At least 43 villages in Nigeria continue to present cases of lead poisoning, 18 months ago after cases were first discovered in the region, the United Nations reported today, calling for an increase in preventive measures in the African country.

The World Health Organization (WHO), which has been assisting the Government in managing the situation, called for Nigerian authorities to increase their commitment to combat lead poisoning by strengthening its capacity to diagnose, treat and manage it, as well as ensuring that all areas have been de-contaminated.

In a news release, WHO warned that lead poisoning cannot be successfully eliminated without significant changes to mining practices, including the relocation of ore processing activities and storage of ore materials away from villages.

Other necessary measures recommended by WHO include the adoption of processing methods that produce less dust, and hygiene measures such as removing contaminated clothes and washing before returning home.

Lead poisoning damages the nervous system and causes brain and blood disorders. Treatment is time-consuming and expensive as it involves undergoing long-term therapy with chelating agents, which remove heavy metals from the body.

Treatment also involves persuading people to adopt new practices and behaviours, something which requires an ongoing effort from authorities to continuously raise awareness and make sure the population follows preventive measures.

According to WHO, children in seven villages in Zamfara state require chelation therapy. This is in addition to the residents of seven other villages who have already received treatment. In these villages the combined effects of removing children from lead exposure and providing chelation therapy caused the child mortality rate to drop from 43 per cent to 1 per cent in one year.

Since the problem was discovered last year, $1.9 million has been provided by the UN Central Emergency Response Fund (CERF) to WHO and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), which have been used to provide treatment, train doctors, provide quick diagnoses, and raise awareness about the hazards of lead.

Eva Cox - Research Fellow Jumbunna

Income Management (IM) is to start in five new places from July 2012. The ‘pilot' version is a mix of voluntary income management (VIM) and compulsory income management (CIM) imposed on some benefit recipients by Centrelink staff decisions. The Government promotes both forms as beneficial and there is some stories of Centrelink staff pressuring clients to sign on to VIM, mixing the possibility of accruing a $250.bonus after 6 months rather than having CIM imposed if defined ‘vulnerable'. The indicators of vulnerability include ‘poor financial management' eg late payment of bills rent etc which are endemic in the urban communities selected, because benefit income is grossly inadequate to meet living costs. The list also includes ‘subject to financial pressure from others' including partner violence,. that is seen as putting the women at risk in an Australian Law Reform Commission paper (see below). ‘Vulnerability' as a category does not include child protection clients or those not sending their children to school. Seriously addicted people can be covered by existing other provisions.

The Minister claims proven benefits for CIM, therefore justifying its expansion but there is no serious evidence that CIM has benefits for IM participants and some indications of possible harm. There is no statistical evidence of better health or school attendance and current NT figures on crime, child abuse, substance use or other data. As the program is now four years old, the lack of evidence is significant.

Jumbunna has been looking closely at the quality of evidence that the Government quotes for their claims that people want CIM. Other studies suggest people mostly do not want to have it imposed on them (eg ERA below) but do not oppose VIM being available for those who freely agree to it. Some communities may decide democratically to have it imposed. Therefore, extending compulsory income management by locations, or using it where it is not part of a professional case plan, cannot be justified on the basis of local views, outcome research data or cost benefits.

This is the view of almost all major welfare agencies, most Aboriginal health and local community organisations as well as independent research groups, with one notable exception, the NPY women's group. The near consensus is that genuinely voluntary IM should be made available and compulsion only used where there is evidence of substantial self-harm or families at serious risk of harm. ...

Concerned About Threats To Occupy Movements:

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) is concerned about various actions being contemplated and taken across the country in relation to the Occupy protests taking place in many Canadian cities.

Freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association are core democratic rights that are protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Without robust protection for these rights, many other rights become meaningless.

In many Canadian cities Occupy protestors have worked with city officials to ensure that concerns about health, safety and public access to parks and other protest spaces are addressed. Dialogue between protestors, law enforcement and municipalities have proven productive in many instances and this should remain the primary method of addressing any issues that come up.

CCLA is concerned that some municipalities appear to have simply decided that protests have gone on long enough and should cease. In some cities, injunction proceedings have been brought on an expedited basis in an attempt to remove protestors from public spaces. City officials have cited a variety of reasons for taking these actions including health and safety issues, as well as aesthetic concerns and preparing spaces for holiday celebrations.

CCLA has been writing to city officials urging them to respect constitutionally protected rights to expression and peaceful assembly. Unilateral enforcement action by police is unacceptable and dangerous. Serious concerns about health and safety should be raised with the protest groups, but unilateral evictions may violate constitutional guarantees. The enforcement of municipal by-laws or trespass notices may be unconstitutional as these actions may unjustifiably violate Charter rights. Where recourse through the courts is being considered or currently underway, protestors must be given ample notice and time to respond.

The Occupy protests have been ongoing for close to a month and there appears to be no reason that these court proceedings have to take place on an expedited basis. Ensuring that all sides are heard will allow courts to reach a fully informed decision and lend legitimacy to that decision in the eyes of the stakeholders.

In addition to reaching out to city officials, CCLA has encouraged individuals involved in the Occupy movement to contact the organization with concerns or for legal assistance. CCLA will continue to monitor developments across the country to ensure that fundamental freedoms are protected.

Suspicious activity/Assault of child, Hillcrest [12/11/11]

Police are investigating an incident in which a man assaulted a young child at Hillcrest.

Preliminary information indicates that a man approached a seven-year-old girl and 10-year-old girl whilst they were playing out the front of a Conifer Street home around 6.15pm.

The man, unknown to both girls, picked the seven year old child up in his arms before letting go of her when she struggled and screamed. The children’s father responded to the scream immediately and when he went to the front of the house, the man had fled on foot from the area.

Logan District Police and the Dog Squad attended the scene and conducted extensive searches of the area.

Police are appealing for public assistance to help identify the man who is described as Caucasian in appearance, aged in his mid 20’s to early 30’s, between 165-175cm tall, slim build, with short cropped dark coloured hair and an unshaven face.

Logan detectives would like to speak to anyone who may have seen a man matching this description in the area or who may have noticed anyone acting suspiciously to contact Crime Stoppers.

The children were not physically injured and police investigations are continuing.

Anyone with information which could assist police with their investigations should contact Crime Stoppers anonymously via 1800 333 000 or crimestoppers.com.au 24hrs a day.

With This AAP Report Repeated All Over The Media:

... He picked up the younger child in his arms but she struggled and screamed so much that he let her go and ran off when her father appeared. ...

Thousands of people and police gathered in downtown Portland as the city's deadline came and went to clear Occupy Portland campers from two parks where tents sprung up five weeks ago.

Mayor Sam Adams and other city leaders say they're worried about the safety and health of Occupy supporters in the parks, where at least four people have overdosed from drugs and a man was arrested and accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at the World Trade Center nearby.

The mayor and Police Chief Mike Reese said officers will be ready to make arrests, but hope people will leave the parks peacefully.

Much of the tent city had been disassembled earlier Saturday, but some people hunkered down inside the remaining tents, vowing not to leave until police forced them out.

People's University in Washington Square

Out from the classrooms and into public space, in solidarity with Occupy Wall Street.

ARUNDHATI ROY @ THE PEOPLE’S U - WED 11/16

We’re thrilled to bring Arundhati Roy to the People’s U during the Student Week of Action!

“Fearless Speech”

Arundhati Roy at the People’s University in Washington Square

Wednesday
November 16, 2011
12:30 PM - 1:15 PM

Location:
Washington Square Park

“Pity the nation that has to silence its writers for speaking their minds… Pity the nation that needs to jail those who ask for justice while communal killers, mass murderers, corporate scamsters, looters, rapists and those who prey on the poorest of the poor, roam free.”

Arundhati Roy won the Booker prize in 1997 for her novel, The God of Small Things. Her non-fiction work includes An Ordinary Person’s Guide to Empire, Field Notes on Democracy: Listening to Grasshoppers, and Broken Republic. An impassioned critic of neo-imperialism, military occupations, and violent models of economic ‘development’, Roy was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize in 2004. Her consistent exposure of the Indian state’s repressive policies has led to her being variously labelled a seditionist, secessionist, Maoist and unpatriotic troublemaker.

RSVP on facebook: https://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=316871611662319

People’s U Saturday: Education for the 99%

Session 8: Saturday, Nov 12, 1:30pm

Education for the 99%

Educators, activists, parents, and students speak out on the fight for public education in NYC and the rest of the country

with

Leonie Haimson, Class Size Matters & Parents Across America

and

Megan Behrent, NYC Public School Teacher

and

Melissa Garcia, New York State Youth Leadership Council

and

Latoshia Wheeler, PTA President, K634, District 23

and

Organizers from Occupy the DOE

in Washington Square Park

In the old days soldiers marched onto the floor of parliament with fixed bayonets to replace governments and frustrate the popular will.

Now it is being done differently.

In Greece and now Italy democratic governments and an opposition are being replaced with a single party rule of “experts” headed by by central EU bankers, in so called “political” coups.

In Greece the new Prime Minister to replace the ousted Papandreou, is the former vice president of the European Central Bank, Lucas Papademos.

In Italy with the resignation of Berlusconi it is likely to be Mario Monti, an economist and European Commissioner.

Countries are being tied to the table not by soldiers but by bankers.

This is not what democracy looks like.

In Greece the new government is to consist mainly of “experts”.

These “experts” will have the task of implementing the drastic austerity measures demanded by the EU…..

In their first public announcement the new Greek one party government “of experts” announced that elections will not be held until the austerity measures have been imposed.

In Italy the outgoing government demanded that the term for the new emergency government replacing them be for a limited time, reportedly Mr Monti is not willing to accept this condition.

In Italy it looks as though elections will be postponed for the foreseeable future as well.

