Pestizide: Mäßige Ernteerträge von Gentech-Pflanzen?
(11.01.07)
Die Ernten aus gentechnischer Landwirtschaft halten offenbar nicht, was die Gentech-Industrie verspricht. Weder erfüllten Gen-Produkte die Erwartungen an Qualität oder Preis, noch linderten sie Hunger oder Armut in Afrika oder sonst irgendwo, kritisierten Friends of the Earth Africa in Nigeria. Das jedenfalls ergibt sich aus einem Bericht der Umweltorganisation Friends of the Earth International (FoEI) vom 9. Januar, in dem die weltweiten Erträge von gentechnisch veränderten Organismen (GVO) im Zeitraum 1996-2006 ausgewertet wurden. Dem Bericht zufolge ist außerdem auch der Einsatz von Pestiziden mit dem Anbau von Gen-Pflanzen nicht gesunken, sondern im Gegenteil gestiegen.
Die überraschende Absage Günther Jauchs, als Moderator die Nachfolge von Sabine Christiansen anzutreten, stellt nach Auffassung der Initiative LobbyControl eine Chance dar, das Sendeformat grundlegend zu überdenken und in konzeptioneller Hinsicht neu auszurichten. Im September letzten Jahres hatte LobbyControl mit der Studie "Schaubühne für die Einflussreichen und Meinungsmacher - Der neoliberal geprägte Reformdiskurs bei 'Sabine Christiansen'" deutliche Kritik an der politischen Talkrunde in der ARD geäußert. Der im NDR-Staatsvertrag festgelegte Auftrag, ausgewogen, sachlich und umfassend zu berichten, müsse besonders für eine politische Talkshow zu bester Sendezeit gelten.
Glen Barry writes: "Global warming is not a slow, gentle, pleasant rise in temperatures to be savored. It is an abrupt fundamental breakdown in the Earth System's climate sub-system that threatens the Earth's, humanity's and your family's ability to live."
Tom Engelhardt writes; "Awkwardly, even uncomfortably delivered, last night's Way-Forward-in-Iraq speech was, in sum, a speech to be forgotten, a speech certain to be buried - and quickly - in the coming carnage."
Matt Renner reports, "In stark contrast to the recommendation put forth by the Iraq Study Group last month that the White House enter into a dialogue with Iran and Syria, President Bush said he would authorize the use of military force against those countries if they continued to empower insurgents."
Senior House Democrats said yesterday that they will attempt to derail funding for President Bush's proposal to send an additional 21,500 troops to Iraq, setting up what could become the most significant confrontation between the White House and Congress over military policy since the Vietnam War.
U.S. Peace Movement Plans to "Escalate" Street Protests
The ANSWER Coalition Responds to Bush's War Speech of January 10, 2007
ANSWER Coalition Statement:
Unwilling to accept the failure of his war of aggression in Iraq, his "war of choice," Bush announced tonight a plan that will succeed only in sending thousands of Iraqis and U.S. soldiers to their graves in the next year.
What Bush is really proposing is using thousands of additional U.S. soldiers in a planned reign of terror in the streets and neighborhoods of Baghdad against those who want the U.S. to leave. Bush chose to use a euphemism about the planned reign of terror when he stated that one of the past "mistakes" of the U.S. military operation in Baghdad was that, "there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have." The blood will flow just as Bush promises but this plan will fail just as badly as every announced initiative since Bush arrogantly taunted the Iraqi resistance with his infamous "Bring em on" speech back in
2003.
Bush gave the people of the United States a warning that they should expect the coming year will be "bloody and violent," with "television screens filled with images of death and suffering." He tried to innoculate himself from responsibility for this carnage although his plan makes it inevitable.
Bush's aspiration to salvage his "legacy" and his place in history isn't worth one more life. Every mother and father of a U.S. soldier, every person who has a loved one in the U.S. armed forces should make it clear that the lives of their family members are too precious to be sacrificed for such an ignoble cause.
For the last six years, Bush has provided huge tax breaks for the billionaires and multimillionaires of this country. But it will not be their children who will be sent to fight and die in Iraq. The privileged ultra-rich, Bush's real "base," are shielded from the horrors of the war.
The deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis since March 2003 (see Lancet medical journal 10/06), proves beyond a reasonable doubt that Bush's claim that his invasion was for the liberation of the Iraqi people is a complete and utter lie.
"Clearing and holding neighborhoods in Iraq" is not the duty or right of members of the U.S. military. The people who live in those neighborhoods lived in peace before the arrival of the occupation forces. The occupation is illegal and the order to stiffen the occupation is illegal too. U.S. soldiers have the right and duty to disobey illegal orders.
Neither one more Iraqi nor one more soldier should die so that the politicians, who inaugurated a criminal "pre-emptive" invasion of a country that posed zero threat to the people of the United States, can postpone the verdict of history.
For their part, the Democrats in Congress are involved in a slightly more complicated dance. They want to posture as opponents of Bush's escalation and so-called surge without taking responsibility for bringing the war to a close. They could cut funding for the war which is their exclusive Constitutional prerogative. But they will absolutely refuse to take this responsibility. They are merely posturing for the 2008 elections hoping to take advantage of the well deserved public disgust for Bush and the Iraq war.
The issue right now for the anti-war movement can not simply be opposition to a surge or an escalation: the issue is the war itself. The troops must be brought home now. As in Vietnam, that is the only solution. Those who initiated the war and who funded the war should be held accountable for one of the great crimes of the modern era.
Everything that Bush has said about the Iraq war has proved to be a lie. This was always a war for Empire in a strategic area that possesses two thirds of the world's oil supply. He proclaimed tonight that, "failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States." If Bush fails in Iraq the people of the United States lose nothing. It is not our Empire.
On March 17, 2007, the anniversary of the start of the criminal invasion of Iraq, tens of thousands of people from around the country will descend on the Pentagon in a mass demonstration to demand: U.S. Out of Iraq Now! http://answer.pephost.org/site/News2? abbr=ANS_&page=NewsArticle&id=81072007 is the 40th anniversary of the historic 1967 anti-war march to the Pentagon during the Vietnam War. The message of the 1967 march was "From Protest to Resistance," and marked a turning point in the development of a countrywide mass movement.
Thousands of organizations and individuals are mobilizing for the upcoming March on the Pentagon. Organizing committees and transportation centers are being established to bring people to the March on the Pentagon.
Mit Mützen aus Bärenfellimitat bekleidet, haben sich Glenda Jackson, Mike Hancock und Dutzende weiterer Parlamentsmitglieder verschiedener Parteien vor dem Parlamentsgebäude Großbritanniens versammelt, um gegen den Einsatz von echtem Bärenfell für die Kopfbedeckungen der königlichen Wachen zu protestieren.
Die überzeugte Rockerin und Tierrechtlerin Pink lehnt Pelz seit langem ab und entscheidet sich meist für Leder-Alternativen. Nun hat sie sich mit einer Videobotschaft PETA’s Kampagne zur Aufdeckung der unvorstellbaren Tierquälerei in der Wollindustrie angeschlossen. Auch auf ihrer ofiziellen Website www.pink-music.de untestützt sie PETA’s Kampagne.
In Thailand befinden sich ca. 3800 der schätzungsweise 5000 vom Aussterben bedrohten asiatischen Elefanten in privaten Händen. Die meisten werden in Elefantencamps als Touristenattraktion benutzt, wo sie gezwungen werden, Zirkuskunststücke aufzuführen und die Touristen auf sich reiten zu lassen. PETA hat die grauenhafte Folter aufgedeckt, die in Thailands geheimen "Trainingscamps" zum Alltag gehört.
With the use of transgenic crops expanding around the globe, what level of unapproved plants are we willing to accept in our diets? Zero is not an option.
A couple days ago we called for preemptive resolutions to oppose the unpopular Bush escalation proposed for Iraq. There are now at least two measures pending to do just that. In the Senate, Ted Kennedy has introduced S. 233 which would prohibit the White House from spending any federal funds on an increase of troop levels in Iraq without express Congressional consent. On the House side, Marty Meehan's H Res. 41 would require a parallel authorization. All we have to do is speak out in sufficient numbers and these bills will become law. The overnight polls show that those numbers should definitely be there, if we can just inspire our friends and neighbors to take vocal action. Dennis Kucinich is also bringing forward a resolution to actually mandate a phased withdrawal and we will support that too when it is introduced.
With regards to the Kennedy bill, Harry Reid was quoted yesterday as saying he would "prefer" a non-binding resolution as way of sending a "message" to the president. Despite his recent letter advocating against the escalation, on the point of what actual action to take Harry Reid has it wrong. The only message non-binding resolutions would send is that Congress lacks the courage to confront the incorrigible bullies in the White House. We might as well set up a special conference room in the Capitol for public hand wringing. By defying absolutely the entire rest of the government not including his few remaining quislings, George Bush is deliberately FORCING a Constitutional crisis. We have no choice but to stand up to him directly and immediately.
There were many entirely false premises in Bush's awkward and uncomfortable speech last night. But central to it all was the assertion that the Iraqi people want us in their country to bring them our wonderful democratic system of government. That time is long past. Absolutely every poll there demonstrates they overwhelmingly want us to just leave. The entire world knows George Bush invaded Iraq for the SOLE purpose of stealing their oil resources. Talk about bringing our kind of government to Iraq, they are about to try to force through a new hurry-up hydrocarbon law to cut up and encumber their oil fields that nobody in the Iraqi Parliament there has even read yet. Isn't that the way they used to pass legislation here in our own country, in the middle of the night without even a fair read?
It's not just Democrats, there are many Republicans who increasingly alarmed by the new Bush lurch in the direction of sheer madness. Chuck Hagel was quoted as saying, "This is a dangerously wrong-headed strategy that will drive America deeper into an unwinnable swamp at a great cost." That's an understatement. Although all the pre-speech marketing was about some kind of temporary "surge," Bush used that word not one time in his prepared statement. Instead he painted a picture of at LEAST another year of ever increasing violence, backed up with barely veiled threats to wage full scale war on BOTH Iran and Syria. All those air craft carriers steaming to the Persian Gulf are not going there for R & R. They even have a shiny new naval commander installed in charge of Iraq now, to direct the launch of the cruise missiles.
The plain facts are these. The only reason why the Iraqi people endured the charade of purple finger elections was they thought if they indulged us in that we might actually leave. As fed up as the American public is with our military presence there, the Iraqi people are even more so. Bush has made an unholy alliance with a stooge (al Maliki) of some of the very Islamic militants (al Sadr) they have been rattling sabers at for the last four years. And when he warns that the Iraqi government will fall without being propped up by our uranium spitting gun ships, it is because it is too corrupt and infiltrated to survive on its own. As horrific as the casualties have been so far, under Bush they are just starting.
