Link: http://socialistworker.org/2012/01/31/charlotte-restricts-free-speech

LOCAL AUTHORITIES in Charlotte, N.C., have passed a law designed to restrict demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention (DNC), scheduled for September.The key part of the legislation, which takes the form of an amendment to city code, is a provision empowering the city manager--an appointed, not elected, official--to declare an event "of international or national significance" to be an "extraordinary event." The city manager may then specify and limit the times and locations in which demonstrations can occur. The law further empowers the city to establish permit deadlines for protesters wishing to stage marches and demonstrations. The bill has no sunset clause, meaning that it will stay on the books permanently.

Link: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/01/31/gingrich-romney-kept-kosher-food-from-holocaust-survivors/

In an automated “robocall” to Florida voters, the Gingrich campaign claimed that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney prevented Jewish Holocaust survivors from eating kosher food.“As governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney vetoed a bill paying for kosher food for our seniors in nursing homes,” a recorded voice says. “Holocaust survivors, who for the first time, were forced to eat non-kosher, because Romney thought $5 was too much to pay for our grandparents to eat kosher. Where is Mitt Romney’s compassion for our seniors?”As tasteless as the ad may be, The New York Post reported last week that that Romney had used his veto in 2003 to reject $600,000 in funds that would have allowed poor Jewish nursing homes to get Kosher meals.

Link: http://www.rawstory.com/

A charter school near Flint, Michigan is refusing to make an exception for a 17-year-old leukemia survivor who is growing out his hair to donate to other cancer patients.I fought cancer my entire life; I’m going to keep fighting this,” he told The Detroit News. “I’m not going to not give back just because my school says no.”“Female students can grow and donate their hair, yet boys cant not, we’re asking for an ammendment to this policy, my son has now been kicked out of school, until he agrees to cut his hair, we are simply asking for compromise and to allow not only my son, but anyone wanting to donate to be allowed to do so, to allow the boys the same rights and freedoms as the girl students.”

Link: http://www.a-w-i-p.com/index.php/news/2012/01/31/the-greek-parents-too-poor-to-care-for-t

Greece's financial crisis has made some families so desperate they are giving up the most precious thing of all - their children. - One morning a few weeks before Christmas a kindergarten teacher in Athens found a note about one of her four-year-old pupils. "I will not be coming to pick up Anna today because I cannot afford to look after her," it read. "Please take good care of her. Sorry. Her mother." In the last two months Father Antonios, a young Orthodox priest who runs a youth centre for the city's poor, has found four children on his doorstep - including a baby just days old. [...] One of the children cared for by Father Antonios is Natasha, a bright two-year-old brought to his centre by her mother a few weeks ago. The woman said she was unemployed and homeless and needed help

Link: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28999

Pentagon acknowledges Scenario of Heavy Combat Casualties
It is common knowledge that a short victorious war usually raises the country’s leader’s popularity to the skies. The current US president needs this badly as his rating is rather low at present. However, a war against Iran is unlikely to be short and victorious. Iran is a much stronger enemy than Iraq or Afghanistan, where the wars have already lasted for 10 years. Incidentally, the US invaded Iraq on the same charges it is using against Iran now. No nuclear weapons have been discovered in Iraq, so Washington has to think again.

Link: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28973

Oil embargos against Iran are not new. In 1951, the Iranian government of Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh with the support of the Iranian Parliament nationalized the Iranian oil industry. As a result of Dr. Mossadegh’s nationalization program, the British militarily blockaded the territorial waters and national ports of Iran with the British Royal Navy and prevented Iran from exporting its oil. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), both the U.S. dollar and the euro together constitute 84.4% of the world’s currency exchange reserves (end of 2011 date). The U.S. dollar alone, consists of largest share of the world’s currency exchange reserves in 2011, namely 61.7%.Energy sales are an important part of this equation, because the American dollar is tied to the oil trade. Thus, oil trade, through what is called the petro-dollar, is helping sustain the American dollar’s international standing. Countries around the world have been virtually forced to use the U.S. dollar to maintain their energy and trade needs and transactions.