The “political coups” in Italy and Greece and the suspension of elections in these countries, demonstrate that the austerity measures being demanded to save the banks are incompatible with democratic principles.

All over Europe and around the world. From the standpoint of the banks, the financial and debt crises can only be resolved by driving back the living standards of workers by decades.

As the global recession deepens and austerity is being forced on countries around the world, the world will watch as these newly coalesced one party states try to undemocratically force austerity on their peoples.

Behind these “political” coups is the banksters fear is that democratic elected politicians facing mass protests and voter backlash may decide to default, deciding to let the banks and investors take a loss, while putting their people’s interests ahead the profits of the bankers.

The brutal character of these measures and the immense social inequality that lie at their heart cannot be imposed by democratic means. The “patient” must be “tied to the table”.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/nov2011/papa-n04.shtml

Christine Assange: US Wants Revenge On Julian

By Tony Iltis

WikiLeaks has awakened many people to the cynical and violent workings of the political, military and corporate entities that run the world. For Christine Assange this awakening has been heightened because her son is WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange — now the target of the powerful 1% who have not appreciated his contribution to transparency.

“I started off on this journey saying WikiLeaks is great in theory but … I’m not going to support it publicly before I’ve read everything I can on it,” she told Green Left Weekly. “It was quite a journey for me.”

“I’m really just the average Mary Smith … Now I am horrified, both about the threat to Julian, and about the threat to global democracy, that I discovered from investigation and reading of my own.”

Her journey is taking her to Canberra on November 17, when US President Barack Obama is addressing the Australian parliament and meeting PM Julia Gillard. She will join anti-war protesters opposing the Australia-US alliance. She accused the Australian government of “arse-covering” for the US over WikiLeaks, and failing its obligations to an Australian citizen for the sake of the US alliance.

“In my opinion we have become nothing more than a franchise of the US and Julia Gillard has traded my son for her position as prime minister … I’m going right to where the buck stops, which is Canberra, and I’ll be talking to people about this case.

“The only way we can get protection for our citizens — because if they won’t protect Julian, they won’t protect anyone else — is to let them know, so I’m asking the people to make November 17, not ‘celebrate Obama day’ but ‘support Julian Assange day’.”

Pointing out the government spends money encouraging people in schools and workplaces to stand up to bullying she said: “We’ve got a global bully arriving here on November 17, we’ve got to tell him where to go … We can renegotiate ANZUS and say ‘we’ll go with you on some things but not other things’.

“They’ve dragged us into so many wars that in hindsight were no good … There are many military and ex-military people [in the US and Australia] who are unhappy with the way the wars are being run … In fact, a veterans’ organisation called Stand Fast will be protesting in Canberra.”

She said most Australians support WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. “If this parliament does not represent us — and our human rights, free speech and democracy — then they need to go … If the Greens are the only ones to support him, maybe what the average Aussie should do is vote in the Greens next election.

“I believe the only hope for Julian now is for a grassroots democracy uprising.”

On November 3, Julian Assange lost an appeal to the British High Court against extradition to Sweden for questioning on sexual assault allegations. He has not, so far, been charged over the allegations, made last year. Christine Assange is sceptical about the fairness of the legal processes in Sweden and Britain, and fearful that he will end up in US custody.

“This was a political case, right from the word go,” she told GLW. “There are documented abuses all over his case, even Swedish judges have come out and said that. The banking blockade against WikiLeaks, the release of the US diplomatic cables and the ‘red notice’ [international arrest warrant] all came out within 10 days of each other. To say this case is not political is naive in the extreme.”

As if to confirm this, on November 10, a US judge ruled that Twitter must give the US Justice Department access to the accounts of Twitter users linked to WikiLeaks, including Icelandic MP Birgitta Jonsdottir.

Jonsdottir told the British Guardian: “This is a huge blow for everybody that uses social media. We have to have the same civil rights online as we have offline. Imagine if the US authorities wanted to do a house search at my home, go through my private papers. There would be a hell of a fight. It’s absolutely unacceptable.”

Julian Assange has been given three weeks to apply, to the same High Court judges that made the November 3 ruling, for permission to appeal to the Supreme Court. “If they agree, then it goes up to the Supreme Court, but if they don’t, which is more likely, then in 10 days he will be in Sweden.”

Christine Assange said her son could get an unfair trial in Sweden, where there are provisions for incommunicado detention and secret trial, and where cases are not heard by juries but by a panel of three: a judge and an appointee from each of the main political parties.

However, she was more fearful that he would be sent to the US. This could happen through “extraordinary rendition”, the program of illegal abductions, under which thousands of mostly innocent people were tortured by the CIA in secret “black sites” all over the world or sent to pro-US dictatorships to be tortured under CIA supervision. She questioned whether Obama had followed through on his election promise to end this practice.

He could also be extradited from Sweden to the US. Under European law, Sweden should be able to extradite him to a third country only if approved by the British extradition hearing. “The way that the US gets around that is that they’ve got a bilateral treaty with Sweden for what they call ‘temporary surrender’, which has none of the safeguards a normal extradition treaty has.”

Christine Assange described in some detail the inhuman torture and humiliation to which US Army Private Bradley Manning has been subjected since he was arrested and charged with leaking information to Wikileaks.

She said: “PJ Crowley, the State Department spokesman, resigned over it [because] it violated the US Constitution’s amendments banning cruel and unusual punishment and pre-trial punishment.”

She said the torture was aimed at coercing Manning into giving false evidence against Julian Assange as US authorities were so far unable to build a credible case under their espionage and national security laws.

But Christine Assange is not just a mother campaigning for her son’s safety. She cited three exposes by WikiLeaks that particularly affected her. One revealed then PM Kevin Rudd had assured the US that Australia would look the other way if their shipping violated laws to protect the Great Barrier Reef from oil spills.

Another showed US officials describing Haiti’s 2010 earthquake as a “gold rush” for US corporations and an opportunity to stop the Haitian government raising the minimum wage. The cable showed the US also manoeuvring to stop Venezuela providing aid.

She said she was also shocked by the WikiLeaks’ coverage of Western human rights abuses in Iraq, such as the handing over of protesters against corruption to Iraqi police for torture.

“I’m not internet savvy … It was a real journey and what I found was that if you get your information from mainstream media, you wouldn’t get enough information, or you get skewed information.”

This journey has taken her to being a campaigner against the Australia-US alliance. “Julia Gillard likes to be seen as tough,” she said. “But all I’ve seen is her be tough on single mothers, tough on people with disabilities, tough on orphaned refugee children and tough on Australian animals. I’ve yet to see her be tough as leader of the country, to stand up for the country. I’ve yet to see her show any courage like my son has shown.”

Since starting on a park bench in MacPherson, Occupy DC has grown to become a permanent gathering place for activists, philosophers, artists and the underprivileged.

Statement from the Acting Director-General of Queensland Health

The following statement was issued by Mr Bruce Cowley, Chair of RCHF/Children's Health Foundation Qld:

I am the Chair of the Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation, and I have also been appointed Chair of the new Children’s Health Foundation Queensland. The birth of a new Children’s Health Foundation Queensland represents an evolution in children’s health research and services across our State. In the coming months, the two Foundations will come together to form one, new Foundation to raise even more funds for children’s health research and patient support.

The new Foundation will build on the strengths of the existing Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation: staff, volunteers, researchers and our other partners will continue their invaluable work with the new Foundation. All research grants will remain unaffected, and we expect to be able to increase our contribution to research in the coming years. Already we have expressions of interest from new donor partners who we hope will come on board in the near future. This is an exciting time for children’s health research in Queensland.

The evolution of the RCHF into the Children’s Health Foundation Queensland provides certainty and security for our staff, volunteers, researchers and corporate partners. It means our staff know they will continue to have jobs, our researchers have guarantees about their research grants, and our donors can know the support they give will continue to be used to benefit sick Queensland kids. This is happening now, because we know we need to demonstrate to our partners a future that has certainty during the transition of the old RCH to a brand new Queensland Children’s Hospital in inner Brisbane.

Apart from broadening the Foundation’s focus to one which is state-wide, change will be minimal as one Foundation evolves into another. The focus will remain on children’s health research, and support for sick children and their families. Just as the RCHF focused primarily on research but also made contributions to family-friendly facilities and patient support for sick children and their families, those priorities will remain the same for the new Children’s Health Foundation Queensland. Until the Royal Children’s Hospital transitions across to the newly built hospital site, the RCH will be the primary focus of all the activities of the new Foundation, and the RCH will be unaffected by the change.

The creation of the new Children’s Health Foundation Queensland is a wonderful step forward towards our goal of curing more childhood illness, and better caring for children who get sick. As Chair of both the Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation and the new Children’s Health Foundation Queensland, I am thrilled and honoured to lead the effort in Queensland to raise funds towards children’s health research and support services.

Ends.

Dr Peter Steer, Acting Director-General, Queensland Health also issued the following statement:

Almost all Hospital Foundations across Queensland raise money to build improved facilities for patients and their families and hi-tech equipment for use in our hospitals in addition to fund raising for research. For many of our Hospital Foundations, this is part of their core business. Indeed, the Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation raised money to build the Royal Children’s Hospital and has contributed to building improved facilities and investing in new equipment at that facility.

The Queensland Health Services Foundation will be no different. Raising funds to build family friendly space and provide hi-tech equipment is core business for a Hospital Foundation. Across Queensland, Health Foundations commonly invest in these improvements. Queensland Health has always made clear that we would be accepting donations from corporate partners willing to donate towards the capital cost of building special family friendly support facilities for children's families, and special hi-tech equipment which is not an ordinary component of a new hospital's equipment.

Indeed, some donors expressly ask that their contribution be used to deliver new technology and equipment to the hospital. Those donors' wishes are respected. However, Queensland Health has not established any team to raise funds, and any contribution by donors will be over and above the Government's budgeted expenditure of $1.495 billion, which has been committed by Government in the State Budget. Queensland Health did not approach the RCH Foundation to raise funds for an MRI machine.

