Tuesday, 8 March 2011
NaomiAKlein Naomi Klein
Attacks on union, net neutrality, even PBS, r all about destroying any possible counter weight to corporate power
♪♫ Partition 36 - Cyberpunks (Leaky Mix)
"Cyberpunks (Leaky Mix)" by Partition 36 from the single "The Optic Nerve". This mix was specifically created in support of WikiLeaks!
The vocals in the middle of the song are derived from a work called The Cyberpunk Manifesto, while the clips at the beginning and end are from President Kennedy's Address to ANPA.
Purchase Partition 36 albums on CD or listen for free online at http://www.partition36.com/
Via
Monday, 7 March 2011
Charles Bradley & The Menahan Street Band - La Maroquinerie, Paris. 17 Fevrier 2011
“Heartaches and Pain”
“No Time For Dreaming”
“This World is Going Up in Flames”
“Heart Of Gold” (neil Young cover)
“Golden Rule”
via
After Patricia (Highsmith)
Let’s be honest.
I rue the day I didn’t have my late stepmother whacked.
I’d rather eat dirt than talk to my larcenous cousins.
I haven’t forgiven my father for disinheriting me.
Iran's supreme leader accused of abducting key opponents
Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, was directly involved in the disappearance of the two main leaders of the Green movement, an opposition website has claimed.
Mehdi Karroubi and Mir Hossein Mousavi have not been seen in public since being put under house arrest following renewed street protests in mid-February when thousands of Iranians, inspired by the uprisings in the Arab region, took to the streets in defiance of warnings from the regime. They are believed to have been arrested on 26 February.
Karroubi's official website, Sahamnews.net, said Khamenei had ordered what it described as "the abduction of Karroubi and his wife, Fatemeh".
The site said Khamenei's administrative adviser, Vahid Haghanian, commanded the security forces which raided Karroubi's house in north Tehran and confiscated his belongings.
"On the night of the kidnapping, Vahid, a top official in the supreme leader's office, was present in Mr Karroubi's house and he personally commanded the whole operation of evicting Mr Karroubi and his wife from their own house and taking them to an unknown location," the website said.
"We believe that the supreme leader himself is responsible for this kidnapping and Vahid was appointed by him to carry out the operation."
The website said Haghanian advises the supreme leader on internal affairs.
Since the disappearances, Iranian officials have given vague and often contradictory statements about Karroubi, Mousavi and their wives.
A spokesman for Iran's judiciary, Gholam-Hossein Ejei, confirmed initially that restrictions had been imposed on opposition leaders but later denied they had been arrested. "Reports ... about the transfer of Karroubi and Mousavi to a prison are not correct and are rejected," he said on Tuesday last week. Tehran prosecutor Abbas Jafari Dolatabadi said talk of imprisonment was a "sheer lie" and added: "Mr Mousavi and Karroubi, along with their wives, are in their homes."
Meanwhile, Mousavi's daughters wrote on opposition website Kaleme.org that they cannot visit their parents. "We read the news that our parents are not under house arrest and they are not prisoners ... which meant that we, their children, can see them ... But this was not the case. We went to our parents' home, and from the iron gate installed at the entrance of the alley to their home we were stopped by the security, who said that 'you can't go, the news [that you can visit] is wrong'."
Karroubi's sons told Sahamnews.net that they have repeatedly visited Karroubi's house but no one was there. They also said that neighbours claim they have witnessed Karroubi and his wife being taken out of their house.
Ardeshir Amir-Arjomand, a spokesman for Mousavi, told the Guardian: "Their situation is worse than a prisoner because when someone is jailed, at least you know who has jailed him or where he has been taken to. But in the case of Karroubi and Mousavi, no one takes responsibility or even admits they have been arrested."
Rumours were rife in recent weeks that the two had been taken to Heshmatieh prison in east Tehran.
Saeed Kamali Dehghan
The changing face of fame
The most well known composites are of nationalities, but he’s also generated and reposted composites of other classes. For example, the average Bollywood actress is Aishwarya Rai. Not literally, but the resemblance is jaw-dropping (compare to the average Indian woman). But most interesting to me were the comparisons of American film actors, male and female, then and now (“Golden Age” vs. contemporary). I’m pretty sure you can pick out which one is which if you’re American. There seem to be two correlated trends here: 1) more feminine features for both males and females, and 2) more youthful features for both males and females. Correlated, because neoteny and masculinization seemed to generally push in opposite directions of trait value. Projecting in the future I assume that the Global Human Celebrity will converge upon a 14 year old girl?
