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Water: Commodity or human right?
Mary Shaw
I am writing this on March 22, World Water Day. And I am thinking about how spoiled we Americans are. We use and abuse our natural resources without giving it a second thought.
But our recklessness could soon turn around to bite us -- and the rest of the world.
When people think of water shortages, they tend to think of the Third World. And, indeed, more than 5,000 children die every day as a result of unsafe drinking water, mostly in developing nations.
Hopeful Change In El Salvador?
Stephen Lendman
Like other Latin American nations, El Salvador has had a long and troubled history, ruled from one decade to the next by successive military dictatorships, then since 1989 by the right wing National Republican Alliance or ARENA Party.
Long-suffering Salvadorans recall the 1980s struggles when the Farabudo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) failed to end what the civil-military Junta leader, Jose Napoleon Duarte, told New York Times reporter Raymond Bonner in 1980:
U.S. Moment of Truth on Palestinian Israeli Conflict
Nicola Nasser
In view of a world consensus on a two – state solution for the Arab – Israeli conflict, most political analysts and commentators have concluded that the Israeli Prime Minister – designate Benjamin Netanyahu, who still refuses to affirm his commitment thereto, was to come face to face with his “moment of truth” during his recent meetings earlier this month with visiting U.S. Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, and her “presidential” envoy for peace in the Middle East, George Mitchell, but the outcome of Clinton’s first regional tour as secretary of state and Mitchell’s second tour in the region has proved vice versa:
GVSU student, Derek Copp, shot in chest by police for smoking marijuana: Executing children for the War on Drugs
by chycho
Apartment neighbors of Grand Valley State University student Derek Copp say they cannot fathom what prompted police to shoot him late Wednesday in a drug-related raid. But they said they were aware of marijuana odors in the complex. "If you came down the hallway at the right time, you could smell the smoke," said Joe Putra, whose apartment door is in the same Campus View Apartments hallway as the shooting victim.
The Painful Cost of Breed Standards: Mutilation Vs. Cosmetics
by Walter Brasch
Legislatures in Pennsylvania and Illinois are considering bills that would reduce or eliminate what animal welfare advocates call mutilations, and what breeders and American Kennel Club (AKC) call “breed standards.” Because dogs are considered by state laws to be property, individual owners may currently cut and shape dogs’ ears (cropping) or amputate part or all of their tails (docking), often without a proper sterile environment or anesthesia.
Ear cropping and tail docking, according to the AKC, are “acceptable practices integral to defining and preserving breed standards, enhancing good health, and preventing injuries.” Of 158 pure-bred breeds recognized by the AKC, about 50 kennel clubs have “breed standards” that require or strongly suggest tail docking or ear cropping. The AKC claims standards are established by individual clubs—all of which deduct points for dogs that don’t conform to their “standards”—and that the AKC has no restrictions to register or to show a dog. The Fédération Cynologique Internationale (FCI), which includes national kennel clubs of 84 nations, forbids cropping and docking of rottweilers and other breeds. The AKC is not a member of the FCI.
For whom the bell tolls
Arun Shrivastava CMC
1. Introduction
The joint stock East India Company [EIC] ruled India from about 1770 to 1857, about 87 years. During those nine decades the eight millennia old farming tradition was uprooted and subjected to colonial rapacity. A food secure India suffered persistent famines, hunger, starvation and deaths on a scale never before witnessed in its documented history. The people revolted in 1857, the British Government took over, but under the evil rulers hunger and starvation continued right up until 1947. One firm took over India because it came to control its farmers and farm lands and it controlled what India’s farmers produced.
Treatment of Imprisoned Muslims at Terre Haute's Communications Management Unit CMU
Stephen Lendman
In February 2007, it was learned that Washington had a secret new facility for so-called "high-security risk" Muslim and Middle Eastern prisoners in violation of federal law that prohibits severely limiting or cutting them off entirely from other inmates as well as outside contacts and communications. Segregating prisoners by race, national origin, or language violates the Supreme Court's February 2005 decision in Johnson v. California that affirmed 14th Amendment protection against racial discrimination. Specifically, the Court:
Durban II: Politicizing Racism
Ramzy Baroud
Many countries are set to participate in the Conference against Racism, scheduled to be held in Geneva, April 20-25. But the highly touted international meeting is already marred with disagreement after Israel, the United States and other countries decided not to participate. Although the abstention of four or more countries is immaterial to the proceedings, the US decision in particular was meant to render the conference ‘controversial’, at best.
The US government’s provoking stance is not new, but a repetition of another fiasco which took place in Durban, South Africa in 2001.
NYCLU Announces Findings about Statewide Impact of Rockefeller Drug Laws
from Jennifer Carnig
The New York Civil Liberties released a detailed report illustrating the disastrous effects the Rockefeller Drug Laws have inflicted on New York State. The report analyzes the drug laws’ economic and social impact on the entire state, and its largest cities: Albany, Buffalo, New York City, Rochester and Syracuse.
The report – The Rockefeller Drug Laws: Unjust, Irrational, Ineffective – presents overwhelming evidence that New York’s mandatory minimum drug-sentencing scheme has failed to improve public safety or deter drug use. It documents the grave harm the drug laws cause to low-income communities of color, and it calls on lawmakers to adopt a public health approach to addressing substance abuse.
Boehner Demagogues the Failing Economy
Len Hart
The GOP's most influential mouthpiece --John Boehner --has said that now is the time that the US government 'tighten' its belt' to show the people that the government 'gets it'. Boehner doesn't get it! And neither does his stupid party! The US economy is contracting and may slide off into another 'Great Depression'. Nevertheless, Boehner would rather push us off the cliff rather than allow a Democratic President a chance to undo eight years of GOP incompetence and criminality.
What’s insane about Boehner’s remark? He’s talking about the current economic crisis as if it were a harvest failure — as if we faced a shortage of goods, so that the more you consume the less is left for me. In reality — even most conservatives understand this, when they think about it — we’re in a world desperately short of demand. If you consume more, that’s GOOD for me, because it helps create jobs and raise incomes. It’s in my personal disinterest to have you tighten your belt — and that’s just as true if you’re “the government” as if you’re my neighbor.
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