Ends.

Billy Bragg and Tom Morello were at Occupy London earlier today, performing short sets and lending their high-profile support to the crowds of people outside St. Paul's Cathedral.

"We're gathered here today for a very old cause," said Bragg, "It's an ongoing struggle. People have the same needs, all over the world people want the same things. A better word for their children."

Speaking with the NME after his set, Bragg decried the recent London violence, saying: "I think, after the riots, we've found out that you can't change the world by smashing shop windows. But I think with the peaceful vibe here, people are starting to see past the previous stuff and actually hear the message."

Morello, who performed a solo acoustic rendition of the Rage Against The Machine classic "Guerilla Radio", told fellow protestors:

"The people that own and control this world don't deserve to. I have a message for them, the beginning is near. History isn't made by CIA men running dope or by old men. It is made by people."

Check out a snippet of Billy Bragg's "Which Side Are You On?" and a quick interview with Tom Morello below ...

"The Greens are looking forward to joining the welcome for President Obama," Australian Greens Leader Senator Brown said today.

"It will be so refreshing. Quite different to the visit of George W Bush," Senator Brown said in Hobart.

Senator Brown also called for a parliamentary debate on the build-up of US military personnel, equipment and training in Australia.

"There should be a parliamentary and public debate, about the proposed increase of the US military presence before it is agreed to."

"Australia should not weaken its ability to have an independent relationship with its neighbours in its own region," Senator Brown said.

The pro-equality Occupy Movement is quickly gathering pace in Germany, with fresh protests now starting in the capital Berlin and the country's financial heartland of Frankfurt.

Thousands are set to join the demonstrators - seeking to draw attention to rampant coporate greed and the increasing poverty of the masses. ...

By John Pilger

November 10, 2011 "Information Clearing House" -- Alameda Park is Mexico City's languid space for lovers and open-air ballroom dancers: the gents in two-tone shoes, the ladies in finery and heels. The cobbled paths undulate from the great earthquake of 1985. You imagine the fairground sinking into the cobwebs of cracks, its Edwardian organ playing forlornly. Two small churches nearby totter precariously: the surreal is Mexico's facade.

Hidden behind the poplars is the museum where Diego Riviera's mural Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda Park occupies the entire ground floor. You sink into sofa chairs and journey for an hour across his masterpiece. Originally painted at the Hotel Prado in 1947, it was rescued and restored when the earthquake demolished all around.

More than 45 feet long and 14 feet high, it presents the political warriors of Mexico's past, from the conquistador Hernando Cortes to Rivera himself, depicted as a child holding the hand of a fashionably dressed skeleton, the iconic symbol of the Day of the Dead. Standing maternally beside him is his wife, Frida Kahlo, Mexico's artistic heroine. Around them parade the impervious rich and unrequited poor. What is it about Mexico that is a universal political dream?

As in a Rivera mural, nothing is held back: no class martyrdom, no colonial tragedy. The message is freedom next time. The autocracy that emerged from the revolution of 1910-19 gave itself the Orwellian-name Party of the Institutionalised Revolution. This was eventually replaced by businessmen promising a pseudo democracy, which in 1994 embraced Bill Clinton's rapacious North American Free Trade Association (Nafta).

Within a year, a million jobs were destroyed south of the border, along with Emiliano Zapata's revolutionary triumph, the constitutional protection of indigenous land from sale or privatisation. At a stroke, Mexico surrendered its economy to Wall Street. The beneficiaries of the new, privatised Mexico are those like Carlos Slim, now ahead of Bill Gates as the world's richest man, whose fingers are lodged in every imaginable pie: from food and construction to the national telephone company.

A US diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks says, "The net worth of the 10 richest people of Mexico - a country where more than 40 per cent of the population lives in poverty - represents roughly 10 per cent of the gross domestic product."

The last election, in 2006, was won by Felipe Calderon, Washington's man, followed by persistent allegations that it was rigged. Calderon declared what he calls "a war on drug gangs" and 50,000 dead are the result. No one doubts the menace of the drug cartels, but the real "security issue" is more likely the resistance of ordinary Mexicans to an enduring inequity and a rotten elite. For most of this year, thousands of los indignados have taken over the massive parade ground known as the Zocalo facing the National Palace.

The occupations in Wall Street and around the world have their genesis in Latin America. The difference here is there is none of the angst about the protestors' "focus". As in all places where people live on the edge and the state and its cronyism cast lawless shadows, they know exactly what they want.

Ask some of the 44,000 employees of the national power company, who prevented the fire sale of the national grid until Calderon sacked them all; and the striking copper miners of Cananea, whose owners funded Calderon's campaign; and the former pilots and stewards of the national airline, Mexicana, dissolved in a sham bankruptcy that was a gift to the private airline industry.

These angry, eloquent and often courageous people have long known something many in Europe and the United States are only beginning to realise: there is no choice but to fight the economic extremism unleashed in Washington and London a generation ago.

Employment, trade unionism, public health, education, "life itself", says Manuel Lopez Obrador, the former mayor of Mexico City who ran against Calderon, "has since been struck by a political and economic earthquake". Since Calderon came to power, 30 journalists have been killed, ten this year alone, says the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Again, the drug cartels are blamed, but suppression of a national resistance, co-ordinated with the United States, is also the truth. Unlike in the US and Britain, many journalists, some of them inspired by the rise of the Zapatistas in the 1990s, have thrown off the patronage of the political and business elite and pursue what they call "civic journalism".

The second largest newspaper in Mexico is La Jornada, famous for its fearless investigations and campaigns and for surviving mostly on subscriptions; it carries no commercial advertising. Reminiscent of newspapers before they were consumed by corporations, there is nothing like it in Britain; it reflects much about Mexico City that is surprising and enlightened. In the National Palace the presence of Robocop guards is at once overwhelmed by Diego Rivera's most epic mural. Painted between 1929 and 1945, it follows the walls of the staircase, spilling, like his Alameda work, spectacles of revolution and tragedy, hope and defiance.

When I filmed it 30 years ago, I tried unsuccessfully to write a narrative to the pictures. In condensing and bringing alive 2000 years of history, it is art of which Europeans and North Americans are sometimes disdainful yet envious; for it charts the struggle of ordinary people, uniting and celebrating them, and identifying their true political enemies.

Seeing it again, I am struck by how it speaks for us all.

www.johnpilger.com

Nearly 7000 people responded to the recent Blewett Food Labelling Review. 85% of the submissions called for the full labelling of all GM foods and ingredients.

The Blewett report "Labelling Logic" ignored our request and recommends GM labelling laws remain full of loopholes which allow most GM foods to be unlabelled.

This means almost all GM ingredients will continue to escape labelling.

On 9th December the Australia/NZ Food Regualation Ministerial Council will meet to decide which of the Blewett report's recommendations to adopt. Please email Catherine King (Parliamentary Secretary of Health) Catherine.King.MP@aph.gov.au and Nicola Roxon (Minister for Health) Nicola.Roxon.MP@aph.gov.au. and ask them to:

"Please label all ingredients fully or partly derived from a GM crop or process. This includes ingredients from a GM crop (ie GM corn, canola, soy, sugar and cotton); milk, meat, eggs, fish and honey from animals fed GM feed; from GM derived additives, processing aids, colours and flavours."

It is more powerful if you write your own email but here are some dot points of issues you might like to raise:

* It is a basic right to know what is in our food
* There is scientific evidence that GM food could be damaging to our health:
* The livers and kidneys of animals fed GM corn for just 90 days underwent negative changes
* Animals fed GM had an increase in cytokines associated with allergy, asthma and inflammation. (Finamore et al 2008) (Kroghsbo et al 2008)
* The American Academy of Environmental Medicine asked doctors to educate the public to avoid * GM foods due to the "serious health risk in the areas of toxicology, allergy and immune function, reproductive health, and metabolic, physiologic and genetic health"
*GM crops have increased the both the amount of pesticides and the toxicity of the pesticides used. * This is causing birth defects and illnesses in GM growing areas.
GM technology is controlled by powerful companies that can and do restrict independent testing.

Thank you for sending an email. Please forward this email

GM labelling is becoming an increasingly important issue especially as we are told Australia will be growing GM wheat in 2015.

The US is waking up to the fact it has been eating unlabelled GM food for years. Several groups have produced excellent information on GM and are determined to see it labelled. Here is a selection of the groups:

*Just Label It – has a very funny short video showing why we need to know what we are eating.
* It’s our right to know – ballot initiative campaign to label GM foods in California.

MADGE has done extensive work on GM and labelling. Find it on our site www.madge.org.au or email us for more info info@madge.org.au

Happy Eating
Love Madge

Gogol Bordello @ Occupy Vermont

Legendary 1960s protest singer Joan Baez will headline an Occupy Wall Street rally Friday.

"It’s official. Joan Baez will be here tomorrow," said organizer Aaron Black.

"She’s an icon. We are unbelievably excited. In the ‘60s, protests and music went hand and hand.”

The “11/11/11” Veterans Day Rally will be held at at Foley Square from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. The slogan for the day: "Honor the Dead, Fight Like Hell For the Living."

Ignoring the weekday timeslot and the short notice, Black said he expects big crowds - possibly tens of thousands of people.

"It's going to be our biggest gathering yet. The whole world is watching now,” he said.

"It’s going to be an unbelievable celebration of music and culture.”

Baez, born a New Yorker, is an icon of the 1960s who marched with Martin Luther King, Jr. and Cesar Chavez, dated Bob Dylan and Steve Jobs, and sang about civil rights, human rights and the Vietnam War.

Her performance of "We Shall Overcome” at the 1963 March on Washington made her rendition a classic. The concert/rally was originally planned for Washington Square Park but city officials balked. They allowed Foley as a compromise.