We must raise every possible voice to call for support of the S. 233 and H. Res 41 right now. These must pass by overwhelming margins. We have very little time. Bush did not even wait to make his announcement to start deploying the new troops. We have an outlaw administration bent on turning a disaster into an utter debacle. Bush must be stopped. And nothing can arrest him but your voices, to pressure your members of Congress to act against him without equivocation or fear.
Please take action NOW, so we can win all victories that are supposed to be ours.
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California will create the world's first global warming pollution standard for transportation fuels, ratcheting down fuel carbon content 10 percent by 2020 under a plan put forward by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The new standard could have implications for the auto industry and change the way gasoline is produced around the globe.
Who, but who, would soil the environmental reputation of Barack Obama? The Democratic senator from Illinois gets stellar marks from greens. So why then, environmentalists ask, is Obama backing a law supporting the expanded use of coal, whose emissions are cooking the globe?
Federal prosecutors have notified a former deputy secretary of the interior, J. Steven Griles, that he is a target in the public corruption investigation of Jack Abramoff's lobbying activities.
"President Bush told Americans last night that failure in Iraq would be a disaster. The disaster is Mr. Bush's war, and he has already failed. Last night was his chance to stop offering more fog and be honest with the nation, and he did not take it," writes the New York Times.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, and Senate Assistant Democratic Leader Richard Durbin have released a statement on President Bush's address to the nation on the war in Iraq.
Jason Leopold writes: "By relying on the recommendations of neoconservative scholar Frederick Kagan, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, on what steps the White House should take to address the civil war between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq, President Bush has once again ignored the advice of career military officials and even some Republican lawmakers - many of whom in recent weeks have urged Bush to resist implementing a policy that would result in escalating the war - and instead has chosen to rely on the proposals drafted by hawkish, think-tank intellectuals that could very well backfire and end up embroiling the United States in an even bloodier conflict."
The Bush Administration's proposal to send an additional 20,000 troops to join the 152,000 already in Iraq is is unlikely to bring significant improvement to the situation in Iraq, but it is certain to further damage the already beleaguered US ground forces. The surge will push America's all-volunteer force into uncharted territory, and it is not clear how well the troops or the military as an institution can withstand the strain. The men and women in the Army and Marine Corps today -- many of whom have already served for a year or more in Iraq or Afghanistan -- will bear the brunt, because the Army and Marine Corps cannot grow new troops or units overnight. General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says it would take two years just to recruit, train, and equip 10,000 new troops. Thus to accomplish a surge, the armed forces must look to existing units...
Throughout the long century to come, any future leader contemplating sending American troops into combat should carefully watch a tape of George W. Bush's speech to the nation Wednesday night -- and ponder its underlying lessons. This was Bush deflated, his arrogance temporarily placed in a blind trust, looking grayer than ever with his brow furrowed with lines of worry. How humiliating for Bush to be forced to say with a stony face, 'The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people -- and it is unacceptable to me.' This is what happens to a commander in chief when his vision of victory becomes a struggle for survival, when confident talk of a slam dunk on the way in is replaced by a clamor to slam the door on the way out. This is what happens to a president who is losing a war -- and who is reduced to begging for more time, another chance, to set things right...
The rule of thumb for a free society should be that it infringes liberties rarely, but when it does so it is for important reasons. Today, that thumb has been cast down, Caesar-like, pointing in the opposite direction. We have democratized the small assaults on freedom so that everyone must endure them, while we caterwaul about the tyranny of any real inconvenience that might fall 'disproportionately' on the few. We ban using trans fats for millions but flinch at the idea that some kid might have to endure the Pledge of Allegiance or a moment of silence in school if it conflicts with his conscience. Everyone must surrender his shoes, his regular-sized toothpaste and shampoo at the airport, but we man the barricades to protect a few young Muslim men from being inconvenienced for an extra five minutes at the airport. Free speech is most restricted where it is most important -- in political contests near Election Day -- while it is maximized to an absurd level at the fringes of culture and decency... [editor's note: Actually, the rule of thumb for -- actually, the definition of -- a free society is that it infringes liberties (if by liberties we mean rights) NOT AT ALL - TLK]
Congress is sticking to gestures in expressing its dissatisfaction with the Iraq War. The new Democratic leadership isn't trying to stop President Bush's planned troop increase. Instead, they're just planning a resolution to express disapproval of it, a measure whose only practical impact will be forcing Republicans to take sides on the issue. But what if Congress were to actually exercise its war powers? The Constitution gives Congress the power to declare war and also to decide when to fund and how to regulate the military. But generations of presidents have succeeded in expanding their authority as commander in chief at Congress' expense -- and with its permission, tacit or otherwise. If Congress wanted to push back in Iraq, here's a list of possibilities for what it could do, from cleanest to messiest, legally speaking ...
Coverage of the Democratic takeover of the U.S. Congress in the past couple weeks has focused on Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca.), the first female Speaker of the House, and her '100 hours' agenda. But if most of the voters who booted the Republican incumbents in November 2006 did so because of Emperor Bush's war in Mesopotamia, by now they realize the new people under the Capitol dome are going to be the same as the old people. America's two governing parties are debating the length of stay in Iraq and the number of additional troops to be sent to their deaths, but not the legitimacy of the war and the subsequent occupation. While the Emperors may be replaced, the Empire itself must never be doubted, their reasoning goes...
From an investment standpoint, betting on continued war means making a bet on a continued 'surge' in the price of oil, above all. But past a point, it means betting on the dissipation of the influence of the United States which will be torn asunder by debt, violence, higher taxes, etc. if the war continues or extends into Iraq or Syria. Certainly, the U.S. power elite would be further empowered by quick victories over Iran and Syria, but the chances that war can be waged on four fronts, successfully, are fairly small. The U.S. military knows it. The war may appeal to those who wish to see the destruction of what is left of the American republic, but for others an swift end to the incessant militarization and violence is preferable...
The politicians have demonstrated that they will not lead, so they must be made to follow. If those opposed to the war -- from left, right, and center -- gather together with a passionate focus solely on ending American imperialism, the rulers will follow the people -- as they should. If we let ourselves be divided at this critical moment in history by our domestic differences, the wars started in the last century will linger on and end in disaster. We must stand united against the coming draft, against the expansion of imperial rule, and against all aggression both at home and abroad...
They say money talks, and a new report suggests Canadian currency is indeed chatting, at least electronically, on behalf of shadowy spies. Canadian coins containing tiny transmitters have mysteriously turned up in the pockets of at least three American contractors who visited Canada, says a branch of the U.S. Defense Department. Security experts believe the miniature devices could be used to track the movements of defense industry personnel dealing in sensitive military technology. 'You might want to know where the individual is going, what meetings the individual might be having and, above all, with whom,' said David Harris, a former CSIS officer who consults on security matters. 'The more covert or clandestine the activity in which somebody might be involved, the more significant this kind of information could be'...
President Bush's troop-boosting plan for Iraq was headed straight into a political gale in Congress, with Democrats, some Republicans and an increasingly organized anti-war movement arrayed against the buildup. Lawmakers were ready to pounce on the plan Thursday during a day of congressional hearings featuring top Bush administration officials such as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates...
A legal aid group representing Guantanamo Bay detainees condemned the U.S. military prison Tuesday as an "abomination'' and called on Washington to close the facility, which opened five years ago this week.
China condemned US sanctions imposed last week on three Chinese companies for allegedly selling banned weapons to Iran and Syria, calling the accusations "totally groundless."
Liam Fox, the shadow Defence Secretary, has backed hawks in the White House by calling for "nothing to be ruled out" to stop Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon.
Technically, the Democrats can end America’s presence in Iraq. They control Congress, they have the power over spending, and they can cut off the money that fuels the war.
President Bush on Wednesday acknowledged for the first time he erred by failing to order a military buildup in Iraq last year and said he was increasing U.S. troops by 21,500 to quell the country's near-anarchy. "Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me," Bush said.
Another year in Iraq, another thousand dead soldiers. This grim milestone passed as the wasteful nature of the carnage finally registered with the public; only nine percent of Americans, "dead-enders" in Rumsfeld-speak, still think the war was a wonderful idea.
It is crucially important that public attention is shifted away from the confining official narrative of the war, parroted by the corporate media and political pundits, to the economic crimes that have been committed because of this war, both in Iraq and here in the United States. It is time to make a moral case for restoring Iraqi oil and other assets to the Iraqis.
What is striking about the current debate in Washington - whether to "surge" troops to Iraq and increase the size of the U.S. Army - is that roughly 100,000 bodies are missing from the equation: The number of American forces in Iraq is not 140,000, but more like 240,000.
The Bush administration has recently doubled its aircraft carrier forces and air power in the Persian Gulf. According to credible news reports, the Israeli air force has been making practice runs in preparation for an attack on Iran.
He said the United States would expand intelligence cooperation in the Middle East and deploy Patriot missile defense systems to help allies. He also said he would deploy an additional carrier strike group to the region.
Help Move Freedom Forward and resolve that in 2007, our America will:
1. Restore habeas corpus and due process
2. End torture in secret prisons
3. Stop warrantless eavesdropping on innocent Americans
4. Fix the Patriot Act and bring it in line with the Constitution
26.Mai – 2.Juni 2007: Arbeit und Einkommen für alle – überall. Märsche gegen Existenzunsicherheit, Armut und Ausgrenzung – quer durch Europa nach Heiligendamm
Das Vorbereitungstreffen für die „Alemannische Route“ im Rahmen der Euromärsche 2007 findet am Samstag, 13.01.2007, ab 10:30 Uhr im Ursulaheim (Bundesarbeitsgemeinschaft der Obdachlosen) in der Vogesenstraße 1-3 (Nähe Bahnhof) in Offenburg (Baden) statt. Siehe Einladung samt Tagesordnung (pdf) http://www.labournet.de/diskussion/wipo/seattle/g8-07/maersche_aleman1.pdf
Stand der Planung
Die bisherigen Planungen gehen davon aus, dass in Deutschland aus verschiedenen europäischen Ländern drei Marschzüge zusammenkommen:
Ein Zug aus dem Westen (Grenze Aachen): Teilnehmende aus Spanien, Portugal, Marokko (?), Frankreich, Belgien und den Niederlanden.
