Fascism an obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, and victim-hood, as well as compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants embrace a credo of violence and ideology-driven armed militias .

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants:

Thomas Jefferson.

Gun owners tend to be among the political right, and Second Amendment support is a common thread among Tea Party demonstrators. One of the fundamental mantra of them is guns as a mechanism of check and balance against tyranny.   It sounds like sedition.  There is a not only idle talk, there is a trail of actual terrorist activity. The Hutterite militia in Michigan was planning to kill police officers but they had not actually done anything violent before they were arrested, and their ultimate goal was to war against the anti-Christ.  Timothy McVeigh in 1995 blamed the US Government for attacks against American citizens at Waco and Ruby Ridge.

The gun crowd likes to wax eloquent about protecting our natural rights with our weapons when the government becomes unconstitutional, and all other avenues have failed. They see themselves as law abiding insurrects that do not use violence and have confidence in the ballot box, and that that ensure that the government can’t stray too far toward tyranny. Fools playing with fire; a fire that will get us all burned.

“In the NRA’s world, we are only free to the extent that our guns allow us to impose our will on others.”

Dennis Henigan of the Brady Campaign,  “Gun Rights and Political Violence”

More guns were sold in December 2015 than almost any other month in nearly two decades, continuing a pattern of spikes in sales after terrorist attacks and calls for stricter gun-buying laws, according to federal data released on Monday.

The heaviest sales last month, driven primarily by handgun sales, followed a call from President Obama to make it harder to buy assault weapons after the terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Calif.

Fear of gun-buying restrictions has been the main driver of spikes in gun sales, far surpassing the effects of mass shootings and terrorist attacks alone, according to an analysis of federal background check data by The New York Times.

During the previous record month, December 2012, President Obama called for new buying restrictions after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Several days ago a group of right wing militiamen stormed a building on the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Harney County, Oregon. The group is engaged in an armed occupation claiming to be opposing the U.S. government for perceived violations of their rights. They have also made the demand that two rancher brothers convicted of arson, Dwight Hammond Jr. and Steven Hammond, be released from prison. The 150-man strong occupation force is being led by three of Cliven Bundy’s sons, specifically Ammon Bundy. As you may recall they were engaged in an armed standoff with the F.B.I. in 2014 over a dispute involving cattle grazing land.

The militia men are arguing that they should own public land simply because they feel the government hasn’t been kind to them. Their goal is to build private businesses on the protected land. They’re trying to take away land that is being held in common for their own exploitation of it.

The FBI is leading the investigation into the armed occupation of a federal wildlife refuge in Oregon and says it will work with local and state authorities to seek “a peaceful resolution to the situation.” The White House considers it “a local law enforcement matter,” Press Secretary Josh Earnest said Monday.

The Southern Poverty Law Center said in a report on that standoff that the militiamen and the federal land-return movement are part of the same spectrum.

“Anti-government extremists have long pushed, most fiercely during Democratic administrations, rabid conspiracy theories about a nefarious New World Order, a socialist, gun-grabbing federal government and the evils of federal law enforcement,” the center said.

Law enforcement officials said that the occupiers came to the region with a specific goal:

“These men came to Harney County claiming to be part of militia groups supporting local ranchers,” Harney County Sheriff David M. Ward said in a statement Sunday. “When in reality these men had alternative motives, to attempt to overthrow the county and federal government in hopes to spark a movement across the United States.”

Clownish as such stunts unquestionably are, it bears remembering that the activities of such violent abolitionists as John Brown looked just as pointless in their time; their importance was purely as a gauge of the pressures building toward civil war—and that’s exactly the same reading I give to the event just described. The era of rural and urban guerrilla warfare, roadside bombs, internment camps, horrific human rights violations by all sides, and millions of refugees fleeing in all directions, that will bring down the United States of America is still a little while off yet.

women in Islam

The Iraqi Council of Representatives will vote to legalise Forced Child Marriage¹.

The specifics of the legislation (part of the Jaafari Personal Status Law) are terrifying:

• There will no longer be a minimum age to legally marry (it’s currently 18) but the law provides policies for divorcing a 9-year-old girl;
• A girl’s father would legally be able to accept a marriage proposal on her behalf; and
• The girl would be legally prohibited from resisting her husband’s advances and leaving the home without his permission.

It’s a recipe for a life in domestic and sexual slavery.

The law was sent to the Council of Representatives yesterday, and the vote could happen any time now. To prevent Iraq’s girls from becoming vulnerable to forced child marriage it is crucial that we act now.

Tell Iraq’s Council of Representatives not to legalise Forced Child Marriage.

Currently, Iraq has one of the most progressive policies on women’s rights in the Middle East -- setting the legal marriage age at 18 and prohibiting forced marriage².