Famed civil liberties crusader Norman Seigel was helping out. He came to Foley Square with Black to review the protocol for the concert.

"We have a lot of work to do. This is going to be huge," said Black.

Siegel said he is working the case for free.

“I believe in the principles and goals articulated by the movement,” he said.

The final lineup for the rally was not final, but others appearing are: Marine Sgt. Shamar Thomas, who became famous in a YouTube clip berating NYPD cops for their lack of honor in arresting protesters in Times Square; folk singer Ryan Harvey; activist Max Rameau from “Take Back the Land;” and a speaker from the Iraq Veterans Against The War.

 

When I was ten my mother, having sold
her old fox-fur (a ginger red bone-jawed
Magda Lupescu
of a fox that on her arm played
dead, cunningly dangled
a lean and tufted paw)

decided there was money to be made
from foxes, and bought via
the columns of the Courier-Mail a whole
pack of them; they hung from penny hooks
in our panelled sitting-room, trailed from the backs
of chairs; and Brisbane ladies, rather
the worse for war, drove up in taxis wearing
a G.I. on their arm
and rang at our front door.

I slept across the hall, at night hearing
their thin cold cry. I dreamed the dangerous spark
of their eyes, brushes aflame
in our fur-hung, nomadic
tent in the suburbs, the dark fox-stink of them
cornered in their holes
and turning.

Among my mother's show pieces —
Noritake teacups, tall hock glasses
with stems like barley-sugar,
goldleaf demitasses —
the foxes, row upon row, thin-nosed, prick-eared,
dead.

The cry of hounds
was lost behind mirror glass,
where ladies with silken snoods and fingernails
of chinese laquer red
fastened a limp paw;
went down in their high heels
to the warm soft bitumen, wearing at throat
and elbow the rare spoils
of '44; old foxes, rusty red like dried-up wounds,
and a G.I. escort.

Earlier today, a small group of Occupy Wall Street activists engaged in a near-successful corrida against the Wall Street Bull.

The incident began when two clowns, Hannah Morgan and Louis Jargow, scaled the steel barricades protecting the landmark. The clowns began spanking and climbing the beast, traditional ways of coaxing a bull into anger in preparation for a Castilian corrida, or bullfight.

Within seconds, police officers grabbed both clowns by their colorful shirts and wrestled one of them (Jargow) to the ground.

The other (Morgan) continued to play the harmonica until an officer removed it from her mouth.

With the officers thus occupied, a matador in full traje de luces leapt onto the hood of the patrol vehicle parked in front of the bull and boldly presented his blood-red cape to the beast.

"I wondered whether I, neophyte matador, could bring down this behemoth, world-famous for charging towards profit while trampling underfoot the average worker," said the OWS activist/torero whose first fight this was. "Come what may, I knew I must try."

Police officers took no notice of the matador, occupied as they were with the clowns.

"This bull has ruined millions of lives!" wailed clown Jargow as he lay on the ground face-down. "Yet he and his accomplices have been rewarded with billions of our tax dollars—and we, here to put a stop to it all, are thrown to the ground. ¡Un escándalo!"

Both clowns were charged with disorderly conduct and released an hour later; they returned to Zuccotti Park to great fanfare. The Wall Street bull continues to rage.

Facing some of the steepest budget cuts and tuition hikes in the country, thousands college students across California staged a mass walkout on Wednesday and set up camp to form the latest Occupy site. But unlike many others around the country, who have only started to get involved in the protests, California students are continuing a movement they've been pursuing for two years.

When activists at UC-Berkeley staged a walkout on Wednesday morning and marched to Sproul Hall, the site they plan to use for their official "Occupy Cal" protest, UC-Berkeley officials threatened to evict demonstrators.

Police descended on the encampment at 3 p.m. Arrests and clashes with officers wielding batons began within an hour. Video of the incident shows police striking unarmed students repeatedly. In all, at least 39 protesters were arrested on Wednesday at the Berkeley campus, the epicenter of the statewide college protests. Another 11 students were arrested at UCLA. Both sites saw more than 1,000 students demonstrate.

Morgan Marquis-Boire, who has protested with Occupy San Francisco since Sept. 17 and joined the Day of Action at Berkeley, said he felt like the students were genuinely shocked by how quickly police resorted to force.

"I think that both University leadership and local council were very keen to try to prevent any occupations," Marquis-Boire told HuffPost.

"That's why they went to the force so quickly, to dissuade people from setting up tents."

California-based professors and lecturers -- who are angry that they saw a 10 percent pay cut last year, while university presidents earned $100,000 raises -- joined students in Wednesday's walkout. At least one professor was arrested. The Nov. 9 walkout and launch of Occupy Cal continues two years of protest over budget cuts and tuition hikes. Although they are now joining the larger Occupy Wall Street movement, using its tactics of encampments, the "people's microphone" and the like, students activists started "occupying" campus buildings at the University of California in 2009. At least 250 students have been arrested since then.

The discontent stretches across both the University of California system and the California State University system, with students planning campus walkouts in conjunction with nearby occupations like Occupy Oakland and Occupy SF. Students at California public universities could see their tuition and fees increase by 81 percent over the next four years, bringing in-state tuition to over $22,000 a year. California State University students saw tuition increases imposed just a few weeks before classes began this semester, and after federal financial aid was settled.

University of California student President Vishalli Loomba told HuffPost that having seen the cuts to education over the past few years, she feels the state has stopped making it a priority.

"The sentiment among students has been one of frustration and confusion as to how our elected officials can be doing our state such an injustice," Loomba said.

"Investing in the public higher education system of this state is investing in the future of this state, and I don't think anyone can argue with that."

Rather than resenting the recent occupations on the east coast and in the rest of the country, those active in the west coast protests told HuffPost it legitimizes what they've been doing.

"At a time when it seemed like there was very little push-back, that general belief that everyone has to kind of hang on to their own little boat through the economic crisis, all of a sudden there's a movement," Wendy Brown, a UC Berkeley professor, said.

On Nov. 20, 2009, Amanda Armstrong, a graduate student at UC Berkeley, was detained by police when she and 40 other students occupied Wheeler Hall at UC Berkeley, demanding that 38 dismissed janitors be rehired. During that confrontation, cops clashed with protesters, and Berkeley professor Ananya Roy frantically served as an intermediary. At the time, demonstrators were physically preventing classes, Armstrong said.

Unlike the occupations occurring now, previous efforts focused on locking and barricading campus buildings. But other than a week-long encampment around a hunger strike, Armstrong told HuffPost, they never held occupations out in the open as they are now doing across the country.

"Back in 2009, around here the slogan 'Occupy Everything' was kind of circulating," Armstrong said.

"At the time, it was seen as controversial."

During one incident in March of 2010, 150 protesters were arrested for trying to occupy part of Interstate 80 in protest of the budget cuts and tuition hikes, displaying a banner that read "Occupy everything," while shutting down the roadway for an hour.

In a recent email to the UC community, Chancellor Robert Birgeneau and some Vice Chancellors pre-emptively banned encampments from campuses.

"In these challenging times, we simply cannot afford to spend our precious resources and, in particular, student tuition on costly and avoidable expenses associated with violence or vandalism," the email read.

For that reason, students involved told HuffPost that they kept the location of their intended occupation under wraps. The Sproul Plaza area, which is open 24 hours a day, does not allow tents, but protesters decided to violate those rules. Wednesday's day of action garnered significant support from within the community, including nods from state legislators and labor unions. Local Occupy encampments joined students in the walkout.

Loomba and External Affairs Vice President Joey Freeman of Associated Students of UC endorsed the walkout in an editorial. For some in the community, it's a cultural shift they're fighting against. Brown said the California Master Plan, the state's mission statement for public education, "guaranteed a college education to any student who wanted it for free for half a century, and that's over. But we're not giving it up entirely without a fight."

Sean Semans, a senior at San Francisco State University who is involved with the protests, said he knows many students worry about being kicked out of school or being physically hurt through their participation in demonstrations, especially if past protests are any indication of future levels of violence.

"It's been a broken system for years," Semans said, "and the response has been to silence the people who want to try to voice their opinion about the system."

California students naturally latched onto the Occupy Wall Street movement, they told HuffPost, because several of members of the UC Board of Regents also serve on the boards of major banks.

"Our movement is not looked upon fondly by the Regents of the University of California, or the [University's] president," Brown explained.

"We're fighting for the University, and we're being opposed most strenuously by the president of the University." Loomba said it's critical that the students not stop after Wednesday's Day of Action.

"We as students have the power to change the conversation in Sacramento and make sure that we are holding our elected officials accountable," Loomba said.

Occupy Cal students now plan to strike with demonstrators across the UC system on Tuesday.

The Regents for the University of California plan to meet again on Nov. 23. The student governments are organizing buses to transport students to attend the meeting.

"Realistically we have enough people that we can prevent the Board of Regents from meeting," Semans told HuffPost.

"I'm confident this time around that this is going to be a rude awakening."

A 48-year-old Senior Constable from Southern Region has today been stood down from official duty with the Queensland Police Service.

The officer has been charged with one count each of assault occasioning bodily harm and common assault in relation to an incident alleged to have occurred while he was off duty.

He has been bailed to appear at the Ipswich Magistrates Court on November 14.

UNESCO Sets Up Fund To Cover Budget Shortfall:

UN Media Release [10/11/11]

The head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said today the agency will temporarily halt some activities owing to the $65 million budget shortfall resulting from the United States’ decision to withhold its dues, and launched a new online tool to enable donors to help offset the loss.

The new fund is one of several measures announced by Director-General Irina Bokova in an address to the 36th session of UNESCO’s General Conference that ended today in Paris.

“UNESCO is facing a difficult situation,” she told the agency’s highest ruling body. “It’s a test for our organization.”