Ein Zug aus der Schweiz und Südwestdeutschland (von Genf nach Frankfurt a. M.).
Stand der Routenplanung aus der Schweiz
21. Mai: Start in Genf vor dem WTO-Hauptgebäude (Thema: Welthandel, Marktöffnung, Migration) > Ankunft in Nyon/Rolle (Thema: papierlose ArbeiterInnen in Landwirtschaft und Hausarbeit); 22. Mai: Lausanne/Renens (Thema: Deindustrialisierung und Arbeitslosigkeit); 23. Mai: Romont (Thema: Prekarisierung und Landwirtschaft); 24. Mai: Fribourg (Thema: Sans Papiers); 25. Mai: Bern (Empfang und Fest, ev. Ankunft von Märschen aus der Deutschschweiz/italienischen Schweiz); 26. Mai: Basel, Gemeinsames Übertreten der Grenze, Reise nach Freiburg.
Ein Zug aus Südosten (Grenze Görlitz): Teilnehmende aus Griechenland, Italien, Österreich, Sachsen sowie Süd- und Mitteldeutschland; der Zug führt an der deutsch-polnischen Grenze entlang und führt über Berlin und die Freie Heide.
Move against G8
„Move against G8“ ist ein Bündnis, das sich im Rahmen der Aktionskonferenz Rostock I gebildet hat und sich um die Organisation Kulturveranstaltungen im Vorfeld und während der G8-Proteste kümmert. Dazu gehören neben mehreren Konzerten vor und während des Gipfels mit bekannten deutschen und internationalen Acts auch die Auftritte zahlreicher Liedermacher und Kleinkünstler, Theatervorführungen und eine Ausstellung im Voraus. Siehe die Homepage mit weiteren Infos und Terminen http://www.move-against-g8.de/
Widerstand gegen die Jahrestagung des World Economic Forum, Davos 2007
Vom 24. bis 28. Januar 2007 findet in Davos das World Economic Forum (WEF) statt. Dort treffen sich VertreterInnen der größten internationalen Unternehmen und Finanzkonzerne sowie PolitikerInnen und StrategInnen, um sich über ihre wirtschaftlichen und politischen Interessen auszutauschen und gemeinsame Projekte zu vereinbaren. Ihre Interessen sind die Profitmaximierung, die Sicherung von Rohstoffen und der Zugang zu Märkten. In Davos werden Pläne zur Optimierung der Ausbeutung geschmiedet, das heißt der Aneignung des von den Lohnabhängigen geschaffenen Mehrwertes. Auch wenn Davos wie eine Festung durch Militär und Polizei gesichert ist, wird ihr Treffen nicht ungestört ablaufen, da auch dieses Jahr zahlreicher Protest erwartet wird. Die internationale Gegenkonferenz "Das Andere Davos" findet unter dem Titel "Global Prekär!?" am 19.Januar in Zürich statt. Am 27. Januar findet zudem in Basel eine überegionale Demonstration statt. Siehe dazu:
ANTI-WEF-PROTEST 2007: Zum Stand der Gegenaktivitäten in Zürich, Basel und Davos
Radiomitschnitt aus der Roten Welle vom 10. Dezember 2006, der Radiosendung des Revolutionären Aufbau Schweiz, auf Radio Lora (mp3) http://www.antig8.tk/wef_2007.mp3
Indymedia-Printausgabe zum G8-Treffen in Heiligendamm
In der Printausgabe (pdf) finden sich folgende Artikel: G8 Heiligenacht!; VideoaktivistInnen-Netzwerk zum G8 2007; Sicherheitskonzept G8 für Heiligendamm; Polizeihausbesuch zum G8-Widerstand 2007; Geldbörse der G8; Film: Miami Model; Filmdoku: Anti-G8-Camp Inski; Aktionsfahrplan Heiligendamm; Gruppen und Qellen (Linksammlung) https://docs.indymedia.org/pub/Local/ImcNRW/g8-print.pdf
Aus: LabourNet, 29. Januar 2007
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G8-PROTESTE AKTUELL
DAS Großereignis dieses Jahr wirft seine Schatten voraus - in und um Attac (und natürlich auch in anderen Zusammenhängen) wird fleißig geplant, mobilisiert, Infomaterial erstellt, organisiert... An allen Ecken und Enden der Republik finden vorbereitende Veranstaltungen statt - eine immer aktuelle Terminliste findet sich im Netz unter http://www.attac.de/heiligendamm07/pages/alle-veranstaltungen.php .
"Stimmungsmache": Attac weist Warnungen vor Gewalt beim G8-Gipfel zurück
Die globalisierungskritische Protestbewegung Attac hat Warnungen von Verfassungsschützern und Politikern vor Anschlägen anlässlich des G8-Gipfels der führenden Industrienationen Anfang Juni in Heiligendamm als "Stimmungsmache" zurückgewiesen. Bei den angekündigten Protestkundgebungen zum G8-Gipfel werde "garantiert nichts Großes ablaufen", sagte die Geschäftsführerin von Attac Deutschland, Sabine Leidig, der "Leipziger Volkszeitung". Erwartet würden etwa 50.000 Teilnehmer.
Stoppt den G 8 Gipfel – Gewerkschaften auf die globale Bühne!
GewerkschafterInnen gegen Standortkonkurrenz und weltweites Lohndumping
„Als GewerkschafterInnen aus vielen Ländern sind wir Teil des Protestes gegen den G8-Gipfel 2007 in Heiligendamm. Wie keine andere internationale Institution sind diese jährlichen Gipfeltreffen Symbol der weltweiten neoliberalen Dominanz. Weltwirtschaftsgipfel dienen der globalen Koordination und der Machtaufteilung. Damit stabilisieren sie die neoliberale Weltwirtschaftsordnung mit ihren immer schlimmeren Folgen für die Mehrheit der Menschen. Eine elitäre Minderheit eignet sich dabei den Reichtum an, den Millionen Menschen produzieren…“ Internationaler GewerkschafterInnen-Aufruf (pdf) http://media.w-asg.de/uploads/media/20070201_g8gewerkschafteraufruf.pdf
Weitere Unterschriften sammelt Werner Sauerborn: werner.sauerborn(at)t-online.de
DFG-VK fordert 5 - 10% der Gesamtkosten des G8-Gipfel zur Unterstützung des Protestes
„…„Wer die angeblichen Vorteile des G8-Gipfel in Heiligendamm nicht müde wird zu behaupten, muss sich endlich auch mit dem legitimem Protest gegen die dort beratene Politik beschäftigen!“ erklärte Schädel am Sonnabend in Rostock. Die Abschiebung der Verantwortung für die Organisation der Unterbringung und Versorgung allein auf die Demonstrationsteilnehmenden, sei, so Schädel weiter, “verantwortungslos gegenüber den Einwohnern der Region, den eingeladenen Demonstranten und der Demokratie...“ Pressemitteilung der Deutschen Friedensgesellschaft-Vereingte KriegsdienstgegnerInnen (DFG-VK) vom 03.02.2007 http://www.deutsche-friedensgesellschaft.de/php/index.php?id=63&tx_ttnews[tt_news]=113&tx_ttnews[backPid]=66&cHash=6da200ed21
Europäische Märsche gegen Prekarisierung zum G8-Gipfel nach Heiligendamm
Gegen Erwerbslosigkeit, Armut, Ausgrenzung und Diskriminierung. Europäische Konferenz in Erfurt bereitet Märsche gegen Prekarisierung vor
„Über 50 Aktive aus Frankreich, Belgien, der Niederlande, Italien, Polen und Deutschland trafen sich am Wochenende in der Erfurter Fachhochschule, um das Bündnis „Europäischen Märsche 2007“ auf den Weg zu bringen. Mitte Mai startet die erste von vier Marschgruppen in Frankreich. Gemeinsam werden sie am 02. Juni in Rostock als Teil der Anti-G8-Demo ihren Abschluss finden…“ Pressemitteilung der Europäischen Konferenz für die Europäischen Märsche 2007 vom 4. Februar 2007 http://www.labournet.de/diskussion/wipo/seattle/g8-07/maersche_erf.pdf
G8 blockieren, Kriege verhindern! Aufruf zum Aktionstag am 5.6.2007 in Rostock-Laage. Gegen Militarismus, Krieg und Folter
„Der Flughafen Rostock-Laage ist Teil der Infrastruktur des G8-Gipfels und der militaristischen Politik der G8-Staaten. Hier wird mit Eurofightern der nächste Krieg vorbereitet. Von hier sollen demnächst die Kriegsflugzeuge zum Bombodrom starten, und hier wollen am 5. Juni die TeilnehmerInnen der G8-Konferenz von Heiligendamm einfliegen. Auch wir an diesem Tag werden massenhaft vor Ort sein, denn mit ihrer Kriegspolitik können sie bei uns nicht landen. Das wollen wir mit vielfältigem Protest und aktivem Widerstand gegen Krieg und G8 gebührend zum Ausdruck bringen…“ Der Aufruf bei dissent! http://dissentnetzwerk.org/node/616
Einladung zur Internationalen G8-Demo-Vorbereitung am 10.3.2007 in Hamburg
„Im Rahmen der Proteste gegen den G8-Gipfel 2007 in Heiligendamm wird es am 2. Juni 2007 in Rostock eine Internationale Großdemonstration geben. Die Demonstration ist als gemeinsames Projekt aller Spektren und Organisationen geplant, die sich an den Gipfelprotesten beteiligen. Von besonderer Bedeutung ist hierbei die internationale Beteiligung. Deshalb lädt die Demo-AG des G8-Vorbereitungskreises ein zum Internationalen Vorbereitungstreffen am Samstag, 10.3.2007 von 13 bis 19 Uhr im Kölibri, Hein-Köllisch-Platz 12, 20359 Hamburg (S-Bahn Reeperbahn)“ Siehe die Einladung http://www.g8-2007.de/index.php?option=com_eventlist&Itemid=&func=details&did=20
26.Mai – 2.Juni 2007: Gleiche soziale Rechte für alle überall! Märsche durch Europa gegen Erwerbslosigkeit, Armut, Ausgrenzung und Diskriminierung gegen den G8-Gipfel im Juni 2007 Der Info-Flyer (pdf) http://euromarsch2007.labournet.de/files/EM-Flyer-02-07.pdf
Aus: LabourNet, 20. Februar 2007
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G-8-Gipfel im Sommer 2007 in Heiligendamm
"Wenn irgendwo Bomben fallen, treffen sie uns alle." Besiedelung des Bombodroms im Vorfeld des G8-Gipfels geplant
„Neununddreißig Organisationen aus der Friedens- und antimilitaristischen Bewegung rufen dazu auf, am 1. Juni 2007 das sogenannte "Bombodrom" in Brandenburg zu besiedeln. Auf dem ehemaligen sowjetischen Bombenabwurfplatz plant die Bundesregierung einen Truppenübungsplatz einzurichten. Bundeswehr, EU- und NATO-Truppen sollen dort das Abwerfen von Bomben und das Zusammenwirken von Luft- und Bodentruppen üben….“ Pressemitteilung des Bündnis No War No G8 vom 28. Februar 2007 zur Besiedelung des Bombodroms im Vorfeld des G8-Gipfels und weitere Infos auf der Bündnis-Homepage http://g8andwar.de/
G8, Globalisierung und Krieg. Antimilitaristische Positionen zum Gipfel in Heiligendamm
Die Informationsstelle Militarisierung hat gemeinsam mit der attac-Projektgruppe G8 einen Reader zur Mobilisierung zum G8-Gipfel herausgegeben (pdf) http://www.imi-online.de/download/g8readerWEB.pdf
G-8-Alternativgipfel: 5. bis 7. Juni Rostock. Siehe Aufruf und weitere Infos auf der offiziellen Webseite des Alternativgipfels http://www.g8-alternative-summit.org/de/
Aus: LabourNet, 1. März 2007
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G-8-Gipfel im Sommer 2007 in Heiligendamm
Nein zu G8 - Gewerkschaften auf die globale Bühne! GewerkschafterInnen gegen Standortkonkurrenz und Lohndumping
Die Sammlung der Erstunterschriften für den internationalen Gewerkschafteraufruf gegen G8 ist abgeschlossen, nun sollen weltweit möglichst viele Unterschriften gesammelt werden. Siehe dazu
Wir eröffnen hiermit den Ideenwettbewerb, in welchem Zusammenhang dies mit dem Hauptthema Klimaschutz steht…
Aus: LabourNet, 5. März 2007
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US-Kriegsschiffe bewachen angeblich G8-Gipfel in Heiligendamm
Zum Schutz des G8-Gipfels in Heiligendamm sollen auch zwei US-Kriegsschiffe vor dem Seebad kreuzen. Ein Zerstörer der "Arleigh-Burke-Klasse" und ein Kreuzer der "Ticonderoga-Klasse" sollen bis Anfang Juni in die Ostsee verlegt werden und die seeseitige Absicherung des Treffens übernehmen, wie die Rostocker "Ostseezeitung" unter Berufung auf das Wehrbereichskommando Nord in Kiel berichtet. Offiziell nähmen beide Schiffe, die mit jeweils knapp 370 Mann Besatzung fahren, an einem internationalen Manöver in der Ostsee teil.
