200,000 people besiege Prime Minister's palace in Tokyo against nuclear restart

As I forecast last Friday, Japan is reaching a Tahrir moment of sorts. The usually conformist Japanese People is finally founding their strength, angry at the nuclear mismanagement and systematic corruption and power abuse at the expense of their very lives. 

At least 200,000 people rallied at Prime Minister Noda's official residence in Tokyo. However, unlike in previous demonstrations, in this case people got really angry and took over the palace, overwhelming the police forces, apparently. 

Source: Fukushima Diary (many sequential posts):

• The demonstration is going to be bigger than ever: 40,000 before its start
• Demonstration started
• Over 60,000 people joined
• Over 80,000 joined the demonstration
• Aerial movie of the demonstration
• 100,000 people joined the demonstration. Going out of control
• Riot police barricaded official residence
• Demonstration of 200,000 people occupied official residence (photos)
• 200,000 demonstration from the sky. Noda: 'it's a big sound' (videos)

_______________________
Tahrir: Arabic for freedom

Spanish toxic "rescue" makes private loses into public debt

That's what Joseba Garmendia, economist from the University of the Basque Country: the private loses of the rescued banks now become by the magic of political babble into the public debt of you and me, who were not involved in the matter at all originally.

In the next three years the financing demand will be brutal and if the current interest rate of 6-7% remains it will become a snowball of unpredictable consequences. 

Greece, Ireland and Portugal have been intervened for more than two years and, in spite of all the cuts, they have not been able to reduce public debt, but rather to increase it. Anyhow, emphasizes the economist, it is not any novel medicine: the IMF has been applying it for some 30 years with awful results.

He says that the Spanish government does not only cause distrust inside but also outside. The reforms they have applied are barbarities and, if they follow that way, they can only continue with the orthodoxy of economic austerity and keep cutting what will depress even more the economy.

He instead recommends to spend more, not necessarily by increasing the deficit (although if need be...) but by raising the taxes for the rich and to corporations.

Source: NAIZ[es].

Basque Nationalist Left warns against toxic 'rescue'

Image of the press conference

For the ample coalition EH Bildu, that gathers (as it name implies: bildu=to gather) various left-wing and independentist forces of the Basque Country, the rescue of the Spanish banks is a very negative deal. For the Basque Leftist coalition:

• The conservative Spanish government is and will use all this to demolish the rights of the citizens.
• The government has offered no information at all to the public.
• The EU has in fact intervened Spain from some time ago (hence the neoliberal policies and antisocial cuts applied long before this "rescue").
• The rescue is tailor-made for the needs of Capital.
• The authorities are laying all the weight of the most severe economic crisis on the backs of the citizenry, even if we are not responsible, let alone guilty, for it.
• The culprits are the bank managers and their crony politicians which have brought us to this awful situation.

They conclude that Spain is now an even more unbearable burden for the Basque Country.

Source: NAIZ[es].

A majority of Catalans want independence

Exactly 51.1% would vote for it right now in a hypothetical referendum, according to a telephone opinion poll of a sample of 2500 conducted by the Generalitat this month. Only 21% would vote against it if given the chance, while another 21% would abstain. Even a sensible fraction (9%) of voters of such an extremist unionist party as the People's Party (conservative, ex-NeoFascist) would vote for independence. 

Also 56% think that Catalonia would be better than it is now if it would have been an independent state, while 69% think that the self-government allowed to Catalonia is insufficient.

A different question asked is what model would they think that Catalonia should be, to which citizens replied:

• 34% that an independent state
• 29% that a federated state
• 25% that an autonomous community (current status)

This shows that some of the independence voters could be satisfied with a greater degree of self rule that would be constitutionally guaranteed (federal model) but still prefer independence over the current status quo. The figure of people supporting independence as first option has grown almost three times since 2006, when they were only 14%. 

77% want Catalonia to collect its own taxes, instead of the current system by which the central state does, then returning an arbitrary amount to the corresponding region. Only 17% oppose.

23% declare to feel exclusively Catalan, 30% more Catalan than Spanish, 37% as much Catalan as Spanish, 4% more Spanish than Catalan, 4% exclusively Spanish.

Other results of interest from this public opinion poll are:

Main perceived problems: work precariousness (57%) and the economic situation (52%), followed at some distance by political matters: dissatisfaction with politics (24%), Catalan financing system (14%), Catalonia-Spain relations (12%). 

When asked for only one answer the issue of labor precariousness is still leading (39%), followed by economic situation (24%) and dissatisfaction with politics (10%). 

Eight people (0.3%) claimed that there are no problems worth worrying about in Catalonia.

Politics:  

There is obvious dissatisfaction with politics and lack of real democracy (popular participation in decision-making) seems the main issue.

Dissatisfaction: 

48% think that no party can give a good answer to the problems of the country, followed by 19% who don't know and 14% who think it is the nationalist conservative Convergence and Union (CiU) party. 

62% think that the political situation of Catalonia is bad or very bad, while only 20% think it's good or very good. 

88% think that the political situation of Spain is bad or very bad, versus only 5% who think of it as good or very good.

49% have low satisfaction with how "our democracy" works, 23% are quite satisfied and 22% absolutely dissatisfied. Only 2% are very satisfied.