Washington – which contributes 22 per cent of UNESCO’s budget – suspended its dues after the agency admitted Palestine as a full member on 31 October. Ms. Bokova had warned that reduced funding will affect the agency’s ability to carry out crucial programmes in education, support for emerging democracies and the fight against religious extremism.

She said UNESCO now faces a budget shortfall of $65 million – the amount remaining to be paid by the United States for 2011.

To cover the funding gap to the end of 2011, the Director-General said UNESCO has already begun a thorough review of all of its planned activities for November and December. “I have temporarily interrupted certain activities to revise their costs,” she said.

In addition, the agency announced several measures to try and deal with the budget shortfall, including the new fund that is open to Member States, public institutions, foundations and individuals, all of whom can make their donations online. Gabon immediately announced it would make a $2 million donation.

“This is not simply another extra-budgetary fund,” said Ms. Bokova. “It will be directed to supporting our core activities, so that they are not affected by a difficult financial situation.”

She also urged Member States to support an immediate increase in the agency’s Working Capital Fund for 2012-2013 from $30 million to $65 million; appealed to all governments to provide their assessed contributions as early as possible in 2012; and proposed deferring the system by which those Member States that pay their dues on time benefit from a reduction.

“These are not decisions of choice. They are decisions of urgency,” she stated. “Unfortunately, I do not believe we have time to wait, or that these are decisions we can postpone.”

Ms. Bokova also noted that the US decision has stimulated an “unprecedented” outpouring of support for UNESCO from individuals, associations and private corporations worldwide.

“I see these expressions of support as clear recognition of the good that UNESCO does in the world. These are very concrete indicators of success,” she said.

After Friday's controversial protest at the Convention Center, two high -ranking officers of the Metro Police Dept visited McPherson Square to have a chat with protesters. They told protesters it was their duty to protect first amendment rights.

One protestor asked them for accountability to investigate the two hit and runs that occurred on Friday night. They also declared Friday non-violent and said they were only worried about a fringe of the protesters causing violence.

 

Members of Occupy Wall Street and the Tea Party may disagree on many issues, but there's one thing that unites both groups: distrust in concentrated power.

"One can't help but feel that there's a huge system out there between politicians, between corporate interests, that really prevents the average Joe from being able to air out his concerns," says Charles Zhu, an Occupy Wall Street supporter who was in Washington, D.C., this week to join protests in McPherson Square.

At both Occupy Wall Street and Tea Party protests, you might hear similar opinions on the 2008 bank bailout, the federal deficit and government spending, and the influence of corporations and money on Congress. Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig says there's good reason to this visceral sense by both the left and the right that there is too much power in too few hands — whether it's the government or corporations.

"We have a government where members spend between 30 and 70 percent of their time raising money to get back to Congress, [and a Congress] that is increasingly dependent on the funders," Lessig told weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz.

He says that the funders are in fact, not the people.

"Anyone who knows anything about campaigns knows it's the people who contribute the maximum in a campaign that have the real power in Washington," says Lessig, whose new book, Republic, Lost: How Money Corrupts Congress — and a Plan to Stop It, is about the concentration of money and power in politics.

Those who can contribute the maximum amount to campaigns represent about .05 percent of the population, Lessig says. So he says forget "We are the 99 percent," the Occupy Wall Street movement represents something more.

"[They] stand for the 99.95 percent of America who are not deep into the campaign giving [and] that can't direct policy in the way that we see policy being directed," he says.

Change We Can Agree On

Toby Marie Walker, head of the Tea Party in Waco, Texas, says there is too much money in politics and worries about its influence on regulation and laws.

"I'd like to see some finance laws that say only so much money can come from outside your district [or state] so that the local people have more control over who gets elected." Walker says.

That sentiment has been echoed in the Occupy Wall Street movement, but Walker says the groups don't exactly see eye to eye — yet.

"Their solutions are nothing like our solutions," she says. "There are natural things that we'll agree about, but it's the process of how do we get there that I think would be harder to bring people together on."

Lessig says campaign finance reform should be one issue the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street movements can find common ground and agree on. He says changes in campaign finance laws are critical in the effort to take the influence of money out of politics.

"So if we could have a system for funding elections that guaranteed that it wasn't just the tiny slice, but instead all of us that was in an important way providing the money," he says, "then I think we could at least imagine a Congress that could be independent enough to stand up to very powerful financial interests."

People recognized the massive economic collapse was caused in part by financial deregulation on Wall Street. But Lessig was astonished that Wall Street was still able to "blackmail Congress" into enacting a reform bill that didn't change the fundamental problem with the architecture of the financial system.

"Never in the history of our republic — after we've had some kind of financial collapse — has the financial industry so successfully blocked the ability to re-regulate to deal with whatever caused the collapse," he says.

In his new book, Lessig maps out a potential plan to make people the funders of Congress — and not corporations or Wall Street. He says funding campaigns through small-dollar contributions only is the best place to start.

Similar plans have been tried in several diverse states like Arizona, Connecticut and Maine. Whether it is his plan or a similar small-dollar funded plan, Lessig says, it would bring about the critical change needed.

"It could at least produce a system where when Congress did something stupid you would think, 'Oh, it's because there are too many Democrats or there are too many Republicans,'" he says.

"But you wouldn't think it was because of the money."

Powerful spoken word from Occupy Denver.

“Livin’ in the Land Where the Whip Still Cracks” is an incredibly moving spoken word performance by Noah Gauthier, from Occupy Denver.

"We will be rallying in two minutes, we will march to Chase Bank at 12:30," organizers said to students passing the quad area of the University of Washington Campus.

Organizers called their group the "Defend Education for the 99 [percent] Coalition. Over one hundred UW students and members of the Service Employees International Union marched from campus and up University Way.

Police on horseback, motorcycles and bicycles escorted the group on University Avenue, to the new branch of Chase Bank across from Wells Fargo on 45th Street. People lined up outside of the Chase Bank branch while officers separated them from building.

The demonstrators chanted "Banks got bailed out, we got sold out."

UW student Sean Dokko took part into today's demonstration, "Information moves so quickly these days, it allows for people like me to connect with others who are in a similar situation." He said,

"This protest was an opportunity for me to act out and do what I can to show my support for defending education."

Marchers were peaceful, but vocal, chanting, "We are the 99 percent and so are you," and "they say cutbacks, we say fight back."

Global Financial Crisis

Amidst the ongoing reverberations of the global financial crisis (GFC) particularly in Europe, United States and the United Kingdom, we hear a lot about debt crisis, volatile stock markets and the finance sector. However we hear very little about the impact on workers and their families and the loss of jobs and services communities depend on. In the UK, public sector workers are paying a high price struggling with severe funding cuts, reduction in services and a loss of jobs across all areas including health, education, housing and social and community services. England’s National Health Service (NHS) has been targeted with nursing staff squeezed from all directions. Budget cuts have resulted in a loss of nursing jobs and a reduction in the health workforce overall. Wages have been frozen and the government plans to drastically reduce entitlements under the NHS pension scheme.

In a recent Royal College of Nursing (RCN) survey of 8,000 members, over half reported lower staffing levels over the past year with one in 20 nurses expecting to lose their jobs, have their hours cut or their roles downgraded over the next 12 months. More than half (57%) of respondents reported they had worked over and above their contracted hours either every shift or several times a week and 40% said their employer had implemented a freeze on recruitment. The impact on care is taking its toll with over half the nurses reporting they were too busy to give patients the level of care they would like to provide and 32% saying the quality of care was declining. A grim picture indeed.

Nurses will be joining with other public sector workers in a collective day of action planned for 30 November to protest against the cuts to services and drastic reductions to pension schemes. It is expected up to three million public sector workers will take part in activities around the country to mark the beginning of an ongoing industrial campaign extending over several months.

Nurses in Ireland along with other public sector workers have also been hit hard after the Irish Government initially implemented a pay freeze for all public sector workers in breach of negotiated agreements. The pay freeze applied in 2009 has been followed up with pay cuts of up to 20% on weekly wage rates and allowances. Not only did the government cut wages, it introduced additional taxes on income and pension contributions.

As the impact of the GFC rolls on, how governments respond largely determines who bears the brunt of the damage inflicted by the vagaries of the financial markets. While Australia is not immune from its effects, fortunately the government has so far adopted a different approach seeking to protect employment and living standards. The situation of course can change and we too may be forced to fight the same battles to defend cuts to public sector services like health and education, and like the situation in England and Ireland, it is definitely worth fighting for.

Debbie Richards
Federal Industrial Research Officer

12 pm Saturday, 12 November

Brisbane Square, CBD

We live in a world where the 1% that created the financial crisis and are destroying the planet are bailed out and rewarded, while the 99% pay the price through through their wages, their houses and their pensions.

We are part of a movement that aims to connect the important struggles now happening both here in Australia and around the world. We are creating a path towards a new society based on human need and the democratic participation of all. We extend our hand, we invite you to join us because another world is possible!

Join us on Saturday as we take a tour of the city before returning to our occupation site!

We are Occupy Brisbane!

They may not have been a big crowd, but they were spirited.

A group calling itself Occupy the DOE — an offshoot of Occupy Wall Street — gathered on the steps Tweed Hall on Monday evening with a litany of complaints against the Department of Education.

Police officers ushered the crowd of more than 150 parents, students, teachers, aides and educators up the stairs and toward the center of the steps as voices chanted and echoed one another. Their grievances were many, including a unified call against mayoral control of the school system and the privatization of New York City public schools.

After the Oct. 25 meeting of the Panel for Education Policy, where about 200 parents and teachers protested against Department of Education leadership, it was time to take a different approach, said Leia Petty, an Occupy the DOE organizer.

She said the grass-roots group started as a grade-in last month in Zuccotti Park to address a growing list of issues with the Education Department that included overcrowded classrooms, teacher layoffs and school closings. Yet after the Oct. 25 meeting, it was clear that Occupy the DOE struck a chord with the public, and a nerve with the city’s top education officials.

