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THE GLOBAL SPY APPARATUS: You Are All Suspects Now. What Are You Going To Do About It?
By John Pilger
You are all potential terrorists. It matters not that you live in Britain, the United States, Australia or the Middle East. Citizenship is effectively abolished. Turn on your computer and the US Department of Homeland Security’s National Operations Center may monitor whether you are typing not merely "al-Qaeda", but "exercise", "drill", "wave", "initiative" and "organisation": all proscribed words. The British government’s announcement that it intends to spy on every email and phone call is old hat. The satellite vacuum cleaner known as Echelon has been doing this for years. What has changed is that a state of permanent war has been launched by the United States and a police state is consuming western democracy.
What are you going to do about it?
In Britain, on instructions from the CIA, secret courts are to deal with "terror suspects". Habeas Corpus is dying. The European Court of Human Rights has ruled that five men, including three British citizens, can be extradited to the US even though none except one has been charged with a crime. All have been imprisoned for years under the 2003 US/UK Extradition Treaty which was signed one month after the criminal invasion of Iraq. The European Court had condemned the treaty as likely to lead to "cruel and unusual punishment". One of the men, Babar Ahmad, was awarded 63,000 pounds compensation for 73 recorded injuries he sustained in the custody of the Metropolitan Police. Sexual abuse, the signature of fascism, was high on the list. Another man is a schizophrenic who has suffered a complete mental collapse and is in Broadmoor secure hospital; another is a suicide risk. To the Land of the Free, they go -- along with young Richard O’Dwyer, who faces 10 years in shackles and an orange jump suit because he allegedly infringed US copyright on the internet.
The Game of Metaphysical Chess
By Robert Singer
Why are we born and what are we doing here?
Are we all mindless beings, mere products of chance born to consume, grind out a living chasing fulfillment in "things and then die?" [1]
Monotheism teaches that Man’s purpose is to worship a Jealous God, die a natural death and then off to Heaven or Hell. Man can do whatever he likes while he is here on earth and still go to heaven as long as he accepts the free gift of Salvation when God’s son was crucified on the cross.
In abolishing the death penalty, Connecticut joins the civilized world
Mary Shaw
On April 25, with a stroke of the governor's pen, Connecticut became the 17th U.S. state to abolish the death penalty - and the fifth state to do so in five years. This reflects a growing momentum to end capital punishment in the U.S., which is the only major industrialized Western nation that still claims for itself the "right" to kill its citizens. The death penalty has already been abolished in all European countries except for Belarus. In fact, today over two-thirds of the world's nations have ended capital punishment in law or practice. This global trend towards abolition of the death penalty reflects the growing awareness that there are alternative punishments that are effective and which do not involve state-sponsored killing.
By retaining the death penalty on a federal level and in many states, the U.S. finds itself aligned on this issue primarily with known hotbeds of human rights violations such as Afghanistan, China, Egypt, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Sudan. This is the company we keep.
But there are better reasons to abolish the death penalty nationwide - and worldwide - than just following the trend.
Drone Warfare in Yemen
by Stephen Lendman
Predator drones sanitize killing on the cheap compared to manned aircraft and ground troops. Teams of remote warriors work far from, and at times, closer to battlefields.
Drone pilots operate computer keyboards and multiple monitors. Sensor staff work with them. They handle TV and infrared cameras, as well as other high-tech drone sensors. Faceless enemies nearby or half a world away are attacked. Virtual war kills like sport.
At day's end, home-based operators head there for dinner, relaxation, family time, then a good night sleep before another day guiding weapons with joysticks and monitors like computer games. Dozens of drone command centers operate worldwide. Dozens more are planned. Pentagon and CIA personnel run them. Some are bare bones. Climate-controlled trailers work fine. They operate effectively anywhere. They maintain constant radio contact with command centers.
UAE leads an anti-Iranian alliance
Kourosh Ziabari
The United Arab Emirates officials are burning with a low blue flame. They have once again started insulting the Iranian nation using an arrogant and offensive language. What has irritated them this time is the recent visit paid by the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the Iranian island of Abu Musa in the Persian Gulf as part of his provincial trip to the southern province of Hormozgan on April 11. They claim that the island belongs to their soil and that Iran has violated their territorial integrity by continuing its "occupation" of the strategic island.
