Why We Can't Save Her

Powerful video from the International Committee for the Red Cross...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wm0TYebjyHQ

Drought Spreads Worldwide

Stories of drought are mostly localized to the affected country. However, this is a global problem...take a look at these news headlines gathered from around the world...all within the last couple of months.

Decade of Drought: A Global Tour of Seven Recent Water Crises

Drought Persists in 13 Provinces:  Bangkok Post

Vancouver Island Fishing Banned as Drought Hits Level 4 : CBC

North Korea Hit Hard by Drought: Korea Times

Dried Up California Lake Shuts as Summer Kicks in: NBC Photos

Puerto Rico, Grappling With Potentially Historic Drought: IBT

Dramatic Photos Show Brazil's Crippling Drought

The Antidote to Apathy

Great talk...share it!

Local politics — schools, zoning, council elections — hit us where we live. So why don't more of us actually get involved? Is it apathy? Dave Meslin says no. He identifies 7 barriers that keep us from taking part in our communities, even when we truly care.

http://www.ted.com/talks/dave_meslin_the_antidote_to_apathy

The Gift of American Power

Often I'm inundated with left-wing liberal media, so it's refreshing to get a different point a view even if I don't entirely agree with it....great article by Robert D. Kaplan

The United States is not a traditional empire because it has no colonies, but its military -- and the diplomatic power that accompanies it -- is deployed in an imperial-like fashion worldwide. The U.S. Navy calls itself a global force for good. That claim would pass the most stringent editorial fact-checking process. Without that very naked American ambition, which allows the Navy and the Air Force to patrol the global commons, the world is reduced to the sum of its parts: a Japan and China, and a China and India, dangerously at odds and on the brink of war; a Middle East in far wider war and chaos; a Europe neutralized and emasculated by Russian Revanchism; and an Africa in even greater disarray. It is not that regional powers cannot act rationally on their own; it is only that without a global hegemon of sorts, local balance-of-power interactions become more fraught with risk and are, therefore, more dangerous.

READ MORE HERE....
http://www.realclearworld.com/articles/2014/05/15/the_gift_of_american_power.html

El Chapo’s Arrest Unlikely to Break Mexican Cartel

“Sinaloa has managed to expand in such a way that the business can run itself,” said Samuel Logan, an expert on transnational crime at Southern Pulse, an investment and risk assessment firm. “The entire Mexican state could fall, and the drug trade will continue, as long as there is a demand.”

Comparing the cartel to McDonald’s, Mr. Logan said, “If the C.E.O. of McDonald’s was arrested today, you could still buy a hamburger in Tokyo tomorrow.”

READ MORE HERE...

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/26/world/americas/arrest-unlikely-to-break-cartel.html?src=me&_r=0 

More stories on the Drug War here....
http://ajarnmike.blogspot.ca/search/label/drug%20war

Ukraine's Bloodiest Day

Ukraine's bloodiest day: dozens dead as protesters regain territory from police

Corpses on Kiev's Independence Square as police deploy snipers and use live ammunition

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/20/ukraine-dead-protesters-police

Some incredible Photos... 

Bloody Battles in Kiev

 http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2014/02/bloody-battles-in-kiev/100684/

Kiev Truce Shattered, Dozens Killed

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2014/02/kiev-truce-shattered-dozens-killed/100685/

A Mexican militia, battling Michoacan drug cartel, has American roots

Interesting take on the spiraling violence in Michoacan...

Many were U.S. immigrants who came back, some voluntarily but most often not, to the desiccated job market in the state of Michoacan and found life under the Knights Templar drug cartel that controls the area almost unlivable. They took up arms because they were financially abused by the extortion rackets run by the Templars. Because they had family killed or wounded by their enemies. Because carrying a silver-plated handgun and collecting defeated narcos’ designer cellphones as war booty is more invigorating than packing cucumbers. Because they get to feel, for once, the sensation of being in charge.
 
“Everybody’s with us, all the people,” said Edgar Orozco, a 27-year-old American citizen who left his job at a Sacramento body shop nine months ago to join the fight after the Knights Templar killed his uncle and cousin. “We’re not going to disarm. Never.”

