Law of the Game on Joystiq: No Freedom of Trash Talk

by Mark Methenitis Jun 25th 2008 5:45PM

Source

In a recent Sessler's Soapbox, Adam took the opportunity to comment on some of the trash talking on Xbox Live. During the course of that diatribe, he mentioned that he thought the First Amendment argument was a "crock of s***" with respect to trash talking. Well, as the resident lawyer here on Joystiq, I'd like to take this opportunity to explain the First Amendment argument is just flat out wrong. In fact, it's one of my greatest pet peeves that the First Amendment gets thrown about as an excuse for most everything that is said in the realms of gamer culture, from trash talking in online matches, to posts on forums, to comments on gaming blogs.

In case you're one of the thirty-four people worldwide who has never experienced the phenomenon in question, this is essentially what's being talked about: Typically, someone will do something offensive online, be that posting something in a forum or saying something on Xbox Live. Then, someone in power will either reprimand that user, often through censoring, or banning for the behavior. This is typically either followed by that user or some other user decrying this exercise of authority as a violation of their 'rights.' The responses do vary, but as a moderator of one of the biggest forums on the internet, I've seen everything from 'OMG U R VIOL8ING MY FURST AMNDMT RYTES!!!11!' to some very lengthy and polished answers. The only commonality between these varying levels of responses is that they are all wrong.

There's one other point of clarification that goes along with this particular discussion, and that's the 'First Amendment' reference. For those of you abroad who aren't as familiar with the American system, people are referring to the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The text of the first amendment reads: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances. Shortened to the relevant portion for this discussion: Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of speech. Beyond the fact that this right is more or less limited to applicability in the US, the text of the amendment itself is a huge hint as to why this argument is doomed to fail.

In short: Any claim to freedom of speech being abridged online in the forums we're discussing isn't by act of government. Xbox Live, message boards, and blog comments are all activities on what amounts to the digital equivalent of private property. Think of it this way: If you were to go down to your local mall and start shouting things that offended other mall patrons, would the mall be able to force you to leave the premises? Of course they would. Your right to free speech is limited while you are on private property, be that real world property or someone's digital network. US courts have generally held that digital property is analogous to private property and thus have found against free speech in a number of cases, mostly on the issue of spam.

"In short: Any claim to freedom of speech being abridged online in the forums we're discussing isn't by act of government."
But there are two other fundamental reasons why speech can be limited on private digital networks. First, based on the Prodigy case, there is precedent that the owner of the network can be held liable for the content put on that network. Secondly, and more importantly, all of these relationships are governed by contract, and those usage contracts almost always have clear rules as to what is or is not acceptable behavior on that network. There are clear content rules on Xbox Live and most of the major message boards. Abiding by these rules is part of the terms of service that you agreed to in order to participate in that forum.

There are, of course, other laws beyond the US. Far be it from me to ignore three other potential sources of a right to freedom of speech, which are: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European Convention on Human Rights, and the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The text of each is as follows:

Universal Declaration of Human Rights
Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

European Convention on Human Rights:
1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.

2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice.

"Calling people names after they stick you with a grenade in Halo 3 is not political speech. "
Ultimately, though, I would expect that these would be interpreted much the same way as the First Amendment is, requiring that the censorship be some governmental action. More importantly, these declarations, especially the United Nations ones, have a significant problem with enforcement. There would be a far greater chance of enforcing the European Convention through the EU than there would be utilizing the UN measures. I'm not aware of any precedent for utilizing UN conventions to enforce free speech on private networks, much less on something that is as trivial as trash talk.

And in the grand scheme of things, trash talk is trivial speech. Freedom of speech has its roots in political speech, which in the US receives the highest protections from the courts. Calling people names after they stick you with a grenade in Halo 3 is not political speech.

Ultimately, content restrictions and behavior rules ensure that the online community can be enjoyed by the largest possible audience. While I'm not personally bothered much by the things people say online, I know a lot of people are. Even though I'm not bothered, there is a substantial amount of time when I didn't even bother to wear a headset, because I know most of the chatter is meaningless. Ultimately, that is what online play has become in the vast majority of matches. We, as a gamers, could have much more meaningful in-game interaction and build a much greater sense of community in online play if we wanted to. Maybe the better solution is to subdivide Xbox Live based on preferences like these, but that could create even more complications in online play. I would expect that even some of the most ardent supporters of freedom of speech online would likely be worn down if subjected to the dregs of in-game chatter for a few hours.

Mark Methenitis is the Editor in Chief of the Law of the Game blog, which discusses legal issues in video games. Mr. Methenitis is also a licensed attorney in the state of Texas with The Vernon Law Group, PLLC and a member of the Texas Bar Assoc., American Bar Assoc., and the International Game Developers Assoc. Opinions expressed in this column are his own. Reach him at: lawofthegame [AAT] gmail [DAWT] com.

The content of this blog article is not legal advice. It only constitutes commentary on legal issues, and is for educational and informational purposes only. Reading this blog, replying to its posts, or any other interaction on this site does not create an attorney-client privilege between you and the author. The opinions expressed on this site are not the opinions of AOL LLC., Weblogs, Inc., Joystiq.com, or The Vernon Law Group, PLLC. As with any legal issue that may confront you in a particular situation, you should always consult a qualified attorney familiar with the laws in your state.

A New Form of Population Control

Source

Like the generals in Burma who knew about the cyclone and purposefully did not inform the population, it seems that the Chinese regime was well aware of the catastrophe which its population was about to be subjected to. It seems that they don’t care about the population.

Or worse, are their deaths just a studied method in containing population growth?

Unmadeinchina recommends the following articles:

Add even the earthquake news among China’s tainted products
by Judi McLeod
canadafreepress.com
28 May 2008

From before it even happened, the coming news of the devastating China earthquake was being managed by the Communist Chinese government. In fact, the cadres of the Earthquake Bureau of Communist China held a major conference in Hangzhou on April 28, 2008—two weeks before the Sichuan earthquake. Suppressing news of earthquakes from the outside world was number one on the Conference agenda.

The title of the conference was "Training Course for Keeping Earthquake Information Confidential." Agenda item # 1? "Study of Regulations and Provisions for Keeping Earthquake Information Confidential. Agenda item # 2 was “Discussions of Working Methods for Keeping Earthquake Information Confidential."

It required the time and kindness of Chinese translators to write this Canada Free Press (CFP) story. That’s because the Chinese Communists do not broadcast these things in English lest the West may get to know.
The horrific devastation of the Sichuan earthquake is not even close to being over.

Meanwhile, it would seem that many things exported from China—including the news—is highly suspect.

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/3262

Chinese Experts Predicted the Earthquake Three Times
By Zhu Jianguo
The Epoch Times
23 May 2008

Was there any prediction of the recent earthquake in China? The person in charge of the China Seismological Bureau told the media, "They did not receive any prediction, it is impossible to predict earthquakes." However, Chen Yiwen, an advisor of the Committee of Natural Hazard Prediction (CNHP) said, "This is a lie." Chen stated on a China Central Television (CCTV) program, "China Seismological Bureau cannot shake off its responsibility for the earthquake."

On May 14, 2008, Chinese Central TV Station Channel Nine (CCTV9) held a talk show about the Wenchuan earthquake. The program host Yang Rui interviewed Chen by phone during the program.

Chen commented, "The China Seismological Bureau cannot shake its responsibility!" The CNHP has offered the China Seismological Bureau predictions on three different occasions about the possibility of a strong earthquake in the Wenchuan area since 2006. Especially on May 3, 2008, Chen personally sent the prediction report to the China Seismological Bureau."

According to Chen, there have been other scientists also providing predictions of strong quakes in the Wenchuan area to the China Seismological Bureau. However, these serious scientific predictions received no consideration. The leaders of the China Seismological Bureau and the director of the Institute of Earthquake Prediction have never interviewed experts of CNHP. They have never acquainted themselves with its earthquake prediction work.

"It is a lie that the leaders of the China Seismological Bureau claimed that they've never received any predictions," said Chen.

Chen welcomes all media and websites to reprint his views from the website http://cheniwan.sea3000.net.

http://en.epochtimes.com/news/8-5-23/70942.html


Seismologist's Prediction of Sichuan Quake Ignored, Says Scientist

By Xinfei
Epoch Times
14 May 2008

The same night of Sichuan's May 12 earthquake, Chinese scientist Li Shihui revealed on his blog that Chinese seismologist Geng Qingguo accurately predicted the quake and warned authorities about the disaster in late April. According to Li, Geng's report was ignored by Chinese authorities.

Mr. Li, a visiting fellow scientist at the Key Laboratory of Geo-mechanical Engineering at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, said in the article that Geng first raised the issue as early as 2006, warning that a major quake will occur in Aba area of Sichuan Province where the 5.12 quake happened.