83% believes that politicians don't pay attention to what people thinks, 78% believes that politicians' main goal is selfish profit, 60% that common people can't actually influence politics, 67% that politics is too complex to understand easily,

Possible solutions: 

1. Increasing popular participation in major decision-making: 45% as first option, 22% as second option
2. Fighting price inflation: 25% as first option, 31% as second option
3. Protect freedom of speech: 13% as first option, 27% as second option
4. Keep order: 13% as first option, 17% as second option

Solutions for 10 years from now (several options possible):

1. Increase popular participation in major  decision-making: 65%
2. Fighting price inflation: 55%
3. Protecting freedom of speech: 38%
4. Keeping order: 28%

Media: 

Internet still plays a minor role in political formation of Catalans (35%), while traditional mass media weight a lot (TV: 83%, newspapers: 62%, radio 45%, acquaintances: 45%). Among TV stations, the most commonly watched by far is the Catalan-language TV3 (57%).

In Internet, blogs have a very minor share (3%) of political information, while "social networks" are more important (12%). Digital newspapers still have the share of the lion, with Catalan newspaper La Vanguardia being the main online reference (30%), followed by Spanish El País (17%) and Catalan El Periódico de Catalunya (16%).

Economy:

Catalan economy: 82% think that the Catalan economy is bad (52%) or very bad (30%), while only 7% think it's good or very good. 76% think that the situation is worse than a year ago, while only 3% believe it has improved. 

Spanish economy: 84% think it's bad (34%) or very bad (60%), while only 2% believe it's good or very good.

Personal economy: 51% say it is worse than the previous year, 44% that it is the same and 5% that it is better.

Refs. CEO poll[cat], Público[es].

Radiation levels at Fukushima Daiichi 1 can kill in minutes

Record radiation levels have been reported at reactor number 1 of the crippled Japanese nuclear power plant Fukushima Daiichi, amounting to 10.3 sieverts per hour.

Wikipedia: Doses greater than 1 sievert received over a short time period are likely to cause radiation poisoning, possibly leading to death within weeks.

Fox: ... a dose that will kill humans within a short time after making them sick within minutes.

Source: Fox, h/t Enenews.

Brutal Nazi attack in Majorca against Germans

Three strong young men with shaven heads and dressing with Nazi T-shirts (slogan: Kombat 88, where the 88 means Heil Hitler) attacked some German tourists in the beach of Palma de Mallorca, sending them to hospital, where they remain under intense medical care.

The attackers are believed to be also German and could well be doorkeepers of one of the many German-language pubs or discos in the island. So far no arrest has taken place.

Hunger strike at Georgia (USA) Prison

I remind that the prison system in the USA is particularly oppressive, unjust, racist and above all a form of slavery.

From Black Agenda Report:

Starving For Change: Hunger Strike Underway In Georgia's Jackson State Prison, Day 15

by BAR manging editor Bruce A. Dixon

18 months ago, black, brown and white Georgia prisoners staged a courageous protest demanding wages for work, educational opportunities, transparency in probation reviews and more. State officials unleashed a wave of exemplary brutality that continues to this day, away from the eyes of the public. It's time to turn our eyes where they belong --- at the crimes committed with our money and in our name, in our prisons and jails. And think about a fast on the outside, July 2, in solidarity with the hunter strikers inside Georgia's prisons.

Starving For Change: Hunger Strike Underway In Georgia's Jackson State Prison, Day 15

by BAR manging editor Bruce A. Dixon

Some of the protesters

Since June 10, according to accounts from prisoners and their families and Rev. Kenneth Glasgow of The Ordinary Peoples Society and the Prodigal Child Project, an undetermined number of prisoners at Georgia's massive Diagnostic and Classification Prison near the city of Jackson have been on a hunger strike.

Back in December 2010, black, brown and white inmates in several Georgia prisons staged a peaceful protest remaining in their dorms and cells rather than go to meals or work assignments. Their reasonable demands included wages for work, speedier and more transparent status reviews, decent food, real medical care, a more sane visitation policy and the availability of educational and vocational programs behind the walls. State corrections officials responded with temporary cutoffs of heat, water and electricity in some buildings, along with an orgy of savage assaults and beatings across multiple institutions statewide. In one instance, corrections officials apparently conspired to conceal the whereabouts and condition of one prisoner who lingered near death in a coma for most of a week while they shuffled him hundreds of miles between prisons and hospitals.

State corrections say they rounded up 37 whom they believed were the strike leaders and put them under close confinement at Jackson, the same prison where Troy Davis was executed last year. Most of these prisoners have remained there in close confinement, with severely restricted access to visits, communication and their attorneys, and without medical attention for the past 18 months.

... continue reading at BAR.

Fukushima: so where is the spent fuel? Is it burning?

Where is all the spent fuel, the extremely dirty plutonium and MOX stored on top of the reactor number four of Fukushima Daiichi? TEPCO has just removed the top of the building (which was collapsing) and the cooling pool where it is supposed to be is not there anymore. Not in the top floor nor anywhere to be seen.

The pool, which can be seen in the older picture of the right (source) should be on top of the crumbling building but there is no more "top" nor middle nor almost anything...

The state of the top section of the building, or rather all of it, had been concern of specialized blogs. Today TEPCO has finally proceeded to intervene in said building, aparently by removing damaged sections but the result is a topless (and quite middle-less) building where there could be no more any spent fuel pool, the source of many grave concerns.

This and other videos show how the building has not much of itself anymore and also shows a burning flame and what seem like some sort of vapor clouds:

So where is it?

More at EneNews and Fukushima Diary.

Spain: Black March continues while the media censors it

As reaction against the Spanish media silencing the protest of the coal miners, they have created a YouTube channel.

Arrival to La Pola del Gordón yesterday:

Spanish coal miners are struggling for public aids that could keep their companies viable. They also complain that all the money supposedly dedicated to the socio-economic recycling of the coal districts never reached them.