“We want to create an agenda for the 99 percent, to strategize actions,” said Ms. Petty, 30, a high school guidance counselor from Bushwick, Brooklyn.

“We came together today to realize that agenda.”

Carl Neltzer, 51, from the Upper West Side, and an English teacher at Edward A. Reynolds West Side High School, sat on the steps near the sidewalk and held up a sign with the words “Privatization = For the 1%.”

He said that the Department of Education continues to spend money on consultants who visit his classroom paid for with dollars that he said could be spent on building better schools.

“Education is being destroyed by corporations that want to make money off of education,” Mr. Neltzer said.

“Privatization will only marginalize a growing number of students; the more we privatize, the less we serve the public need.”

To Zoe Beloff, 53, a Queens College media studies professor from the Lower East Side of Manhattan, overcrowded schools have meant fewer students ready to compete at the college level.

“People coming out of the public schools are really struggling with the basics,” Ms. Beloff said.

“The smaller the classrooms, the better the education.”

Much like the organizers of its big brother, Occupy Wall Street, those involved in Occupy the DOE still have not decided how they will execute their goals, Ms. Petty said. For now, at least, she said it would continue to act as a soundboard for teachers and parents who are fed up with the system, and would offer a sign of hope at setting a new agenda.

“The beauty of this thing is the people get to decide,” Ms. Petty said.

“This is just the beginning.”

Chelsia Rose Marcius is a graduate student in journalism at New York University and a SchoolBook intern.

Occupy Wall Street got its confiscated generators back on Tuesday after its legal team pressed the Fire Department of New York to release them.

The machines were picked up from the New York City Fire Academy at Randall's Island by the Wikileaks truck, which has been stationed next to Zuccotti Park since the protest's inception.

The vehicle with the generator on board made its way back to Zuccotti Park hours before a planned concert by Graham Nash and David Crosby.

Yetta Kurland, a lawyer representing the protesters, said the generators did not violate any FDNY code. The protesters have been without machine-generated power since Oct. 28, when police and firefighters seized their gas and biodeisel generators on the grounds that they were a fire hazard.

Protesters have been using bicycle-powered generators to charge batteries in the park, but they were without steady power as a freak snowstorm hit on Oct. 29. Lawyers for the protesters sent the FDNY a letter on Oct. 29 demanding the return of their equipment. Last week the fire department gave in.

"I believe they gave the generators back because they had no basis to confiscate them," Kurland said.

"When there’s a fire inspection, the normal procedure is for the FDNY to give corrective feedback ... That didn’t happen here. Rather than saying do this or that or taking corrective steps, they simply confiscated the generators and didn’t even list on the confiscation order what the specific violations were."

Kurland added that the return of the equipment came with no stipulation about how and where it could be used.

"Generators in parks are not automatically violations of any safety codes," Kurland said.

"In fact, the regulations say you can have a diesel generator or a gasoline generator as long as it’s under a certain BTU

(Excerpt) Read more at theatlanticwire.com ...

Occupy SLC protesters who had been squatting on a privately owned vacant lot near the Federal Reserve branch building decided Tuesday night move to the Gallivan Center after the city offered it as a new campsite.

The decision ends a standoff between Occupy SLC and the owner of the vacant lot who demanded on Monday that police remove the group, which is protesting corporate greed and the influence of money on politics.

The protesters, who set up the satellite protest site near the federal building as a companion to the larger Occupy SLC camp at Pioneer Park, voted on the move to Gallivan after Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank offered the site to them in a meeting Tuesday night.

Two protesters will pitch a tent at Gallivan on Tuesday night. Two tents will remain in the vacant lot overnight, and the protesters will move the rest of the campsite gear to Gallivan on Wednesday morning. The protesters said they planned to be out of the vacant lot by sunrise.

There were about 15-20 protesters at the vacant lot during the discussion of the move. The Gallivan Center is "a good centralized location for the movement," said occupier Seth Walker.

"We are all generally happy. This is definitely a proof of progress of what can be done."

Walker added that with such an opportunity he didn’t see anyone in the group risking arrest.

The group was instructed to work Wednesday on details such as length of the permit. Before showing them the new location, Burbank told the occupiers:

"The one thing I’m going to hold you to, and you kind of promised me yesterday, that this group is not going to be one that is going to have drugs and alcohol problems going on." "Absolutely," several in the groups responded.

Burbank continued telling the occupiers he appreciated their cooperation.

"It’s a two-way street. It’s not just the city, but it’s all of you," Burbank said.

"This is how we set the example for the rest of the nation on how we conduct business in Salt Lake City." ...

NEW YORK — Longtime musicians and activists David Crosby and Graham Nash are scheduled to perform a concert at the Occupy Wall Street protest site in Manhattan's Zuccotti Park.

The Occupy Wall Street website says the Tuesday afternoon concert will be an acoustic set of protest songs.

Crosby, a Rock and Roll Hall of Famer of Crosby Stills and Nash fame, visited the park last week.

SNELLVILLE -- Occupy Atlanta protestors shifted a portion of their ranks Monday to a quiet Snellville subdivision that typifies middle-class placidity -- and the toll taken by a sluggish economy and questionable lending practices, the movement's supporters said.

Before daybreak, about 20 protestors unloaded from a van and two cars at 4197 Shoreside Circle, a sloping road off Ga. Highway 124, less than a mile from the DeKalb County line. They pitched a tent and tacked up a banner declaring, "This Home is Occupied." They took naps in the basement. They announced a 3 p.m. press conference.

Should deputies show up to evict the family who lives there, Occupy leaders said they won't budge.

"We'll refuse to leave, but it'll be nonviolent," said Occupy Atlanta organizer Tim Franzen, donning his signature red ski cap.

Like other protestors who've been arrested, Franzen had scribbled his attorney's phone number on his forearm in magic marker, in anticipation of an encore arrest.

The objective is to spotlight the five members of the Rorey family who call the two-story, vinyl-sided abode home, and who are bracing for Gwinnett County Sheriff's Deputies to evict them from the foreclosed property. The man of the house, Christopher Rorey, is a DeKalb police officer of more than a decade; his wife, Tawanna, a homemaker.

Though they have three children at home, including an eldest daughter in college, the Rorey family has the resources to keep pace with their mortgage, unlike many underwater families, said their attorney, Tucker-based Asim Alam.

Alam said financial woes began for the family when they were approached by a con artist who promised to facilitate a loan modification with major lenders. Having never missed a mortgage payment in seven years, the family intentionally defaulted in July 2010 in order to qualify for a loan modification, Alam said.

The process moved slower than expected, and by the third month, a foreclosure notification had been issued, Alam said. A yearlong court battled ensued.

Frustrated, the family emailed Occupy Atlanta leaders and struck a chord last week. Protestors attended a Friday hearing in Gwinnett Superior Court where the family tried but failed to convince a judge to grant an emergency injunction stopping the eviction.

"A lot of people are in this situation and don't know where to turn," Tawanna Rorey said to a bank of reporters in her front yard. "I'm hoping this turns into something so big that the federal government will begin to ask why this is happening so much in this state, and all over."

The property was foreclosed by the previous note-holder, EverHome Mortgage Company, in October last year and transferred to Fannie Mae, court records show.

Fannie Mae obtained a writ of possession from the Gwinnett County Magistrate Court on Feb. 8, which the Rorey family successfully stalled, and reissued the writ in August. Fannie Mae then scheduled a "lock-out" date for the first week in November, according to court filings.

The Roreys bought the home in July 2003 for $179,000. The property sold in foreclosure, court documents show.

Alam said the home is worth about $80,000 less than what the Roreys paid, which made refinancing their loan impossible, he said.

In an order denying the Rorey family an emergency injunction against eviction, Superior Court Judge Karen Beyers wrote she wasn't convinced that Fannie Mae lacked the rights it exercised when it sent an eviction notice.

"(The Rorey family) has also waited until well more than a year to bring this civil action, during which time no mortgage payments were made," Beyers wrote in an order signed Monday.

Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Stacey Bourbonnais said an eviction hasn't been scheduled because the matter remains "in the court process."

"It's one of many evictions we have, and nothing has been scheduled yet," Bourbonnais said.

Alam, the attorney, said the Rorey's Lakeside Ridge subdivision is home to "quite a few" vacant, foreclosed homes. He's hopeful the foreclosure process for the Rorey family can be reversed, based on underlying laws, he said.

"They need to do this for every mortgage borrower who's in a similar situation or could be," Alam said.

Protestors said they view Georgia's high foreclosure rate as a symptom of economic disparity.

Franzen said some 100 protestors remained at Atlanta's Peachtree Pine homeless shelter Monday, along with a smaller contingent in Woodruff Park, site of a police-protestor clash this past weekend.

Occupy Atlanta describes itself as a social movement standing for the 99 percent of Americans under the political and economic influence of the wealthiest 1 percent of the population.

Franzen predicted the Rorey's home was only the beginning.

"We're hoping to spread this all over the city, the state and the country," he said. "We will stay here until we get this house back."

A City Council Committee has endorsed revised plans for a major residential and commercial development across a high-profile city block at Labrador.

The application, for Labrador Park Urban Village, covers almost 2.4 hectares of land bordered by Brisbane Road and Harley, Ashton and Babbidge Streets. Council’s City Planning Committee today (8/11) endorsed plans for mixed use development, including shops, offices, takeaway food premises, restaurants, medical centre, eight attached homes with home offices and 167 apartments.

Buildings would be up to eight storeys in height. Committee Chairperson, Councillor Ted Shepherd, said the site was currently occupied by various low-rise shops, warehouses and a Coles supermarket.

“The committee has recommended the proposal be approved by the full Council when it meets on Monday (14/11).”

Cr Shepherd said Council officers had worked tirelessly with the applicants to bring the plan up to a standard which Councillors could endorse.