Gipfelkritiker wollen Infrastruktur des G8-Treffens blockieren
Gipfelkritiker wollen während des G8-Treffens im Juni in Heiligendamm sämtliche Zufahrtsstraßen zum Veranstaltungsort blockieren. "Wir schneiden den Gipfel von seiner Infrastruktur ab", kündigte Christoph Kleine vom Aktionsbündnis "Block G8" am Freitag in Rostock an. Rund 10.000 Teilnehmer würden erwartet, die mit Mitteln des zivilen Ungehorsams den Durchgangsverkehr aufhalten wollten.
Aktionskonferenz Rostock III vom 13. - 15. April 2007
Mit der dritten Aktionskonferenz in Rostock geht die Mobilisierung gegen den G8 2007 in den Endspurt. Es wird die letzte Gelegenheit sein, um wichtige Fragen mit hunderten von Aktivistinnen gemeinsam zu besprechen. Siehe alle Infos bei heiligendamm2007.de http://www.heiligendamm2007.de/index_konferenz.html
Etwas Besseres als Protest. Warum die Proteste gegen den G8-Gipfel keine soziale Bewegung ersetzen und dieser auch nicht nutzen.
Aus dem Text: “… Deshalb schlagen wir vor, dass die IG Metall alle Aktionen gegen die EU und vor allem die G8 im Juni in Rostock und Heiligendamm unterstützt, wie es auch die Bundesjugendkonferenz gefordert hat, und erwarten entsprechende Initiative von Euch. Wir selbst rufen alle Metallerinnen und Metaller auf, sich an den Aktionen zu beteiligen!“
Wir erinnern in diesem Zusammenhang an den Aufruf „Nein zu G8 - Gewerkschaften auf die globale Bühne! GewerkschafterInnen gegen Standortkonkurrenz und Lohndumping“ http://www.g8-gewerkschafteraufruf.de/
G8-Aktionstag gegen Militarismus, Krieg und Folter am 5. Juni. Proteste am Flughafen Rostock-Laage angekündigt
„Proteste und Blockaden rund um den Militärflughafen Rostock-Laage kündigten G8-Gegner und Antimilitaristen für den 5. Juni an. An diesem Tag werden dort die G8-Chefs und ihr Tross landen. Die Proteste sind der Auftakt der Blockaden anlässlich des G8-Gipfels in Heiligendamm. Der 5. Juni gilt innerhalb des G8-Widerstands als „Aktionstag gegen Militarismus, Krieg und Folter”…“ Presseerklärung vom 3.4.2007 http://dissentnetzwerk.org/node/1491
Die "Antiterrorgesetze" werden heute um weitere fünf Jahre verlängert und zudem noch ausgeweitet. Dazu erklärt die stellvertretende Vorsitzende Katina Schubert:
Die Masche ist nicht neu: Mit dem Schüren einer diffusen Terrorangst und dem beständigen Wiederholen von Bedrohungsszenarien lässt sich der Bevölkerung jeder Einschnitt in ihre bürgerlichen Freiheitsrechte erklären. Das war unter Otto Schily so und ist unter Wolfgang Schäuble nicht anders. Ab heute gelten für fünf weitere Jahre die nach dem 11. September 2001 beschlossen Antiterrorgesetze fort und werden ausgeweitet. So können Geheimdienste jetzt direkt auf die Daten der Kraftfahrzeughalter zugreifen. Die komplette Kennzeichenerfassung von Fahrzeugen, die Überprüfung sämtlicher Kreditkartenbesitzer in der Bundesrepublik, der Zugriff auf Konten machen beängstigend klar: Persönliche Daten sind nicht länger unsere Daten. Die gläsernen Bürgerinnen und Bürger sind Realität, und sie stehen unter permanentem Generalverdacht. Die Linkspartei bleibt bei ihrer Forderung: Der Schutz von Bürgerrechten muss Priorität haben. Deshalb darf die Trennung von polizeilicher und geheimdienstlicher Arbeit nicht verwischt werden. Die Geheimdienste müssen kontrolliert werden und alle Bürgerinnen und Bürger haben das Recht, über ihre Daten zu bestimmen. Sie müssen nachvollziehen können, welche Daten über sie wo und warum gespeichert werden. Sie müssen über deren Verwendung informiert werden.
„Mit der Veröffentlichung des Terrorismusbekämpfungsergänzungsgesetzes
(TBEG) im Bundesgesetzblatt am heutigen Mittwoch tritt das umstrittene neue Anti-Terrorpaket morgen in Kraft. Es verlängert und erweitert die nach dem 11. September 2001 geschaffenen Befugnisse für Geheimdienste. Neben dem Verfassungsschutz können künftig auch Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND) und Militärischer Abschirmdienst (MAD) Auskünfte bei Luftfahrtunternehmen, Banken, Post-, Telekommunikations- und Telediensteunternehmen einholen. Dies gilt nicht mehr nur bei Terrorverdacht, sondern auch im Rahmen der Aufklärung "verfassungsfeindlicher Bestrebungen" im Inland. Entsprechend ausgedehnt wird die Ermächtigung zum Einsatz des IMSI-Catchers für die Mobilfunküberwachung. Verdeckt fahnden dürfen Geheimdienste ferner im Schengener Informationssystem…“ Artikel von Stefan Krempl in Heise news vom 10.01.2007 http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/83517
„Der Düsseldorfer Rechtsanwalt Udo Vetter ergreift gegen die Überprüfung von zirka 22 Millionen Kreditkarten rechtliche Schritte. Fahnder ließen bei dem spektakulären Schlag gegen die Kinderporno-Szene im Internet systematisch die Daten von etwa 22 Millionen Kreditkarten durchsuchen. Die Banken hatten auf Bitten der Ermittler auf Basis ihrer Angaben die Transaktionsdaten durchsucht und Daten von Kreditkartenkunden zur Verfügung gestellt, die im Sommer 2006 eine bestimmte Summe auf ein verdächtiges Konto gezahlt hatten. In seinem Weblog veröffentlicht der Anwalt nun eine Klage vor dem Amtsgericht Halle, mit der er die Rechtswidrigkeit der Maßnahme feststellen lassen will…“ Artikel mit weiterführenden Links von Torsten Kleinz in Heise news vom 10.01.2007 http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/83516
Rechtsstaat: Wie viele Freiheiten sollen wir widerstandslos opfern?
„Um Beziehern von Kinderpornos auf die Spur zu kommen, wurden fast alle Kreditkarten der Republik überprüft. Solche Eingriffe in unsere Privatsphäre nehmen wir jedoch kaum noch als Einschränkung wahr, weil wir damit einer guten Sache zu dienen meinen. Doch ist das klug?...“ Artikel von Richard Herzinger in Die Welt vom 11.01.07 http://www.welt.de/data/2007/01/11/1173251.html
Elektronische Gesundheitskarte
Der gläserne Patient
„Die "elektronische lebensbegleitende Gesundheitsakte" (ELGA), die in Österreich wie in anderen EU-Ländern eingeführt werden soll, ist eines der größten IT-Projekte, verspricht mehr Effizienz und manche Vorteile, aber es mehren sich auch die Probleme. Seit Jahren arbeiten Ökonomen, IT-Experten und Politiker an der größten Gesundheitsreform, die in Österreich, aber auch in anderen europäischen Ländern je in Angriff genommen wurde. Auf einem Chip soll die Krankheitsgeschichte jedes Menschen lebenslang gespeichert und für Gesundheitsanbieter jederzeit abrufbar gemacht werden. Zu klären sind nur noch ein paar "Kleinigkeiten": etwa, wo all die Informationen zusammen laufen, wer in welcher Form Zugriff auf die Daten bekommt und ob sich ein Datenmissbrauch tatsächlich ausschließen lässt…“ Artikel von Christa Salchner in telepolis vom 08.01.2007 http://www.heise.de/tp/r4/artikel/24/24397/1.html
Zur Ankündigung des amerikanischen Präsidenten, noch mehr Soldaten in den Irak zu senden, erklärt das Mitglied des Parteivorstandes Helmut Scholz:
Mit undemokratischen Mitteln kann man keine Demokratie aufbauen. Das hat Bush bis heute nicht begriffen. Seine mit Spannung erwartete Rede muss ernüchternd auf die deutsche Bundesregierung gewirkt haben. Bush setzt nach wie vor einzig auf eine militärische Lösung der Konflikte im Irak. Die angekündigte neue Irak-Strategie ist die alte. Bush setzt auf ein gnadenloses "Weiter so!" Sollte sich Kanzlerin Merkel Hoffnungen ob ihres Einflusses gemacht haben, so kann sie dies durchaus als Ohrfeige verstehen nicht nur als deutsche Bundeskanzlerin, sondern auch als amtierende EU-Ratspräsidentin und Vorsitzende der G8. Sie sollte sich künftig ihre Freunde besser aussuchen. Vor dem Hintergrund eines im Kriegschaos versinkenden Landes sind dringend politische Kräfte gefragt, die sich für eine friedliche Lösung im Irak einsetzen und bereit sind, entsprechende Schritte zu gehen.