Ref. Madriz Rebelde[es].

Bilbao: another social center evicted

The building has been empty for decades but as soon as people take it over to give it some social use, the owners and the authorities attack its newly acquired soul and kill it again to languish as a piece of useless, abandoned, skeletal urban territory.

Patakon Gaztetxea* was evicted early this morning by a strong display of Western Basque Police (Ertzaintza), accompanied by the owners of the building and some alleged attorneys. The doors were wielded with steel planks.

There are the following activities scheduled in protest:

• Right now: press conference
• Today at 19:00 - demo
• Thursday at 11:00 - cacerolada** at the town hall

Source: Sare Antifaxista[es/eu] (includes several other photos).

Update: Check also the website of Patakon Gaztetxea[es/eu]. The press conference is also in video already[es/eu]. As the members of the Youth Assembly say: a gaztetxe costs essentially nothing and reaches to many more people than many of the costly "cultural" expenses of our wasteful institutions.

________________________

Notes:

* Gaztetxe (Basque): lit. youth home, akin in practical concept to occupied social center.

 ** Cacerolada: making lots of noise by beating pots (cazuelas in Spanish, a quite spectacular South American protest tradition).

Venezuela: Native Americans murdered by Colombian cross-border fascist attack

Imperialist neofascist agitation in South America continues escalating way too fast. 

Three Yukpa leaders (brothers Alexander and José Luis Fernández Fernández, as well as Leonel Romero) were kidnapped by a group of masked hitmen with Colombia accent at Machiques del Perijá (Zulia, Venezuela). Two of them were found dead later on, while Alexander Fernánded (pictured) was still alive but shot in both eyes. 

Relatives of the victims blame fascist death squads ("sicarios") that operate in Colombia under the command of powerful cattle owner capitalist clans which are trying to evict the Natives from their ancestral lands under the passivity of the Colombian Government. The particular squad seems to be mad up of 20 hitmen under the command of "El Loco" (Madman) Reinaldo.

It was in that same place where relatives of the victimes were also murdered and injured in December 2011. Later on April this year other three relatives of leader Sabino Romero were also murdered.

The bourgeois creole caciques in the Venezuelan side of the border are also rallying the white and mestizo population against the Natives, exposing them to victimization. These are the kind of forces that support the neocolonialist reaction, forces of racist hatred and forces of mafioso corruption and murderous violence that should be stopped immediately on risk of even worse consequences for all.

Source: Kaos[es].

Labor rights do not have room among the bourgeois rights' "watchdogs"

Naked Capitalism has a quite interesting entry today where it shows how the main internationally acknowledged human rights' watchdogs totally disdain labor rights. 

Instead they have full sections in their websites about "business rights", showing who is their real master. 

We are talking here about Human Rights' Watch (HRW), Amnesty International (AI) and US-restricted Union for Civil Liberties of America (UCLA). 

Incidentally all the three are located in Anglo-Saxon countries. I am not really too knowledgeable about UCLA for its US-only dimensions but HRW has been often accused of being a CIA cover up, just like USAID. But Amnesty is generally much more respected. 

But how can we respect an organization that has just appointed as its new US head someone, Suzanne Nossel, who supports the genocide in Gaza?! She is a former US Department of State high officer and also a former HRW chief operating officer, a total CIA dog!

Whatever the case it is worth noticing that in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights there are articles that read:

Article 23

(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment. 

(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. 

(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. 

(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 24

Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Article 25

(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control. 

(...)

Article 26

(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

(...)

These do not seem important in the work of the so-called human rights' watchdogs, unlike "business rights".

Putschist agitation extends to Bolivia

Some 4000 police agents have mutinied in Bolivia, allegedly on a dispute on salaries, occupying police stations through the country. 300 of them, masked, raided and vandalized the National Intelligence Directorate and then attacked also the national police headquarters in La Paz, while their colleagues on guard remained watching. 

The National Intelligence Directorate was vandalized by masked policemen

The government then declared a national alert and warned that policemen are moving weaponry around, between stations, pressuring some units to give surrender their weapons and moving them to stations that had no such equipment. 

The Army has been mobilized to take charge of security instead of the rebel police agents. 

The illegal police protests began on Tuesday but have increased in severity since then and, after the legal coup of nearby Paraguay, considering who is behind and that police mobilizations were also used to trigger a coup attempt two years ago in Ecuador, there is serious concern that the USA is trying to destabilize the whole region. 

Sources: Al Jazeera, Tele Sur[es].

Paraguay: Lugo deposed in a mock "trial". Massive protests in Asunción, violent repression

The President elect of Paraguay was deposed today by the Senate, dominated by the oligarchic parties that collaborated with the philo-Nazi dictatorship of Stroessner. The mock "political trial" or impeachment was executed in a matter of hours and there were no specific charges just vague accusations of mismanagement in relation with deadly clashes on June 15th. It was indeed political but anything but a fair trial. 

Lugo, who was never really the left-wing president that his voters had hoped for but rather dubious in his performance, signing all the fascist laws presented to him by the oligarchy-dominated Congress, has now, in the day of his removal, become a catalyst for change in Paraguay. Change that is clearly delayed in relation to neighboring countries. 

It may be borderline legal but in practical terms this is a coup and what is happening in the streets of Asunción demonstrates that it is a fascist coup against the People and democracy, because it is the People who are being injured and maybe killed by the police today in the streets of the Guarani capital.

Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has already proposed that Paraguay is suspended of its membership in MERCOSUR and UNASUR, the South American common markets, which may be a major blow to the landlocked country. 

