Link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/02/27-4

It began outside the University of Wisconsin Memorial Union. A few dozen members of the Teaching Assistants Association, the oldest graduate employee union in the world, rallied to object to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s plan to strip public employee unions of collective bargaining rights. The message from the TAA was blunt: “All public sector workers are under attack. Faculty and staff are under attack. The UW as a whole is under attack. With these extreme acts, Scott Walker is seeking to undermine the labor peace of 50 years…. You need to get active now!”

Link: http://www.setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/newsbriefs/setimes/newsbriefs/2011/02/27/nb-03

ZAGREB, Croatia -- About 60 people were arrested during an anti-government rally attended by about 15,000 people in Zagreb on Saturday (February 26th). In all 25 people, -- 12 of them police officers -- were injured in clashes that erupted when dozens of youth tried to reach the central square, where the government is headquartered. Pelted by rocks and sticks, police responded with tear gas. Video

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/201122792426740496.html

Libyan leader continues to blame foreigners and al-Qaeda for the unrest that is threatening his 41-year rule. As more cities fall into the hands of the pro-democracy protesters, Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, is hanging on to the capital where security forces loyal to him seem to have a firm hold, even amid reports of sporadic gunfire. On Sunday, protesters had taken control of the city of Zawiyah, 50km from Tripoli, further shrinking the control of Gaddafi's government after the opposition took over most of the eastern part of the country.

Link: http://www.aolnews.com/2011/02/27/horrific-us-medical-experiments-come-to-light/

Shocking as it may seem, U.S. government doctors once thought it was fine to experiment on disabled people and prison inmates. Such experiments included giving hepatitis to mental patients in Connecticut, squirting a pandemic flu virus up the noses of prisoners in Maryland, and injecting cancer cells into chronically ill people at a New York hospital.

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27575.htm

An interview With John Perkins - By Anthony Wile. Daily Bell: Please treat this interview as if no one knew about you or your bestselling books. Give us some background on where you grew up and how you entered the CIA. John Perkins: I grew up in New Hampshire and went to business school in Boston. At that time, I was approached by the National Security Agency (NSA), not the CIA, for a series of very sensitive tests including lie detector and personality test. They concluded I would make a good economic hit man, which is essentially a con artist with an economic background. They also said they found several weaknesses in my character that maybe they could use as hooks that would bring me into their game. Primarily, money, sex and power. Being that I was a young man, I was seduced by all of them.

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27571.htm

Some years ago in New England, a group of environmentalists asked a corporate executive how his company (a paper mill) could justify dumping its raw industrial effluent into a nearby river. The river—which had taken Mother Nature centuries to create–was used for drinking water, fishing, boating, and swimming. In just a few years, the paper mill had turned it into a highly toxic open sewer. It was a familiar argument: the company had no choice. It was compelled to act that way in a competitive market. The mill was not in the business of protecting the environment but in the business of making a profit, the highest possible profit at the highest possible rate of return. Profit is the name of the game, as business leaders make clear when pressed on the point. The overriding purpose of business is capital accumulation.

Link: http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/231456/2012-apocalypse-The-Doomsday-bunker

A US firm says thousands of people will book their place in post-Armageddon Britain. HUNDREDS of people have signed up to book a place in Britain’s first underground nuclear bunker, as a growing number fear the world will end as early as next year.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/news/150067/workers%27_uprising%3A_more_fox_%22news%22_lies_exposed%3B_new_poll_confirms_that_americans_are_on_public_workers%27_side/

Follow the latest developments and analysis on the democratic uprising spreading from Wisconsin to the rest of the country. The protests in Wisconsin continue into their third week, with thousands holding strong in the capitol in Madison, a huge showing of support for the economic rights of union members and the restoration of a strong middle class. The following is a collection of updates and items on what's happening in Wisconsin and the rest of the country.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/02/2011227153626965756.html

Signatories to the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) demand "immediate" military action. Independent Senator Joseph Lieberman wants the US to arm Libyan rebels. In a distinct echo of the tactics they pursued to encourage US intervention in the Balkans and Iraq, a familiar clutch of neo-conservatives appealed Friday for the United States and NATO to "immediately" prepare military action to help bring down the regime of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and end the violence that is believed to have killed well over a thousand people in the past week.