Bahrain protests

Bahrain’s government continued to face demonstrations and political unrest as the majority Shiite community campaigns for a more equitable constitution. The US was forced to reduce the number of navy and other military personnel stationed in Manama. The hard line Sunni monarchy accuses its Arab Shiites of being cat’s paws of Iran, but this is a red herring. The regime has resorted to the most despicable arbitrary arrests, absurd charges, punishments for thought crimes, and torture. The US has not done enough to condemn this situation or dissociate itself from the monarchy.

Juan Cole

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The US State Department took the unusual step this week of warning the Bahrain government that the country could break apart if the monarchy went on with its heavy-handed repression of protesters. The Shiite majority in Bahrain wants constitutional reform and a greater say in governing, whereas the Sunni monarchy insists on something close to absolute monarchy and Sunni dominance. (There is a show parliament, but the king can overrule it and the Shiites have never had a majority even in the elected lower house, because of regime gerrymandering).

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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates: Bahraini police fired tear gas and stun bombs to break up protests overnight in Shiite-populated villages around Manama, leading to arrests and injuries, witnesses said on Saturday.

The protesters took to the streets in response to a call by the February 14 Youth Coalition for rallies against a blockage imposed on the Shiite locality of Mahazza, near the capital, since November 7.

"The blockade will not make us afraid" and "Down with Hamad," chanted the protesters, in reference to King Hamad.

The protesters, some of whom wore masks, waved the Bahraini flag and pictures of prisoners.

Police responded by firing tear gas, sound bombs and buck shot, injuring some of the protesters, according to the witnesses who did not specify the number of casualties.

People injured at anti-government demonstrations in Bahrain avoid going to hospital for fear of being arrested.

In the latest clashes, police detained several demonstrators, and the skirmishes continued until dawn on Saturday, according to the witnesses.

Demonstrations have shaken Bahrain since its security forces crushed a Shiite-led uprising against the ruling Sunni regime in March last year.

The United States last week expressed concern about rising violence in Bahrain, one year after an inquiry report was issued on the violence, saying the country needed to put more of its recommendations into effect.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2012/Dec-01/196821-bahrain-police-break-up-shiite-demos.ashx#ixzz2Du88i1Jl
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)

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A heavy police presence is preventing people marking the first anniversary of pro-democracy demonstrations in Bahrain's capital, Manama.

Opposition activists have called on protesters to march on the site of the now-demolished Pearl Roundabout - the focus of last year's unrest.

A BBC correspondent says the area is quiet, but that in outlying villages there have been violent clashes.

Police have been firing rubber bullets and tear gas at stone-throwing youths.

Most of the demonstrators are from the Gulf kingdom's Shia Muslim majority, which has long complained of discrimination at the hands of the Sunni royal family, the Al Khalifa, and wants democratic reforms.
'Reforms'

The BBC's Bill Law, who is in Manama, says the centre of the capital remains quiet, with no sign of the mass protest called by the opposition a year on from the peaceful takeover of Pearl Roundabout.

Muslim fundamentalist governance

Egypt moved decisively from military to civilian rule. For the first time in its history, Egypt elected its president, Muhammad Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood.(There had been indirectly elected prime ministers in the Liberal Age, 1922-1952). Since the young officers coup of July, 1952, Egypt’s president had come from the upper ranks of the officer corps. As 2012 opened, the 23-member Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) was the de facto executive of the country, which had appointed the prime minister and approved his cabinet. In June 2012, the supreme administrative court dissolved the parliament that had been elected late in 2011, and SCAF promptly declared itself the interim national legislature, attempting to limit the powers of the incoming elected president, Muhammad Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood. Morsi gradually made senior officers retire and got an agreement from the junior generals that he promoted that they would return to the barracks. On August 15, Morsi abrogated the SCAF decree on the legislature. By the crisis of the referendum on the constitution from November 22 until December 22, the military had been effectively sidelined or turned into an instrument of the Muslim Brotherhood president. Egypt has many problems, including the question of whether the Muslim Brotherhood really respects individual human rights. But it is indisputable that the country’s basis for legitimate government has become free and fair parliamentary elections. Meanwhile, Egypt moved decisively toward Muslim fundamentalist governance, with the passing in December of a new constitution, crafted in large part by supporters of political Islam.

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By George Friedman

The Egyptian presidential election was held last week. No candidate received 50 percent of the vote, so a runoff will be held between the two leading candidates, Mohammed Morsi and Ahmed Shafiq. Morsi represented the Muslim Brotherhood's Freedom and Justice Party and received 25.3 percent of the vote, while Shafiq, a former Egyptian air force commander and the last prime minister to serve in Hosni Mubarak's administration, received 24.9 percent. There were, of course, charges of irregularities, but in general the results made sense. The Islamist faction had done extremely well in the parliamentary election, and fear of an Islamist president caused the substantial Coptic community, among others, to support the candidate of the old regime, which had provided them at least some security.