“The application which was originally lodged in July 2008 would not have delivered a quality architectural or urban design outcome for the city,” Cr Shepherd said.

He said the application had been ‘on hold’ at the applicant’s request for more than two years while amended plans were developed and refined.

“Council’s approval would require revised plans with some further architectural improvements and this means we should see a much better development evolve over time.”

He said the current proposal would contribute to the local area and provide a much-needed boost to activity and jobs. Divisional Councillor, Margaret Grummitt, welcomed the development as good news for Labrador.

“This is a key site. It’s redevelopment will help breathe new life into the surrounding area, which will deliver a boost to existing businesses and create new job opportunities,” Cr Grummitt said.

Residential facilities on site will include a large swimming pool while a 150 square metre community meeting room is also proposed as part of the plan. A total of 950 car parking spaces will be provided.

On behalf of the Steering and Programme Organising Committee I invite you to participate in the topical Inaugural International Conference Energy & Meteorology (ICEM) to be held at the Surfers Paradise Marriott Resort & Spa, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia from 8 to 11 November 2011 (Pre-Conference Seminar "Energy & Meteorology: Fundamentals and Challenges" and Welcome Reception on 7 November 2011).

Energy & Meteorology 2011 provides a great opportunity to network with scientists, engineers, economists, policy makers and other specialists working at the junction between weather, climate and energy. In this burgeoning inter-sectoral industry, Energy & Meteorology 2011 will provide a premium forum in which delegates will:

Showcase research findings relevant for operational activities, long-term investment planning and policy making in the energy industry;

Advance ways to manage weather and climate risk by the energy industry, especially in the face of climate variability and change;

Enhance coordination between experts in weather & climate research and the energy industry to leverage experience and resources; and

Discuss an international framework for the exchange of information between the weather & climate community and the energy industry.

As the international community struggles to develop policies and frameworks to effectively tackle climate change, a much stronger connection between Energy & Meteorology will allow the development of forward-looking, cost-effective and sustainable weather and climate risk management strategies for the Energy industry.

If you are engaged in the energy sector and climate and weather influence your operations, ICEM 2011 is a four-day event designed for you to review the latest elements of an increasingly-important topic. Weather and climate can affect site assessment, financing, construction and design engineering, plant procedures, ongoing day-to-day operations and emergency response situations. This is an opportunity to hear and meet the leading international experts on the connectivity between meteorology, climate and energy.

I hope you will actively contribute to this event and I look forward to seeing you at the Surfers Paradise Marriott Resort & Spa, Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia from 8 – 11 November 2011!

Sincerely, Dr Alberto Troccoli
ICEM 2011 Convenor and Chair of Steering and Programme Organising Committee
CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research, Canberra, Australia

Amnesty International calls for the immediate and unconditional release of at least fourteen people who are currently being detained and interrogated by the police in Papua. They were arrested yesterday for participating in the Third Papuan People’s congress, a peaceful gathering held in Abepura, Papua province.

Five of them, including Forkorus Yaboisembut, Edison Waromi, August Makbrawen Sananay Kraar, Dominikus Sorabut, and Gat Wenda have been charged for ‘rebellion’ and ‘incitement’ under Articles 106, 110 and 160 of the Criminal Code, which carry up to life imprisonment.

On the afternoon of 19 October 2011, the final day of the congress, military and police units approached the venue and started firing shots into the air to break up the peaceful gathering. This caused widespread panic among the participants who began to flee. As they fled, police units from the Jayapura City police station and the regional police headquarters fired tear gas and then arbitrarily arrested an estimated 300 hundred participants.

The participants were held overnight at the regional police headquarters but most have now been released without charge. Police and military officers allegedly beat participants with their pistols, rattan canes and batons during the arrest. The bodies of two participants, Melkias Kadepa, a student, and Yakobus Samonsabra, were found near the area of the congress with bullet wounds. Later that evening, security forces raided the Sang Surya seminary in Abepura arresting one person and allegedly firing bullets in one of the rooms.

The Indonesian government must immediately investigate allegations of excessive use of force to forcibly disperse the participants and investigate allegations of ill-treatment against some of them. There should also be an independent, impartial and prompt investigation into the deaths of Melkias Kadepa and Yakobus Samonsabra. If the investigations find that there were human rights violations involving the security forces, then those responsible, including persons with command responsibility, should be prosecuted in proceedings which meet international standards of fairness, and victims provided with reparations.

The reported heavy handed actions of the Indonesian security forces to disperse the peaceful gathering is a clear violation of the rights to freedom of expression, opinion and peaceful assembly which are guaranteed under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), to which Indonesia is a state party, as well as the Indonesian Constitution. While the Indonesian government has the duty and the right to maintain public order, it must ensure that any restrictions to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly are no more than is permitted under international human rights law.

Further, the UN Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms state that law enforcement officials must apply non-violent means before resorting to the use of force and firearms. The 2009 Indonesian Police Regulation on the Use of Force also highlights the need to respect the principles of legality, necessity and proportionality when using force.

Several thousand people representing various tribes from all over Papua attended the Third Papuan People’s congress from 17- 19 October 2011. Organisers had informed the Jayapura police of the gathering as required by law. At the peaceful gathering, participants reportedly raised the prohibited Morning Star flag, a symbol of Papuan independence, and made declarations of independence. During the period of the congress there was a build up of an estimated 500 military and police personnel surrounding the venue.

In recent years, over a hundred people have been arrested, charged or detained for peacefully raising the Morning Star flag in Papua.

Amnesty International takes no position whatsoever on the political status of any province of Indonesia, including calls for independence. However the organisation believes that the right to freedom of expression includes the right to peacefully advocate referendums, independence or any other political solutions that do not involve incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.

Yoko Ono’s timeless message of home, peace and love, “MY HOMETOWN”, is now an acclaimed animated short, produced and directed by Jerry Levitan (Producer of the Academy Award nominated and Emmy winning “I Met The Walrus”) and Terry Tompkins and The Eggplant.

“MY HOMETOWN” is narrated by Yoko Ono and features her song “Remember Love” (the B-Side of Plastic Ono Band’s “Give Peace A Chance”) as the soundtrack for the film.

Jerry Levitan says:

“To think that my meeting with John Lennon and Yoko Ono back in 1969 when I was 14, has taken me to the Oscars, the Emmys and now a project based on Yoko’s work is simply incredible.”

The film opened the prestigious Without Borders Film Festival (Senza Frontiere) in Spoleto, Italy in July, 2011 and is circulating among film festivals around the world.

MY HOMETOWN
by Yoko Ono

Do you know where your hometown is?
Your hometown is a place you choose.
Get a map of the world.
Pin a little flag on a place on the map you’d like to go to.
The place you’ve put your flag is your hometown.
Let’s find a way to make this flag something you’ll be proud of.
Start by giving your hometown a name you want to call it by.
Find out some things about your hometown
Make a scrapbook of images and people from your hometown, and add your comments about them
Look after your hometown in your mind.
Send it lots of love.
In your mind help anyone there who needs help.
If there are any broken-down houses, mend them in your mind
If there are any people who are ill, make them better in your mind
If any of the streets need cleaning, clean it in your mind
If there are any children who are crying, wipe their tears away in your mind
Find out about the past and present of your hometown.
If anything terrible has ever happened there, think about it, and try to take away the pain that’s still there.
If there’s something terrible going on there now, focus your thoughts on it, and try to take away all the pain.
Quietly tell your best friends about the problems of your hometown, and ask them to solve them in their minds.
Put up some nice photos of your hometown in your room.
Write a diary about your hometown.
Keep sending your powerful energy to your hometown until more people start to smile and laugh and enjoy themselves.
Keep going until your efforts start to make things better in your hometown.
One day we’ll realize that all the towns in the world are someone’s hometown.

Why this is Important

If Julian Assange created Wikileaks to change the world, then we as supporters can change this injustice.

As an American supporter, I believe that if Julian Assange has taught us anything is honesty and transparency to organizations, both corporate and political.

This case completely shows the abuse of human rights and the law system and has to be changed.

All supporters from all over the world, including Australian supporters, we must take immediate action towards this from happening.

More information on the case: http://www.SwedenVersusAssange.com/

The causes of the apparent ecosystem collapse in Gladstone harbour can only be satisfactorily addressed by a halt to the dredging of the harbour and a genuinely independent testing regime.

Gladstone harbour borders the Great Barrier Reef World Heritage area and Curtis Island, on which four huge liquefied natural gas plants will be built, is part of that WHA.

Friends of the Earth spokesperson Drew Hutton said neither the Queensland government nor the federal government were trusted by most people to get to the bottom of the problem because they had too strong a vested interest in seeing these projects go ahead.

"So far all we have seen from the Bligh government is flawed water quality monitoring, constant assertions that the problems of marine species' deaths and fish disease have nothing to do with developments in the harbour and the desire to see developments proceed at breakneck speed.

"The Gladstone Port Corporation's dredging program is one of the biggest in our history and we need to know if dredging up historic layers of industrial pollutants as well as the acid sulphate soils that are known to be in the area are linked with this catastrophe.

"The massive expansion of coal ports along the north Queensland coast also present a dire threat to the Great Barrier Reef."

Mr Hutton said Queenslanders must also see Gladstone as merely the end point of a potentially disastrous series of developments that were given too hasty approvals by the state and federal governments.

"Coal seam gas is, in all likelihood, linked with the problems in Gladstone harbour but you can follow the trail of destruction and possible catastrophe back to the tens of thousands of hectares of bushland being cleared for gas pipelines and the long-term destruction of underground water.

"It is only people power that will force recalcitrant governments to act responsibly to bring the coal seam gas industry under control and to act to protect the Great Barrier Reef from high-impact development.."

Mr Hutton said Friends of the Earth would be working with the fishing industry and residents of the Gladstone area to demand positive action by government.