Atilio Boron[es] has some analysis (his own and from Idilio Méndez Grimaldi) on why was Lugo removed. Notable remarks

• The massacre of Curuguaty (the pretext of the impeachment) was a set up of the oligarchy
• Lugo failed to not consolidate the mass movement that had him elected and gestured once and again towards compromise with the Reaction
• Consolidation of the extractionist (neo-colonial) economy led by US multinational Monsanto, which were already pressuring the Lugo government to yield unconditionally to their demands
• Agitation by the Agrarian Capitalist Sydicate, the UGP, leading to the massacre of of Curuguaty and a tractor march planned for June 25
• An internal set-up within the police leading to the deaths of six agents and, subsequently, to the massacre of a dozen landless peasants blamed for those deaths.
• Among those dead agents was the brother of the chief of presidential security, Lt. Colonel Alcides Lovera, a very direct message to Lugo and those loyal to him within the Police and Army.
• The fact that the massacre happened near the border with Brazil may be a message to the wider Latin American region by "The Embassy" (you know whose embassy, of course).

Sources: Al Jazeera, Tele Sur[es] (link 1, link 2),

Update (Jun 23):

ALBA countries agree to expel USAID from their territories for considering it a cover up for spying and imperialist interference, financing the most reactionary elements in Latin America ··> LINyM[es].

Argentina and Bolivia, the two other neighbors of Paraguay, beside Brazil, have also rejected the coup. Argentine President Cristina Fernández proclaimed that her government will not validate the coup in Paraguay, while Bolivian President Evo Morales said that Bolivia will only recognize a Paraguayan government if this one comes out from the polling stations and has the mandate of the People.

Similarly Ecuador declined to recognize any President of  Paraguay which is not Lugo.

··> TeleSur[es].

And speaking of Tahrir...

... it's boiling again.

As the Military Junta has moved to take over all powers, dissolve Parliament and, arguably, tamper with the presidential election so a former Mubarak minister takes the position... the Egyptian People has taken again to the streets. 

Source: Al Jazeera.

Is Japan heading for a Tahrir moment?

Something that is clearly leading the way against the systemic corruption of political leaders these days are spontaneous demos called out by means of Internet, which sometimes capture the social mood and become snowballs that can't be stopped until they complete their natural trajectory.

This seems to be happening in Japan right now. After various weak attempts to organized demonstrations and popular resistance against the criminal institutional mismanagement of the nuclear catastrophe of Fukushima, the reopening of the Ooi nuclear power plant seems to have finally drawn Japanese people to the streets to vent out their anger at the gates of the Prime Minister's palace. 

The Japanese are a very formal and generally disciplined people who are not easy to come out to protest. In this sense, the growing numbers of the latest Tweeter-called protests are ringing all the alarms in the East Asian Police State (alleged "democracy" where the will or even the safety and health of the People does not matter at all).

Last Friday it was 11,000, today it has been 45,000, they are hoping to bring at least 100,000 to the next Friday's protest. 

Naturally the oligarchs in Japan, the USA and all around the World are most worried: how do they dare to challenge authority and demand their right to health and a livable environment?! How do they dare to challenge the designs of the Nuclear lobby and the all-powerful Military-Industrial Complex?!

Because they have nothing to lose anymore. You are pushing us all too far... and the Japanese People are no exception. Things are changing even if you do not realize: the Peoples of the World are wakening to their real power. 

Update: some more info and photos at Ex-SKF.

Six arrested in Madrid for minor sabotages to subway

Six people have been arrested in Madrid today accused of three different actions, one of them failed, in which the service of the Metro (subway) was delayed by means of massive simultaneous use of the emergency breaks. 

The protests were done against the massive rise of fares by institutions which, instead of cutting in the non-essential assault citizens in the essential things. 

Ref. El País[es].

45,000 rally against the reopening of nuclear power plants in Tokyo

Some 45,000 people rallied today in Tokyo, before the residence of the Prime Minister, in protest of the decision to reopen (not needed) nuclear power plants even if the country is struggling with an unprecedented crisis caused by the catastrophic meltdown of several reactors in Fukushima Daiichi and possibly other better hidden nuclear facilities. 

An hour-long video of the demo can be watched at UStream (I was told the other day that what they so insistingly cry out loud means "no to restart!").

Source: Fukushima Diary.

Zionist censorship and labor rights violation in North Carolina University supported by state's Supreme Court

Dr. Terri Ginsberg (pictured) was expelled from North Carolina University for expressing opinions opposed to the genocidal, colonialist and racist state of Israel and was appealing before the courts. Sadly I have just been informed that the North Carolina Supreme Court has decided to support this violation of human, civil and labor rights. Press release follows:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE – June 22, 2012

For more information, contact:

Rima Najjar Kapitan, Esq.

Kapitan Law Office, Ltd.

+1 (312) 566-9590 

We regret to report that the North Carolina Supreme Court decided in conference on June 13 to deny a Petition for Discretionary Review filed last December by film scholar Terri Ginsberg. The Petition asked the Court to reconsider a North Carolina Court of Appeals decision affirming a November 2010 lower court dismissal of Dr. Ginsberg’s lawsuit against North Carolina State University (NCSU). In October 2009, Dr. Ginsberg filed a complaint alleging violation of her right to academic freedom under the North Carolina constitution.