Read More here...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/a-mexican-militia-battling-michoacan-drug-cartel-has-american-roots/2014/01/18/30f96894-7f92-11e3-97d3-b9925ce2c57b_story.html

Also...

Vigilantes hold Mexico town, tenuously, after driving out cartel

http://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-mexico-michoacan-violence-20140119,0,154127.story#axzz2qs0NL2d1

The Bewildered Kingdom

Can't stay on top forever... 

The issue for the Saudis is not merely Iran’s putative nuclear capability. A deal on Iran’s nuclear program would legitimize the regime’s regional influence in a way that has not occurred in decades, thereby serving its hegemonic objectives. The deeper threat or fear is that Iran’s ultimate target is leadership of Mecca, the cradle of Islam.

That is why the Saudi royals prefer to keep Iran chained with international sanctions. True, even under economic sanctions, Iran has intruded ever more deeply into Arab politics, but it was the US that opened the door by overthrowing Saddam’s Sunni-minority regime in Iraq, which ultimately brought an Iranian-backed Shia government to power.

READ MORE HERE...
 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/mai-yamani-assesses-saudi-arabia-s-increasingly-assertive-regional-foreign-policy-since-the-start-of-the-arab-spring

Best Wire Photographer of 2013

Incredible photographer...Muhammed Muheisen... 
See images here...
http://lightbox.time.com/2013/12/10/muhammed-muheisen-time-picks-the-best-wire-photographer-of-2013/#1

AP Photographers Covering Syrian Conflict
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TgJEr9feOiY&feature=share&list=PLpP3Ux9QU0k6XdmLU1NQD-YjP8EWHB321&index=4

Pulitzer Prize Winning Photos by Muhammed Muheisen
http://www.ap.org/states/tester/syriaap/index.html

US fears back-door routes into the net because it's building them too

 Hayden described the phenomenon of compromised computer hardware – namely, chips that have hidden "back doors" inserted into them at the design or manufacturing stage – as "the problem from hell". And, he went on, "frankly, it's not a problem that can be solved"

...a back door that would allow secret remote access over the internet. And – here's the really scary bit – the secret entrance couldn't even be closed by switching off the computer's hard disk or reinstalling its operating system.

The reason this is so scary is because virtually every bit of kit that runs the internet – the machine on which you compose your emails, the tablet or smartphone with which you browse the net, the routers that pass on the data packets that comprise your email or your web search, everything – is a computer. So the thought that all this stuff might covertly be compromised in ways that are impossible to detect is terrifying. It's this fear that underpins American (and British) reservations about network products made by the Chinese company Huawei – the suspicions (vehemently denied by Huawei, of course) that the kit has secret back doors installed in it to facilitate the Chinese's cyber-army's penetration of western networks."

READ MORE HERE...
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/oct/13/us-scared-back-door-routes-computers-snowden-nsa

Revealed: how Microsoft handed the NSA access to encrypted messages

• Secret files show scale of Silicon Valley co-operation on Prism
• Outlook.com encryption unlocked even before official launch
• Skype worked to enable Prism collection of video calls
• Company says it is legally compelled to comply

READ MORE HERE:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/11/microsoft-nsa-collaboration-user-data

Takin' It to the Streets

 

The world is getting angrier and with the prevalence of smartphones, Twitter and FB...Cities will continue to be the battleground between citizens and governments and corporations.  Interesting read.

 
Excerpt:
 
"thanks to the proliferation of smartphones, tablets, Twitter, Facebook and blogging, angry individuals now have much more power to engage in, and require their leaders to engage in, two-way conversations — and they have much greater ability to link up with others who share their views to hold flash protests. 

As Leon Aron, the Russian historian at the American Enterprise Institute, put it, “the turnaround time” between sense of grievance and action in today’s world is lightning fast and getting faster. 

The net result is this: Autocracy is less sustainable than ever. Democracies are more prevalent than ever — but they will also be more volatile than ever. Look for more people in the streets more often over more issues with more independent means to tell their stories at ever-louder decibels." 