Morsi and Shafiq effectively tied in the first round, and either can win the next round. Morsi's strength is that he has the support of both the Islamist elements and those who fear a Shafiq presidency and possible return to the old regime. Shafiq's strength is that he speaks for those who fear an Islamist regime. The question is who will win the non-Islamist secularists' support. They oppose both factions, but they are now going to have to live with a president from one of them. If their secularism is stronger than their hatred of the former regime, they will go with Shafiq. If not, they will go with Morsi. And, of course, it is unclear whether the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces, the military committee that has ruled Egypt since the fall of Mubarak, will cede any real power to either candidate, especially since the constitution hasn't even been drafted.

This is not how the West, nor many Egyptians, thought the Arab Spring would turn out in Egypt. Their mistake was overestimating the significance of the democratic secularists, how representative the anti-Mubarak demonstrators were of Egypt as a whole, and the degree to which those demonstrators were committed to Western-style democracy rather than a democracy that represented Islamist values.

What was most underestimated was the extent to which the military regime had support, even if Mubarak did not. Shafiq, the former prime minister in that regime, could very well win. The regime may not have generated passionate support or even been respected in many ways, but it served the interests of any number of people. Egypt is a cosmopolitan country, and one that has many people who still take seriously the idea of an Arab, rather than Islamist, state. They fear the Muslim Brotherhood and radical Islamism and have little confidence in the ability of other parties, such as the socialists, who came in third, to protect them. For some, such as the Copts, the Islamists are an existential threat. The military regime, whatever its defects, is a known bulwark against the Muslim Brotherhood. The old order is attractive to many because it is known; what the Muslim Brotherhood will become is not known and is frightening to those committed to secularism. They would rather live under the old regime.

What was misunderstood was that while there was in fact a democratic movement in Egypt, the liberal democrats who wanted a Western-style regime were not the ones exciting popular sentiment. What was exciting it was the vision of a popularly elected Islamist coalition moving to create a regime that institutionalized Islamic religious values.

Westerners looked at Egypt and saw what they wanted and expected to see. They looked at Egyptians and saw themselves. They saw a military regime operating solely on brute force without any public support. They saw a mass movement calling for the overthrow of the regime and assumed that the bulk of the movement was driven by the spirit of Western liberalism. The result is that we have a showdown not between the liberal democratic mass and a crumbling military regime but between a representative of the still-powerful regime (Shafiq) and the Muslim Brotherhood.

If we understand how the Egyptian revolution was misunderstood, we can begin to make sense of the misunderstanding about Syria. There seemed to be a crumbling, hated regime in Syria as well. And there seemed to be a democratic uprising that represented much of the population and that wanted to replace the al Assad regime with one that respected human rights and democratic values in the Western sense. The regime was expected to crumble any day under the assaults of its opponents. As in Egypt, the regime has not collapsed and the story is much more complex.

Syrian President Bashar al Assad operates a brutal dictatorship that he inherited from his father, a regime that has been in power since 1970. The regime is probably unpopular with most Syrians. But it also has substantial support. This support doesn't simply come from the al Assads' Alawite sect but extends to other minorities and many middle-class Sunnis as well. They have done well under the regime and, while unhappy with many things, they are not eager to face a new regime, again likely dominated by Islamists whose intentions toward them are unclear. They may not be enthusiastic supporters of the regime, but they are supporters.

The opposition also has supporters -- likely a majority of the Syrian people -- but it is divided, as is the Egyptian opposition, between competing ideologies and personalities. This is why for the past year Western expectations for Syria have failed to materialize. The regime, as unpopular as it may be, has support, and that support has helped block a seriously divided opposition.

One of the problems of Western observers is that they tend to take their bearings from the Eastern European revolutions of 1989. These regimes were genuinely unpopular. That unpopularity originated in the fact that the regimes were imposed from the outside -- from the Soviet Union after World War II -- and the governments were seen as tools of a foreign government. At the same time, many of the Eastern European nations had liberal democratic traditions and, like the rest of Europe, were profoundly secular (with some exceptions in Poland). There was a consensus that the state was illegitimate and that the desired alternative was a European-style democracy. Indeed, the desire to become part of a democratic Europe captured the national imagination.

The Arab Spring was different, but Westerners did not always understand the difference. The regimes did not come into being as foreign impositions. Nasserism, the ideology of Gamal Abdel Nasser, who both founded the modern Egyptian state and set the stage for an attempt at an Arab revolution, was not imposed from the outside. Indeed, it was an anti-Western movement, opposed to both European imperialism and what was seen as American aggression. When Hafez al Assad staged his coup in Syria in 1970, or Moammar Gadhafi staged his in Libya in 1969, these were nationalistic movements designed to assert both their national identity and their anti-Western sentiment.

These were also unashamedly militaristic regimes. Nasser, inspired by the example of Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, saw his revolution as secular and representing mass sentiment, but not simply as democratic in the Western sense. He saw the military as the most modern and most nationally representative institution. He also saw the military as the protector of secularism.

