takethesquare.net, a site inspired by the Occupy movement has put out a call for a global day of action on May 12.
The call is out to chapters of the Occupy movement worldwide to march in solidarity with the countries in which uprisings are currently taking place (Syria, Greece, Egypt, Tunisia, Iceland and India to name a few).
http://takethesquare.net/2012/03/04/call-for-a-global-spring-in-may-2012/
Facebook’s trademark cops have shuttered an online art project critiquing the social media giant’s peepshow privacy policy.
Last Friday, German artist Tobias Leingruber launched a website, FBbureau.com, on which he proposed issuing unofficial Facebook ID cards, based on users’ profiles, that could one day replace driver’s licenses and passports. It was obvious satire – a way to comment on the astronomical amount of personal data that wafts around on Facebook.
Then three days ago, Facebook sent Leingruber a cease-and-desist letter, citing trademark violation. Leingruber complied and took the site down, after “a friendly conversation” with one of the company’s lawyers.
WikiLeaks has denounced UNESCO after being banned from tomorrow’s international conference about WikiLeaks.
The large two-day conference, which has 37 speakers listed, is to be held UNESCO Headquarters in Paris. US organizers have stacked the conference with WikiLeaks opponents and blocked all speakers from WikiLeaks, stating that the decision to censor WikiLeaks representation was an exercise in ’freedom of expression… our right to give voice to speakers of our choice’. Oh, how the irony abounds.
Subsequently, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange denounced the conference, saying: “UNESCO has made itself an international human rights joke. To use ‘freedom of expression’ to censor WikiLeaks from a conference about WikiLeaks is an Orwellian absurdity beyond words. This is an intolerable abuse of UNESCO’s Constitution. It’s time to Occupy UNESCO.”
French President Nicolas Sarkozy is trying to implement a Financial Transaction Tax on those trading in stocks. A tax from 0.001% to 0.1% of all transactions made on the French market (and possibly the whole European market) would be taken to help pay off the deficit on the Euro. This is a concept Occupy has advocated for globally & which is quite obviously sorely needed in the current wake of global economic depression & destabilization.
http://www.nation.lk/edition/business-tbl/item/2264-will-sarkozy-survive-with-his-robin-hood-tax
Greek politicians’ last minute agreement on fresh austerity plans haven’t exactly been greeted with open arms. A 48-hour general strike has been called by the countries two major labor unions. And other Eurozone member states have said that the will impose even more conditions on Greece before handing over a second bailout.
Greece’s largest police union has threatened to issue warrants for the arrest for officials from the European Union and the International Monetary Fund lenders for deeply unpopular austerity measures.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/10/us-greece-police-idUSTRE8190UC20120210
Usual tactics from Monsanto, with more reports of illegal activity. One wonders if Monsanto will ever stop breaking laws internationally, for their own profit.
http://wakeup-world.com/2012/02/08/monsanto-caught-illegally-planting-gm-corn-in-india/
Monsanto has recently been kicked out of the UK due to mass protests resulting from the use of rBGH, a growth hormone given to dairy cows so that they produce more milk.
http://www.planetwaves.net/england.html
Source: Twitter
This month’s Supreme Court hearing in the Julian Assange case has profound meaning for the preservation of basic freedoms in Western democracies and the future of investigative journalism and the new media. This is Assange’s final appeal against his extradition to face allegations of sexual misconduct that were originally dismissed by the chief prosecutor in Stockholm, Sweden and constitute no crime in Britain.
The consequences, if he loses, lie not in Sweden but in the shadows cast by America’s descent into totalitarianism. In Sweden, he is at risk of being “temporarily surrendered” to the US, where his life has been threatened and where he is accused of “aiding the enemy” with Bradley Manning, the young soldier accused of leaking evidence of US war crimes to WikiLeaks.
The connections between Manning and Assange have been poured over by a secret grand jury in Virginia that allowed no defence counsel or witnesses, and a system of plea-bargaining that ensures a 90 per cent conviction rate.
It is sadly reminiscent of a show trial.
http://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2012/02/pilger-assange-australian
What is this world coming to when a judge who has been investigating war crimes is bought up on trial by far right critics who say he is exceeding his jurisdiction. Those who want the judge suspended from his job for up to 20 years say that he is breaching the terms of an amnesty agreed to after the Spanish Civil War.
Since when has it been illegal to investigate those who are responsible for tens of thousands of deaths and disappearances? And why should it be?