Link: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jan2012/pers-j30.shtml

The bilateral talks between Washington and Manila on January 26 and 27 to negotiate the expansion of the US military presence and the deployment of US warships and surveillance aircraft in the Philippines are another step in the Obama administration’s strategy of encircling China.. The deployment of troops and ships to the Philippines, in addition to those stationed in Australia and Singapore, enhances the US ability to shut down China’s imports of energy and raw materials, and cripple its economy.Washington iscompensating for its economic weakness by recklessly wielding its military power to undermine China and pre-empt its rise as an economic and military rival.The strategic regional deployment of US forces recalls Washington’s oil blockade against Japan in 1941, which set in motion a sequence of events that led to the Pacific War. As the United States encircles China and poses the threat of a potentially crippling blockade, the options left open to the Chinese ruling elite become increasingly limited.

Link: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jan2012/iran-j31.shtml

Despite claims that its focus is on diplomatic and economic sanctions against Iran, the Obama administration is making barely disguised preparations for military strikes to back its threat to use “all options” to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran.The article pointed out that “some Pentagon planners believe conventional bombs won’t be effective against Fordo and that a tactical nuclear weapon may be the only military option if the goal is to destroy the facility.” Discussion of the possible use of nuclear weapons against Iran underlines the recklessness of US foreign policy and Obama’s oft-repeated mantra that “all options are on the table.”

Link: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jan2012/pers-j31.shtml

The New York Times on Sunday published a lengthy article in its weekly magazine that sympathetically and clinically lays out the arguments of Israeli policy makers in favor of a military attack on Iran sometime this year.Appearing in the context of newly announced US and European sanctions against Iranian oil exports and a buildup of US naval forces in the Persian Gulf, the article serves a definite and sinister purpose: to provide the pretexts and condition public opinion for a preemptive and unprovoked war of aggression that will have catastrophic consequences for the people of Iran and the Middle East and ultimately for the entire world.One can imagine similar articles appearing in the German press in the run-up to the Nazi invasion of Poland, calmly laying out the matters of self-defense obliging the Third Reich to subjugate its neighbor to the east.

Link: http://www.agrimoney.com/news/russia-wheat-export-fears-send-prices-soaring--4105.html

Wheat prices ended at a four-month high in Chicago, and in Paris at their highest since June, boosted by concerns over Black Sea supplies fostered by a double whammy of frost and export curb concerns.

Link: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/1/31/ex_marine_re_occupies_his_own

Arturo de los Santos, a U.S. Marine veteran who was evicted last year in Riverside, California, after Freddie Mac and JPMorgan Chase foreclosed on his house last June. De los Santos and his family reoccupied their home in December with help from the Occupy movement, but face eviction again this week.

Link: http://whatreallyhappened.com/

"It is not possible for India to take any decision to reduce the imports from Iran drastically, because among the countries which can provide the requirement of the emerging economies, Iran is an important country amongst them," the Indian finance minister said.

Link: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/01/30/hersheys-targeted-in-super-bowl-ad-for-alleged-african-child-slave-labor/

The International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) plans to use the Super Bowl in Indianapolis this year to pressure Hershey’s into taking action over forced labor practices that continue to plague the West African cocoa industry. The ad, titled “Hershey’s Chocolate: Kissed by Child Labor,” will appear on a jumbotron screen immediately outside Lucas Oil Stadium during the Super Bowl. “In West Africa, where Hershey’s sources much of its cocoa, over 200,000 children are forced to harvest cocoa beans every year,” said Judy Gearhart, Executive Director of the ILRF. “Hershey prides itself on its commitment to supporting underserved children in the United States, yet it lags behind when it comes to putting policies in place to end the exploitation of children in the cocoa industry.” Mars and Nestlé have both committed to begin sourcing cocoa that is independently certified to comply with labor rights standards, but Hershey’s has not. “Hershey has no policies in place to purchase cocoa that has been produced without the use of child labor, and the company has consistently refused to provide public information about its cocoa sources,” Gearhart said.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/?id=768782&t=spiraling_inequality_is_a_disease_afflicting_our_entire_society

Inequality is a disease of society, a cancer growing out of control at one end of the body while the rest of it withers away. It's not just about the money, although income and wealth inequality have never been worse in the United States. It's also the pathological adherence to free market principles that have not worked for most of the country. And a bizarre idolization of the "innovators" who have rigged the financial system in their favor.High-priced schemers and swindlers and scoundrels roam free on Wall Street, while the downtrodden are condemned for trying to survive. "If you steal $10 from a man's wallet," observed former Secretary of the Interior Walter Hickel, "you're likely to get into a fight, but if you steal billions from the the commons, co-owned by him and his descendants, he may not even notice.