Link: http://www.opinion-maker.org/2011/02/israeli-students-and-their-vision-of-the-world/

After the detention of Israeli art students by U.S. authorities hit the media in early 2002, Mark Regev, the then-spokesman for the Israeli embassy in Washington who now serves as Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's spokesman, denied that any Israelis arrested in the United States were espionage agents. Regev categorically stated, "Israel does not spy on the United States," as if convicted American spy for Israel Jonathan Pollard never existed. Israeli sympathizers and propagandists within the U.S. corporate media all canted the same meme about the Israeli art students being spies: "It is an urban myth," they dutifully repeated ad infinitum. However, in employment advertisements run in Israeli newspapers in 1979, it is quite clear that the hiring of Israeli students after their military service to subsequently be sent to the United States was a Mossad operation tied directly to the Israeli government. Those interested in Mossad spy work in the United States were directed to send their personal details to a post office box in Tel Aviv or the Israeli Consulate General in New York. The consulate is the largest Mossad station in the United States, with Washington, DC and Houston in second and third place.

Link: http://www.nctimes.com/business/article_82f9827f-be43-59c5-a35c-300fade72cd8.html

They blockade highway toll booths to give drivers free passage. They cover subway ticket machines with plastic bags so commuters can't pay. Even doctors are joining in, preventing patients from paying fees at state hospitals. Some call it civil disobedience. Others a freeloading spirit. Either way, Greece's "I Won't Pay" movement has sparked heated debate in a nation reeling from a debt crisis that's forced the government to take drastic austerity measures ---- including higher taxes, wage and pension cuts, and price spikes in public services.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/27/silvio-berlusconi-sex-case-witness

Nadia Macri, who claims to have had sex with Italy's prime minister, says she has received menacing messages. Nadia Macri Nadia Macri, insists she has received money from Silvio Berlusconi in exchange for sex but says: 'I really don’t think that the prime minister has anything to do with my car.'

Link: http://www.alternet.org/news/150067/workers%27_uprising%3A_sheriff%3A_my_deputies_aren%27t_%27palace_guard%27%3B_dems_file_formal_ethics_complaint_against_scott_walker/

The protests in Wisconsin continue into their third week, with thousands holding strong in the capitol in Madison, a huge showing of support for the economic rights of union members and the restoration of a strong middle class. The following is a collection of updates and items on what's happening in Wisconsin and the rest of the country.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/02/2011227161232175401.html#

The leader of Ukraine's opposition says the gains of the 2004 'orange revolution' are under threat. Ukrainian's took to the streets in 2004 during a disputed election, in a push for democratic reforms. From snowy Kyiv, the Ukranian capital, I have watched the successful revolutions in Cairo and Tunis with joy and admiration. Egyptians and Tunisians are right to be proud of their desire to peacefully overthrow despotic governments. But, as someone who led a peaceful revolution, I hope that pride is tempered by pragmatism, because a change of regime is only the first step in establishing a democracy backed by the rule of law. Indeed, as my country, Ukraine, is now demonstrating, after revolutionary euphoria fades and normality returns, democratic revolutions can be betrayed and reversed.

Link: http://www.ecoearth.info/shared/alerts/sendsm.aspx?id=wi_capitol_occupation

Stand with brave protesters for human rights in Wisconsin; and as the police continue locking down the capitol, demand that peaceful protesters and capitol occupiers are not met with violence, arrested and that the public is let into the capitol today. Demand that Scott Walker begin negotiating immediately or resign, and that the Koch brothers stop buying state governments and fracking for natural gas.

Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54638

As revolutions and popular protests against dictatorships spread across northern Africa and the Middle East, questions are being raised whether they will inspire similar uprisings in Central Asia. Activists say that it is now a question of when, not if, regime change comes in the region.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/02/27-2

Regional war could spark "unprecedented climate change," experts predict. Even a regional nuclear war could spark "unprecedented" global cooling and reduce rainfall for years, according to U.S. government computer models. Widespread famine and disease would likely follow, experts speculate.

Link: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/the-price-of-food-is-at-the-heart-of-this-wave-of-revolutions-2226896.html

No one saw the uprisings coming, but their deeper cause isn't hard to fathom. Revolution is breaking out all over. As Gaddafi marshals his thugs and mercenaries for a last-ditch fight in Tripoli, several died as protests grew more serious in Iraq. Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah tried to bribe his people into docility by splashing out $35bn on housing, social services and education. Across the water in Bahrain the release of political prisoners failed to staunch the uprising. In Iran, President Ahmadinejad crowed about chaos in the Arab world, but said nothing about the seething anger in his own backyard; in Yemen, the opposition gathers strength daily.