The military coups that swept the Arab world from the 1950s to the early 1970s were seen as nationalist, secularist and anti-imperialist. Their opponents were labeled as representing Western interests and corrupt and outmoded regimes with close religious ties. They were not liberal regimes, in the sense of being champions of free speech and political parties, but they did claim to represent the interests of their people, and to a great extent, particularly at the beginning, they earned that claim.

Since the realignment of Egypt with the United States and the fall of the Soviet Union, with which many of these states were allied, the sense that these regimes were nationalist declined. But it never evaporated. Certainly they were never seen as regimes imposed by foreign armies, as was the case in Eastern Europe. And their credentials as secularists remained credible. What they were not were liberal democracies, but they weren't founded as such. From the Western point of view, that delegitimized everything else.

What the Westerners forgot was that these regimes arose as expressions of nationalism against Western imperialism. The more that Westerners intervened against them, as in Iraq, the more support at least the principle of the regime would evince. But most important, Westerners did not always recognize that the demand for democratic elections would emerge as a battleground between secular and religious tendencies, and not as the crucible from which Western-style liberal democracies would emerge. Nor did Westerners appreciate the degree to which these regimes defended religious minorities from hostile majorities precisely because they weren't democratic. The Copts in Egypt cling to the old regime as their protector. The Alawites see the Syrian conflict as a struggle for their own survival.

The outcome of the Egyptian election, which now pits a former general and prime minister of the Mubarak regime against the Muslim Brotherhood candidate, demonstrates this dilemma perfectly. This is the regime that Nasser founded. It is the protector of secularism and minority rights against those who it is feared will impose religious law. The regime may have grown corrupt under Mubarak, but it still represents a powerful tendency among the Egyptians.

The Muslim Brotherhood may win, in which case it will be important to see what the Egyptian military council does. But the idea that there is overwhelming support in Egypt for Western-style democracy is simply not true. The issues Egyptians and those in other Arab countries battle over derive from their own history, and in that history, the military and the state it created played a heroic role in asserting nationalism and secularism. The non-military secular parties don't have the same tradition to draw on.

As in many Arab countries that underwent Nasserite transformations, the army remains both a guarantor against Islamists and of the rights of some religious minorities. The minorities are the enemy of the resurgent religious factions. Those factions may win, but regardless of who prevails, the outcome will not be what many celebrants of the Arab Spring expected. We are down to the military and the Islamists. The issue is no longer what they are against. This year's question is what they are for. This is not Prague or Budapest and it doesn't want to be.

Read more: The Egyptian Election and the Arab Spring | Stratfor

سلفي‎

In revolutionary Tunisia, 2012 saw a political struggle between the small but violent minority of Salafis or hard line fundamentalists, and, well, everybody else. Salafi attacks on unveiled women provoked a huge anti-Salafi rally in the capital, Tunis. In summer, some Salafis attacked an art exhibit in tony LaMarsa. In September, Salafis of a more al-Qaeda mindset set fire to the parking lot of the American embassy and looted some of its offices. The leader of the movement for political Islam in Tunisia, the al-Nahda Party’s Rashid Ghanoushi, was caught on tape warning the Salafis that if they continued to be so provocative, they risked instigating a civil war like that in Algeria (where some 150,000 Algerians died in a struggle between secularists and Muslim fundamentalists in 1991-2002).

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A Salafi (Arabic: سلفي‎) is a Muslim who emphasises the Salaf ("predecessors" or "ancestors"), the earliest Muslims, as model examples of Islamic practice.^[1] The term has been in use since the Middle Ages but today refers especially to a follower of a modern Sunni Islamic movement known as Salafiyyah or Salafism, which is related to or includes Wahhabism, so that the two terms are often viewed as synonymous.^[2] Salafism has become associated with literalist, strict and puritanical approaches to Islam and, in the West, with the Salafi Jihadis who espouse violent jihadagainst civilians as a legitimate expression of Islam.^[3] It's been noted that the Western association of Salafi ideology with violence stems from writings done "through the prism of security studies" that were published in the late 20th century, having persisted well into contemporary literature. ^[4] More recent attempts have been made by academics and scholars who challenge these major assumptions. Academics and historians use the term to denote "a school of thought which surfaced in the second half of the 19th century as a reaction to the spread of European ideas," and "sought to expose the roots of modernity within Muslim civilization."^[5]