Link: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28968

No War on Iran Banner
In 48 Cities -
FEB 4 MASS ACTIONS Demanding:
NO War! NO Sanctions! NO Intervention! NO Assassinations on IRAN
IN NYC, NY 1pm North end of Times Square - Duffy Square. March to the US & Israeli missions to UN.

Link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/gordonchang/2012/01/29/why-are-the-chinese-buying-record-quantities-of-gold/

Analysts believe China bought as much as 490 tons of gold in 2011, double the estimated 245 tons in 2010. “The thing that’s caught people’s minds is the massive increase in Chinese buying,” remarked Ross Norman of Sharps Pixley, a London gold brokerage, this month.So who in China is buying all this gold?The People’s Bank of China, the central bank, has been hinting that it is purchasing. “No asset is safe now,” said the PBOC’s Zhang Jianhua at the end of last month. —China is the world’s largest gold producer.

Link: http://www.infowars.com/government-school-six-year-old-guilty-of-sexual-assault-after-playing-tag/

In politically correct San Francisco, a six year old boy was charged with sexual assault after playing a game of tag on the playground.The child was accused of brushing his best friend’s leg or groin while the two were playing on the playground at Lupine Hills Elementary in Hercules two months ago, according to CBS in San Francisco.The parent of the child said his son was held in the principal’s office and interrogated. The school coerced a confession from the child. He was suspended and a sexual battery charge was placed on his permanent school record, even though there is no such thing as sexual assault for a six year-old in California. Only after the boy’s parents hired a lawyer and threatened to sue did the school back down.And while school officials claim students are engaged in sexual abuse and perversion, more often than not it is teachers and administrators who are the perverts. In

Link: http://www.wsws.org/articles/2012/jan2012/rept-j30.shtml

For Time, the events of 2011 are seen as a wake-up call. The ruling elites should be aware of the danger that may arise from their own social isolation. There is the vast mass of working people, whose conditions of life are undergoing an immense and unrelenting deterioration. An improvement in their conditions of life is impossible without entering into open struggle against the capitalist system, with all the revolutionary implications that such a struggle entails. T

Link: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28953

Wall Street Journal reports (1/28) the Pentagon has notified Congress that it will divert an additional $82 million to refine the Massive Ordinance Penetrator (MOP). (The MOP is a 30,000-pound “bunker-buster” bomb “specifically designed to take out the hardened fortifications built by Iran and North Korea to cloak their nuclear programs.”)These latest military maneuvers come on the heels of an announced U.S. troop build-up in the region revealed earlier this month. As the Los Angeles Times first reported (1/12), the build-up, including the stationing of 15,000 U.S. troops in Kuwait, is “intended as a quick-reaction and contingency force in case a military crisis erupts in the standoff with Tehran over its suspected nuclear weapons program.”

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/01/30-8

Their dart-like rifle round is designed for small-caliber firearms like those carried by the average grunt or law enforcement officer. [...] Sandia's 4-in-long bullet has actuators that steer tiny fins that guide it to its target.Their bullet works much like a precision guided aerial bomb might function. An optical sensor in the nose of the bullet detects a laser beam painted on a target and sends that information to a guidance and control system also packed on board. An eight-bit CPU commands electromagnetic actuators to adjust tiny fins that deploy from the round immediately after it exits the muzzle. From there, the on-board electronics aerodynamically guide the bullet home to its target, allowing the shooter to adjust a round’s trajectory in flight to correct on a long shot or to stay with a moving target.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/further/2012/01/27

Science has confirmed what some of us long suspected but were (sometimes) too polite to say: People who hold racist and rabid right-wing views are, to put it bluntly, stupid, or at least stupider than other people. A new study finds that children with low intelligence grow into Tea Party-ish adults who hold socially conservative views and would like black, gay and other troublesome types to just go away, please. It is suspected that some of these people will not be happy with the findings and may even take to the streets with signs like this. As always, we wish them better spelling."There is reason to believe that strict right-wing ideology might appeal to those who have trouble grasping the complexity of the world."