Dr. Ginsberg had been denied a tenure-track position because of the University’s discomfort with her scholarly speech and writing critical of Israeli policy and Zionism and favoring Palestinian rights and self-determination. The Court’s Order to deny Dr. Ginsberg’s Petition offers neither an opinion nor a reason for the decision. Dr. Ginsberg’s Petition was supported by an Open Letter sponsored by several national and international human rights organizations and delivered on February 7, 2012 to both the North Carolina Supreme Court and NCSU Chancellor Randy Woodson. As of its closure on June 22, the Open Letter had accrued 1274 signatures. Dr. Ginsberg states in both of these documents that by ignoring her voluminous evidence of an academic freedom violation, the Court of Appeals set a dangerous precedent by which academic employers have been given carte blanche to suppress the politically unpopular speech of their faculty, to the detriment of North Carolina students and to public discourse generally.

Dr. Ginsberg’s appeal was rejected despite direct and circumstantial evidence that NCSU took employment actions against her for unconstitutional reasons. During depositions held in June 2010, NCSU’s witnesses, including Prof. Marsha Orgeron, director of the Film Studies Program, and Prof. Akram Khater, director of the

Middle East Studies Program, admitted to having reacted negatively to Ginsberg’s supportive statements at a screening of a Palestinian film, Ticket to Jerusalem, during which she thanked the audience for attending and thereby supporting the airing of Palestinian liberation perspectives such as the views displayed in the film.

Profs. Orgeron and Khater stated that Dr. Ginsberg’s comments caused them to worry that members of the audience would perceive the Film Studies and Middle East Studies programs as “biased.” Shortly thereafter, Dr. Ginsberg was forced to resign from the Middle East screening series that she had helped curate; NCSU then chose not to interview or hire her for a tenure-track position for which she had previously been ranked asthe top candidate. She was rejected despite NCSU’s admission that she was more qualified than the candidate NCSU eventually hired, because her scholarship had “too much focus on Jewish/Israel,” in the words of one search committee member. The Film Studies Program did not purchase Palestinian films for her Spring 2008 course on Israeli–Palestinian conflict cinema, and she was shunned from further extra-curricular and departmental activities until her termination that May.

The Court’s dismissal is particularly troubling in the wake of Arizona’s recent outlawing of Chicano/a studies curricula in that state’s educational system, and as pro-Zionist groups in California are attempting to force California State University–Northridge to forbid mathematics professor David Klein from posting to his faculty website information about the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in support of human rights for Palestinians.

Dr. Ginsberg says she has not given up on her quest for justice from North Carolina State University and encourages supporters to e-mail letters of protest to Chancellor Woodson (see sample letter) requesting that she be permitted a long-overdue campus grievance hearing. Dr. Ginsberg also plans to approach BDS about issuing a boycott of NCSU. For more information about Dr. Ginsberg’s case, please visit the website Ginsberg vs. NCSU.

See also at Electronic Intifada.

Tensions mount in Paraguay as traditional twin-party impeaches President

The traditional twin-party of Paraguay, made up of the Conservative or Colorados (Reds) and the Liberals, who supported the philo-Nazi dictator Stroessner, are pushing the Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo (supported mainly by the Wide Front or Frente Guasú, which however is in relative minority in Parliament) to resign threatening with a "political trial" or impeachment procedure if he does not. 

There is no particular issue by which the Stroessnerist twin-party could held Lugo politically responsible for but in the end it is a matter of votes. And in the Paraguayan Congress, the twin party still has a majority. The particular trigger could be the clashes in Curuguaty, near the Brazilian border, where policemen and landless farmers killed each other in classes over the land, however Lugo rejects any connection. 

After the Colorados left the government, the Liberal Party also sided with the landowners on this issue and left the government, leaving Lugo in minority.

Both the President and the Congress have 5-years terms (would end in 2013) but the President cannot be reelected. The election of Lugo is considered by wide sectors of the Paraguayan society as a landmark step in the process of real democratization, something that the twin party opposes.

Peasant organizations are organizing a march on the capital, Asunción, in support of the President and opposing the parliamentary majority. The situation is described as very tense.

Source: LINyM[es].


Update (Jun 22):

The ALBA considers the impeachment attempt a coup. Lugo rejects to have any reason to resign and demands all the guarantees for a political trial, which he claims not to fear.

I have put all my effort so that the Paraguayans live better (...), therefore there is no political nor juridical reason to renounce to my oath.

Once approved by the House of Deputies, it is the Senate which will have to perform the impeachment procedure, needing 2/3 majority to effectively demote the President, what they can probably muster.

Therefore the popular mobilization is critical in order to impede the impeachment of President Lugo, dividing the right-wing oppostion. It would be indeed easier if the President could dissolve the Parliament, as happens in Europe and call for snap-elections but there is no constitutional way to dissolve the Congress until next year.

Source: LINyM[es].

Uruguay to legalize the sale of cannabis

While the Netherlands returns to its Puritan roots closing the once famed (and expensive) coffee shops and returning the trade of the inspirational drug to the underground and the mafias, Uruguay moves ahead and will legalize the state-controlled production and sale of marihuana.

This was one of 15 measures to fight crime proposed by the government of President Mújica, the first Uruguayan President to live in a slum (he's also vegetarian and former guerrilla leader).

The new legal scheme is expected to reduce the consumption of hard drugs and the thriving of mafias by removing potential customers from the black market. However, unlike what happens in other countries, individuals would not be allowed to grow the plant for their own consumption. It is in this sense a legal frame similar to that of tobacco in many countries: where production and trade is only allowed under strict state supervision and individuals can't grow their own tobacco privately. 

It is estimated that some 5% of Uruguayans are regular users of the soft drug, while 1/5 of adults admitted having used it at some point in their lives. 