Addendum: One difference between the “Golden Age” and modern celebrities is the attention to a rather buff physique. So though the actors of yore had more rugged faces, their physiques were often rather flabby in comparison to today’s leading men. So I might correct and assert that the future global celebrity will be a baby-faced 14 year old girl with abs to die for!
Razib Khan @'Discover'
Greg Barns: Assange extradition fears are real
But the reality is that the Swedes will succumb to political pressure and undermine or sidestep the rule of law and allow the US ‘to land their quarry’.
The claim by Assange’s legal team that one of the prime arguments against their client being extradited to Sweden to face investigation over alleged sexual assault charges is that he will end up being tortured in a high security American prison, are not simply hyperbolic advocacy.
Under Swedish law the extradition of an individual to a non-Nordic or non-European Union country can only occur if the following conditions are met.
Firstly, the principle of dual criminality applies. That is, the act or alleged crime for which extradition is requested must be equivalent to a crime that is punishable under Swedish law by a jail term of one year or more. So you can’t be extradited for traffic offences for example.
Secondly, extradition will not be granted for the prosecution of “military or political offences”.
And finally extradition will not be granted if the person being extradited runs a risk on account of his or her religious or political beliefs, or ethnic origin of being persecuted. And if he or she faces the death penalty the Swedes will not hand the person over to another state.
If it is assumed Sweden has an equivalent to an American official secrets or espionage law and therefore the issue of dual criminality is settled, the US could not possibly satisfy the Swedish government that Mr Assange would not face all manner of cruel and unusual punishment by security agencies and US police. Even keeping Mr Assange isolated from other detainees and locked in his cell for 23 hours a day - a common penal American practice - should be enough to stop Swedish cooperation in an extradition. Then there is the fact that US federal law in respect of the offences of espionage and treason both carry the death penalty as a theoretical sentence. Theoretical because there is no-one currently on death row who has been convicted of these offences. But Mr Assange’s hosting of a website which carried an unprecedented number of US government documents might have prosecutors arguing for the death penalty.
In short, it is hard to see how Sweden, acting strictly in accordance with its own laws on extradition, could contemplate acceding to any US request to hand over Mr Assange.
But Sweden’s track record in recent years in cases where extradition or forcible return to another country would result in human rights abuse is not one that would give Mr Assange any comfort.
In 2005 the European Court of Human Rights intervened to overturn a Swedish decision to deport two Syrian men, brothers, who were wanted in Syria over alleged ‘honour killings’. The Swedish authorities, having received information that the death penalty was unlikely to be imposed on the brothers, ordered that they been returned to Syria. The European Court upheld the brother’s argument that they feared persecution on return to Syria and noted that the Swedish government had been prepared to act on incomplete information and vague assurances from the Syrian embassy.
Four years earlier in December 2001, the Swedish authorities, again acting after obtaining assurances from Egypt that two asylum seekers would not be subjected to torture and would receive a fair trial, handed over Mohammed al-Zari and Ahmed Agiza, to the Americans who transferred the men to Cairo.
There is also the political overlay in the Assange case which taints the extradition process. As we saw in this country in relation to David Hicks and Mammoth Habib it did not matter what domestic or international law conventions and rules should have been applied to their cases, the overriding consideration by the Howard government was to cooperate with the Bush White House.
As Australian diplomat and writer Tony Kevin pointed out in a briefing to federal MPs last week (at which I also spoke) the current Swedish government of prime minister Fredric Reinfeldt is a centre-right coalition heeded by the Moderate Party “which has close ties with the US Republican right. Reinfeldt and Bush are friends. Reimfeldt is ideologically and personally close to the former Bush Administration”. And, Kevin noted, that Bush’s former right hand man and Republican strategist Karl Rove is a consultant to the Swedish government on political issues.
Sweden projects an image of liberalism and determined independence but it is an illusion. So the chance of Julian Assange being whisked away by CIA operatives from Sweden is a very real one. If it happens Assange will face the same fate as Hicks and Habib - physical and mental torture over a sustained period.
Greg Barns is a barrister and writer. He is a Director of the Australian Lawyers Alliance.
@'ABC'
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)