Somali officials accuse Americans of killing up to 31 civilians
A Somali lawmaker said 31 civilians, including two newlyweds, died in Tuesday's assault by the helicopters near Afmadow, a town in an area of forested hills close to the Kenyan border, 350 kilometers southwest of Mogadishu.
CAIRO, Jan 10 (Reuters) - The Arab League said on Wednesday U.S. military action in Somalia had killed "many innocent victims" and demanded that Washington refrain from such attacks.
U.S. forces hunting al Qaeda suspects hit four sites in air strikes in southern Somalia on Wednesday, a Somali government source said, as international criticism mounted over Washington's military intervention.
Our politicians are playing right along with the game, grandstanding on the issue while haggling over meaningless deployment numbers. They all know that even if we could find the additional troops, sending them into Iraq would only lead to more death and destruction on both sides......
The National ID is of paramount concern to those of us who refuse to be tagged and numbered like animals. Many do not want to comply, but don't know what to do as an individual. First, this national identification is voluntary, not mandatory for the individual. However, the sinister and devious minions behind the scenes who write this legislation for our corrupt Congress added some provisions they hope will force Americans to surrender.....
Seit dem 1. Dezember 2006 steht der erwerbslose Rüdiger S. aus Wieda
(Niedersachsen) im Hungerstreik. Er protestiert dagegen, dass das zuständige Jobcenter ihm nicht die notwendigen Heizkosten erstattet. Dazu erklärt die stellvertretende Parteivorsitzende Katja Kipping:
Rüdiger S. macht mit höchstem persönlichem Einsatz auf Probleme aufmerksam, die uns alle angehen. Denn er ist, was die Heizkosten betrifft, kein Einzelfall. Arbeitslosengeld-II-Bezieher haben oft besonders hohe Heizkosten, weil sie häufig in nicht sanierten Wohnungen mit veralteter Heiztechnik leben müssen. Darüber hinaus hat Rüdiger S. einen 1-Euro-Job in einem kommunalen Kurbetrieb als Webdesigner aus Gewissensgründen abgelehnt. Dabei würde er die Tätigkeit als Webdesigner gern als reguläre Arbeit annehmen. Er ist aber nicht bereit, sich zum Lohndrücker machen zu lassen. "Notfalls werde ich für meine Überzeugung sterben", sagte mir Rüdiger S. in einem Telefonat. Dazu darf es nicht kommen. Jetzt sind sowohl der Bund als auch der Landkreis gefragt. Auf Bundesebene muss schnellstens die generelle Frage nach der Übernahme notwendiger Heizkosten geklärt werden. Die Sanktionen bei Nichtantritt von 1-Euro-Jobs müssen sofort gestrichen werden. Vor Ort sollte rasch und unbürokratisch geholfen werden. Ich bitte den zuständigen Landkreis Osterode deswegen schnellstmöglich die notwendigen Heizkosten zu erstatten. Zudem sollte geprüft werden, ob der angebotene 1-Euro-Job im Bereich des Webdesigns in einen sozialversicherungspflichtigen Arbeitsplatz umgewandelt werden kann.
"Democrats oppose the escalation. Senator Reid and I signed a letter to that effect to the president last week," said Pelosi, on a 35-minute call with leading Progressive bloggers. "And we're making a very strong differentiation between supporting our troops, which we do - those in the field now - and giving a blank check to the president for an escalation of the war."
We are not winning the war on terrorism (and would not be even if we knew what victory looked like) or the war in Iraq. Our track record in Afghanistan, as well as in the allied "war" on drugs, is hardly better. Yet the Pentagon is hard at work, spending your money, planning and preparing for future conflicts of every imaginable sort.
Pentagon insiders say members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have long opposed the increase in troops and are only grudgingly going along with the plan because they have been promised that the military escalation will be matched by renewed political and economic efforts in Iraq.
Robert Scheer writes: "To surge or not to surge, that is the question. As our prince proposes, once again, to take arms against a sea of troubles, he responds not to the disaster that he has visited upon Iraq, but rather embraces a desperate strategy for salvaging what remains of his reign."
Dean Baker writes: "It's payback time, as the lobbyists say in Washington. One of the key planks in the Democrats' election platform was changing the Medicare drug benefit by allowing Medicare to negotiate lower prices with the pharmaceutical industry. While this may not have been as important to their victory as the war, voters were outraged by the Medicare drug bill approved by the Republican Congress. The benefit was designed to enrich the pharmaceutical and insurance industries at the expense of taxpayers and beneficiaries."
In Somalia nutzt die Bush-Regierung die Situation, mit Luftangriffen mutmaßliche al-Qaida-Terroristen zu liquidieren, tötet aber dabei wieder Zivilisten und riskiert, Somalia zu einem neuen Afghanistan und Irak zu machen.
Human habitation has been, and is increasingly, playing a direct role not only in the extinction of species, but in their evolution. By our own actions, we may be accompanied into the future by ever more diverse pests and pathogens, and may leave behind what we value most -- elephants, tigers, and others of the earth's great megabeasts.
Evolution is often thought of as a slow process relative to our life spans, one that we have played no part in. We imagine it to have occurred in the far distant past. Until recently, the study of big evolutionary changes has rested on an examination of fossil remains and molecular evidence of the deep past. But, from a biological perspective, we can see that evolution is actually happening now and more quickly than we had previously assumed. Moreover, the new centers of evolution are neither tropical forests nor east African lakes but, instead, those habitats and resources most closely allied with us -- our human habitats and ourselves.
First, some context. A consideration of previous periods of speciation suggests that the evolution of new species occurs most rapidly in big habitats with lots of resources. Where are those habitats now? In the last five thousand years the earth has gone from a place dominated by forests and grasslands to one dominated by humans, agriculture, and cities. The Atlantic forest of Brazil, for example, fragmented and dwindling, is unlikely to be an important source of new species in the future. The Amazon and a few other large native habitats may still be important, but less so than they have been historically. Due to our destruction of habitat, we have already extinguished hundreds of birds and mammal species, not to mention the other multitudes. As it stands, up to 95 percent of all the terrestrial world is actively managed for human uses.
The world, as we have rendered it, is now chiefly comprised of our crops, the consumers of those crops (including we humans), our own pathogens at the top of the food chain, and, on the bottom, as it were, the decomposers of our waste. These groups now account for the vast majority of the living matter on earth.
More than half of the species on earth are parasites and, for a subset of those parasites, we represent a tremendous and growing resource. Humans are now six and a half billion strong and those billions represent pounds of resources for needy parasites. We are bodies full of unexploited niches (along with a number of exploited ones). As we expand our numbers, we are expanding evolutionary possibilities for microbes that can live on us and in us. At the same time, we are introducing new selection pressures which are working to speed the evolution of those microbes. We are covered in antibiotics, antimicrobials -- anti-everything -- which exert strong selection for the evolution of resistant and more virulent forms. We have seen, in the last 60 years, bacteria, protists, helminthes and other parasites all independently, and frequently, evolve resistance to our anti-parasite treatments. In addition, we are witnessing the origin of new human pathogens, such as HIV, either when pathogens switch hosts to take advantage of the resource humans represent, or through the divergence of human pathogens.
If the lesson that parasites offer is insufficiently clear, we can turn to our commensals, the rodents, fruit flies, lice, and doves of the world for an even clearer picture of our recent past and perhaps future. As we spread and our cultures change, we have affected not only our microbes but actually caused the speciation of our commensals. We know, for example, that house mice evolved a commensal relationship with humans early in our history and since then, as they spread with us around the globe and adapted to new habitats, have speciated into no fewer than seven species. Drosophila melanogaster (the common fruit fly) appears to have evolved from a forest species in Africa and also moved with us as we've migrated. It is no longer capable of breeding with the populations from which it apparently originated and this in relatively few human generations. The list goes on. Rats and mice that we have introduced to islands, via our ocean-going vessels, have evolved traits over just a few hundred years which ultimately allow them to take better advantage of island resources.
Where we have industrialized agriculture, weeds have evolved to chemically mimic our crops to avoid the herbicide. Insect pests have evolved resistance to DDT and to the pesticides that have followed. We have countered with genetically engineered crops. Already there are insect species resistant to the defenses of those crops. When we add new species of crops, insects in turn rapidly switch to those. Even our most degraded landscapes offer possibilities. Many independent plant lineages have evolved tolerance to heavy metal pollutants. Insects have, in response, evolved resistance to the heavy metals those plants sequester in their leaves.
The more we look at the world around us, the more it seems to be evolving at our hand, albeit without our meaning it to. As we inadvertently introduce thousands of species to new habitats, species evolve. In some of the most detailed studies to date, researchers in Australia have shown that the poisonous cane toad, which was introduced by humans from Central America, has exerted a selective pressure on the local snakes, killing those that eat cane toads. Now, apparently, since the cane toads' introduction, because snakes with bigger mouths ate cane toads, died, and passed on no genes, at least one species of snake has evolved a smaller mouth. Those are the ones that have survived.
What we must begin to come to terms with is that we may be seeing the beginning of a new adaptive radiation, a new burgeoning of life -- but it is not necessarily the one we might hope for. The big creatures we value so highly -- indeed treasure -- will not be able to regain a stronghold in the face of our encroachments. Indeed, they breed, and so evolve, more slowly than the species mentioned here. Instead, the small will inherit the earth, if it is not already theirs. The evolutionary future is pathogens, pests and guests, at least as we have currently written the story.