Other proposals are increased penalties for corrupt police officers, crack and cocaine trafficking and juvenile offenders. 

Source: Al Jazeera.

I must say that I'm not in full agreement with all the aspects of these measures but I do welcome the legalization of cannabis in any case (if such addictive drugs as tobacco, caffeine or alcohol are legal, why to attack marihuana, which is comparatively harmless).

See also: Erowid: Cannabis.

Most of the Maoist grassroots join the new Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist)

Jayapuri Gharti Magar
leader of All Nepal Women’s Association (Revolutionary)

The schism among Nepal Maoists seem consolidated by now and Prachandra and camarilla seem to only represent themselves. While only one third of the Central Committee of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), UCPN-M, defected to the newly formed party, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), CPN-M, almost all of the "sister organizations", the real backbone of the party, have joined the new organization. 

The several dozen "sister wings" are representative of the oppressed communities of Nepal, ethnicities and castes marginalized and oppressed and also professional associations and the women's movement:

The chiefs of sister wings joining Baidya´s party are Jayapuri Gharti Magar of All Nepal Women´s Association (Revolutionary), Gunaraj Lohani of All Nepal Teachers Association, Tilak Pariyar of Nepal National Dalit Liberation Front, Ishwar Chandra Gyawali of United All Nepal People´s Cultural Federation, Suresh Ale Magar of Indigenous Nationalities Federation, Maheshwar Dahal of Revolutionary Journalists Association, Mangal Bishwakarma of All Nepal People´s Health Workers Association, Ekaraj Bhandari of Association of Fighters Disappeared by State, Shiva Kattel of National Industries and Commerce Federation and Jayandra Bahadur Chand of Republican Sports Federation.

Likewise, Rukma Lamichhane of Nepal National Employees´ Organization, Santosh Budha Magar of Magar National Liberation Front, Takma KC of Nepal National Professors´ Organization, Padam Rai of Kirat National Liberation Front, Bharat Chepang of Chepang National Liberation Front, Chun Bahadur Thami of Thami National Liberation Front and Bartaman Rai of Rai-Danuwar National Liberation Front have also joined the new party.

Similarly, Raman Shrestha of National Lawyers Council, Bishnu Pukar Shrestha of Campaign for Human Rights and Social Transformation Nepal, Laxman Pant of All India Nepal People´s Rights Forum, Deependra Kumar Chhantyal of Chhantyal National Liberation Front, Nagendra Dhimal of Dhimal National Liberation Front and Pawanman Shrestha of Newa National Liberation Front are the other chiefs of sister wings joining CPN-Maoist.

Instead the leaders of some organizations remain alligned with Prachandra and Bhattarai, who, right now, exert the nominal government of Nepal but are watching the grass cut under their feet, as they accepted almost all the impositions by the bourgeois camp and India. The officialist organizations are:

Chitra Bahadur Shrestha, chief of All Nepal Peasant Federation (Revolutionary), Shalikram Jamakattel, chief of All Nepal Trade Union Federation, Himal Sharma, chief of All Nepal National Independent Students Union (Revolutionary), Amar Tamu, chief of Tamu National Liberation Front, Ram Charan Tharu, chief of Tharu National Liberation Front, Suryaman Dong, chief of Tamang National Liberation Front, Hitaraj Pande, chief of Sahid Pariwar Samaj, Deependra Pun, chief of Ghaite Yoddha Pariwar, Khim Lal Devkota, chief of All Nepal Intellectual Association, Gyandera Kumal, chief of Kumal National Liberation Front, Shree Jabegu, chief of Limbuwan National Liberation Front and Mukti Pradhan, National Human Rights Concern Center, have stayed with the mother party. Of them, Kumal, Jabegu, Pradhan and Devkota are close to the faction led by party Vice-chairman Baburam Bhattarai.

The new party also counts with the People's Liberation Army, whose never completed dissolution was one of the main contention points between the two camps. 

Source: Revolution in South Asia.

Fukushima Daiichi reactor no. 4 actually exploded and had two fires

It has only be known now (source: Fukushima Diary), more than a year later, that, besides the explosions of reactor 1 and reactor 3, reactor 4 also exploded and had two fires. That explains why the building is so extremely mauled, something that had not been explained yet. Reactor 4 is often considered to be the most dangerous (if any has to be) because while the others "only" have the fuel, this one was used as storage for spent fuel, which, in spite of the name, is the most radioactive of all - and also the amounts are much much larger because it includes the fuel used in all the plant and maybe others for decades.

Fukushima Daiichi is not the only nuclear plant causing trouble, Fukushima Daini is as well (and little is known of its state) and also others. Even the newly reopened Ooi NPP had an alert because of too low water level, whose cause is at the moment unknown. 

Against the law and their promises, TEPCO did not disclose the alert until long overdue, highlighting the dangerous secrecy of the mafioso electric company of Japan. 

Panama: popular protests block sale of national patrimony

Popular protests, sometimes violently repressed by police, forced the Panamanian government to stop the sale of much of public participations in the telephone company Cable & Wireless (the state owns 51%) and in several electric companies, including Spanish Unión Fenosa. This would have indebted the state according to the opposition, depriving the government of important sources of income and control over the national economy.

Source: LINyM[es].

Spain accepts that Basque Nationalist Left's party (Sortu) is legal

Sortu's legal representatives upon the inscription of the party (2011)

The Spanish Constitutional Court has resolved that the banned political party Sortu is legal. The decision, of which not all the details are yet known, was taken with a very tight vote: 6 to 5 (three judges issued particular votes). 