According to Li, on April 26 and 27, the Committee of Natural Disaster Prediction, an organization under China Geophysical Institute, discussed Geng's findings and further predicted that a quake measuring 6 to 7 will occur between May 2008 and April 2009 in the area south to Lanzhou City where Sichuan, Gansu and Qinghai provinces meet. The committee's report was turned into China Seismology Bureau as a confidential document on April 30.
In addition, Geng Qingguo clearly pointed out that in Aba region a quake of 7 or higher magnitude is most likely to occur in 10 days before and after May 8, 2008. His prediction has been proved accurate in every aspect: magnitude, location, and time. But his report received no response from the authorities.

Li Shihui revealed in his blog that a seismologist predicted the Wenchuan earthquake in April.

“On hearing about Wenchuan's 7.8-manitude earthquake, Chinese seismologist Geng Qingguo was struck with a tearless grief," said Li in his blog. "His heart was bleeding."

http://en.epochtimes.com/news/8-5-14/70663.html

The Solution: Boycott the Olympics - Boycott Chinese products
(as much as possible)

Google helps the homelss

By Leslie Poston


Is it a publicity stunt at the expense of the homeless or a real gesture of hope? Google has announced that it will provide the homeless population of San Francisco with free voice mail for life. The system would give each homeless person who accepts it a free phone number with voice mail, for life.

The voice mail can be checked from any phone, giving the homeless unprecedented access to one of the basic life necessities the rest of us take for granted. Already people are saying this is nothing more than a gimmick for the company, known for its “Do no evil” slogan. It does seem that way on the surface, until you realize that Google isn’t innovating with this service idea.

GrandCentral, the company Google acquired last year that offers free phone numbers you can forward to any number in the United States, has even offered a similar service before. Now Google is using its clout and the GrandCentral service platform to roll out the service again.

Google isn’t the only company to offer this kind of service. Community Voice Mail offers free voice mail for people who are going through a crisis (homelessness definitely qualifies as a crisis).

To use the service being offered by Google via GrandCentral, the homeless have to accept the service. Once they do, they receive a number they can use for free for life, which is attached to voice mail. The homeless can then call their voice mail from any phone, any where, any time.

Is it a gimmick or stunt for Google? Of course it is. But it is one that really can do some good. It is incredibly hard to get and keep a job without a phone number, not to mention claiming benefits and other services we all take for granted. Too often the homeless can’t take advantage of basic services.

Having a phone number with voice mail attached opens a door back to the world for the disenfranchised and gives them respect and hope. How many of these disenfranchised homeless could there possibly be in the San Francisco area? Because of the temperate climate that makes it possible to be outside year round San Francisco attracts as many as 7000 or more homeless to its streets.

Heavy marijuana use shrinks brain parts: study

By Will DunhamMon Jun 2, 4:15 PM ET

Long-term heavy use of marijuana may cause two important brain structures to shrink, Australian researchers said on Monday.

Brain scans showed the hippocampus and amygdala were smaller in men who were heavy marijuana users compared to nonusers, the researchers said. The men had smoked at least five marijuana cigarettes daily for on average 20 years.

The hippocampus regulates memory and emotion, while the amygdala plays a critical role in fear and aggression.

The study, published in the American Medical Association's journal Archives of General Psychiatry, also found the heavy cannabis users earned lower scores than the nonusers in a verbal learning task -- trying to recall a list of 15 words.

The marijuana users were more likely to exhibit mild signs of psychotic disorders, but not enough to be formally diagnosed with any such disorder, the researchers said.

"These findings challenge the widespread perception of cannabis as having limited or no harmful effects on (the) brain and behavior," said Murat Yucel of ORYGEN Research Centre and the University of Melbourne, who led the study.

"Like with most things, some people will experience greater problems associated with cannabis use than others," Yucel said in an e-mail. "Our findings suggest that everyone is vulnerable to potential changes in the brain, some memory problems and psychiatric symptoms if they use heavily enough and for long enough."

Among the 15 heavy marijuana users in the study, the hippocampus volume was 12 percent less and the amygdala volume was 7 percent less than in 16 men who were not marijuana users, the researchers said.

The researchers acknowledged that the study did not prove it was the marijuana and not some other factor that triggered these brain differences. But Yucel said the findings certainly suggested marijuana was the cause.

"STONED" FOR 20 YEARS

While about half of the marijuana users reported experiencing some form of paranoia and social withdrawal, only one of the nonusers reported such symptoms, Yucel said.

The heavy marijuana users, average age 40, said they had used other illicit drugs less than 10 times, the researchers said.

A U.S. group supporting legal sales and regulation of marijuana took issue with the findings, particularly because they were based on men who were such heavy, long-term users.

"These were people who were essentially stoned all day every day for 20 years," Marijuana Policy Project spokesman Bruce Mirken said by e-mail. "This study says nothing about moderate or occasional users, who are the vast majority -- and the (study) even acknowledges this."

"The documented damage caused by comparably heavy use of alcohol or tobacco is just off-the-charts more serious, and you don't need high-tech scans to find it," Mirken added.

Yucel said the researchers have begun new research on the effects of both short-term and long-term and moderate and heavy use of marijuana.

(Editing by Maggie Fox)

I Can't Afford My Gasoline

Video

Net Neutrality

06/01/2008 - Every significant Internet provider around the globe is currently in talks with access and content providers to transform the internet into a television-like medium: no more freedom, you pay for a small commercial package of sites you can visit and you'll have to pay for seperate subscriptions for every site that's not in the package.

Almost all smaller websites/services will disappear over time and multinationals who are used to using big budgets to brute force their content into every media outlet will finally be able to approach the internet in the same way.

What can we do?

Internet providers have realized that the only way to not lose massive amounts of customers over this is to make sure there are no alternatives, that's why all major Internet providers are currently making agreements and planning to switch simultaneously somewhere in the year 2012. This is currently all going on under very strict NDA's (Non-Disclosure Agreements) because the last thing they want is the masses speaking out against it.

We were able to uncover this information because we have been well-known net neutrality activists for longer than a year now and over time have we've gotten in contact with many high-profile industry insiders. We will continue our activism and the I Power website serves as a platform for joining forces, sharing ideas and spreading awareness.

It's our responsibility to spread the word, use any sort of political or media contacts you may know. The more awareness there is, the more impossible it'll be for Internet providers to make this switch. Let's make sure that by 2012, ISP's won't even dare think about doing anything that goes against the principles of net neutrality.

More info...

Net neutrality has been a much debated issue for several years now and there have been many lawsuits in cases where an Internet provider blocked access to a certain competitor's site or simply crippled download speeds on services that they felt were using up too much of their bandwidth. But this new information that has now been confirmed by inside sources from major ISP's and content providers gives us a far bleaker vision of what the future of Internet freedom will look like if we don't take action in every way we can.

Why is this happening? The entire media and marketing industry is losing its grip on the upcoming generations of Internet-minded consumers. Statistics show that traditional media is losing popularity as the Internet continues to grow drastically every year. And the Internet is a completely different place: consumers aren't passive any more and advertisements don't have the same psychological effect they normally have on television. Internet users are very active and focused: they only go to the sites and services they want, and with an infinite amount of alternatives, users simply switch to something else if one service becomes too commercialized with annoying advertisements.With this in mind, it's no surprise that the past 6 years the industry has secretly been planning a 'take-over' to secure the Internet as a purely commercial playground.

Spread The Word

But there is hope... More and more people are becoming aware of the importance of net neutrality and now that we have uncovered what the industries have been plotting, it's not just about big corporations forming shady agreements, it's about what they will say to their users who will demand an explanation from their providers on what will happen to their access in 2012. As long as there are alternatives, we can pressure those providers who admit to being against net neutrality and favor those who take a stand and choose to give their users their freedom even after 2012. We can keep pushing for net neutrality laws and we can start spreading awareness on a massive scale to make sure that ISP's think twice before signing anything that'll go against the freedom that made the Internet into the important open medium that it is today.

It's our responsibility, spread the word and use any sort of political or media contacts you may know. Let's make sure that by 2012, ISP's won't even dare think about doing anything that goes against the principles of net neutrality.

For more information:

Mail the I Power team at ipower@movielol.org

Student researching al-Qaida tactics held for six days

Polly Curtis and Martin Hodgson
Saturday May 24, 2008
The Guardian

A masters student researching terrorist tactics who was arrested and detained for six days after his university informed police about al-Qaida-related material he downloaded has spoken of the "psychological torture" he endured in custody.

Despite his Nottingham University supervisors insisting the materials were directly relevant to his research, Rizwaan Sabir, 22, was held for nearly a week under the Terrorism Act, accused of downloading the materials for illegal use. The student had obtained a copy of the al-Qaida training manual from a US government website for his research into terrorist tactics.