Wallace and Darwin met opposition when they revealed their theory of natural selection. Today, such opposition, has been "born again" as it were in the form of creation science or intelligent design. But whether one "believes" or does not believe in evolution, individuals go on mating and dying. Through time, some genes are favored and others are not. The new forms that have evolved in our anthropogenic landscapes don't care if we believe in them.
If you want a more bucolic version of the ecological future, consult a paleontologist. The paleontologists look further into the future to a time when the great evolutionary opportunities are not agricultural habitats, but are, instead, vast forests -- to a time when the seas are again filled with large species -- to a time when new large vertebrates roam new kinds of plains. They look forward in time to a world more interesting to us than our present evolutionary future. The paleontologists can do all this because they begin their discussions of future evolution with the statement, "once humans go extinct."
Rob R. Dunn is an assistant professor in the department of zoology at North Carolina State University in Raleigh.
The Bush administration's plan to beef up the US military presence in Iraq is likely to create a new wave of protests across the United States in the coming days. As Bush is expected to announce his plans Wednesday to send approximately 20,000 more troops to Iraq, anti-war groups say they will hold rallies and sit-ins in dozens of cities across the nation to press the US Congress to thwart any troop escalation.
"We are stuck in hell in Iraq, and everyone knows it. Even those whose only response is to go in deeper - with 'a new approach' - in this 'grave and deteriorating' situation," writes Bill Scheurer. "Yet, there is a way out of hell. A way back from the collective Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that led us astray after September 11, to return to our truer and better selves."
John Cory writes: "President Bush will unleash the latest formula of folly in Iraq: the 'surge' doctrine, embroidered with a theme of 'sacrifice.' Voices of the dead scream in silent sorrow, and the world watches aghast at the fiery failure. And yet, the man-child king demands one more chance. The coming speech matters little and cannot hide the bloody lies and deception that have taken a toll on America."
Were Saddam Hussein's flawed trial and disgusting death just further examples of incompetence, or were they symptoms of a deeper dilemma? What did the incident tell us about America in Iraq and the problems of trying to impose democracy by force? One has to wonder how even a star-crossed administration such as George W. Bush's and his Iraqi allies could have turned one of the world's most cruel and despicable dictators into a stoic martyr-hero, facing death calmly in the face of an officially sanctioned lynching by Shi'ite militiamen? After all, the Americans had had physical custody of Saddam for nearly three years. Was it just another bumble that led them to hand him over so quickly to such an undignified death?
No sooner had the grainy cell phone video of Saddam Hussein's execution been broadcast across on the Internet than angry mobs began to fill the streets of Iraq, protesting not only the hurried nature of the act, but the manner in which it was conducted. Both objections are crucial to understanding the reality of Iraq today, a reality that was made glaringly obvious by the scene in Saddam's death chamber: sectarian divides have widened to a point where the idea of a unified Iraq with a representative government is no longer realistic...
Two things we've been hearing a lot after Saddam Hussein's execution are, 'the world is a better place without him' and 'Iraq is better off without him.' Is that really so? These are two very moot points. Let's examine the report card. He was, undeniably, a very bad man who killed, tortured, terrorized his own people, waged regional wars and was a general nuisance to the world body. But, on the plus side, he held together the fractious elements of his country in what was probably the only way -- with an iron fist; he was secular and was actually a bulwark against Islamic radicalism; women and Christians enjoyed some freedoms during his time. What's more, from the point of view of ordinary Iraqis, Saddam's Iraq had the markers of 'normal' life -- garbage was picked up, electricity was on, children could go to school safely, you had a job, could attend weddings and funerals, go downtown to a kebab restaurant...
Mr. Hussein was definitely a murderous tyrant who deserved to be held accountable for his crimes, but it will be bitterly ironic if his death creates a new divide within a population that’s supposed to be pulling itself together. Reconciliation is often a crucial factor in the process of building and maintaining a nation. In a perfect world, justice and reconciliation would work together to resolve collective grievances and break cycles of recrimination. I doubt that the crude video of Hussein’s hanging will encourage a spirit of national unity in Iraq. And people who taunt a condemned man on the gallows have crossed the line that separates justice from revenge...
I just learned some exciting things during a conference call with one our coalitions. The REAL ID Act is in REAL trouble. We're going to have a lot more details to share, probably later this month, but let's add to the trouble by sending the new Congress another blast on this one. ... We strongly believe this is a law that must be repealed. We also believe it can be. The new Congress hasn't heard from us yet on this one. So let's make the first noise they hear on this issue a LOUD ONE...
In my opinion, the vast majority of evil acts committed on this planet are not born out of malice, but from the mistaken impression that a small wrong can create a greater good. A little bit of theft can allow us to feed the hungry and shelter the homeless -- we shall call it 'tax.' A little bit of murder can allow us to make everyone else safe from killings -- we shall call it 'war.' A little bit of fraud can allow us to stimulate the economy to greater glory -- we shall call it 'standard accounting practices,' or perhaps 'fractional reserve banking.' The tax-collectors, soldiers, and number-crunchers -- or at least many of them -- believe they are actually doing the world a favor. They must believe that their means justify some end, otherwise they could not continue to pursue those means with a clear conscience...
Except for his abbreviated prayers, cut short when he dropped through the small trapdoor on the floor of the gallows, Saddam Hussein's last words -- a retort to a taunt -- were spot on: The hell that is Iraq. Hundreds of thousands of innocents have been killed in the bloodbath that has washed over Iraq since the American-led invasion in March of 2003. Thousands of willing war fighters have also died while cleansing the desert sands of insurgents, terrorists, women, and children. The figurative purgatory that was Iraq when Saddam ruled with an iron fist has become, under the thumb of George W. Bush, a literal hell on earth...
Mayors of big cities across the country are lining up to take control of dysfunctional urban school systems. Test scores in city school districts have hit rock bottom and buildings are crumbling, while spending has soared to new heights. Washington D.C.'s new mayor Adrian M. Fenty is the latest up to bat, releasing his plan for mayoral control of the local school system last Wednesday. Chances are that Fenty will modestly improve a situation that would be difficult to make worse -- just like the big-stick mayors he'd like to emulate in Chicago, Boston, and New York. But while a dictator may make the trains run on time, only a free society can create an excellent and diverse school system...
A 101st Airborne Division soldier who had been charged with murder in the deaths of three Iraqi detainees pleaded guilty Tuesday to a lesser charge of aggravated assault with a dangerous weapon and was sentenced to nine months in military jail. Spc. Juston R. Graber, 21, is accused with three others from the division's 187th Infantry Regiment of killing detainees during a raid of a suspected al-Qaida stronghold near Samarra, about 60 miles north of Baghdad...
The first of up to 20,000 additional U.S. troops will move into Iraq by month's end under President Bush's new war plan, a senior defense official said Tuesday. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi pledged to hold a vote on the increase, which many Democrats oppose. Details of a gradual military buildup emerged a day before Bush's planned speech to the nation, in which he also will propose a bit over $1 billion to shore up the country's battered economy and create jobs, said a second U.S. official...
A glimpse into the lives of people who live at bottom-rung pay rates illustrates why, to supporters of the change, the minimum wage is long overdue for a raise. But it also reveals that such a boost isn't a one-step solution for the challenges that face America's poorest workers.
The chief of the United Nations' effort against climate change said Monday there is widespread recognition of the seriousness of global warming, but a lack of leadership has created a sense of helplessness.
Most top US military officials - even members of George W. Bush's administration such as National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley - did not recommend a "surge" or escalation of troops into Iraq when they were interviewed by the Iraq Study Group last fall, says group member Leon Panetta, a former White House chief of staff under Bill Clinton. Instead of a surge - which the president plans to announce in a speech to the nation tomorrow - these officials recommended at the time that more US advisers be embedded in Iraqi units, Panetta says. That later led the bipartisan commission co-chaired by James Baker and Lee Hamilton to come to the same conclusion.
Few chapters in the US involvement in Iraq have angered Representative John Murtha more than the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. It was a major reason the Pennsylvania Democrat helped Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) add anti-torture language to the Defense Department budget in the last Congress.
"Will we always have Gitmo?" asks William Fisher. "Will it always be the 800-pound gorilla in the room? This week, the world marks the fifth anniversary of the arrival of the first detainees at the US naval facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. And still a growing number of people and organizations - from military officers to religious leaders to legal scholars to human rights groups - continue to label the prison a black hole of injustice and demand that it be closed."
When marine scientist John Reed began exploring the ocean floor off Cape Canaveral in 1975, he found towers of coral thousands of years old, teeming with grouper and black sea bass.
Returning to the spot 25 years later, the treasures that once amazed Reed were gone. In their place? Fields of rubble.
Today, though parts of the Oculina coral reefs between Daytona Beach and Fort Pierce have been protected for 20 years, much has been obliterated. And the destructive bottom trawling for shrimp and fish that's blamed for the damage still may happen on some areas of the reef.
"There's basically no federal restriction, even in this day and age, prohibiting a bottom trawler from rolling over a healthy reef and it's just ludicrous," said Reed, a senior scientist at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution in Fort Pierce. "It's like saying, 'Oh, you can go clearcut a redwood forest.' "
In one pass, a heavy trawl may destroy delicate corals hundreds of years old, leaving thousands of tiny animals like shrimp and worms homeless and ruining the chance of successful fishing there anytime soon.
Such trawling may be trashing coral reefs worldwide, just one example of a host of ailments plaguing the world's oceans. Gleaming beauty and salty breezes still lure those who would swim, sail and fish, but the ocean's ancient image as an everlasting resource is an illusion.
"The oceans are not the pristine place people think they are," said Peter Anderson, director of Whitney Lab at Marineland. "It's staggering what we've done. For generations now we thought the oceans were a bottomless pit and they're not."
Both playground and economic backbone for coastal counties like Volusia and Flagler, healthy oceans mean safe swimming, fruitful fishing and tourist cash. The reefs, spawning grounds for countless fish species, are one measure of whether that backbone stays strong.
And with more than half the nation's population living on the coast, the strain shows.
Pressured by fishing, shipping traffic, cruise boats, a warming climate and pollution, the oceans have been overfished and polluted before being fully explored or understood.
Whales, birds and other sea life wash on to beaches, tangled in deadly debris or battered by ships. Scientists find human diseases such as herpes viruses and traces of human drugs and pollutants in their blood.