Daring to Criticize Israel
by Stephen Lendman
Addressing this issue responsibly risks rebuke, ostracism, or job loss. For some, it's a career ender. Scoundrel media writers and broadcasters are vulnerable. So are university professors.
Joel Kovel lost his Bard College position for writing books like "Overcoming Zionism" and calling Israel "a machine for the manufacture of human rights abuses."
DePaul University denied Norman Finkelstein tenure. It then fired him for speaking out and writing books like "The Holocaust Industry."
Political activism and honesty about the Israeli/Palestinian conflict also cost tenured professor Denis Rancourt his University of Ottawa job.
UCLA Professor David Delgado Shorter's now targeted. His academic freedom's at stake. On April 4, department chair Professor Angelia Leung rebuked him. She said his web site was being reviewed for posting inappropriate material pertaining to the academic and cultural boycott of Israel. More on that below.
The Shark Whisperer
By Chantal Boccaccio
Cristina Zenato is an enigma; a quiet symphony of fire and passion wrapped in a little girls body. A world-renowned diver, mentored by diving legend Ben Rose, Zenato defies any sort of traditional labeling as shes undeniably One Of A Kind.
--As well as a tireless champion for shark awareness.
This pint sized Italian, part ballerina, part fish out of water, has the ability to coax- what some might call- mans most feared predator, literally, into the palm of her hand.
But dont call them Predators to her face, because to Cristina Zenato, theyre simply family.
Zenatos astounding ability to lull the oceans predators into a trance-like state, allows her to literally hold what some consider the world's deadliest animals in the palm of her hand.
Her techniques have allowed her to globally share behavioral data, tend to injured sharks, extract DNA and engage in rescues that might otherwise prove too precarious.
Glorifying Israel Shames Harvard
by Stephen Lendman
Harvard's motto is "VERITAS (truth)." Its shield displays it. So do rings students buy.
It wasn't present at Harvard's April 19 - 20 Israel Conference (IC). Perhaps an invitation wasn't extended.
IC was billed as a "first of its kind on Harvard's campus." Initiated by Israeli students, they "wanted to bring the Israeli spirit to campus the way they see it - as that of a vibrant, innovative and eternally optimistic state."
"VERITAS" was nowhere in sight. Neither was occupation harshness. Exclusion was more than oversight. Expect little change next year at another session. Topics this year were poor ones. Featuring them concealed reality. Guests were worse. More on them below.
In March, Harvard held a One State Conference. Its purpose was to "to educate ourselves and others about the possible contours of a one-state solution and the challenges that stand in the way of its realization."
Dying to Live Free
by Stephen Lendman
Israel's prison gulag is one of the world's most hellish. Palestinians held suffer horrifically. Inflicting pain and suffering is official Israeli policy. Rule of law principles are spurned.
Virtually all Palestinians held are political prisoners. Refusing food is their only resistance weapon. The Addameer Prisoner Support group estimates about 2,000 now engage in open-ended hunger strikes. Most began on April 17, Palestinian Prisoners Day.
Israel responded as expected. More pain and suffering was inflicted. Detainees are attacked and beaten. Personal possessions were confiscated. Electricity was cut off. Salt for water is prohibited.
Transfers are made harsher locations. Solitary confinement is imposed. Visits by family members and lawyers are denied. Addameer said its attorneys can't get access.
Land Day: Why It Matters
By Stephen Lendman
In 1948, Israel stole 78% of Palestine. In 1967, they took the rest. The Israeli/Palestinian conflict remains the longest unresolved one of our time.
Long denied justice awaits. Western complicity with Israel prevents Palestinians from living free. So did Arafat's Oslo surrender. Abbas and PA cronies continue working against their own people for whatever benefits they derive.
Palestine's an isolated prison. State terror is official Israeli policy. So is attacking nonviolent Palestinian protesters. Edward Said once said, "Jonathan Swift, thou shouldst be living at this hour."
He'd blanche at how bad things are now. We all should and do something about it. Change depends on it.
Occupied Palestine is the region's epicenter. Israeli police state terror suffocates Palestinians for not being Jews. An inexorable quest for dominance and corrupted self-interest deny justice.
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