Just who, or what groups and movements, qualify as Salafi remains in dispute. In the Arab World, and possibly even more so now by Muslims in the West, it is usually secondary to the more common term Ahl-as-Sunnah (i.e., "People of the Sunnah") while the term Ahl al-Hadith (The People of the Tradition) is more often used in the Indian subcontinent to identify adherents of Salafi ideology, a term which in the Middle-East is used more to indicate scholars and students of Hadith. All are considered to bear the same or similar connotation and have been used interchangeably by Muslim scholars throughout the ages, Ahl al-Hadeeth possibly being the oldest recorded term used to describe the earliest adherents^[6] while Ahl as-Sunnah is overwhelmingly used by Muslim scholars, including Salafis as well as others, such as the Ash'ari sect, leading to a narrower use of the term "Salafi".^[7] The Muslim Brotherhood includes the term in the "About Us" section of its website^[8] while others exclude that organisation^[9] in the belief that the group commits religious innovations. Other self-described contemporary salafis may define themselves as Muslims who follow "literal, traditional ... injunctions of the sacred texts" rather than the "somewhat freewheeling interpretation" of earlier salafis. These look to Ibn Taymiyyah, not the 19th century figures ofMuhammad Abduh, Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, and Rashid Rida.^[5]

According to the 2010 German domestic intelligence service annual report, Salafism is the fastest growing Islamic movement in the world.

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In a recent crackdown on radical Islam, German authorities have launched nationwide raids on an ultra-conservative religious group - the Salafists. They're suspected of having links to extremists and posing a threat to democracy. But for years the movement has enjoyed conditions that've made it thrive, as Oksana Boyko reports.



A group of Salafists attacked an art exhibition, Le Printemps des Arts, in La Marsa, (north suburb of Tunis) destroying some of the art works deemed blasphemous to Islam. The small, yet grave incident, soon grew in proportion when hundreds of Salafists - or thugs - attacked a police station in La Marsa, burnt a tribunal in Sidi Hussein (south of Tunis) and stopped police and firefighters from intervening. Clashes with police were reported in two neighborhoods throughout metropolitan Tunis and coastal city Sousse.

The aftermath led to a curfew, starting from Monday, June 12th, after the escalation of violence, in Metropolitan Tunis, Sousse, Monastir, Tabarka, and in other inland regions, including Gabes and Ben Guerdane.

An Interior Ministry official was quoted by the media as saying 162 people had been detained and 65 members of the security forces wounded in the incident.

We are the 99 per cent

WASHINGTON — The Federal Bureau of Investigation used counterterrorism agents to investigate the Occupy Wall Street movement, including its communications and planning, according to newly disclosed agency records.

Related

• Times Topic: Occupy Movement (Occupy Wall Street)

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The scope of the crisis is our hope: wake up

Russian Facebook users have poured scorn on a promise by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to investigate reports of electoral fraud.

At least 7,000 comments had appeared under his post by 20:00 GMT on Sunday, a day after the biggest anti-government protests since Soviet times.

An early random sample showed the comments were equally divided between hostility, support and neutrality.

Mr Medvedev prides himself on using social media.

He recently suffered an embarrassment on Twitter.

Having already conceded that some violations of electoral law had taken place at the parliamentary elections last Sunday, he went on Facebook to say he had issued instructions for all official reports on the conduct of the polls to be checked.

It was his comments on Saturday's election protests - some 50,000 people turned out in Moscow alone - which drew particular anger.

'Pathetic liar'

"I do not agree with either the slogans or statements heard at the rallies," Mr Medvedev wrote.

Facebook users pointed out that the chief, official slogan of the rallies had been "For Honest Elections".


Thousands of people have attended the biggest anti-government rally in the Russian capital Moscow since the fall of the Soviet Union.

As many as 50,000 people gathered on an island near the Kremlin to condemn alleged ballot-rigging in parliamentary elections and demand a re-run.

Other, smaller rallies took place in St Petersburg and other cities.

Communists, nationalists and Western-leaning liberals turned out together despite divisions between them.

The protesters allege there was widespread fraud in Sunday's polls though the ruling United Russia party did see its share of the vote fall sharply.

Continue reading the main story
“
Start Quote
The time has come to throw off the chains”
End Quote
Alexei Navalny

Jailed protest leader, in message posted on his blog

Demonstrations in the immediate aftermath of the election saw more than 1,000 arrests, mostly in Moscow, and several key protest leaders such as the anti-corruption campaigner Alexei Navalny were jailed.

A message from Mr Navalny was released through his blog, saying: "The time has come to throw off the chains. We are not cattle or slaves. We have a voice and we have the strength to defend it."

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has never experienced popular protests like these before, the BBC's Steve Rosenberg reports from Moscow.

During his decade in power, first as president then prime minister, he has grown used to being seen as Russia's most popular and powerful politician.

But as one of the protesters put it to our correspondent, Russia is changing.



Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics  

eurozone members and others will adopt an accord with penalties for breaking deficit rules. It will be backed by a treaty between governments, not an EU treaty.

Moscow is braced for what the opposition claims will be the biggest demonstration in Russia for 20 years.

Tens of thousands are expected to gather in a square south of the Kremlin, in the latest show of anger over disputed parliamentary polls.

Smaller rallies are taking place in cities across the country.