LIGHTER CATCHES
No longer do fishing boats heave under the weight of a day's catch of prize-worthy beauties. Up to 90 percent of the world's big fish, like marlin and tuna, have vanished. Fishing villages no longer thrive, their fishermen turning to other jobs as they have in Oak Hill.
Jellyfish, algae and seaweed, once held in check by balanced ecosystems, run rampant in what scientists call the "rise of slime."
Instead of flocking to the sea, tourists avoid bacteria-laden waves and toxic algae blooms, as they did in Southwest Florida last year. Such blooms cost the country an estimated $75 million a year.
Even miles from shore, the human footprint that lined the ocean with condominiums and highways leaves its heavy tread. Six-pack wrappers and bottles bob beside turtles and cavorting dolphins.
IS THE RESOLVE THERE?
Scientists and those who live off the sea are optimistic the tide can be turned. But they wonder if there will be enough resolve and money for things like mapping the entire Oculina Bank, which may go as far north as St. Augustine.
They're encouraged by improvements seen since large areas of the bank were closed to fishing.
Fish numbers dropped dramatically when areas of Oculina coral were "annihilated," said Christopher Koenig, a Florida State University professor. But black sea bass, grouper and other fish seem to be returning.
ON PATROL
Researchers are pleased state and federal officials now patrol the closed areas.
On a sunny morning in August, the Coast Guard cutter Shrike set out on a routine patrol of the Oculina. The crew spotted more than a dozen shrimp boats anchored just a couple of miles outside one area closed to shrimping and most kinds of fishing.
Boarding one boat, the Guardsmen checked the overnight track. The Oculina was marked on the global positioning system with a "big purple line" and the shrimpers hadn't crossed it. Other boats have and been heavily fined.
The National Marine Fisheries Service requires tracking beacons on big fishing vessels.
But delicate coral that took hundreds of years to grow won't be quickly restored.
TAKING A BEATING
Other reefs around the world face similar threats and are being overtaken by seaweed that thrives in water polluted with stormwater runoff and sewage. This year for the first time, two corals were listed as endangered species and the Oculina Bank's ivory tree coral was listed as a species of concern.
Brian Lapointe, a Harbor Branch scientist, found septic tanks seeping into coastal waters of the Florida Keys 25 years ago. At Looe Key, a popular snorkeling spot, he found levels of two fertilizer ingredients, ammonium nitrate and phosphate, rose more than 100 percent in 10 years in the 1990s. Such increases -- from fertilizers, pesticides and bacteria -- occur worldwide, he said, and the ocean can't dilute it all.
Scott Kraus sees the impacts of pollution on sea life in his work as vice president of research with the New England Aquarium. "People don't take the potential problems we're creating for (the ocean) seriously, because we've been dumping for years and thinking it was infinite," Kraus said.
WORLDWIDE ATTENTION
The clamoring of scientists worldwide has drawn attention to the ocean crisis, with state and national ocean commissions calling for sweeping changes.
The fisheries service, for example, expects to create a series of Marine Protected Areas off the Southeast coast in March. The areas, including one between Jacksonville and Ormond Beach, would close key locations to fishing to give fish somewhere to feed and breed unmolested.
Many fishermen question more restrictions. To Paul Nelson, Jr. a lifelong local fisherman, it seems unconstitutional to close the ocean to a family trying to make a living as his has done for generations.
But ocean advocates say state and federal agencies must do more to ensure the ocean maintains its status as playground and economic backbone.
"We're very fortunate to have them in our backyard," Reed said, "but we also need to take the responsibility to protect them for future generations of mankind forever."
dinah.pulver @news-jrnl.com
The ocean crisis: what's to blame?
The independent Pew Oceans Commission and the federal U.S. Ocean Commission studied the ocean crisis and in 2003 and 2004 blamed:
· Overexploited fisheries
· Lack of U.S. leadership on international ocean and coastal issues
· Dwindling U.S. investment in ocean and coastal research
· Inadequate funding for government oversight at every level
· No coherent ocean policy, fragmented laws, confusing jurisdictions
· A lack of federal support for emerging initiatives
What should be done?
In March, the U.S. Senate asked the group to come up with a top 10 list of actions, delivered to the Senate in June. They included:
· Adopt a national ocean policy.
· Reauthorize and improve Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act, which sets procedures and limits for U.S. and foreign fishing in U.S. waters.
· Follow the United Nations convention on the Law of the Sea, which governs and regulates activities on, over and under the world's oceans.
· Establish an ocean trust fund for improved management and understanding of ocean and coastal resources; the group estimates up to $5 billion a year is needed.
· Increase funding for ocean and coastal programs, including research.
· Establish the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in law and work with the administration to improve coordination among federal agencies.
· Manage ocean resources by regional ecosystems rather than state by state.
· Begin an improved nationwide system of buoys for ocean observations.
How can you help?
DON'T LITTER: Discard trash and fishing line in containers. About 80 percent of ocean trash comes from land, mostly fast-food wrappers and plastic bags, bottles and cups.
NEVER RELEASE BALLOONS: Thousands of animals die each year from swallowing balloons. Jellyfish-eating creatures -- leatherback turtles, ocean sun fish and others -- get confused by the balloons, eat them and die.
PICK UP A PEN: Write your lawmakers at the state or federal level to ask for stronger protections for the Oculina Bank and better fishing regulations.
CURB YOUR PETS: Bag dog and cat feces and dispose of them in the trash. Don't flush cat litter down the toilet. Sewage treatment doesn't remove parasites that can harm sea otters and dolphins.
DON'T FLUSH MEDICINES OR SOLVENTS: Throw away unused pharmaceuticals, perfumes, industrial chemicals or solvents. Don't dispose of them in the toilet or down the sink. Sewage treatment doesn't remove many chemicals and dissolved drugs that can poison sea life.
MINIMIZE FERTILIZER USE: Don't apply before rainstorms. Don't use a hose to remove spills or residue from sidewalks and driveways. Sweep it up and put it in the trash.
DISCARD CHEMICALS PROPERLY: Dispose of household toxins at hazardous-waste collection centers. Recycle used motor oil and transmission fluid. When possible, use nontoxic substitutes.
COLLECT CAR-WASH RUNOFF: Don't wash cars in streets or driveways. Instead, park on lawns or go to a carwash that collects the runoff.
AVOID OVER-WATERING: Use drip irrigation whenever possible and adjust sprinklers to minimize over-spraying. Plant native plants that need less water.
PLANT A TREE: Trees slow runoff and absorb carbon dioxide and other nutrients that, otherwise, end up in the ocean.
USE ALTERNATIVE TRANSPORTATION: Consider walking, riding a bike or taking mass transit to shop or to work. Tailpipes pollute the ocean as well as the air.
SOURCES: Los Angeles Times; News-Journal researchGlossary
Terms to know to help navigate our oceans:
TRAWLING: dragging a large, baglike net by boat along the bottom of a fishing bank
OVERFISHING: to fish a body of water or geographic region to excess, depleting the stock of fish
ECOSYSTEM: a community of animals, plants and bacteria interrelated together with its physical and chemical environment
CUTTER: a small, armed, engine-powered ship used by the U.S. Coast Guard for patrol duty
AMMONIUM NITRATE: colorless, crystalline salt used in some explosives, as fertilizer, and in rocket fuel; can cause dangerous acidity in water
ENTEROCOCCUS: bacteria normally present in the intestinal tract; is used as an indicator of water quality
FECAL COLIFORM: consisting of feces, normally found in the colon; used as an indicator of disease bacteria in water
HIGH SEAS: waters beyond 200 miles of a nation's shore
DDT: powerful insecticide usually effective on contact; its use is restricted by law because of damaging environmental effects
SOURCES: Webster's New World College Dictionary; News-Journal research
Belly up and floating, the right whale found last weekend near Brunswick, Ga., died brutally, shredded by a propeller.
[foto] The Florida Times-Union/Bob Mack Biologists and others examine the head of a male right whale that was found dead off the Georgia coast near Jekyll Island on Dec. 30 and was towed to Fernandina Beach. Lacerations on the whale's head and lip suggest a boat propeller may have contributed to its death. Researchers who towed it to shore counted 20 deep cuts along its 41-foot-long body. They also found a skin pattern on its head that told them it was a calf they knew, born two years ago to a mother named Columbine. He was the fifth right whale in 2006 to die as a result of human contact.
Such deaths, scientists say, happen too often as the whales cope with increasing boat traffic in a busy Atlantic Ocean. The size and number of freighters and cruise boats has grown exponentially in 20 years.
The vessels are just one danger lurking in a changing ocean. The whales have plastic in their stomachs and contaminants like DDT in their blood. And they get tangled in fishing gear. Once researchers watched helplessly as a right whale mother tried to cradle her dying baby, ensnared in fishing gear, to keep it afloat.
ENCAPSULATING THE PROBLEM
"They sort of embody so many of the issues facing the ocean, just by all the things they're dealing with as individual animals," said Amy Knowlton, a research scientist with the New England Aquarium in Boston.
Right whale watchers have had their own frustrating experiences with whale deaths and entanglement in Volusia and Flagler counties, where the whales migrate offshore each winter. Two dead right whales have washed onto the beach in Flagler County since 1997, and last December rescuers tried to help a right whale spotted off Volusia with both flippers tangled in fishing gear.
For those who see live whales frolicking offshore, it's exciting, said Joy Hampp, coordinator of Marineland's volunteer right whale watching project, which reported 41 whale sightings in 2005.
But, Hampp said, it can be distressing to think, "Wow, I might be seeing one of the last of the species if we're not successful in conserving them."
For a while, it seemed the whales had a chance. Hunting was banned in
1935. But, the population has hovered at fewer than 400 and may be as low as 300. Scientists say the whales could be extinct within 100 to 200 years, less if struck with a catastrophic disease.
The future of the whales rests on a tiny fraction of the group: breeding females. Knowlton said saving just two a year could turn the population around.
DANGEROUS CROSSING
But a whale's migration might be compared to a pregnant woman trying to cross major highways on foot on her way to a delivery room. Seven of the country's 15 busiest ports are found along the migration route between Maine and Florida.
Nearly 70 whales have been killed by collisions or fishing gear since
1970. In 2005, the scientists begged the National Marine Fisheries Service to do something to stop the deaths. The fisheries service responded with proposed rules to slow freighters and expects to release a final rule in the spring, said spokeswoman Connie Barclay.
The shipping industry is protesting the proposal to slow boats over 65 feet to as low as 10 knots within 30 nautical miles of ports along the Eastern seaboard.