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/30/opinion/sunday/takin-it-to-the-streets.html?ref=opinion&_r=0

Revealed: NSA collecting phone records of millions of Americans daily

When do they install barcodes on our foreheads?

Excerpt:

The order, a copy of which has been obtained by the Guardian, requires Verizon on an "ongoing, daily basis" to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries.
The document shows for the first time that under the Obama administration the communication records of millions of US citizens are being collected indiscriminately and in bulk – regardless of whether they are suspected of any wrongdoing.
The secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (Fisa) granted the order to the FBI on April 25, giving the government unlimited authority to obtain the data for a specified three-month period ending on July 19.

Read more here...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/06/nsa-phone-records-verizon-court-order

Syria's Raging Conflict

War Photography at its finest...

SEE MORE INCREDIBLE IMAGES HERE...
http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/11/syria-in-ruins/100402/

44% of Americans Support Domestic Drone Policing

This whole drone thing is getting way to scary.  You can kiss any freedom you thought you had in the first place goodbye if this program goes through...

Nearly half the public, 44 percent, supports allowing police forces inside the U.S. to use drones to assist police work, but a significant minority — 36 percent — say they “strongly oppose” or “somewhat oppose” police use of drones, according to a survey last month.

READ MORE HERE...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/a-third-of-the-public-fears-police-use-of-drones-for-surveillance-will-erode-their-privacy/2012/09/27/07657dd2-08d4-11e2-9eea-333857f6a7bd_story.html

A Dangerous New World of Drones

When President George W. Bush declared a "War on Terror" 11 years ago, the Pentagon had fewer than 50 drones.  Now, it has around 7,500.

READ MORE HERE...

http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/01/opinion/bergen-world-of-drones/index.html

The Cannibal Warlords of Liberia

Eye opening documentary on the situation in Liberia...pretty cool.

http://www.blacklistedradio.com/?p=1318

North Korea Prison Camp Drawings

A North Korean defector has drawn these images to illustrate the brutal life endured at North Korean gulags.  Absolutely, shocking.

See More Translated Drawings Here...

http://imgur.com/a/648Mv#Ek98t

See All Drawings on the Original Korean Website...

http://cafe462.daum.net/_c21_/bbs_search_read?grpid=1Pwtx&fldid=3nSk&contentval=00001zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz&nenc=&fenc=&from=&q=%B1%D7%B8%B0&nil_profile=cafetop&nil_menu=sch_updw&listnum=

Interactive Map of North Korean Prison Camps...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/special/world/north-korean-prison-camps-2009/

Learn More About Life in a North Korean Prison Camp from the Only Known Prisoner to Escape...

http://ajarnmike.blogspot.ca/2012/03/how-one-man-escaped-from-north-korean.html

New York Times OP-ED Slams Canada....

Our Not-So-Friendly Northern Neighbor

 

 Canada used to seem a progressive and just neighbor, but the picture today looks less rosy. One of its provinces has gone rogue, trampling basic democratic rights in an effort to end student protests against the Quebec provincial government’s plan to raise tuition fees by 75 percent.

On May 18, Quebec’s legislative assembly, under the authority of the provincial premier, Jean Charest, passed a draconian law in a move to break the 15-week-long student strike. Bill 78, adopted last week, is an attack on Quebecers’ freedom of speech, association and assembly. Mr. Charest has refused to use the traditional means of mediation in a representative democracy, leading to even more polarization. His administration, one of the most right-wing governments Quebec has had in 40 years, now wants to shut down opposition. 

The bill threatens to impose steep fines of 25,000 to 125,000 Canadian dollars against student associations and unions — which derive their financing from tuition fees — in a direct move to break the movement. For example, student associations will be found guilty if they do not stop their members from protesting within university and college grounds. 

READ MORE HERE...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/24/opinion/our-not-so-friendly-northern-neighbor.html?_r=1&ref=opinion

518 arrested as Montreal police kettle demonstrators

A peaceful evening march that began with people festively banging pots and pans in support of protesting students ended in the early morning hours with police using the controversial “kettling” tactic on a crowd of demonstrators and arresting 518 people.