The protesters allege Sunday's elections - which gave Prime Minister Vladimir Putin's ruling United Russia party a small lead - were fraudulent.

Hundreds of people have been arrested during anti-Putin protests over the past week, mainly in Moscow and St Petersburg.

At least 50,000 police and riot troops have been deployed in Moscow ahead of Saturday's protests.

The opposition says it is hoping for a turnout of 30,000 in the capital in the demonstration dubbed "For Fair Elections", due to begin at 14:00 (10:00 GMT).

Protests have already begun elsewhere, with several hundred marching in Vladivostok, seven timezones to the east of Moscow.

concerns of the working and middle classes

This year has witnessed a global wave of social and political turmoil and instability, with masses of people pouring into the real and virtual streets: the Arab Spring; riots in London; Israel’s middle-class protests against high housing prices and an inflationary squeeze on living standards; protesting Chilean students; the destruction in Germany of the expensive cars of “fat cats”; India’s movement against corruption; mounting unhappiness with corruption and inequality in China; and now the “Occupy Wall Street” movement in New York and across the United States.

Egyptian protesters

The army in Egypt has called for dialogue to resolve a crisis over President Mohammed Morsi's new powers, warning it will intervene to stop Egypt going into "a dark tunnel".

In its first statement since protests erupted, it vowed to protect public institutions and innocent people.

It came as protests continued outside the presidential palace in Cairo.

The opposition has rejected his call for talks, unless he gives up powers and halts a constitutional referendum.

Critics say the draft was rushed through the constituent assembly - a body dominated by Islamists who support Mr Morsi - without proper consultation and does not do enough to protect political and religious freedoms and the rights of women.

Vice-President Mahmud Mekki has indicated that Mr Morsi could delay the 15 December plebiscite if the opposition agreed not to challenge the move on those grounds later, AFP news agency reports.

Under Egyptian law, referendums must be held two weeks after being formally presented to the president.

Five Broken Cameras

This video shot by a B'Tselem volunteer depicts a group of four masked settlers from Yitzhar as they attempt to set fire to a Palestinian wheat field.

Why are they masked? They have nothing to fear from Israeli occupation troops or Israeli courts.

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Border Police officer filmed kicking Palestinian child

Wednesday, 4 July 2012, 9:32 am
Article: B'Tselem
Hebron: Border Police officer filmed kicking Palestinian child
B'Tselem - The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories
02/07/2012

A B'Tselem video volunteer documented an Israeli Border Police officer kicking a Palestinian child while another officer held the boy. The incident took place on the 29th of June 2012 near the Tomb of the Patriarchs, in Hebron's H2 area. The child, Abd a-Rahman Burqan, who is nine years old, lives with his family near the parking lot used by Israeli vehicles outside of the Tomb. The video shows a Border Police officer ambushing a child from around the corner.


As the child walks past, the officer grabs him by the arm and says: "why are you making trouble?" The officer then drags the child, who is screaming, on the ground for a few seconds. A second Border Police officer then appears and kicks the boy. The officer then lets the child go. He runs away, and the two Border Police officers leave the scene as well.

The incident was filmed by a volunteer in B'Tselem's camera distribution project, from inside his home. The volunteer told B'Tselem that he began to film when he noticed the officer hiding behind the wall.

B'Tselem will refer the case to the Justice Ministry's Department for the Investigation of Police.

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Jerusalem (CNN) -- A video released by an Israeli human rights organization shows what the group describes as a 9-year-old Palestinian boy being assaulted by two border police officers in the West Bank city of Hebron.

The footage, released by B'tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, shows the boy walking on pavement outside a building when a uniformed police officer runs up to him and grabs him by an arm, causing him to lose his balance and pulling him along the ground for a few feet.
The police officer, who is holding a rifle in one hand, asks the boy, "Why are you making trouble?" according to B'tselem. Seconds later, a second police officer, also carrying a rifle, walks up to the boy, kicks him, turns around and walks off without speaking. At that, the first policeman releases the boy, who runs out of the frame.

An investigation should be opened into the incident, said Sarit Michaeli, a spokeswoman for B'tselem.

"From the video evidence and from evidence collected from the child, it's obvious the border police officer was basically waiting for him and grabbed him and another border police officer came and kicked the child," she said. "The child denies attacking or harassing the border police officer. Regardless, this is irrelevant as far as B'tsalem is concerned, because this kind of behavior is absolutely prohibited regardless of the circumstance."

She continued, "This kind of violence by border police officers, by official members of the Israeli security forces is outrageous and not allowed. B'tsalem is going to complain with the department of police investigations in the Ministry of Justice, which is a relevant government investigative body of allegations against the border police."

Michaeli said the boy had been treated similarly before. "A month ago he was attacked by border police officers on his way back from school," she said.
The incident occurred a few days after a team of human rights lawyers published a report funded by the British government that accuses Israel of violating international law in its treatment of Palestinian child detainees.
It was written after a week-long visit last September by the delegation to Israel and the West Bank.