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/01/29-2

It could be much more difficult than we thought to feed everyone in a warmer world.A study released Sunday afternoon finds that wheat crop yields could plunge due, in part, to climate change. Extreme temperatures are already cutting wheat yields in India (Narinder Nanu/AFP) The study, published in Nature Climate Change, researchers warn that current projections underestimate the extent to which hotter weather in the future will accelerate this process. Extreme heat causes wheat crops to age faster and reduce yields, the Stanford University-led study shows, underscoring the challenge of feeding a rapidly growing population as the world continues to warm.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/occupywallst/153871/stung_by_bad_pr%2C_city_officials_adopting_new_tactics_to_suppress_occupy_oakland/

Oakland officials have shifted tactics since conducting a series of violent assaults on Occupy Oakland in October and November in the glare of the national media. Oakland officials have taken a new tack in their suppression of the Occupy movement, one that seems addressed to the city's public relations problems. Gone are the mass arrests, “less-lethal” weaponry and tear gas, replaced with a kind of "lawfare" on the few protesters who remain in the plaza at the foot of Oakland City Hall where the occupation's tent city once stood.

Link: http://socialistworker.org/2012/01/30/margaret-thatcher-class-warrior

Thatcher was the minister of education in Edward Heath's Conservative government, and she became notorious for ending the practice of giving British children free milk at school."Margaret Thatcher, milk snatcher," became one of the most widely known political chants She became Britain's prime minister.she enacted brutal policies that included sharp cuts in social spending, tax cuts for the rich, deregulation of the financial sector, attacks on unions, and a huge increase in poverty and inequality.She was finally forced to resign by members of her own party after her attempt to introduce a poll tax led mass demonstrations and riots.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/rss/breaking_news/767262/no_conviction%2C_no_freedom%3A_immigration_authorities_locked_13%2C000_in_limbo/

WASHINGTON -- On a single day this past fall, the United States government held 13,185 people in immigration detention who had not been convicted of a crime, some of whom will not be charged with one, according to information The Huffington Post obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request. Instead, at a cost of roughly 2 million taxpayer dollars per day, the men and women were detained while immigration authorities sorted out their fates.

The WSJ is the voice of the DC-New York GOP establishment, and that voice was crackling with anger and tears on Tuesday Let's just say right now what voters will be saying in November, once Barack Obama has been re-elected: Republicans deserve to lose.Well, yes. They deserve to lose because they've learned nothing from spectacular failures of the Bush/Cheney years and are doubling down on every right-wing fetish: Even lower taxes! Even more wealth inequality! Even more war! Even fewer regulations! Let's deport 12 million people! Let's bring back child labor! But I digress. Above all, it doesn't matter that Americans are generally eager to send Mr. Obama packing. All they need is to be reasonably sure that the alternative won't be another fiasco. But they can't be reasonably sure, so it's going to be four more years of the disappointment you already

Link: http://www.alternet.org/story/153931/26_facts_about_the_awful_conditions_where_your_gadgets_are_made/

Breaking down what we know about Foxconn, the massive factory in China where workers manufacture popular products like iPhones and iPads. 1.2 million: number of workers employed by Foxconn in China, according to the New York Times.83.2: Average hours of overtime worked each month, according to a 2010 survey of Foxconn employee.230,000: number of workers at "Foxconn City" in Shenzhen, according to the New York Times.70,000: number of workers at Foxconn's Chengdu plant who live in company dorms, according to the New York Times.200: Reported number of police officers who responded to a Foxconn dormitory riot.70: number of psychiatrists employed by Foxconn to prevent suicides, according to a 2010 announcement by CEO Terry Gou. 34: continuous hours a Foxconn employee worked in 2010 before he collapsed and died, according to media reports.100: Estimated number of employees at a Foxconn factory in Wuhan who stood on the roof of a factory building this month to protest working conditions and wages. Several threatened to commit suicide, according to the New York Times.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/story/153929/how_swedes_and_norwegians_broke_the_power_of_the_%E2%80%981_percent%E2%80%99/