Montreal wasn’t the only city to have roundups Wednesday night. There were also mass arrests at student protests in Quebec City and Sherbrooke.

Kettling is a tactic widely used in Europe where riot cops surround demonstrators and limit or cut off their exits. It has been widely criticized because it often results in the scooping up of innocent bystanders as well as rowdies. A recent report by Ontario’s police watchdog blasted Toronto police for their use of kettling during the G20 summit two years ago, saying they violated civil rights, detained people illegally and used excessive force.

READ MORE HERE...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/518-arrested-as-montreal-police-kettle-demonstrators/article2442043/

ALSO WORTH CHECKING OUT...

Canada's Online Spying...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dZILMivNgI

Was it Worth it? Canadians reflect on the War in Afghanistan

Reflections on what we were fighting for in Afghanistan from a handful of Canadians who actually waged the war or led the battles over issues of principle and peace...


WAS THE WAR WORTH THE COST? – "The mission was worth the cost because it toppled a repressive regime, removed a major terrorist threat, helped Afghans begin rebuilding their lives and institutions after decades of war. Canada played a leadership role in education, rural development, as well as in a major, UN-mandated NATO mission. Canada and the world are safer for it."

Chris Alexander – former Canadian ambassador to Kabul, then the UN’s deputy special representative to Afghanistan until 2009 and now a Conservative MP.

WAS THE WAR WORTH THE COST? - "Certainly not to the people of Afghanistan or Canada. After 20 years war and five years of the Taliban, Afghans got another decade of violence and corruption. Canadians got skyrocketing military budgets and underfunded social programs. The winners were defence contractors and the power elite willing to trade the leftovers of Canadian independence for more business in the United States."

Raymond Legault – prominent anti-war activist, community college teacher in Montreal and spokesman for Échec à la guerre

WAS THE WAR WORTH THE COST? – "Despite the heroic efforts of Canadian Forces men and women, and the great respect they deservedly won for our nation, our mission in Kandahar was definitely not worth the cost of over 150 Canadian lives lost and countless others destroyed by the fallout of war, let alone the tens of thousands of Afghan people and other coalition forces who have also been killed." 

Pat Stogran – retired colonel, who led the first Canadian combat contingent in Afghanistan in 2002 and later served as Canada's first Veterans Ombudsman where he was a tireless champion of better treatment for wounded soldiers

READ MORE HERE...


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/was-it-worth-it-canadians-reflect-on-the-war-in-afghanistan/article2326272/

Latin America wants out of drug war

Philadelphia Inquirer

Apr. 14, 2012

Excerpt:

Latin American countries are rightfully fed up with fighting Washington’s war on drugs. In the four decades since President Richard Nixon declared the war on drugs, its battles have been fought predominantly in Latin American nations, leaving behind a trail of death and corruption while failing to achieve any of its goals.

Central America has become a hub for drug smugglers. American-style street gangs operate as the armed muscle of the drug cartels, bringing the violence in Central America to levels that rival those of the civil wars of the 1980s. The bloodshed has even spread to countries that until recently enjoyed some of the lowest crime rates in the world, such as Costa Rica and Belize.

In addition, the perception in the region is that the United States makes tough demands on other governments to combat drug cartels while doing too little to reduce demand at home. America remains the largest drug consumer market in the world. Furthermore, its lax gun laws have made it the main source of weapons for drug cartels, and its financial institutions enjoy much of the profit of the drug business.

Some former Latin American leaders and U.S. officials have long advocated decriminalization of drugs to address the failure of the existing approach. But it’s only been recently that current leaders of Latin American countries have joined the calls for that approach.

First, President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia, a conservative whose nation is the United States’ staunchest ally in the war on drugs, declared the drug war a failure and came out in support of decriminalization. Then, a few weeks ago, President Otto Pérez Molina of Guatemala, a conservative former general, said he would consider legalizing the possession and transportation of drugs, and he called for a meeting of all of Central America’s presidents to debate the issue.

READ MORE HERE...
 
http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20120414_Latin_America_breaking_ranks_on_drug_war.html