Sortu (which means "to create") was registered a year ago, already within the frame of the unilateral ceasefire of ETA, but was declared illegal soon after by the Supreme Court, which considered it continuation of the also banned Batasuna (which it is, of course), one of the two major Basque political parties (which for the Spanish tribunal was just "a tool of ETA and part of ETA", go figure!)

By means of banning Batasuna and all its successors the Spanish courts effectively destroyed any form of democracy in the Southern Basque Country, rendering all institutions as non-representative as under Fascism. Various attempts to circumvent this political repression (Communist Party of the Basque Peoples, Democracy 3 Million or the historical party Basque Nationalist Action were all forbidden), even the wider coalition Bildu (later Amaiur, later EH Bildu), that includes other parties, was under threat of illegalization, which did not materialize after all, allowing for a change a semblance of democratic elections for town halls and provincial councils last year (elections that ratified the social strength of the Nationalist Left). 

Meanwhile many political activists, of high or low profile, real or imaginary, have been arrested and sent to jail for expressing their opinions or trying to exert their civil rights. 

The legalization of Sortu is one step in the right direction by the occupant power but it still has to take many many more steps in the sense of recognition of the democratic rights of the Basque People before we can consider that Spain is not anymore the sworn enemy of the Basque People. 

Refs. Naiz[es], Berria[eu], Branka[eu], Ateak Ireki[es] (with video of a historical discourse by Arnaldo Otegi, with English subtitles in the CC options).

Motivated!

I was reading about an armed robbery with hostages in Tolouse and my mind wandered to this great activist band from that city: Zebda, which I had not listened to in a while but has a great "partisan hymn", Motivé! (Motivated!), which was sort of a hit in the 1990s and I thought I'd share because, as they sing, one must be motivated to fight...

I just thought I'd share (with special dedication to the Québécois students):

The lyrics in French:

Ami entends tu le vol noir des corbeaux sur nos plaines
Ami entends tu les cris sourds du pays qu'on enchaîne
Ohé, partisans ouvriers et paysans c'est l'alarme
Ce soir l'ennemi connaîtra le prix du sang et des larmes

Refrain

Motivés, motivés
Il faut rester motivés !
Motivés, motivés
Il faut se motiver !
Motivés, motivés
Soyons motivés !
Motivés, motivés
Motivés, motivés !

C'est nous qui brisons les barreaux des prisons pour nos frères
La haine à nos trousses et la faim qui nous pousse, la misère
Il est des pays où les gens au creux des lits font des rêves
Chantez compagnons, dans la nuit la liberté vous écoute

Refrain

Ici chacun sait ce qu'il veut, ce qu'il fait quand il passe
Ami si tu tombes un ami sort de l'ombre à ta place
Ohé, partisans ouvriers et paysans c'est l'alarme
Ce soir l'ennemi connaîtra le prix du sang et des larmes

Refrain

On va rester motivé pour le face à face
On va rester motivé quand on les aura en face
On va rester motivé, on veut que ça se sache
On va rester motivé...

Refrain

On va rester motivé pour la lutte des classes
On va rester motivé contre les dégueulasses

Motivés, motivés...

And a translation (with help of Google Translate):

Friend can you hear the black flight of ravens over our plains
Friend can you hear the muffled cries of the country that connects
Hey, supporters workers and peasants is the alert
Tonight the enemy will know the cost of blood and tears

chorus

Motivated, motivated
You have to stay motivated!
Motivated, motivated
You have to motivate!
Motivated, motivated
Be motivated!
Motivated, motivated
Motivated, motivated!

It is we who break through the prison bars for our brothers
The hatred on our heels and the hunger that drives us, the misery
There are countries where people are deep in the bed of dreams
Sing comrades, in the night freedom listens to you

chorus

Here everyone knows what he wants, what he does when he goes
Friend, if you fall, a friend emerges from the shadows in your place
Hey, partisans, workers and peasants: is the alarm
Tonight the enemy shall know the cost of blood and tears

chorus

We will keep you motivated for the face-to-face
We will keep you motivated when you'll have them in front
We will keep you motivated, we want it to be known
We will keep you motivated ...

chorus

We will keep you motivated for the class struggle
We will stay motivated against the disgusting

Motivated, motivated ...

Virginia prisoners in hunger strike for dignity ask for public support

From: Kasama

A Statement in Support of the Virginia Hunger Strike

Rashid Johnson

by Kevin ‘Rashid’ Johnson

In protest against the ongoing foul and inhumane conditions at Virginia’s Red Onion State Prison – one of Amerika’s most notoriously abusive and racist prisons – dozens of men at the prison went on a hunger strike. The strike began on May 22, 2012 and lasted several weeks.

I had spent over a decade imprisoned at Red Onion. Much of that time was spent in political growth, and my writing and circulating reports and articles to publicly expose abuses there, and trying to help build us a support structure on the outside.

I also struggled to impart to my peers the truism that while oppression does breed resistance, resistance without unity and public support is futile.

Which is why our captors promote division and individualism among prisoners – a “mind your own business” and “don’t concern yourself with others” mentality – and manipulate us to misdirect our frustrations and ‘resistance’ against and between ourselves. It is also why they maneuver at every turn to alienate the general public against us with fear and hatred. The old Willie Lynch game.

To repress my efforts, officials kept me in solitary, often isolated from other prisoners. They routinely censored, destroyed and ‘lost’ my correspondences; imposed increased repression and abuses on me; and finally, on February 11, 2012, transferred me cross-country without notice or explanation to the Oregon prison system.

But I’d like to believe that despite their attempts to undermine and frustrate this work, my efforts, in collaboration with others of like mind, took root and bore fruit.