Scandinavian workers realized that, electoral “democracy” was stacked against them, so nonviolent direct action was needed to exert the power for change. . Sweden and Norway, for example, both experienced a major power shift in the 1930s after prolonged nonviolent struggle. They “fired” the top 1 percent of people who set the direction for society Both countries had a history of horrendous poverty. When the 1 percent was in charge, hundreds of thousands of people emigrated to avoid starvation. Under the leadership of the working class, however, both countries built robust and successful economies that nearly eliminated poverty, expanded free university education, abolished slums, provided excellent health care available to all as a matter of right and created a system of full employment

Link: http://www.alternet.org/story/153919/the_truth_about_the_conservative_mind%3A_why_reactionaries_from_edmund_burke_to_sarah_palin_have_fought_real_liberty_/

Conservatism is a reaction to democratic movements, like OWS, that challenge the authority of elites. Economic elites have faced a concerted attack on their riches and power, their arrogant and unaccountable ways.House Majority Leader Eric Cantor declared, "I, for one, am increasingly concerned about the growing mobs occupying Wall Street and the other cities across the country."Mitt Romney told an audience in Florida that "I think it's dangerous—this class warfare.It is a reaction to democratic movements from below, movements like Occupy Wall Street that threaten to reorder society from the bottom up.Since the modern era began, men and women in subordinate positions have marched against their superiors. They have gathered under different banners—the labor movement, feminism, abolition, socialism—and shouted different slogans: freedom, equality, democracy, revolution. In virtually every instance, their superiors have resisted them.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/story/153933/7_signs_the_corporatocracy_is_losing_its_legitimacy--and_7_tools_to_help_shut_it_down/

The legitimacy of rule by giant corporations and Wall Street banks is crumbling. the legitimacy of rule by giant corporations and Wall Street banks is crumbling. This system of corporate rule also benefits few and harms many, affecting nearly every major issue in public life. Some examples: Powerful corporations socialize their risks and costs, but privatize profits. That means we, the 99 percent, pick up the tab for environmental clean ups, for helping workers who aren’t paid enough to afford food or health care, for bailouts when risky speculation goes wrong. Meanwhile, profits go straight into the pockets of top executives and others in the 1 percent.

Link: http://www.silviacattori.net/article2752.html

A report released last week by Middle East human rights groups presents extensive evidence of war crimes carried out in Libya by the United States, NATO and their proxy “rebel” forces. The investigators report savage and repeated beatings of prisoners held without trial or charges, the summary execution of pro-Gaddafi fighters, and witness reports of “indiscriminate and retaliatory murders, including the ‘slaughter’ (i.e., throat slitting) of former combatants.”

Link: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28945

The conflict between property rights and human rights has entered a new chapter. It is a debate that goes back to the challenge by landowners and merchants behind the American Revolution’s war on British control over the colonial economyOnly today, as those speaking in the name of the 99% challenge the super wealthy of the 1% (actually the .001 %) there is a new battleground in what’s known as the housing market with as many as 14 million Americans in or facing foreclosure. The defense of property rights is the holy of the holies for the propertied classes with a whole industry set up to enforce their claims of ownership. We have seen how this plays out with the courts, run by often bought off and complicit judges rubberstamping claims by banks and realty interests even when laws are disregarded amidst fraudulent filings, biased contracts, and phony robot signings. They control the marshals who seize your property, and constantly denigrate the real victims as “irresponsible.” It’s not surprising any more to read about banks foreclosing on properties they don’t even own.

Link: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28956

One of the greatest perils we face today is the difficulty in properly identifying and distinguishing friend from foe; it is increasingly difficult to understand who – even what – the enemy or adversary is which means that society's key vulnerability stems from its incapacity to properly identify risk, peril and danger.No longer can national leaders rally mass popular support to "fight the Soviets or the Germans, or the Japanese." A decade ago, they had to resort to weaker abstractions like the Bushian "war on terrorism," which is meaningless until you actually define what "terrorism" isWhat we have today is basically a public invisible enemy that is very difficult to specifically pinpoint, but the effects of whose actions we all increasingly suffer everywhere. Perhaps "Global Power Elite" is the closest we can come to describing this veritable global enemy whose planetary interests and objectives for the most part run counter to the common interests of "We the People" everywhere, and yet that too is still quite abstract and faceless.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/767935/taibbi%3A_good_foreclosure_deal_could_open_the_door_to_ending_up_with_half_of_wall_street_in_jail/#paragraph3

If they do this for real, if they do this like an Enron-style investigation, you could have half the luminaries on Wall Street doing prison time., or "will it be a cosmetic investigation" only?