The report accuses Israel of treating Palestinian and Israeli children differently -- Israelis must be at least 14 before they can be sent to jail; Palestinians must be 12. Israeli children generally have a legal right to have their parents present during questioning; Palestinians do not, it says. An Israeli child can be held no more than two days without being granted access to a lawyer; a Palestinian child can be held 90 days, it says.

"It may be that much of the reluctance to treat Palestinian children in conformity with international norms stems from a belief, which was advanced to us by a military prosecutor, that every Palestinian child is a 'potential terrorist,' the report says. "Such a stance seems to us to be the starting point of a spiral of injustice, and one which only Israel, as the Occupying Power in the West Bank, can reverse."
The Israel Defense Forces did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But Mark Regev, the spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told "The Age" newspaper of Melbourne, Australia, that Israel was studying the report's proposals. "The report acknowledges that Israel has made improvements and they have praised us for that," Regev said.

"You have countless acts of violence, including deadly violence, perpetrated by minors -- Israel is acting because of a vacuum created by a lack of action from the Palestinian leadership and by the exploitation of minors by the extremist groups."

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The award-winning new documentary, "Five Broken Cameras," tells the story of a Palestinian farmer who got a video camera to record his son’s childhood, but ended up documenting the growth of the resistance movement to the Israeli separation wall in the West Bank village of Bil’in. The film shows the nonviolent tactics used by residents of Bil’in as they join with international and Israeli activists to protest the wall’s construction and confront Israeli soldiers. We speak with the film’s directors, Emad Burnat, a Palestinian, and Guy Davidi, an Israeli. [includes rush transcript]

cephalosporins in food animal production

Stop factory farms from abusing antibiotics

Dear Friend,

The FDA is poised to stop the overuse of an important class of antibiotics by factory farms — but Big Ag is pushing back hard, and has stopped the FDA before. We have until Tuesday to go on the record in support of new limits to stop factory farms from abusing antibiotics.

Cephalosporins are a critically important class of antibiotics that are key to treating bacterial meningitis, salmonella, children, and the seriously ill in hospitals.

But factory farms and Big Ag companies are putting the effectiveness of cephalosporins at risk through overuse in livestock.

Submit a public comment now supporting the FDA's recent decision to limit cephalosporin use in factory farming.

Today, factory farms give cephalosporins to almost all broiler chickens before they hatch, whether they have infections or not. Factory farms also use the drugs large-scale to fight infections in cows and pigs.

In the absence of FDA regulation, this off-label overuse has led to an increase in the development of cephalosporin-resistant bacteria in animal populations.

The links between antibiotic use in factory farming and the increase in antibiotic-resistant bacteria are clear. So it's simple: the more these drugs are used in animals, the less effective they will be in humans.

And because these drugs are especially important for treating children — they carry no warnings against pediatric use — the risk to our kids of cephalosporin-resistant bacteria is significant.

If we want antibiotics to work for us when we need them, we have to to stop their misuse and overuse in farming.

Submit a public comment now supporting the FDA's recent decision to limit cephalosporin use in factory farming.

The FDA plan would limit the use of cephalosporins in food animal production. It's not the first time they've tried to put such a rule in place. An attempt in 2008 failed when the FDA was flooded with comments from veterinarians, farmers and drug companies opposing the ban. We need to make sure that doesn't happen again. The FDA clearly wants to act, but they need to be able to show that thousands of us are behind their actions.

The FDA's new rule against off-label uses of cephalosporin bans routine injections of cephalosporins into chicken eggs and large and lengthy dosing in cattle and swine, but allows smaller dosing under veterinary supervision and usage in animals like ducks and rabbits.

It is a small step but an important one, both in protecting this class of antibiotics and putting the brakes on the overuse of antibiotics in factory farming.

If the FDA can successfully regulate cephalosporins, it's a foothold to go after bigger wins, including finalizing a guideline proposed in 2010 focused on putting a stop to the use of antibiotics solely to promote growth or to compensate for animals' unsanitary living conditions.

Click below to submit a public comment before the Tuesday deadline supporting the FDA's recent decision to limit cephalosporin use in factory farming:
http://act.credoaction.com/r/?r=5538059&id=36085-5154581-wAZP4Rx&t=8

Thank you for taking action by Tuesday to fight dangerous antibiotic abuse by factory farms.

