January 2012

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From Davos to Dystopia

Picture: blog.livemint.com Ben Zala - Not long ago the World Economic Forum (WEF) found itself in the sights of the global economic justice movement. At the turn of the last century, before anyone was “occupying” public spaces in protest at the growing inequalities between the top strata of society and the rest, a broad global coalition of environment, development, and peace activists were targeting the public meetings of major institutions such as the WTO, the IMF, and the G8. In September 2000, activists shut down...

Time for South Africans to Take the BDS Campaign Seriously

Picture: Takver/Flickr Anna Majavu - The launch of a new handbook containing details of Israeli companies to be targeted as part of a boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign has sent ripples of excitement through the global Palestine solidarity movement. “Targeting Israeli Apartheid”, published by Corporate Watch is a mammoth piece of research detailing most Israeli companies operating anywhere in the world, and how trade with those companies supports the state of Israel. The BDS movement became a...

'Internet Censorship Affects Everybody': The Global Struggle for Online Freedom

Picture: Democracy Now! Video On Wednesday 18 January 2012, Wikipedia and many other prominent websites are shutting down for the day in protest of a new piece of American legislation that seeks to limit online piracy. The legislation, of course, has global implications. Activist for online freedom, Rebecca MacKinnon, talks to Democracy Now! about the global struggle for Internet freedom. "If we want democracy to survive in the internet age, we really need to work to make sure that the internet evolves in a...

Google Is Done

Video Venture capitalist, Roger McNamee notices a precipitous decline in Google's search business as a result of the iPhone and other mobile devices, which use apps to access the internet instead of the world wide web. "Because search is falling, I believe that we're being liberated," says McNamee. McNamee believe that Google is strategically in a very difficult situation. They have been too successful and the result of their success has been a pollution of their product. Over the...

Citizens' Actions, Unions and Toll Roads: Why Direct Action Often Helps to Review Public Choices

Picture: www.portugaltraveltips.com Saliem Fakir - The worst time to impose a tax is when a country’s economic woes are entering a new era of economic uncertainty. Nobody knows exactly what 2012 holds for us, but most believe it is unlikely to be easy for already stretched pockets. Margaret Thatcher learnt the hard lesson: never push for more taxes when people are already feeling the pinch. After she almost stripped Britain of the last vestiges of a caring economy, she added more salt to the wound with her community poll-tax idea in...

Why I'm Suing Barack Obama

Picture: timkelly Chris Hedges - Attorneys Carl J. Mayer and Bruce I. Afran filed a complaint Friday in the Southern U.S. District Court in New York City on my behalf as a plaintiff against Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta to challenge the legality of the Authorization for Use of Military Force as embedded in the latest version of the National Defense Authorization Act, signed by the president Dec. 31. The act authorizes the military in Title X, Subtitle D, entitled “Counter-Terrorism,”...