The World Shipping Council, in comments to the service, said it supports rerouting ships and tracking whales so ships can steer clear of the animals. But the council questioned why the Navy and boats less than 65 feet are exempt and said the service doesn't have evidence that slowing boats down would prevent whales from getting hit. The opposite may be true, the council wrote, because slower ships are harder to maneuver and not as noisy as a ship running at higher speeds.
The council estimates the rule could cost the industry more than $50 million a year.
Scientists like the proposed rules, although they wish the process would move faster and question why the Navy is exempt.
"The shipping companies and everyone concerned about the economic impact of slowing ships are complaining, but the fact of the matter is they are killing a couple of whales a year," said Scott Kraus, vice president of research at the New England Aquarium. "If you can slow the ships down, you can save the whales, as long as the reproduction doesn't fail."
LOW BIRTH RATES
Researchers find it difficult to single out one reason for the low reproduction. The lack of available food may be one cause, said whale expert Michael Moore with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts. Pollution, pesticides, fertilizers and even noise may contribute. The chemicals feed natural algae and bacteria that give off toxins that kill marine mammals.
Because they don't understand the causes, it's worrisome.
"If there's something we're doing that's creating the reproductive failure and we don't know what it is, we're going to continue to do it," Kraus said. "The whales may be the most visible charismatic consequence, but, if it's affecting right whales, it's affecting other things along the way, and that's what we should be paying attention to."
"The BTC pipeline is strategically important to the West as a new source of much-needed oil,'' says John Dingell, chairman of the U.S. Congress's Energy and Commerce Committee.
The number of Guantanamo Bay detainees participating in a hunger strike has more than doubled since a month ago to 11, including five who are being force-fed, the US military said.
A man denied citizenship because of charges that he tortured and murdered people as part of a death squad in Latin America has been granted permanent residence in the United States.
The US Treasury Department listed the Iranian state-owned Bank "Sepah" as a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction, and said a ban on all transactions between the bank and US businesses is in effect.
The United States has urged China to reconsider a reported multibillion dollar (euro) natural gas deal with Iran amid international efforts to sanction Tehran for its nuclear programs, a U.S. Embassy spokeswoman said Tuesday.
Oliver North doesn't support the President's plan to for 20,000 additional ground troops in Iraq. 0'Reilly quips that North is aligning himself with Nancy Pelosi.
Ollie North said on Fox News yesterday that in a recent trip to Iraq, 'not one' service member he interviewed said that the solution in Iraq is more American boots on the ground, and that 'nearly all' suggested 'just the opposite.' See video at Think Progress. An American public already doubting President Bush's plan to send 20,000 more troops to Iraq -- 3/4ths disapprove of the President's decision making, and half say we've lost regardless of how many troops we send -- has reason to doubt it further...
Top U.S. military officials have concluded that such a buildup would require them to reverse Pentagon policy and send the Army's National Guard and reserve units on lengthy second tours in Iraq, defense officials said Monday.
Reports have also emerged that suggest U.S. Special Forces and CIA paramilitary teams are now directly embedded with Ethiopian forces in Somalia. Earlier this year, the CIA was accused of backing a group of Somali warlords.
The boom of rocket-propelled grenade fire echoed through Mogadishu city center and touched off a two-minute gunfight. Hot spent shells clinked in the streets as residents ran for cover. At least one person was hurt, Mogadishu hospital officials said.
"My four-year-old boy was killed in the strike," Mohamed Mahmud Burale told the BBC from the area. Local MP Abdulkadir Haji Mohamoud Dhagane told the BBC that 27 people, mostly civilians, had been killed near Afmadow.
Clan warlords, who terrorized Somalia until they were driven out by the Islamists, and who were put back in power by the U.S.-backed and -trained Ethiopian army, have begun carving up the country once again.
Attack helicopters strafed suspected al-Qaida fighters in southern Somalia on Tuesday, witnesses said, following two days of airstrikes by U.S. forces -- the first U.S. offensives in the African country since 18 American soldiers were killed here in 1993. In Washington, a U.S. intelligence official said American forces killed five to 10 people in an attack on one target in southern Somalia believed to be associated with al-Qaida...
„Im Kontext der Ausgliederung und Privatisierung öffentlicher Dienstleistungen geistern bereits seit einiger Zeit die Begriffe »Öffentlich-Private-Partnerschaften« (ÖPP) oder neudeutsch »Public-private-Partnership« (PPP) durch die Öffentlichkeit. Der folgende Beitrag gibt am Beispiel des staatlichen Hochbaus, genauer: des Schulbaus, einen kurzen Einblick in dieses Thema…“ Artikel von Uli Maaz über Privatisierung durch Partnerschaft im Bildungsbereich http://www.labournet.de/diskussion/wipo/gats/ppp_maaz.html
Aus: LabourNet, 10. Januar 2007
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Privatisierung und Gegenkämpfe > Public-Private-Partnership
Forfaitierung mit Einredeverzicht. Wie der Staat bei "Public Private Partnership" (PPP) heimlich alle Risiken übernimmt und sich zusätzlich verschuldet
Fallstricke für Kommunen bei PPP. Werner Rügemer: »Forfaitierung mit Einredeverzicht« birgt auf Jahrzehnte hin große Risiken
„In Mülheim an der Ruhr wird am Sonntag über ein Bürgerbegehren gegen Öffentlich-Private Partnerschaften (ÖPP) abgestimmt. ÖPP-Projekte stellen entgegen der Darstellung mancher Kommunalpolitiker auch für die öffentlichen Haushalte ein hohes Risiko dar, sagt Wolfgang Rügemer, Dozent an der Uni Köln und Vorsitzender von Business Crime Control, einer Organisation gegen Wirtschaftsverbrechen. Mit ihm sprach Rolf-Henning Hintze…“ Interview im ND vom 08.09.07 http://www.nd-online.de/artikel.asp?AID=115890&IDC=3
Privatisierung und Widerstand allgemein > Bürgerentscheid gegen Privatisierung in Mülheim
Bürgerentscheid gescheitert. Den Privatisierungsgegnern fehlten 2768 Ja-Stimmen. SPD-Chef Esser fordert größere Transparenz bei PPP-Projekten.
„Glück gehabt. Beim gestrigen Bürgerentscheid zur Privatisierung kamen Stadtverwaltung und das Parteienbündnis aus SPD, CDU und FDP mit zwei blauen Augen davon. Der Entscheid scheiterte nicht daran, dass mehr Privatisierungsbefürworter als -kritiker zur Wahlurne schritten, sondern am verfehlten Quorum. Damit ein Bürgerentscheid gültig wird, müssen mindestens 20 Prozent der Wahlberechtigten mit Ja stimmen, das wären 27 065 Stimmen: Diese Messlatte verfehlte die Initiative "Mülheim bleibt unser" um 2,05 Prozent bzw. um 2768 Stimmen. Abgegeben wurden 33 014 Stimmen. Die Wahlbeteiligung lag somit bei 24,40 Prozent. Für Privatisierung und somit mit Nein stimmten 8652 Wahlberechtigte, das sind lediglich 8,65 Prozent. Für die SPD sind die Befürworter eine "schweigende Mehrheit"…“ So berichtet wahrhaft neutrale Presse, hier in Form der NRZ online vom 10. September 2007 – im Moment aber die einzige Meldung… http://www.nrz.de/nrz/nrz.nachbarstadt.volltext.php?kennung=on1nrzPOLStaMuelheim39332&zulieferer=nrz&kategorie=POL&rubrik=Stadt®ion=Muelheim&auftritt=NRZ&dbserver=1
»Verschuldung wird zementiert«. Bürgerentscheid in Mülheim zu Verbot von Privatisierungen.
Interview von Rolf-Henning Hintze mit Lothar Reinhard, Fraktionsvorsitzender der Mülheimer Bürger-Initiativen (MBI) im Stadtrat der Ruhrgebietsstadt, in junge Welt vom 08.09.2007 http://www.jungewelt.de/2007/09-08/025.php
Aus: LabourNet, 10. September 2007
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Privatisierung: Kostenfalle für das Gemeinwesen?
„Privat Public Partnership' (PPP) - das englische Schlagwort bedeutet nichts anderes als eine Partnerschaft zwischen privaten und öffentlichen Trägern. Gemeint sind damit also Kooperationen zwischen dem Staat - meist Kommunen, Landkreisen oder Gemeinden - und privaten Investoren. In der Praxis funktioniert das meist so: Der private Träger übernimmt beispielsweise Dienstleistungen oder auch Gebäude-Sanierungen, die eine Gemeinde oder Kommune früher selbst erledigt hat. Dafür bezahlt der Staat den Investor. Die öffentlichen Hände hoffen, dadurch Geld zu sparen. Weil die Summen, die sie an den Investor zahlen, geringer sind als die Kosten, die sie aufbringen müssten, um den Auftrag selbst zu erledigen. So weit die Idee. Doch sparen die Kooperationen wirklich Kosten? Und wenn nicht: Wer hat das Nachsehen? Plusminus hat sich mehrere PPPs genauer angeschaut und nachgehakt…“ Video zur Plusminus-Sendung (SR, 14. Oktober 2008 im Ersten) http://mediathek.daserste.de/daserste/servlet/content/1020220?pageId=487872&moduleId=432744&categoryId=&goto=1&show=
The series of blunders and willful miscalculations that led to our present predicament in Iraq are now being replicated in Somalia, where a rather large U.S. footprint is being stamped into the hard Somali soil. Well, it isn't a footprint, quite yet, but rather a series of bomb craters, where the lives of 'many' civilians, according to news reports, have been summarily ended. U.S. bombing raids, ostensibly aimed at al-Qaeda fighters supposedly hidden among native Islamic militias, have succeeded in killing scores, albeit none of the three dudes we are allegedly after. ... Oh well, it's just another day in Washington's 'war on terrorism'...
Trump and His Allies...
https://www.commondreams.org/views/2022/06/21/trump-and-his-allies-are-clear-and-present-danger-american-democracy?utm_source=daily_newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=daily_newsletter_op
rudkla - 22. Jun, 05:09
The Republican Party...
https://truthout.org/articles/the-republican-party-is-still-doing-donald-trumps-bidding/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=804d4873-50dd-4c1b-82a5-f465ac3742ce
rudkla - 26. Apr, 05:36
January 6 Committee Says...
https://truthout.org/articles/jan-6-committee-says-trump-engaged-in-criminal-conspiracy-to-undo-election/?eType=EmailBlastContent&eId=552e5725-9297-4a7c-a214-53c8c51615a3