Link: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28934

To simplify things India wants to use gold in exchange for oil, a very simple and novel idea.What does all this add up too? The basic common denominator is a growing existence of the US dollar and of the world financial system. What Washington has done has expedited the end of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency. Worse yet for the dollar deals like this are in the works all over Asia.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/767934/group_delivers_hundreds_of_tacos_to_connecticut_mayor_who_insulted_latinos_with_%E2%80%98tacos%E2%80%99_comment/#paragraph3

Latinos in East Haven, Connecticut delivered hundreds of tacos to the town’s mayor Thursday, just two days after he made a flippant, derogatory comment about them while discussing alleged police discrimination and violence in his community.In the wake of those allegations, Mayor Joseph Maturo Jr. was asked what he would do to reach out to the Latino community. “I might have tacos when I go home, I’m not quite sure yet,” Maturo said. The comment drew strong rebukes from area Latinos, and one group responded with a campaign to respond, as CNN reported today: That set off the activist group, a local branch of the Reform Immigration for America organization, which said that anytime someone texts the word “taco” to 69866, it will deliver a taco to the mayor on their behalf.They’ve received more than 2,600 texts, the group said in a statement Thursday.Maturo twice apologized for the comments, saying his words were largely a product of stress.Still, some 500 tacos were placed inside his office; the rest are already being rerouted to local food-assistance outlets.

Link: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=28938

Banks Weren’t Meant to Be Like This. What will their future be – and what is the government’s proper financial role?

The inherently symbiotic relationship between banks and governments recently has been reversed. In medieval times, wealthy bankers lent to kings and princes as their major customers. But now it is the banks that are needy, relying on governments for funding – capped by the post-2008 bailouts to save them from going bankrupt from their bad private-sector loans and gambles. Yet the banks now browbeat governments – not by having ready cash but by threatening to go bust and drag the economy down with them if they are not given control of public tax policy, spending and planning.How banks broke the social compact, promoting their own special interests People used to know what banks did. Bankers took deposits and lent them out, paying short-term depositors less than they charged for risky or less liquid loans. The risk was borne by bankers, not depositors or the government. But today, bank loans are made increasingly to speculators in recklessly large amounts for quick in-and-out trading. Financial crashes have become deeper and affect a wider swath of the population as debt pyramiding has soared and credit quality plunged into the toxic category of “liars’ loans.”

Link: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article21603

It is not in ANYONE’s best interest that: There are millions of unemployed people (most of them WANT to be employed). It is not in ANYONE’s best interest that: Millions of people on unemployment can’t afford to take a job that pays less than their unemployment. It is not in ANYONE’s best interest that: Millions of people on unemployment can’t afford to take a job that would eliminate what healthcare insurance they have.

Link: http://www.silviacattori.net/article2746.html

Despite the changes sweeping Libya, violence and bloodshed have not stopped. In shocking revelations, military and security forces stand accused of torturing detainees to death. Rights groups say Libya’s new rulers have not addressed the problem. Amnesty International says in recent weeks, it met with detainees in Tripoli, Misrata and Gharyan who showed visible signs of torture – open wounds to the head, limbs, back and other parts of the body. "Several detainees have died after being subjected to torture in Libya in recent weeks and months amid widespread torture and ill-treatment of suspected pro-Gaddafi fighters and loyalists," Amnesty said. "The torture is being carried out by officially recognized military and security entities, as well as by a multitude of armed militias operating outside any legal framework,"

Link: http://www.alternet.org/story/153926/california_supreme_court_could_make_gamechanging_decision_on_marijuana_policy

The court granted review for two rulings that dealt major blows to the medical pot industry, and has the opportunity to lay the foundation for future regulation. Ctr. The Pack decision held that some local regulations governing medical marijuana dispensaries may be preempted by federal law and the Riverside decision held that localities could legally ban dispensaries altogether. Both have been used by localities to justify suspending local medical marijuana ordinances and instituting further moratoria or outright bans. Both cases have generated considerable fear and instability among medical marijuana providers and led to decreased access to medicine by patients.