Dear Friends-

The Occupy movements for economic justice and against capital and corporations has exploded across the American political landscape.

The momentum is unbelievable and we can hardly keep up.

While big banks and Wall Street foreclose on homes and lay people off , the same doomsday economy is also destroying eco-systems, communities and the climate with fossil fuel extraction.

Whether it be natural gas fracking, coal plants, oil refineries, or mountaintop removal mining it all leads to one thing—a slow grinding exploitation of the earth’s resources for the profit of a wealthy few. Now it’s time to take our mass actions to the doorsteps of the fossil fuel industry and Occupy the Climate.

In the past year, we’ve organized and joined occupation actions from the Dept. of the Interior to the Montana statehouse to the streets of Salt Lake City and St. Louis. Now we’re part of the movement making the links between Big Oil, Big Coal and Wall Street.

In the past few months, Wild Idaho Rising Tide occupied the highways and byways of Moscow, Idaho fighting Exxon’s heavy haul tar sands shipments with rowdy street protests.

In Texas, Rising Tide North Texas continues to fight natural gas “fracking” and works with Occupy Denton to fight the corporate state.

Just yesterday, a crowd of 12,000 gathered in Washington D.C. to occupy and encircle the White House grounds to send a message of resistance to the TransCanada Keystone XL tar sands oil pipeline.

Read more at Tar Sands Action.

In the past two weeks, Portland Rising Tide standing shoulder to shoulder with Occupy Portland have taken over Bank of America branches with creative direct action. Bank of America is the biggest funder of coal in the U.S. and the biggest forecloser of homes. Portland’s N17 – Occupy the Banks will see a stepping up of collaboration with a call for decentralized, non-violent affinity-group based direct action against the funders of the economic/ecologic-crisis.

Join us and Occupy the Climate

Thanks for all you do.

With Love and Rage,
Rising Tide North America

As UK citizens are being told once again to "trust" the gatekeepers of the global banking system and as US citizens are realising that, despite a first amendment that guarantees freedom of speech and assembly, they are facing potentially lethal rubber bullets in Oakland and police brutality ranging from Tulsa, Oklahoma, to the streets of Manhattan, what is becoming clear is that a game-changing global shift is taking place.

The conflict is no longer between right and left, but between the "one per cent" – a corporatocracy that, without transparency or accountability, is claiming the lion's share of the planet's resources and capital, while disregarding democratic processes – and, well, the rest of us.'

This single global family, transcending national boundaries, just wants a peaceful life, a sustainable future, economic justice and basic democracy. On the other side, the global corporatocracy, also transcending national boundaries, has purchased governments and legislative processes, developed its own military, mercenary or quasi-military enforcers, engaged in systemic economic fraud and plundered treasuries and ecosystems.

What should global protest movements learn from what's happening around the world and what lessons should they draw from their own experiences?

My study of successful protest movements leads me to suggest the following:

¦ Democracy is disruptive. Around the world, peaceful protesters are being demonised for this, but there is no right in a democratic civil society to be free of disruption. Protesters ideally should read Gandhi and King and dedicate themselves to disciplined, long-term, non-violent disruption of business as usual – especially disruption of traffic. If they are peaceful, they can't be infiltrated by provocateurs as easily, while the unjust militarisation of the police response is more transparent. Also, the winning protest movements of the past were a matter of months or years, not days or hours; they involved sitting down or "occupying" areas for the long haul.

¦ Protesters need to raise their own money and use it to hire their own lawyers. The corporatocracy is terrified that citizens will get their hands on the mechanism of the law.

¦ Protesters should make their own media and not rely on mainstream media to cover them. They should learn to write opinion pieces and press releases, blog about and document their experiences and create web platforms where cases of police abuse (and the abusers) are logged and documented. Protesters should use their cameras and video cameras religiously. There are, unfortunately, many documented cases of violent provocateurs in demonstrations. This is why it is so important not to cover one's face in a protest: provocateurs need to be photographed and logged.

¦ Protesters in democracies should create email lists locally, sync the email lists nationally and start registering voters. They need to email their representatives the list of Occupy-registered voters in each district and commit to getting out the vote in congressional or parliamentary elections for Occupy-supporting candidates – while working to defeat Occupy-bashing candidates. In Oakland, California, the right has started a recall effort to force the mayor from office for being "soft on the protesters". Protest groups need to organise to oust politicians who are brutal to or suppressive of protesters. This tips the scale: in Albany, New York, for instance, police and the district attorney refused to crack down on protesters and chose to support their first amendment rights.

¦ The movement has been shy of identifying leaders, but I believe this is a mistake. A leader does not have to be a top-down hierarchist: a leader can be a simple representative. Protesters should elect representatives – for a given term just like in any democracy – and train them to talk to the press and to negotiate with politicians. These should span the spectrum: young people and grandparents, truckers and teachers and businesspeople. It is hard to cover the protest effectively if there are no spokespeople.

¦ Protests should be scenes not of clashes but instead should model the kind of civil society this emerging human family wants to live in. In Zuccotti Park, in Manhattan, for instance, there is a kitchen, food is donated for free, kids are invited to sleep over and there are teach-ins organised. Musicians should bring instruments, the vibe should be joyful and positive. If there is mess, protesters should clean it up themselves. The idea is to build a new city within the corrupt city and show that this is a reflection of the majority of society, not a marginal destructive element.

¦ Finally, we should understand that it is not a "list of demands" that is so profound about any of these protest movements; it is the very infrastructure of a common humanity that is being created. For decades, the global family has been told to keep its head down and leave leadership to the elites; in wealthy countries, to zone out in front of TV or at the mall; in the rest of the world, to submit to poverty and drudgery.

What is transformative about the protest movement is that people are emerging and encountering one another face to face and remembering the habits of freedom: face to face, they build new institutions, new relationships and new organisations.

And, I hope, pass laws sooner rather than later to demilitarise the police; ban Tasers and rubber bullets; criminalise police and politician violence against free speech activities; demand prosecutions for financial fraud; compel the corporate books that unaccountably swallow billions in tax revenue to be audited; investigate torturers; bring home soldiers from corporate wars of choice – and rebuild society, this time from the grassroots up, accountably, lawfully and democratically.

First The Queensland Government Gives A Public Property To A Developer, Now They're Using Our Taxes To Compartmentalise Its Destruction

Email to supporters from the Yungaba Action Group [6/11/11]:

Dear Yungaba supporters,

It has been a long time since I last contacted you and I hope that the intervening time has treated you well.

It has been a sad time for me when I think of the destruction that has been happening at the Yungaba site and the ignorance of our political leaders who facilitated this loss of our history.

But I often think of the YAG supporters with admiration for the support that you each gave to try to achieve a different result. It is very heartening to think that so many fellow Queenslanders recognized the significance of the site and were prepared to stand up and speak out for its preservation.

I have been contacted by an artist who has been commissioned to produce a piece of public artwork to commemorate immigration on the site.

Please see the two attachments where she describes this project. She has asked me to pass on these details to YAG supporters.

As you will recall, when the Minister called in our appeal and awarded the development to Australand (without recourse to any appeal) YAG wrote to him and requested that there should be an extensive documentation project done on the significance of the site and of its function and that public art pieces should be created for the site commemorating immigration and the other significant uses of the site, including deportation point for South Sea Islanders, major military hospital for wounded Queensland WW1 soldiers, design office for Story Bridge Construction, etc.

I have not heard that there has been any further documentation done of the site, but it is good to see that at least some public art has been commissioned.

Therefore, I am happy to pass along the artist’s request to you. Once again, greetings to you and thanks again for your support to try to save Yungaba.

Kind regards

To those who Occupy: We stand with you.

We, the Ben & Jerry’s Board of Directors, compelled by our personal convictions and our Company’s mission and values, wish to express our deepest admiration to all of you who have initiated the non-violent Occupy Wall Street Movement and to those around the country who have joined in solidarity. The issues raised are of fundamental importance to all of us.

These include:

* The inequity that exists between classes in our country is simply immoral.
* We are in an unemployment crisis. Almost 14 million people are unemployed. Nearly 20% of African American men are unemployed. Over 25% of our nation’s youth are unemployed.
* Many workers who have jobs have to work 2 or 3 of them just to scrape by.
* Higher education is almost impossible to obtain without going deeply in debt.
* Corporations are permitted to spend unlimited resources to influence elections while stockpiling a trillion dollars rather than hiring people.

We know the media will either ignore you or frame the issue as to who may be getting pepper sprayed rather than addressing the despair and hardships borne by so many, or accurately conveying what this movement is about. All this goes on while corporate profits continue to soar and millionaires whine about paying a bit more in taxes. And we have not even mentioned the environment.

We know that words are relatively easy but we wanted to act quickly to demonstrate our support. As a board and as a company we have actively been involved with these issues for years but your efforts have put them out front in a way we have not been able to do. We have provided support to citizens’ efforts to rein in corporate money in politics, we pay a livable wage to our employees, we directly support family farms and we are working to source fairly traded ingredients for all our products. But we realize that Occupy Wall Street is calling for systemic change. We support this call to action and are honored to join you in this call to take back our nation and democracy.

— Ben & Jerry’s Board of Directors

We Know You Have A Delivery Van

Peace Sells Ice Cream In Brisbane's King George Square [29/3/11]

Christians For The Occupy Movement

This has been set up by two Christians from Melbourne Australia, Simon Moyle and Jessica Morrison, who are supporters of the worldwide Occupy movement. We have no political affiliations.

This site exists to be a place for Christians to express their support for the Occupy movement, not in order to separate ourselves from the rest of the movement but as a recognition of the diversity of those involved.

We encourage you to get involved with your local Occupy group.

If you’d like to contact the administrators or submit a piece for the blog reflecting on the connections between Occupy and Christianity, email us at christiansforoccupy[at]gmail.com.

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