Heidi Hess, Campaign Manager
CREDO Action from Working Assets

You Can't Be Neutral on a Moving Train

Howard Zinn on Civil Disobedience

the most dangerous country to practice journalism

Main article: List of journalists killed in the Mexican Drug War

In the first years of the 21st century, Mexico was considered the most dangerous country in the world to practice journalism, according to groups like the National Human Rights Commission,Reporters Without Borders, and the Committee to Protect Journalists. Between 2000 and 2012, several dozen journalists were murdered there for covering narco-related news.^{[183][184][185]}

Offices of Televisa and of local newspapers have been bombed.^[186] The cartels have also threatened to kill news reporters in the U.S. who have done coverage on the drug violence.^[187] Some media networks simply stopped reporting on drug crimes, while others have been infiltrated and corrupted by drug cartels.^[188][189] In 2011, Notiver journalist Miguel Angel Lopez Velasco and his wife and son were murdered in their home.^[190]

About 74 percent of the journalists killed since 1992 in Mexico have been reporters for print newspapers, followed in number by Internet media and radio at about 11 percent each. Television journalism only includes 4 percent of the deaths.^[191] These numbers are not proportional to the audience size of the different mediums; most Mexican households have a television, a large majority have a radio, but only a small number have the internet, and the circulation numbers for Mexican newspapers are relatively low.^{[192][193][194]} There is no clear explanation of why a medium that reaches a much smaller portion of the population is statistically much more dangerous.^{[citation needed]}

Since harassment neutralized many of the traditional media outlets, anonymous blogs like Blog del Narco took on the role of reporting on events related to the drug war.^[195] The drug cartels responded by murdering bloggers and social media users. Twitter users have been tortured and killed for posting and denouncing information of the drug cartels activities.^[196] In September 2011, user NenaDLaredo of the website Nuevo Laredo Envivo was murdered allegedly by the Zetas.^[197]

In May 2012 several journalist murders occurred in Veracruz. Regina Martinez of Proceso was murdered in Xalapa. A few days later, three Veracruz photojournalists were tortured and killed and their dismembered bodies were dumped in a canal. They had worked for various news outlets, including Notiver, Diario AZ, and TV Azteca. Human rights groups condemned the murders and demanded the authorities investigate the crimes

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Proceso magazine’s Regina Martinez was found dead in her Veracruz, Mexico home over the weekend, apparently beaten and strangled.

It is too soon to know who killed her or why, but her death was brutal and she was known for reporting on crime and drug trafficking in a state that like other parts of Mexico has been rife with violence.

Authorities have vowed to thoroughly investigate the case, but murders are rarely solved in Mexico, and when they are, there are many doubts that authorities have even charged the right person.

Tahrir Trauma

The protest mood in Egypt doesn't seem to be subsiding - despite the long-anticipated announcement of the presidential vote results last weekend. Amid the never-ending swarm of political demands, the psychological stress ordinary Egyptians are constantly under is often ignored.

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A decision by Egypt's Justice Ministry to extend the military's power to arrest and investigate civilians for a wide range of offences would pave the way for fresh human rights violations and must be urgently revoked, Amnesty International said.

According to the decision, announced on Wednesday by Minister of Justice Adel Abdel Hamid Abdallah, military police and intelligence officers are now granted the same powers as judicial police when dealing with civilians suspected of offences related to national security and public order.

In the unrest since early 2011, peaceful protesters have routinely been punished for such offences, which include resisting public authorities and disobeying their orders, assaulting by insults and other acts, damaging public property, blocking traffic, strikes in key public places and “thuggery”.

“Instead of investigating the serious abuses committed by military officers and soldiers against protesters and others since January 2011, Egypt's authorities are giving them carte blanche to arrest and detain civilians,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Programme Director at Amnesty International.

“We urge the authorities to rescind this decision, which has dangerous and pervasive ramifications for the rule of law in Egypt, but also in the short term with run-off presidential elections just days away.”

“That the Minister of Justice could now give an army responsible for killing, torture, and thousands of arbitrary arrests and unfair trials the power to arrest and detain civilians beggars belief. It is nothing less than legally sanctioning abuse.”

The Head of Egypt's Military Judiciary said that the decision fills a gap left by the end of the Mubarak-era state of emergency – which expired on 31 May after being in effect for three decades – and insists it will not be used against peaceful protesters.

“The end of Egypt's long-standing state of emergency was an opportunity for the authorities to end decades of abuses that have corroded the country's justice system,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.

“Yet we fear this latest decision signals that instead of ushering in proper reform, the authorities are intent on holding on tight to the emergency powers they enjoyed for so long.”

Many of the offences that can be investigated by military police and intelligence officers, including national security-related offences and thuggery, were previously dealt with by the emergency law or referred to military courts.

Among them are activities protected under international human rights law, such as freedom of assembly and the right to strike.

Worryingly, the new decision gives military police and intelligence officers the authority to arrest suspects in their homes as well as in the streets.

Amnesty International fears that civilians arrested and investigated under the new decision could face trial in military courts.

Civilians should never be tried in military courts. People held solely for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of assembly should be immediately and unconditionally released.

“We fear this decision will further entrench impunity for members of the military who violently repress peaceful protests and commit other human rights violations. The end of Egypt's emergency must mean an end to impunity and a return to the rule of law,” said Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui.