| While the eyes of the nation have been transfixed on the uprising in Wisconsin, Republicans in Ohio have used an unprecedented parliamentary maneuver to railroad their own version of a union busting bill through the legislature. The unpopular measure known as as SB5 makes public sector strikes illegal and mirrors ... |
| hapworth writes "The International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) has submitted a report on the top 40 countries guilty of piracy to The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR), which is preparing for its annual 'Special 301' report. This report describes the adequacy and effectiveness of US trading partners' protection of intellectual property rights. Among the 40 countries suggested by the IIPA for the watch list, 13 were recommended for placement on the USTR's 'Priority Watch List.' These countries include Argentina, Canada, Chile, China, India, Indonesia, Russia, Costa Rica, the Philippines, Spain, Ukraine, and Vietnam. While previous reports have focused on physical piracy, this year's emphasizes cracking down on online piracy." |
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Can we stop referring to what's happening in Libya as a "protest"? We have armed rebel forces engaging in guerilla combat with bazookas and heavy artillery, taking and losing cities. This is officially a civil war. [link]
| Die Vereinigten Staaten, Großbritannien und die europäischen Mächte bereiten sich auch mit militärischen Mitteln auf eine Intervention in Libyen vor. Sie hoffen den Volksaufstand gegen das Muammar-Gaddafi-Regime nutzen zu können, um die Kontrolle über die libyschen Ölfelder zu übernehmen und sich eine wichtige Basis für weitere Operationen in der Region zu verschaffen. Mehrere Diktaturen, auf die sie sich jahrelang gestützt haben, stehen dort unter starkem Druck. |
| Großbritannien hat im EU-Rat beantragt, das geplante System zur Auswertung von Flugpassagierdaten auf innereuropäische Flüge auszudehnen. Der Vorstoß der EU-Kommission sieht bislang vor, allein internationale Luftreisen zu erfassen, die aus der EU hinausgehen oder in einem Mitgliedsstaat aus dem weiter entfernten Ausland ankommen. |
| Am frühen Freitagmorgen verabschiedete das Parlament des amerikanischen Bundesstaats Wisconsin mit überwältigender Mehrheit das von dem republikanischen Gouverneur Scott Walker verlangte Gesetz, mit dem Löhne und Sozialleistungen drastisch gekürzt und die Tarifautonomie für Angestellte des öffentlichen Dienstes im ganzen Land faktisch abgeschafft werden. |
| Die Regierung Perus hat in geheimen Dokumenten zugegeben, dass 70-90% seiner Mahagoni-Exporte illegal abgeholzt wurden. |
| Mehrfach fragten Angehörige des al Gaddafi-Clans bei der Bundesregierung um Unterstützung für den Ausbau der Polizei Libyens nach. Offiziell wurde die Bitte zurückgewiesen; inoffiziell fanden sich jedoch Wege, ihr zu entsprechen: Eine private deutsche Security-Firma entsandte rund 30 aus dem Dienst ausgeschiedene deutsche Polizisten nach Tripolis, darunter ehemalige Angehörige eines Sondereinsatzkommandos und der Spezialeinheit GSG9. Diese trainierten libysche Kollegen unter anderem in "taktischem Vorgehen beim Zugriff auf Gebäuden", im Entern von Schiffen und im Absetzen aus Hubschraubern. Sowohl der BND wie auch das Auswärtige Amt waren über alle Aktivitäten informiert. |
30,000,000 are losing their homes, 50,000,000 have no health care, but we have another 100 billion $ for War. How do we support the troops? We support them by bringing them home - Dennis Kucinich [link]
The Ivory Coast president, Laurent Gbagbo, has cut off electricity and water supplies to millions of people in the north of the country "for political reasons", the UN has said. [link]
New Texas bills would ban TSA Body Scanners, reject searches without probable cause. Felony charges for TSA agents. [link]
Forget Wisconsin for a minute. The entire teaching force was just FIRED in Providence, RI! [link]
| The U.S. Air Force's most mysterious spacecraft is headed back into orbit after a four-month hiatus. The military still won't say what it's doing up there. |
| A federal judge in Florida on Thursday refused to order the Obama administration to stop implementing its far-reaching healthcare law, a small victory for President Barack Obama in his high-stakes effort to overhaul the U.S. healthcare system. |
| Most Americans -- including independents -- don't want spending cuts. The GOP's agenda is appealing to its far-right base, not the American mainstream. |
| In a powerful ruling for government transparency and accountability, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected so-called privacy protections for corporate entities under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). |
| Republican Governor Scott Walker's war on the public unions in Wisconsin could change the game across the U.S. in 2012 |
| The world's first artificial partial lung transplant carried out on a 78-year-old patient with lung cancer has been declared a success, two and a half years after the operation took place. |
Fox blames Obama for oil subsidies...even though he proposed to end those subsidies last month...and then GOP voted to protect them. [link]
| CWmike writes "Documents obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) suggest that the US Department of Homeland Security has signed contracts for the development of mobile and static systems that can be used scan pedestrians and people at rail and bus stations and special event venues - apparently at times without their knowledge. Under consideration: An Intelligent Pedestrian Surveillance platform; an X-Ray Backscatter system that could detect concealed metallic and high-density plastic objects on people from up to 10 meters away; a walk-through x-ray screening system that could be deployed at entrances to special events or other points of interest, which could be installed in corridors and likely scan people walking through it without them knowing it, EPIC said."Read more of this story |
For months, Republicans have relentlessly promoted the Tea Party-driven message that the government spends too much, and that social welfare programs should be first on the chopping block. "To not address entitlement programs, as is the case with the budget the president has put forward, would be an economic and moral failure," House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) declared.
But a comprehensive new Wall Street Journal-NBC News poll suggests Republicans significantly overestimated the public's eagerness to tackle the federal deficit by cutting programs like Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. As reflected in the growing "Main Street Movement," the poll, released yesterday, found sizable majorities of Americans prefer steps like eliminating oil company subsidies, enacting a surtax on the income of millionaires, and rolling back the Bush cuts. Only 23 percent think it's acceptable to, for example, make cuts to Medicare, while 81 percent favor instituting a millionaire's surtax:
Additionally, only 22 percent of respondents favored cuts to Social Security (with 77 percent finding it unacceptable). Majorities also opposed reducing funding for K through 12 education, unemployment insurance, and Planned Parenthood. (House Republicans already pushed through an effort to defund Panned Parenthood, claiming Americans supported their efforts.)
Reacting to the results, one GOP pollster told NBC's First Read that Republicans may have gravely miscalculated in their headlong rush slash spending, as demanded by the Tea Party. "It may be hard to understand why a person might jump off a cliff, unless you understand they're being chased by a tiger. That tiger is the Tea Party," he said.
| Tunisia's interim president Fouad Mebazaa says elections for an assembly to rewrite the constitution will take place by 24 July. |
| Etliche Millionen Euro sind den Parteien im Superwahljahr 2009 in die Kassen geflossen, doch von wem, das war bis jetzt ein gut gehütetes Geheimnis. Dieser Tage hat Bundestagspräsident Norbert Lammert die Rechenschaftsberichte der Parteien heimlich, still und leise ins Netz gestellt, und so lässt sich endlich die Frage beantworten: Welches Unternehmen, welcher Verband, welche Privatperson ist CDU, CSU, SPD, FDP, Grüne und Linke so verbunden, dass sie sie 2009 mit einer Großspende bedachte? [..] |
| A controversial project to build a huge dam in Brazil's Amazon rainforest is approved by a court, overturning an earlier ruling. |
Two of every three Americans oppose Gingrich's plan to abolish the EPA.
- 63 percent of Americans across party lines "want the government to be doing more than it's currently doing" to hold polluters accountable.
- Nearly seven in 10 "believe that EPA scientists, rather than Congress, should set pollution standards."
To be fair, Scott is not the first
| Trotz Anbauverbot für die Sorte Mon 810 ist der Landkreis Kitzingen bundesweite Hochburg für Genmais. Knapp 90 Hektar (Bund: 160 Hektar) an 15 Standorten stehen im Standortregister des Bundesamts für Verbraucherschutz. |
| Nobody's going to shed a tear for an oiled microbe, but the Deepwater Horizon's impacts include bacteria, underscoring just how subtle and fundamental the blowout's ecological consequences may be. |
| Die Länder des Südens nehmen eine strategische Position ein. Ihr Ziel ist es, eine Militärinvasion der USA zu verhindern. ie Haltung des venezolanischen Präsidenten Hugo Chávez und auch die seiner Amtskollegen aus Kuba und Nicaragua im Fall Libyen ist auf den ersten Blick schwer nachzuvollziehen. Warum, so fragt sich die halbe Welt, sind die Lateinamerikaner nicht gegen Gaddafi? Mittlerweile scheint klar zu sein, so Politikwissenschaftler und Berliner Gazette-Autor Dario Azzellini, dass es sich hier um eine strategische Position handelt: Es gilt eine Militärinvasion der USA zu verhindern. |
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Rep. Fred Upton (R-MI) today introduced legislation with Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-OK) to block the Environmental Protection Agency from implementing Clean Air Act protections against global warming pollution, rejecting the counsel of America's public health advocates. A boon to Koch Industries and the other polluters who supported his campaign, Upton's legislation would nullify the EPA's Supreme Court-mandated scientific finding that burning fossil fuels is damaging our climate system. At a climate hearing on this week Upton justified his legislation by claiming the threat greenhouse gases pose to air quality and public health is a "myth":
So let's dispel a myth: air quality and public health will not be harmed or affected in any way by efforts to slow and then stop EPA's expansive global warming agenda under the Clean Air Act. . . . . So we can stop the EPA from imposing cap and tax and the Clean Air Act will continue to make our families and communities healthier places. So let's listen to the facts: this issue is not about air quality and public health, it's about jobs.
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| Asunción. Sicherheitskräfte haben am Montag den ehemaligen Generaldirektor des Berufsbildungswerkes der Adolph-Kolping-Stiftung in Paraguay festgenommen. Grund dafür war Berichten der Zeitung ABC zufolge ein internationaler Haftbefehl gegen den 45-jährigen, der in Paraguay unter dem Namen "Thomas Schilling" auftrat. Laut Interpol habe Schilling im Jahr 2005 in Deutschland mehrere Menschen um ihr Geld betrogen, das sie ihm für eine Arbeitsstelle im Ausland zur Verfügung gestellt hatten. |
| Citizens of oil producing nations must see more benefit from their country's national resources, billionaire investor George Soros has told the BBC. |