The case highlights what lecturers are claiming is a direct assault on academic freedom led by the government which, in its attempt to establish a "prevent agenda" against terrorist activity, is putting pressure on academics to become police informers.

Sabir was arrested on May 14 after the document was found by a university staff member on an administrator's computer. The administrator, Hisham Yezza, an acquaintance of Sabir, had been asked by the student to print the 1,500-page document because Sabir could not afford the printing fees. The pair were arrested under the Terrorism Act, Sabir's family home was searched and their computer and mobile phones seized. They were released uncharged six days later but Yezza, who is Algerian, was immediately rearrested on unrelated immigration charges and now faces deportation.

Dr Alf Nilsen, a research fellow at the university's school of politics and international relations, said that Yezza is being held at Colnbrook immigration removal centre, due to be deported on Tuesday.

"If he is taken to Algeria, he may be subjected to severe human rights violations after his involvement in this case. He has been in the UK for 13 years. His work is here, his friends are here, his life is here."

Of his detention, Sabir said: "I was absolutely broken. I didn't sleep. I'd close my eyes then hear the keys clanking and I would be up again. As I realised the severity I thought I'd end up in Belmarsh with the nutcases. It was psychological torture.

"On Tuesday they read me a statement confirming it was an illegal document which shouldn't be used for research purposes. To this day no one has ever clarified that point. They released me. I was shaking violently, I fell against the wall, then on the floor and I just cried."

Bettina Rentz, a lecturer in international security and Sabir's personal tutor, said: "He's a serious student, who works very hard and wants a career in academia. This is a great concern for our academic freedom but also for the climate on campus."

Students have begun a petition calling on the university to acknowledge the "disproportionate nature of [its] response to the possession of legitimate research materials".

A spokesman for Nottingham University said it had a duty to inform police of "material of this nature". The spokesman said it was "not legitimate research material", but later amended that view, saying: "If you're an academic or a registered student then you have very good cause to access whatever material your scholarship requires. But there is an expectation that you will act sensibly within current UK law and wouldn't send it on to any Tom, Dick or Harry."

At its annual conference next week the University and College Union will debate a motion on "assaults on academic freedom by the DIUS [Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills]". Sally Hunt, general secretary of the UCU, said: "If we really want to tackle problems like extremism and terrorism, then we need to be safe to explore the issues and get a better understanding. The last thing we need is people too frightened to discuss an issue or research a subject because they fear being arrested or reported."

The higher education minister, Bill Rammell, said: "The government does not want to or has never asked for staff or students to spy on their colleagues or friends. We want universities to work with staff and students on campus to isolate and challenge the very small minority who promote violent extremism."

Sabir's solicitor, Tayab Ali, said: "This could have been dealt with sensibly if the university had discussed the issue with Rizwaan and his tutors. This is the worrying aspect of the extension of detention [under the Terrorism Act]. They can use hugely powerful arrest powers before investigating."

Britain's Mean Streets

By CATHERINE MAYER

Jason Steen isn't an obvious target for muggers. The 40-year-old heads his own company advising on mergers and acquisitions, and usually strides through life like a Master of the Universe. This evening, though, he looks shaken. Two days earlier, he was accosted outside his central London home by eight kids — the youngest was 11 — who punched him to the ground, hustled him to the nearest cash machine and forced him to reveal his PIN number. After a series of attacks in the area, local residents have gathered in Steen's apartment to talk to the policeman handling the case. His advice: "Don't go out unless you have to."

Staying home in the face of danger isn't the British way. After suicide bombings in July 2005, Londoners continued working and socializing. Yet a survey by kids' charity TS Rebel found that last year more than a fifth of Britons avoided going out at night rather than risk encounters with a different form of terror: groups of children. Britons are frightened of their own young.

On any given Saturday night, in any town center across Britain, it's easy to see why. "It usually starts outside McDonald's — that's the hot spot," explains one London youth. "You might go with one mate, then you get a phone call. Give it an hour, there'll be 10 people there, with nothing to do. Intimidating people is something to do, a way of getting kicks. Like, 'Oh my God, did you see how they ran?' "

The boys and girls who casually pick fights, have sex and keep the emergency services fully occupied are often fueled by cheap booze. British youngsters drink their Continental European counterparts under the table: in 2003, according to the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), 27% of British 15-year-olds had been drunk 20 times or more, compared to 12% of young Germans, 6% of Netherlands youth and only 3% of young French. British kids were also involved more frequently in fights (44% in the U.K. to 28% in Germany). They are more likely to try drugs or start smoking young. English girls are the most sexually active in Europe. More of them are having sex aged 15 or younger, and more than 15% fail to use contraception when they do — which means that Britain has high rates of both teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. Small wonder, then, that a 2007 UNICEF study of child wellbeing in 21 industrialized countries placed Britain firmly at the bottom of the table.

None of those indicators are good, but it's the increase in nasty teenage crime that really has Britain spooked. Violent offenses by British under-18s rose 37% in the three years to 2006. Last September, 29-year-old Gavin Waterhouse died from an assault by two boys. It was recorded on a cell phone by a 15-year-old girl. In January, three teenagers from northwestern England were convicted of kicking to death 47-year-old Garry Newlove after he tried to stop them vandalizing his car. In the wake of their trial, the Sun newspaper declared "the most important issue now facing Britain" to be "the scourge of feral youngsters." That isn't just tabloid talk. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, at his first press conference of 2008, said: "Kids are out of control ... They're roaming the streets. They're out late at night. There's an issue about gangs in Britain and an issue about gun crime as well as knife crime."

It should go without saying that tens of thousands successfully navigate the dangerous waters of a British childhood. And that children from all shades of the social spectrum feel they are being demonized. ("People believe we're all yobs carrying knives," says Tilly Webb, 14, from Suffolk in eastern England.) And that the British have a long propensity to recoil in horror from their children — whether they be Teddy boys in the 1950s, mods and rockers in the '60s, skinheads in the '70s or just a bunch of boisterous teens making a lot of noise but little real mischief. And that the world's most competitive media market loves a good story, and that wayward children can always be relied on to produce one.

All that is true. But it is also true that for what Bob Reitemeier, chief executive of the Children's Society, calls a "significant minority" of British children, unhappiness — and the criminality, excessive drinking and drug-taking and promiscuity that is its expression — really have created a crisis. Says Camila Batmanghelidjh, the founder of Kids Company, an organization working with some of London's poorest young: "If I was sitting in government, I'd be really worried — not about terrorist bombs but about this."

Alien Nation
All over the world, teenagers give their parents headaches. Why are the migraines induced by British kids felt across a whole society? Part of the reason may be that parents aren't always around to help socialize their children — or even just to show them affection. Compared to other cultures, British kids are less integrated into the adult world and spend more time with peers. Add to the mix a class structure that impedes social mobility and an education system that rewards the advantaged, and some children are bound to be left in the cold.

Meet Danny Mullins, 21, from London — now training to be a plumber and dreaming of starting a family. Mullins wasn't just born poor; he was born into a living hell. His mother, a heavy drug user, died aged 40, leaving her son emotionally scarred and destitute. "Many people I know need to go out and thieve just to survive," says Mullins, whose friend Chris Abnett is trying to find a way out of a vicious circle of prison and unemployment. Abnett says he has a qualification in painting and decorating but can't get work because of his criminal record. Both Mullins and Abnett are being helped by Kids Company.

Batmanghelidjh, who set up the charity in 1996 to support "lone children" growing up without a responsible parent or carer, says that she and her team encounter many British children who have been neglected or abused, leaving them too damaged to benefit from education or training. "The level they're at is just about survival," she says. "The public can't imagine having a daily life that's so empty and exhausting." In such circumstances, girls are often drawn into prostitution. Many have babies while still teenagers, partly to jump queues for social housing but mainly to find some affection. "What do you need to care about if no one loves you?" says Mullins. "If no one has love for you, you aren't going to feel love for other people when you get older."

Batmanghelidjh tends to agree. Love and understanding, she thinks, can transform problem kids into responsible members of society. It's not an idea that appeals to all Britons. Indeed, many British adults seem to view children as an entirely separate species.

Britons have never been very comfortable with the idea of childhood. ("Culturally, Britain just doesn't like children much," says Batmanghelidjh.) In Victorian England, rich children were banished to nurseries and boarding schools, while their poorer contemporaries were sent out to work. The British are still expected to function as adults from an early age. At 8, Scotland has the lowest age of criminal responsibility in Europe, followed by England and Wales, where youngsters answer for their crimes from the age of 10. Yet children venturing into the adult world often feel rebuffed. "I don't get the feeling that Britain is the most child-friendly culture," says Emily Benn, who was selected to contest a seat in Britain's House of Commons three weeks before her 18th birthday. "When you go to France they're nicer to you in restaurants, on the streets and on transport. When I go around Britain on the railways, I get treated like rubbish by guards and officials."

Rapid social change has not helped. Family and community life have been redrawn in most rich countries, and none more so than Britain, where marriage rates are down to a 146-year low. A study in 2000 by the OECD found that British parents spend less time with their children compared to other nationalities, leaving them more open to influence from their peers and a commercially driven, celebrity-obsessed media. Elder Britons too often see their youngsters as a problem. Dominique Jansen, a Dutch mother living in England, says she recently took her two toddlers to her local church. She was startled by sour looks when her younger child asked her for juice. "It was uncomfortable," she says. "We had to leave." "You can see very vivid differences between the U.K. and countries in Europe," says Reitemeier. "You go onto sink estates [poor housing projects] in this country and there isn't a single element designed for children."

Culture Clash
Cold-shouldered by grown-ups, young Britons have developed an especially potent culture of their own. "Young people live in a world with very little meaningful contact or engagement with adults," says Professor Richard Layard of the London School of Economics, who has made a study of the causes of happiness.

This youth culture echoes and magnifies aspects of the adult world around it. Binge-drinking, for example, is hardly the preserve of young Britons. A report by the organization Alcohol Concern noted that one in three British men and one in five women drink double the amount considered safe at least once a week. And, unlike many British sports, this pursuit is popular from the bottom of the social spectrum right to the top. Photographs of Princes William and Harry emerging flushed from nightclubs are tabloid staples.

Last month, the elder prince enjoyed a night at a club in Cornwall, southwestern England, which lures customers with shots of alcohol selling for $2 apiece. Soon after William left, a fellow patron was slashed with a broken bottle. In 2000, Euan Blair, the son of the Prime Minister, was arrested for being "drunk and incapable." "A lot of my friends, if they've worked really hard during the week, go out and get drunk on the weekend," says Claudine Biggs, an 18-year-old London schoolgirl. Biggs has written a play that premiered at a north London theater in February. Her teenage protagonists are dysfunctional and knowing, their cruelty as casual as their sexual relationships, their racy behavior only partially camouflaging palpable misery. There are no adults in the play to intervene or to comfort. For too many British kids, that's not drama; that's real life.

It isn't just the absence of adults from their lives that contributes to unhappiness among Britain's teenagers. So do pervasive but invisible social barriers of class and race. Income inequality is greater in Britain than the rest of western Europe, and the gap between its poorest and richest citizens has been growing since the 1980s. Social divisions have proved remarkably resilient, and British kids born into poverty — as many as one in three, according to the Children's Society — still start life at a serious disadvantage. Britons "continue to believe that poor people just need a kick up the backside to break out of poverty," says Reitemeier. And while skin color doesn't determine social class, darker-skinned Britons are likely to be less well off than their paler counterparts. Around 40% of people from ethnic minorities are poor — twice the rate for white Britons.

What's life like for poor kids in Britain? They will likely live in an area where unemployment is high and aspirations are low. There's probably nowhere to play, and home may not provide much of a refuge. Such conditions breed trouble, according to a recent report by the IPPR that identified the factors inclining a child to criminality. Children who try to stay on the right side of the law find it increasingly difficult to resist the growing influence of gangs.

Violent teenage gangs are not new to Britain: in 1953 a group of Teddy boys stabbed 17-year-old John Beckley to death near London's Clapham Common, and anyone who has suffered British football hooligans in the last 30 years — and that's a lot of people in a lot of places — know that "violent" and "British" are two words that belong with each other. But the new gangs appear to be uniquely deadly.

Twenty-seven teenagers were murdered in London last year by youths wielding guns or knives. All but a handful of the dead teenagers were black or Asian. More than half of all black Britons live in London, many in hardscrabble housing projects such as the Moorlands Estate in Brixton, south London, where Solomon Wilson, 23, and his friend Nathan Foster grew up. Wilson says he was "no saint" when younger, but he benefited from a happy home life. "I take my hat off to my mum," he says. As he saunters along Brixton's Coldharbour Lane, he's trailed by a posse of local girls and boys who just want to hang out.

But Wilson is missing one companion, Foster, whom he calls his "little brother." Last summer, Foster was shot dead in a street next to the Moorlands Estate, apparently attempting to mediate a dispute about a stolen piece of jewelry. Wilson thinks everyone in his area faces similar dangers. "You could be walking down the street and suddenly you're shot and nobody knows why you've died," he says. "It used to be just the top dogs that had guns. Now a 14-year-old might pull a gun on you."

Earlier gang cultures defined themselves by clothing, musical taste or — in the case of some skinhead groups — right-wing politics. Today's gangs aren't even that discriminating, determining fitness for membership by nothing more meaningful than postal codes. Hanad Ahmed and Tashan Edwards, both 14, live in east London. "I can't bring friends around my area because I'm putting them in danger, as well as myself," says Ahmed, who lives in a different district from his school. "If they don't live in the same postcode, there's a chance they'll get robbed."

Ahmed says he joined a local gang when he was 12 but left after he was pressured to carry a knife and sell drugs. The son of a childminder from Somalia and a retired academic from Kenya, he plans to become a doctor. Edwards is aiming for a legal career. Why have the two of them turned out so differently from friends who are embroiled in gang life? "Most of them come from poorer backgrounds," says Edwards, who then adds what may be the most important factor. "We're smart," he says, "and we've got our education."

History Lessons
At the Association of Teachers and Lecturers annual conference on March 18, members debated why so many pupils seemed "unhappy and anxious." A week later, the larger National Union of Teachers (NUT) expressed concern over a rise in students taking weapons and drugs to school. But schools can be part of the problem. Ofsted, the official body that inspects educational institutions, says that 10% of state high schools are "inadequate." A 2007 report by the OECD found that class sizes in British high schools are among the largest of 30 Western countries. NUT members have resolved to launch a campaign to push for smaller classes amid reports that teachers are struggling to teach as many as 55 pupils at one time. Average class sizes in the state sector are 26.2 compared to 10.7 in fee-paying schools. A report by the Sutton Trust, an educational charity, found that children from poorer homes who were given scholarships to fee-paying schools dramatically outperformed their peers at state schools. They also went on to out-earn them, with almost a fifth attaining salaries of over $140,000 a year, more than twice the proportion from state schools.

This institutionalized inequality doesn't only harm low achievers. The system emphasizes academic attainment over social development. British children start school earlier and sit more exams than other Europeans. Many of them complain of stress. "Britain is a very individualistic culture, in which a huge emphasis is placed on personal success and less on good fellowship," says Layard. "We've made a virtue of competition, which means other people are a threat, not a support." Emily Benn says the drive for good results can let down pupils who find the work too difficult: "When you're in a competitive environment and someone is obviously struggling, the teachers assume they're not trying. They should make them feel better about themselves. Instead they make them feel stupid."

"I want to be a maid or a babysitter," says an 8-year-old over a soggy school lunch in east London. Her school's neighborhood includes large Turkish, Asian and West Indian communities, where there is little tradition of higher education, especially for girls. Many parents speak English as a second language. Although the school's academic record has improved, most of its students have little chance of going on to university. The picture is similar in working-class white communities, where many children follow the family tradition of leaving school at 16 to take up an unskilled job. "You can often find whole towns in which the level of staying on at school at 16 is much lower than in other areas," says Ed Balls, Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families. "It's about the attitude of the whole community, and its sense of ambition and enterprise. We've had a culture that for decades told families in those sorts of areas that you leave school at 16 and you get a job. Changing those aspirations is central to what we need to do."

Building a Better Place
How does he mean to achieve that? An ambitious target of halving child poverty by 2010, set during Tony Blair's premiership in 1999, is unlikely to be reached. However, in December, Balls unveiled a 10-year plan "to make England the best place in the world for children and young people," including a commitment to investment in facilities such as playgrounds and youth clubs. Balls wants to ensure free childcare is available for 2-year-olds from the most disadvantaged families; he has also just announced a $53.5 million package of funding for Kids Company and four other charities helping youngsters. The plan is based on the principle that it is always better to prevent failure than to tackle a crisis later.

A chorus of voices from politics, the media and the heartbroken ranks of victims' families says the way to do this is to get tougher with children in trouble rather than coddle them. It is true that the criminal justice system does not inspire much confidence. Some cases never come to trial at all. Steen's assailants were not charged. "The police knew who the perpetrators were, but were powerless to act. The burden of proof is so great," he says.

Yet if Britain really is to become a better place for its children, it will have to acknowledge the roots of its crisis. That means focusing on helping kids more than on punishing them. A start might be listening to children themselves. Kids Company alumnus Dan-Dan Walker is proud to report that he hasn't been arrested for a year and a half. One of nine children born to parents with drug problems, his first arrest, at 7, was for stealing baby milk and disposable diapers for his siblings. Now 18, he learned about Kids Company seven years ago as he rode on a London bus. He was about to snatch a handbag, and his accomplice was already seated next to the target, hemming her in against the window. As Walker moved to grab the bag, a stranger tapped him on the shoulder. "You don't need to do that," he said, and gave him the address of a Kids Company drop-in center. "I fell off that cliff," says Walker, "but someone caught me." Would that all British children could say the same.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1725547,00.html

Double number of ex-cons join the US army

• Elana Schor in Washington
• The Guardian,
• Tuesday April 22 2008

The US army doubled its use of "moral waivers" for enlisted soldiers last year to cope with the demands of the Iraq war, allowing sex offenders, people convicted of making terrorist threats, and child abusers into the military, new records released yesterday showed.

The army gave out 511 moral waivers to soldiers with felony convictions last year. Criminals got 249 army waivers in 2006, a sign that the demand for US forces in Iraq has forced a sharp increase in the number of criminals allowed on the battlefield.

The felons accepted into the army and marines included 87 soldiers convicted of assault or maiming, 130 convicted of non-cannabis-related drug offences, seven convicted of making terrorist threats, and two convicted of indecent behaviour with a child. Waivers were also granted to 500 burglars and thieves, 19 arsonists and nine sex offenders.

The new data were released by the oversight committee of the House of Representatives. Henry Waxman, the Democratic chairman of the oversight panel, said that while "providing opportunities to individuals who have served their sentences and rehabilitated themselves" is important, the waivers are a sign that the US military is stretched too thin.

The number of moral waivers in the military, mostly for misdemeanours such as speeding fines, reached 34,476 in 2006, or nearly 20% of all enlisted soldiers, according to the Palm Centre at the University of California. Recruits with felony convictions are more likely than other soldiers to drop out or be released from the military.

More than one felony conviction disqualifies recruits from the army or marines, but the navy and air force can admit those with multiple offences.

American Drug War

Documentary about the failed, 'War On Drugs', and how the Government is connected to the Drug Trade.




35 years after Nixon started the war on drugs, we have over one million non-violent drug offenders living behind bars.The War on Drugs has become the longest and most costly war in American history, the question has become, how much more can the country endure? Inspired by the death of four family members from "legal drugs" Texas filmmaker Kevin Booth sets out to discover why the Drug War has become such a big failure. Three and a half years in the making, the film follows gang members, former DEA agents, CIA officers, narcotics officers, judges, politicians, prisoners and celebrities. Most notably the film befriends Freeway Ricky Ross; the man many accuse for starting the Crack epidemic, who after being arrested discovered that his cocaine source had been working for the CIA.AMERICAN DRUG WAR shows how money, power and greed have corrupted not just drug pushers and dope fiends, but an entire government. More importantly, it shows what can be done about it. This is not some 'pro-drug' stoner film, but a collection of expert testimonials from the ground troops on the front lines of the drug war, the ones who are fighting it and the ones who are living it.After 4 years of production including several sold out test screenings in New York, Austin & Los Angeles, the final version of American Drug War "the last white hope" is locked and loaded.

Tax-free Internet shopping days could be numbered

If tax-hungry politicians get their way, the days of ordering items over the Internet and not paying sales tax may become just a fond memory.

Right now, if a California resident orders something from Seattle-based Amazon.com, for instance, he or she won't be charged sales tax at the time of purchase. That's because Amazon doesn't have offices in the state of California.

Read the full story

The Truth About “High-End” Cables?

So you’ve just spent a bundle on a new HDTV or a home theater system. You’re about to head for the register, and the salesperson suggests that since you’ve invested so much in your system, it needs expensive cables to give you optimal performance.

Read the full story

Eliot Spitzer

Yeah, his protitution scandal was pretty bad, but remember that cause and effect is always in play, and there's usually more than meets the eye when media presents to society their version of truth and current events.

Mortaging America's future
for a quick buck

It's one of the most amazing displays of journalistic incompetence and malpractice in recent memory.

The US news media failed to draw the obvious connection between the bizarre federal law enforcement investigation and leak campaign about the private life of New York Governor Spitzer and Spitzer's all out attack on the Bush administration for its collusion with predatory lenders.

While the international credit system grinds to a halt because of a superabundance of bad mortgage loans made in the US, the news media failed to cover the details of Spitzer's public charges against the White House.

Yet when salacious details were leaked about alleged details of Spitzer's private life, they took that information and made it the front page news for days.

To the 9/11 fiasco, the Iraq War, the travesty of the federal response to Hurricane Katrina, and the shredding of the US Constitution, we can now add a deliberate and reckless undermining of the credit and banking system of the US to its list of "accomplishments."

Source

New Cosmic Theory Unites Dark Forces

By Michael Schirber Special to SPACE.com Source

The two biggest mysteries in cosmology may be one. A new theory says that dark matter and dark energy could arise from a single dark fluid that permeates the whole universe. And this could mean Earth-based dark matter searches will come up empty.

Dark matter, as originally hypothesized, is extra hidden mass that astrophysicists calculate is necessary for holding together fast-turning galaxies. The most popular notion is that this matter is made of some yet-to-be-identified particle that has almost no interactions with light or ordinary matter. Yet it seems to be everywhere, acting as a scaffolding for galaxy clusters and the whole structure of the universe.

On the other hand, dark energy is needed to explain the more recently-discovered acceleration of the universe's expansion. It supposedly exists all throughout space, delivering a pressure that counteracts gravity.

It's counterintuitive that one substance could be both a gravitational anchor for galaxies and anti-gravity force for the universe. However, HongSheng Zhao of the University of St Andrews in Scotland claims that a fluid-like dark energy can act like dark matter when its density becomes high enough.

"Dark energy is a property of the vacuum — of fields that we do not easily see," Zhao told Space.com. "From it, we can derive the dark matter effect."

Zhao compares this dark fluid to Earth's atmosphere. Atmospheric pressure causes air to expand, but part of the air can collapse to form clouds. In the same way, the dark fluid might generally expand, but it also could collect around galaxies to help hold them together.

Unification

Zhao is not the first theorist to try to bring dark energy and dark matter under the same framework.

The type of dark fluid that Zhao is looking at is similar to one that Pedro Ferreira of the University of Oxford and his colleagues devised a few years ago.

"[Our theory] involves positing a preferred time direction, in some sense a special time frame," Ferreira said. "It has the interesting effect of modifying Einstein's theory of general relativity."

The idea is similar to the "ether," an invisible medium that physicists once thought light waves travelled through. Einstein's relativity did away with the need for such a medium, but cosmologists have recently found that an ether-like substance can mimic dark matter.

The presence of such a substance changes the way gravity works. This is most noticeable in the distant outskirts of a galaxy, where the galaxy's gravitational pull would be expected to be small, but the ether makes it much stronger.

The ether "effectively softens space-time in regions of low [gravitational] acceleration making it more sensitive to the presence of mass than usual," Ferreira explained.

Zhao has refined this approach and found that it can match a lot of astronomical data, as reported in a recent article in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

"I like [Zhao's model] because it shows that these theories are predictive and, if worked out in detail, can be tested properly against experiment," Ferreira said.

For one, Zhao's fluid divides itself into a dark energy part and a dark matter part with the same ratio that is seen from observations (dark energy is about 75 percent of the universe's mass-energy content, while dark matter is about 21 percent and normal matter makes up the last 4 percent).

Although the fluid is all around us, Zhao found that it does not affect the motion of Earth or the other planets, which is "reassuring," he said, because data shows that our solar system obeys traditional gravity to very high accuracy.

But the fluid does affect the speed at which galaxies can rotate. Some 75 years ago, astronomers noticed that galaxies were turning faster than would be expected from the amount of normal light-emitting matter they contained. The answer seemed to require some form of unseen dark matter.

However, Zhao has shown that his fluid can keep galaxies from flying apart just as well as dark matter can.

Zhao has also tested his model against the bullet cluster of galaxies, where a massive collision appears to have stripped hot gas from its dark matter envelope. This "naked" dark matter was seen as iron-clad proof for traditional dark matter theories, but Zhao claims that his fluid can reproduce the same effect.

Christian Boehmer from University College London thinks it "compelling" that Zhao's model can reproduce so much galaxy data.

Word search

If the dark fluid is mimicking dark matter, then scientists are searching in vain for the elusive dark matter particle, often called a WIMP (for weakly interacting massive particle).

Currently, several experiments are trying to detect a rare collision of a WIMP on Earth or observe gamma rays from distant WIMP self-annihilations.

"Direct detections will be more difficult," Zhao said. WIMPs may still exist, but there won't be as many of them as predicted.

Without WIMPs to worry about, the dark fluid could make scientists' jobs easier.

But not many cosmologists are ready to abandon dark matter just yet. The dark fluid idea is still fairly new, so some issues have yet to be worked out, whereas dark matter is a fairly mature theory.

"The current [dark matter] model provides the best fit to the data and is therefore the best model at hand," Boehmer said.

However, Boehmer agrees that having two unknowns — dark matter and dark energy — make up 95 percent of the universe is a bit embarrassing for cosmology.

"Frankly speaking, these are just fancy words we use to name something we do not understand," he said.

If a simpler model (with a single word) can explain all the data, then cosmologists will gladly accept it, Boehmer said.

Egypt-Gaza border resealed

Many in Israel are said to support the idea of Egypt supplying Gaza's fuel and power [Reuters]

Egyptian and Hamas security forces have closed the border with Gaza Strip after more than two weeks during which Palestinians were able to pass freely through the crossing.
Barbed wire and metal barricades were used to reseal the only remaining gap in the Egyptian side of the border on Sunday.

Hamas fighters had blown holes in the border fence to allow Gazans to travel to towns in Sinai to stock up on food, fuel and other necessities which were dwindling during an Israeli blockade of the territory.

One gate remained open to allow Palestinians to return to Gaza and Egyptians to return home, witnesses said.

'Restoring control'

Hamas has been under pressure from Egypt to stop the movement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza into Egypt.

After talks with Egyptian officials in Cairo on Saturday, Mahmoud al-Zahar, a former Palestinian foreign minister, said Hamas "will restore control over this border, in co-operation with Egypt ... gradually".

Al-Zahar also said that the closure would be temporary while the Egyptians search for a way to reopen the border.

Egyptian officials were not available for comment on the Hamas claims.

Any role for Hamas for controlling the border would be sure to anger the international community and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, because it would amount to tacit recognition of Hamas rule in Gaza.

Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland, reporting from the Gaza side of the crossing, said that Egypt allowing Hamas to help with securing the border, indicated the government's recognition of Hamas as the ruling authority in the Gaza Strip.

She said: "This is sure to anger Mahmoud Abbas and Fatah, considering they refuse to recognise the rule of Hamas."

"But it seems that Egypt is concentrating on the realities on the ground - which is Hamas remaining in control of Gaza, which is why they are working with them."

Hamas leaders took full control of the Gaza Strip after their fighters defeated security forces loyal to Abbas in June last year.

The border breach has sparked calls from Hamas leaders for closer ties between Egypt and Gaza, which currently depends on Israel for its supplies.

Improved ties

Ismail Haniya, the deposed Palestinian prime minister and Hamas leader, is pushing for increased ties between Gaza and Egypt.

He wants to disengage the coastal territory's economy from Israel and instead receive fuel and electricity supplies from Egypt.

"We have said from the days of our election campaign that we want to move toward economic disengagement from the Israeli occupation," he said.

"Egypt has a greater ability to meet the needs of Gaza."

Some Israeli officials believe that would be good for Israel it would reduce Israel's responsibility for the impoverished territory.

The Israeli defence ministry is currently drafting an official position on the idea, security officials have said.

Source

AFRICOM: US Military Control of Africa’s Resources

Source:
MoonofAlabama.org 2/21/2007
Title: “Understanding AFRICOM”
Author: Bryan Hunt
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2007/02/understanding_a_1.html

Project Censored Media

Student Researcher: Ioana Lupu
Faculty Evaluator: Marco Calavita, Ph.D

In February 2007 the White House announced the formation of the US African Command (AFRICOM), a new unified Pentagon command center in Africa, to be established by September 2008. This military penetration of Africa is being presented as a humanitarian guard in the Global War on Terror. The real objective is, however, the procurement and control of Africa’s oil and its global delivery systems.
The most significant and growing challenge to US dominance in Africa is China. An increase in Chinese trade and investment in Africa threatens to substantially reduce US political and economic leverage in that resource-rich continent. The political implication of an economically emerging Africa in close alliance with China is resulting in a new cold war in which AFRICOM will be tasked with achieving full-spectrum military dominance over Africa.
AFRICOM will replace US military command posts in Africa, which were formerly under control of US European Command (EUCOM) and US Central Command (CENTCOM), with a more centralized and intensified US military presence.
A context for the pending strategic role of AFRICOM can be gained from observing CENTCOM in the Middle East. CENTCOM grew out of the Carter Doctrine of 1980 which described the oil flow from the Persian Gulf as a “vital interest” of the US, and affirmed that the US would employ “any means necessary, including military force” to overcome an attempt by hostile interests to block that flow.
It is in Western and Sub-Saharan Africa that the US military force is most rapidly increasing, as this area is projected to become as important a source of energy as the Middle East within the next decade. In this region, challenge to US domination and exploitation is coming from the people of Africa—most specifically in Nigeria, where seventy percent of Africa’s oil is contained.
People native to the Niger Delta region have not benefited, but instead suffered, as a result of sitting on top of vast natural oil and natural gas deposits. Nigerian people’s movements are demanding self-determination and equitable sharing of oil-receipts. Environmental and human rights activists have, for years, documented atrocities on the part of oil companies and the military in this region. As the tactics of resistance groups have shifted from petition and protest to more proactive measures, attacks on pipelines and oil facilities have curtailed the flow of oil leaving the region. As a Convergent Interests report puts it, “Within the first six months of 2006, there were nineteen attacks on foreign oil operations and over $2.187 billion lost in oil revenues; the Department of Petroleum Resources claims this figure represents 32 percent of ‘the revenue the country [Nigeria] generated this year.’”
Oil companies and the Pentagon are attempting to link these resistance groups to international terror networks in order to legitimize the use of the US military to “stabilize” these areas and secure the energy flow. No evidence has been found however to link the Niger Delta resistance groups to international terror networks or jihadists. Instead the situation in the Niger Delta is that of ethnic-nationalist movements fighting, by any means necessary, toward the political objective of self-determination. The volatility surrounding oil installations in Nigeria and elsewhere in the continent is, however, used by the US security establishment to justify military “support” in African oil producing states, under the guise of helping Africans defend themselves against those who would hinder their engagement in “Free Trade.”
The December 2006 invasion of Somalia was coordinated using US bases throughout the region. The arrival of AFRICOM will effectively reinforce efforts to replace the popular Islamic Courts Union of Somalia with the oil industry–friendly Transitional Federal Government. Meanwhile, the persistent Western calls for “humanitarian intervention” into the Darfur region of Sudan sets up another possibility for military engagement to deliver regime change in another Islamic state rich in oil reserves.
Hunt warns that this sort of “support” is only bound to increase as rhetoric of stabilizing Africa makes the dailies, copied directly out of official AFRICOM press releases. Readers of the mainstream media can expect to encounter more frequent usage of terms like “genocide” and “misguided.” He notes that already corporate media decry China’s human rights record and support for Sudan and Zimbabwe while ignoring the ongoing violations of Western corporations engaged in the plunder of natural resources, the pollution other peoples’ homelands, and the “shoring up” of repressive regimes.
In FY 2005 the Trans-Sahara Counter Terrorism Initiative received $16 million; in FY 2006, nearly $31 million. A big increase is expected in 2008, with the administration pushing for $100 million each year for five years. With the passage of AFRICOM and continued promotion of the Global War on Terror, Congressional funding is likely to increase significantly.
In the end, regardless of whether it’s US or Chinese domination over Africa, the blood spilled will be African. Hunt concludes, “It does not require a crystal ball or great imagination to realize what the increased militarization of the continent through AFRICOM will bring to the peoples of Africa.”

Update by Bryan Hunt
By spring 2007, US Department of Energy data showed that the United States now imports more oil from the continent of Africa than from the country of Saudi Arabia. While this statistic may be of surprise to the majority, provided such information even crosses their radar, it’s certainly not the case for those figures who have been pushing for increased US military engagement on that continent for some time now, as my report documented. These import levels will rise.
In the first few months following the official announcement of AFRICOM, details are still few. It’s expected that the combatant command will be operational as a subunit of EUCOM by October 2007, transitioning to a full-fledged stand-alone command some twelve months later. This will most likely entail the re-locating of AFRICOM headquarters from Stuttgart, Germany, where EUCOM is headquartered, to an African host country.
In April, US officials were traversing the continent to present their sales pitch for AFRICOM and to gauge official and public reaction. Initial perceptions are, not surprisingly, negative and highly suspect, given the history of US military involvement throughout the world, and Africa’s long and bitter experience with colonizers.
Outside of a select audience, reaction in the United States has barely even registered. First of all, Africa is one of the least-covered continents in US media. And when African nations do draw media attention, coverage typically centers on catastrophe, conflict, or corruption, and generally features some form of benevolent foreign intervention, be it financial and humanitarian aid, or stern official posturing couched as paternal concerns over human rights. But US military activity on the continent largely goes unnoticed. This was recently evidenced by the sparse reporting on military support for the invasion of Somalia to rout the Islamic Courts Union and reinstall the unpopular warlords who had earlier divided up the country. The Pentagon went so far as to declare the operation a blueprint for future engagements.
The DOD states that a primary component of AFRICOM’s mission will be to professionalize indigenous militaries to ensure stability, security, and accountable governance throughout Africa’s various states and regions. Stability refers to establishing and maintaining order, and accountability, of course, refers to US interests. This year alone, 1,400 African military officers are anticipated to complete International Military Education and Training programs at US military schools.
Combine this tasking of militarization with an increased civilian component in AFRICOM emphasizing imported conceptions of “democracy promotion” and “capacity-building” and African autonomy and sovereignty are quick to suffer. Kenyans, for example, are currently finding themselves in this position.
It is hoped that, by drawing attention to the growing US footprint on Africa now, a contextual awareness of these issues can be useful to, at the very least, help mitigate some of the damages that will surely follow. At the moment, there is little public consciousness of AFRICOM and very few sources of information outside of official narratives. Widening the public dialogue on this topic is the first step toward addressing meaningful responses.

Media Misquotes Threat From Iran’s President

Sources:
Global Research, January 20, 2007
Title: “Wiped Off The Map—The Rumor of the Century”
Author: Arash Norouzi
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=NOR20070120&articleId=4527

Information Clearing House, May 9, 2006
Title: “Full Text: The President of Iran’s Letter To President Bush”
Translated by Le Monde
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12984.htm

Student Researchers: Becky Bazell
Faculty Evaluator: Peter Phillips, Ph.D.

http://www.projectcensored.org/censored_2008/index.htm

Across the world a media story has spread that Iran’s President Ahmadinejad has threatened to destroy Israel, by saying that, “Israel must be wiped off the map.” Contrary to general belief, this statement was actually a misinterpretation. However, it was the Islamic Republic News Service in Iran that first mistranslated the quote. Iran’s Foreign Minister attempted to clarify the statement, but the quote ended up having a life of its own in the corporate media.
Amid heated wrangling over Iran’s nuclear program and the threat of preemptive strikes by the US, the quote has been continually used to reinforce the idea that Iran is being run by extremists seeking the total destruction of Israel.
So what did Ahmadinejad actually say? To quote his exact words in Farsi:
“Imam ghoft een rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad.”
Rezhim-e is the word “regime,” pronounced just like the English word with an extra “eh” sound at the end. Ahmadinejad did not refer to Israel the country or Israel the landmass, but the Israeli regime. This is a vastly significant distinction, as one cannot wipe a regime off the map. Ahmadinejad did not even refer to Israel by name, he instead used the specific phrase “rezhim-e ishghalgar-e qods” (regime occupying Jerusalem).
A similar statement by Ahmadinejad in December 2006, “As the Soviet Union disappeared, the Zionist regime will also vanish and humanity will be liberated,” has also been misinterpreted.
In May of 2006 President Ahmadinejad published an open letter to President Bush clearly asking for peace and the mutual respect of human rights. He warns that Western media, through contrived and deceptive information, has intensified the climate of fear that leads to attacks on innocent peoples. The letter was not reported in the US news media. Ahmadinejad began the letter writing, “Mr. George Bush, For some time now I have been thinking, how one can justify the undeniable contradictions that exist in the international arena. Can one be a follower of Jesus Christ (PBUH), the great Messenger of God, Feel obliged to respect human rights, Present liberalism as a civilization model, Announce one’s opposition to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and WMDs, Make “War on Terror” his slogan, And finally, Work towards the establishment of a unified international community—a community which Christ and the virtuous of the Earth will one day govern, But at the same time, have countries attacked; The lives, reputations and possessions of people destroyed and on the slight chance of the … of a … criminals in a village city, or convoy for example the entire village, city or convey set ablaze.”

Evaluator Comment
Ahmadinejad declared that Zionism is the West’s apparatus of political oppression against Muslims. He says the “Zionist regime” was imposed on the Islamic world as a strategic bridgehead to ensure domination of the region and its assets. This position is viewed as threatening to many in the West. While threats and counter-threats escalates tensions in the Persian Gulf, I believe it is important for the media to publish both sides of issues and be as accurate as possible by seeking to build understanding rather than fear and anger.
—Peter Phillips

UPDATE BY Arash Norouzi
In May 2007, the US House of Representatives unanimously passed a resolution calling on the U.N. Security Council to charge Ahmadinejad with the crime of inciting genocide “because of his calls for the destruction of the State of Israel”—a violation of the U.N.’s 1948 Genocide Convention—specifically citing the false “wiped off the map” quote from October 2005. It also called for the U.N. to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, with the “potential means to the end of carrying out President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s threats against Israel.”
This misquote has become a key component of the push for war with Iran, a war that would make Iraq look like the cakewalk it was predicted to be. Attacking Iran would result in massive death and destruction, affect world oil supplies, provoke terrorism, could initiate the next World War, and might even include the use of nuclear weapons for the first time since WWII. In this heated atmosphere, an accurate narrative is essential in averting the next cataclysmic Mideast intervention. When President Bush emphasizes the importance of taking the words of America’s enemies seriously, that process begins with first determining just what exactly those words are.
Yet my article is about more than just clarifying a mistranslated statement. It’s about the media, propaganda, plagiarism, language, false assumptions ...Functioning much like a puzzle, it engages readers by allowing them to deconstruct the quote and its meaning themselves. This self-verification process adds a compelling aspect in which credibility becomes largely obsolete. The article’s ’punchline’ demonstrates undeniably that members of the mainstream media knowingly spread this rumor, and readers are challenged to check for themselves by comparing linked sources proving this claim.
The idea is not merely to contest a single misquote, but to also promote skepticism about all pre-war intelligence. If this quote is false, then it’s logical to assume that other accusations against Iran could be wrong too—just as they were with Iraq.
The overwhelming ubiquity of this misquote has deterred others from correcting what they probably view as a lost cause. Yet my article alone has been viewed by millions, translated into at least half a dozen languages, garnered radio interviews, inspired videos on YouTube, and become the subject of an entire article in The Bangkok Post. It got the attention of people at the BBC, Washington Post, IAEA, State Department, United Nations, and the Islamic Republic itself. It’s been quoted by numerous journalists, authors and academics, in published letters to the editor, and on call-in TV shows such as on C-SPAN. The Associated Press has now begun citing the “vanish from the page of time” phrase, adding that “independent analysts” have refuted the “map” quote; and Dennis Kucinich was prepared to correct the rumor when asked about the subject on TV recently.
These are hopeful signals that underscore the importance of alternative voices in the media, and their potential effectiveness in influencing the discourse. If the first casualty of war is the truth, then it’s up to the truth tellers—whomever they may be—to enlighten us.

Tens of Thousands Cross Downed Gaza Wall

By IBRAHIM BARZAK

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Masked gunmen destroyed about two-thirds of the metal wall separating the Gaza Strip from Egypt in the town of Rafah and tens of thousands of Palestinians poured across the border to buy supplies made scarce by an Israeli blockade of the impoverished territory.

The gunmen began breaching the border wall dividing Rafah before dawn, according to witnesses and Hamas officials, who told The Associated Press that they had closed all but two of the gaps in the wall. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter, said they were allowed free movement through the open gaps.

Thousands of Gazans began crossing into Egypt and returning with milk, cigarettes and plastic bottles of fuel, the Hamas officials and witnesses said.

An Associated Press reporter arrived after first light and saw that about two-thirds of the seven-mile-long wall at Rafah had been demolished. The reporter also saw the crowd of Palestinians crossing into Egypt swell into the tens of thousands.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

RAFAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Masked gunmen blew holes in the wall separating the Gaza Strip from Egypt early Wednesday and thousands of Palestinians poured across the border to buy supplies made scarce by an Israeli blockade of the impoverished territory.

Egyptian guards and police from the militant group Hamas, which rules Gaza, stood by without taking action.

Israel transferred fuel to restart Gaza's only electricity plant Tuesday, easing its five-day blockade of the Palestinian territory amid growing international concern about a humanitarian crisis.

But before dawn the next day, Palestinian gunmen began breaching the border wall dividing the town of Rafah, which has a Gazan and an Egyptian side.

The identity of the gunmen who breached the border was not immediately clear. But Hamas expressed support for the move, saying, "Blowing up the border wall with Egypt is a reflection of the ... catastrophic situation which the Palestinian people in Gaza are living through due to the blockade."