Many of the hunger strikers are men whom I had the honor of serving as both student and teacher. Many are members of street tribes (so-called gangs) whose traditional rivalries kept them divided against and at odds with each other – divisions and conflicts which Red Onion officials acted at every turn to fuel and perpetuate. However, as one of the representatives of the hunger strike stated:

We’re tired of being treated like animals. There are only two classes in this prison: the oppressor and the oppressed. We, the oppressed, despite divisions of sexual preference, gang affiliation, race and religion, are coming together. We are rival gang members, but now are united as revolutionaries.

And the prisoners now have an outside voice and support structure, to publicly air their grievances and demands for basic human rights.

As I often point out to my peers , although we outnumber them at least ten to one and many of us are in prime physical condition, our oppressors have power, and the power to oppress us, only because they have unity and control public opinion; whereas they keep us divided and the public alienated against us. It is just as effective a political tool today as it was yesterday on Southern slave plantations and in campaigns to exterminate Native peoples and subjugate Mexicans to turn profits and steal land. It is the politics of oppression.

But today’s prison movement is learning. From Georgia’s prisoner strike of 2010, to California’s prisoner hunger strike of 2011, to this latest hunger strike at Red Onion. We are learning that not only does oppression breed resistance, but political consciousness breeds unity, and unity begets power. It enables so long indoctrinated to believe themselves as powerless to see that they can challenge and change oppression by uniting against their common oppressor.

The greater our numbers and unity, the greater our power to turn mere resistance into seizure of power, which is why unity of the oppressed is the greatest fear of any oppressor. The prison movement has much to teach us. We are conquered only because and insofar as we are divided.

Dare to struggle! Dare to win!

All power to the people!

Telecom Italia censors two Indymedia nodes

Indymedia Piemonte and Indymedia Toscana were blacked by Telecom Italia. The reason? Hosting documentation that evidences that Coeclerici company is in fact a cover up for mafioso and spy activities.

The relevant contents have been however preserved at Web Archive:

• Piemonte Indymedia web archive: Genova: spy story al pesto, this is how the Coeclerici spa spied
• Toscana Indymedia web archive: Mafioso is beautiful: when being mafioso is not a handicap but a competitive advantage.

The contents have been there since 2008 and, as we can see, are still there just that migrated to the Web Archive because of the attempt of censorship. The documents are from 1994. 

Indymedia Piemonte is provisionally accessible in full at http://piemonte.puscii.nl/ (all the contents are there but instead of being subpages of indymedia.org, they are now of puscii.nl). 

The legality of the action is more than dubious: it only has one precedent and the precedent was declared illegal on appeal. 

Sources: Contra Info, Indymedia Italia[it-es-en].

Typhoon hitting Fukushima right now

Fukushima Diary reports on typhoon number 4 sitting right now over the damaged Fukushima nuclear power plants, with unpredictable consequences.

Another typhoon, number 5, recently coalesced in the South China Sea, heads in the same direction.

Update: Radiation level peaking in typhoon (because of moving around dust and materials in the violent winds probably) ··> Fukushima Diary.

Ideas for 'austerity': cut in bullfights

The Town Hall of Bilbao spends notable public funds to pay for bullfights that are not just hated by most people but that actually bring almost no public to them. 

In the 50th anniversary of the local bullfight arena, built by the fascists in 1962, the affluence was almost zero:

Cut the right corners, you fascist jerks!

Source: Branka[eu].

Four citizens arrested in Bilbao for alleged incidents in the March 29 general strike

Aitor Fernandez, Irantzu Yaldebere, Urtzi Martinez and Jon Telletxea were arrested in Bilbao accused of aggression against two police agents. These are the regular arbitrary charges they throw on you when they want to cause you trouble, as they do not need any evidence, depending on the judge, to get you at least fined and possibly in jail.

This is part of the wider campaign to intimidate Basque and Catalan class activists (no reports of the same kind of arbitrary repression have yet come from Spain proper). 

There will be a demo this evening in Deustu. 

Source: Branka[eu].

Total success of the general strike in the coal districts of Spain

The general strike called for yesterday in the coal districts of Spain was a total success. As a matter of course, as the miners say: if mining disappears, the districts die out. 

Besides the walk out, roads were cut again, however this time police avoided any confrontation. 

Three miners remain inside a mine (200th day already) as a method of protest. 

In the evening 50,000 people marched through Langreo, capital of the coal region of Asturias.

Source: Gara[es].

Update: while the police remained calm for a change, the Spanish army made drills in the area. As Sare Antifaxista asks: is there still anyone who believes in coincidences? In 1934 and 1937 the Spanish Army quelled revolutionary attempts in that area precisely.

Majorca: man killed by cop who sit on his belly for 15 minutes

Image of the police-inflicted murder

A man was so brutally immobilized by a police agent in Palma de Mallorca that he died of likely cardio-pulmonar crisis. The policeman sit on the man's belly for some 15 minutes while he spasmed desperately as can be seen in a home-made video. He eventually died and all efforts to reanimate him failed. 

It is not clear why the police wanted to arrest the victim but it seems he was running without pants (but with underwear on), whatever the case, the irrational brutality of the police "immobilization technique" has no justification whatsoever - even I know that, if you sit with all your weight on someone's belly, even for a short time, you will likely injure him/her and death is within the quite possible outcomes. 

Sadly enough, even with all this evidence, we will see how the policeman walks free with no or just very minor charges, demonstrating once again that justice does not exist for the common people.

Source: Sare Antifaxista[es].