Hamas security closed all but two of the holes, through which it allowed free movement. Gazans began crossing into Egypt and returning with milk, cigarettes and plastic bottles of fuel.

Gazan Ibrahim Abu Taha, 45, a father of seven, was in the Egyptian section of Rafah with his two brothers and $185 in his pocket.

"We want to buy food, we want to buy rice and sugar, milk and wheat and some cheese," Abu Taha told The Associated Press by telephone, adding that he would also buy cheap Egyptian cigarettes.

Abu Taha said he could get such items in Gaza, but at three times the cost.

Faced with a crippling Israeli blockade, Hamas appears to be applying pressure on Egypt, which has cooperated with Israel's sanctions by keeping the Rafah border closed.

An off-duty Hamas security officer who identified himself as Abdel Rahman, 29, said this was his first time out of Gaza.

"I can smell the freedom," he said by phone. "We need no border after today."

Abdel Rahman said no weapons were being smuggled in from Egypt.

"You can buy weapons in Gaza, guns and RPGs," he said, adding that it was easier to find weapons in Gaza than cancer medicine or Coke.

Weapons are generally brought into Gaza through smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border.

The U.S. had warned Israel not to add to the hardship for ordinary Palestinians but blamed the problem on Hamas. Israel imposed the siege in response to increasing rocket attacks on its border communities by Gaza militants.

Despite the easing of the closure, Palestinian militants fired 19 rockets toward Israel on Tuesday, the military said, up from just two on Monday.

The lights were back on in most of Gaza City by Tuesday afternoon after a blackout that lasted almost two days. But Gazans still vented their anger throughout the day.

Hundreds of Hamas supporters briefly broke through the Gaza-Egypt border and clashed with Egyptian riot police who fired in the air, wounding 70 people on both sides. The protesters hurled insults at Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, calling him a coward.

In a clash early Wednesday with Israeli forces near the closed Sufa crossing into Gaza, a Hamas militant was killed, Palestinian officials said. The Israeli military said soldiers exchanged fire with Palestinian militants in the area.

Throughout the closure, which cut power to a third of Gaza's 1.5 million people, hospitals kept running on generators. But most bakeries shut down, and long lines formed at those that were open. A shipment of cooking gas sent in by Israel on Tuesday sold out in an hour.

Governments, aid agencies and the U.N. issued urgent appeals for an end to the closure. Israel's Defense Ministry ruled late Tuesday that 60,000 gallons of diesel fuel will be transferred into Gaza daily, but the crossings will remain closed to other goods and people until further notice.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni blamed Hamas.

"I am not among those who care whether this or that group fired a rocket," she told the annual Herzliya Conference on security. "Hamas has control of the territory, and Hamas is responsible."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the Bush administration has spoken to Israeli officials "about the importance of not allowing a humanitarian crisis to unfold." Israeli officials were receptive, she said, adding that she too blames Hamas for the situation.

Despite the blockade, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he will not pull out of peace talks. Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert promised President Bush to try to complete a peace accord this year.

"We should intensify our contacts and our meetings to stop the suffering of our people," Abbas said in his first comment since the latest round of Israel-Hamas fighting erupted last week.

Hamas, which is sworn to Israel's destruction, is not a party to the talks.

Associated Press writers Steven Gutkin in Herzliya, Israel, and Mohammed Daraghmeh in Ramallah, West Bank, contributed to this report.

Posted by Bebichan



Source


“If they come, we are ready. We will fight them on the streets, from the rooftops, from house to house. We will never surrender”
Saddam Hussein, August 2002.


The quote above is taken from a speech made to the Iraqi people before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, and just under a year before Saddam left “his people” and was discovered in a ditch.

People today tend to know very little about Saddam Hussein as a man and know him only as “the undisputed master of Iraq”, a vicious and heartless dictator.
The man who was going to be one of the most powerful Arab leaders of modern times came from an impoverished village on the banks of the Tigris River on the outskirts of Tikrit. Saddam Hussein was born to a town Whore (and Clairvoyant) Subha Tulfa, and his father Hussein Al-Majid whose fate remains unknown, and has been described in many references as “just one of Saddam’s mothers Clients”.He was orphaned before he reached his teen years and was sent to live with relatives. Saddam lived in a village known as “Al- Ouja” which directly translates as “the turning” and was simply a collection of mud huts on the banks where Tigris River made a sharp turning. The people there lived in conditions of abject poverty. The relatives Saddam was sent to live with was his Uncles family (Subha’s brother).

Khairallah Tulfa, Saddams uncle, was an Arab Nationalist and was the closest thing Saddam had to a father. He was an unapologetic supporter of Adolf Hitler and Nazi ethos. Khairallah raised Saddam with a deep hatred for the Iraqi royal family, all of the foreign bankers (the British) and strict “xenophobic” ideals. Saddam in later life described his uncle to many in an idealistic “Hero” image. One doesn’t need a profound knowledge of Psychology to know the effects of such an upbringing on a child. Like Hitler and Stalin, the two tyrants of the 20th century, both of whom overcame their less than auspicious upbringings to take absolute control of their respective nations, Saddam was to rise above the disadvantages of his childhood and become “the Undisputed leader of Iraq”.


As with any other dictator, Saddam had a fearless appearance and cast a nature fear amongst his people. I have never supported Saddam Hussein, and by starting my editorial with information on his childhood I don’t aim to justify his actions nor defend them. I like plenty of other Iraqi’s lived to see the reality of a totalitarian dictatorial ruling, and will never support such a thing. However, plenty of people have asked me the same question over and over again, that being:
“Regardless of the legality of the invasion of Iraq by America, would you prefer Iraq under an Evil Saddam or Iraq as it is today?”
My answer is always the same: Iraq under Saddam.

I find the question itself to be a very foolish question actually. No person in their right mind would choose a dictator over freedom, however at the same time no person would choose instability over stability.

When Saddam ruled, it might have been a dictatorship and he may have carried out atrocities, but the overall status in the country was a secure status.
I don’t choose a dictator, but I choose that status of the country under the dictator, as opposed to the status of the country today under the alleged democratic ruling.
Under Saddam’s ruling order was kept, and you could walk in the streets of Iraq and feel safe. Today you can’t walk the streets of Iraq and feel safe, today there is no such thing as “safety” in Iraq. Today rebels rule the streets of Iraq and religion has been taken to unseen levels.
Boys have been brainwashed by foolish uneducated old men who have extremist views of religion, and these boys go on to be the suicide bombers killing plenty of innocents in the name of a God. The country has become divided by religious sects, creating a weak unstable society with no promise for a united and stable future.
None living in a “civilised” country can contemplate the status of Iraq, but I assure you it is no where near as good as the state as it was before the 2003 invasion, and definitely not better than it was then.

What exists in Iraq today is far from the intended democracy, and the people that were meant to be “liberated” are far from that. People seem to forget that a Democracy is formed “by the people” and that any form of a revolution has to be carried out by the people themselves and not by external interference.

On the day that Saddam was captured, when I and my family were made aware of the circumstances of the capture and where he was found, the happiness that was immediately felt amongst us all, as I can imagine was felt amongst the majority of Iraqi’s was indescribable.
To see a man who once ruled with such confidence, who was the cause of everyone’s fear, pulled out of a ditch like the rat he is, is something no Iraqi could have contemplated during his leadership. The transformation of his appearance was shocking, a man who once looked in perfect health and strength, looked no better than a street tramp.



On the day of his execution, the final words that were spoken between Saddam and his executioners are said to be:

[Saddam] God is Great. Palestine is Arab
[Voices] May God's blessings be upon Muhammad and his household.
[Voices] And may God hasten their appearance and curse their enemies.
[Voices] Muqtada [Al-Sadr]...Muqtada...Muqtada.
[Saddam] Muqtuda? (laughs) Are you men? Is this the bravery of Arabs?
[Voice] Long live Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr.
[Voice] To hell.
[Saddam] The hell that is Iraq?
[Voice] You have destroyed us, killed all of us, our nation is ruined.
[Saddam] I helped you survive. Iraq is nothing without me!
[Voice] Please do not. The man is being executed. Please no, I beg you to stop.
[Saddam] There is no God but Allah and I testify that Muhammad is the messenger of God. There is no God but Allah and I testify that Muhammad...

Much as Saddam was evil and much as he was a fool, his final words are only words of truth. The leaders of Iraq are far from men and what has become of the Arabs who started civilization, is atrocious. What remains of Iraq is in effect hell.

So I write this editorial today 1 year after the execution of the man who treated Iraqi’s much like Hitler treated the Jews, who was the cause millions of deaths, who was backed by America and rose with their support, and who was later brought to his fall by America.
I write it not in his memory, but in the memory of a country that was and a country that will never again be.