In February groups from France and the UK including people involved in the UK NoBorders Network agreed in a meeting in Lille to organise transnational Noborder Camp in Calais, France, which will be held from 23-29th of June 2009.

Why a protest camp in Calais?

While Europe is tightening its border controls to the outside of Europe, and especially to Northern Africa, one of its internal borders is often overseen. Many migrants who come to Europe aim to reach the United Kingdom, but after the closing down of the centre in Sangatte/Calais, people are forced to sleep rough in the woods around the harbour, getting pushed around and often finally sent back to Paris where they are forced to sleep rough in their hundreds

Click on the image below to visit the London NoBorders webiste

Tens of thousands of innocent civilians are trapped in a shrinking 3 square kilometer (1.6 miles) conflict zone - bombarded by government artillery, and used as human shields by the rebels. The Japanese government, Sri Lanka's major donor and close regional partner has the power to help stop this humanitarian disaster. Act now by sending a pre-translated message below to the office of Japan´s Foreign Minister Nakasone. The message (right, in Japanese) calls on the Japanese government to: - demand that all citizens are protected from harm; - push for UN Security Council access to the conflict zone and the capacity to deliver urgent humanitarian aid; and - ensure Japan's aid achieves real peace and human rights. Add your own personal message (optional) above the Japanese text (in the box to the right). Or just press send and an email will be sent on your behalf

Click on the Image Below and Sign the Petition at Avaaz.org

This Monday the Israeli prime minister meets Barack Obama for the first time -- and war and peace are at stake. Some say US President Obama will do as he’s told: endorse more dead-end talks between a far-right Israeli government and a discredited and divided Palestinian leadership. But ordinary Israelis and Palestinians still want peace -- and are calling for Obama to lead. We urgently need to show Obama that ordinary people in the region and around the world will back him to take a bold lead -- watch the new TV ad campaign and donate to help air it in the next 72 hours:

ACT NOW - GOTO AVAAZ.ORG

The House has approved a nearly $97 billion spending bill funding the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan. The measure includes $1 billion in military and economic assistance to Pakistan. Lawmakers stripped a provision that would have granted $80 million toward the closure the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The final vote was 368-to-60, with a bloc of fifty-one antiwar Democrats voting in opposition. The Senate Appropriations Committee, meanwhile, has approved a $93 billion version of the bill that includes the Guantanamo funding but bars the transfer of any prisoners to US soil.

Read more at Democracy Now

The New York Times' David Barstow won a richly deserved Pulitzer Prize yesterday for two articles that, despite being featured as major news stories on the front page of The Paper of Record, were completely suppressed by virtually every network and cable news show, which to this day have never informed their viewers about what Barstow uncovered. Here is how the Pulitzer Committee described Barstow's exposés: Awarded to David Barstow of The New York Times for his tenacious reporting that revealed how some retired generals, working as radio and television analysts, had been co-opted by the Pentagon to make its case for the war in Iraq, and how many of them also had undisclosed ties to companies that benefited from policies they defended.

Read the full article here

The articles by David Barstow

One Man’s Military-Industrial-Media Complex

Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand

In his first national broadcast interview, New York Times reporter David Barstow speaks about his 2009 Pulitzer Prize-winning expose of the Pentagon propaganda campaign to recruit more than seventy-five retired military officers to appear on TV outlets as military analysts ahead of and during the Iraq war. This week, the Pentagon inspector general’s office admitted its exoneration of the program was flawed and withdrew it

See the Democracy Now video over Here

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Barstow

CNN doesn report David Barstow as a pulitzer price winner in their article >

This week the US government is debating whether to set up a Commission of Inquiry to look into Bush's 'War on Terror' tactics. This could have major ramifications all the way up the chain of command. Key US Senators, leading this call for justice, need a massive global endorsement to ensure that the Commission is set up and has real teeth. But there are powerful interests that want to cover up the truth about torture, secret detention and other unlawful abuse. Sign this important petition below and we will present it to the Senate hearing before decisions are made this week: To the US Government:

Campaign For Liberty's Mission Americans inherit from our ancestors a glorious tradition of freedom and resistance to oppression.  Our country has long been admired by the rest of the world for her great example of liberty and prosperity—a light shining in the darkness of tyranny.

But many Americans today are frustrated.  The political choices they are offered give them no real choice at all.  For all their talk of "change," neither major political party as presently constituted challenges the status quo in any serious way.  Neither treats the Constitution with anything but contempt.  Neither offers any kind of change in monetary policy.  Neither wants to make the reductions in government that our crushing debt burden demands.  Neither talks about bringing American troops home not just from Iraq but from around the world.  Our country is going bankrupt, and none of these sensible proposals are even on the table.

URGENT - VOTING IN EU PARLIAMENT 5th of MAY 2009
Don't let the EU parliament lock up the Internet! There will be no way back!

Find an example letter to send on:

http://www.blackouteurope.eu/

URGENT - VOTING IN EU PARLIAMENT 5th of MAY 2009
Don't let the EU parliament lock up the Internet! There will be no way back!

Act now!
Internet access is not conditional

Everyone who owns a website has an interest in defending the free use of Internet... so has everyone who uses Google or Skype... everyone who expresses their opinions freely, does research of any kind, whether for personal health problems or academic study ... everyone who shops online...who dates online...socialises online... listens to music...watches video...

The internet as we know it is at risk because of proposed new EU rules going through end of April. Under the proposed new rules, broadband providers will be legally able to limit the number of websites you can look
at, and to tell you whether or not you are allowed to use particular services. It will be dressed up as ‘new consumer options' which people can choose from. People will be offered TV-like packages - with a limited
number of options for you to access.

In a decision that is likely to alarm file-sharers worldwide, an almost empty French National Assembly has finally voted through its "three strikes law" designed to clamp down on file-sharing and illegal downloads.

This was despite the guerilla warfare waged against these proposals over the last few months by a handful of Deputies on the right (Lionel Tardy, Alain Suguenot), centre (Jean Dionis du Séjour) and left (Christian Paul, Patrick Bloche, Martine Billard). A clearly scandalised Jean Dionis du Séjour railed at the poor attendance for this key measure, as, he claimed, just one in forty deputies bothered to turn up for the final debate.

Read more at The Register.

IRAN (is not the problem) is a feature length film responding to the failure of the American mass media to provide the public with relevant and accurate information about the standoff between the US and Iran, as happened before with the lead up to the invasion of Iraq. 

We have heard that Iran is a nuclear menace in defiance of the international community, bent on "wiping Israel off the map", supporting terrorism, and unwilling to negotiate.  This documentary disputes these claims as they are presented to us and puts them in the context of present and historical US imperialism and hypocrisy with respect to Iran. 

 It looks at the struggle for democracy inside Iran, the consequences of the current escalation and the potential US and/or Israeli attack, and suggests some alternatives to consider.  

As many as 5,000 children in Pennsylvania have been found guilty, and up to 2,000 of them jailed, by two corrupt judges who received kickbacks from the builders and owners of private prison facilities that benefited. The two judges pleaded guilty in a stunning case of greed and corruption that is still unfolding. Judges Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. and Michael T. Conahan received $2.6 million in kickbacks while imprisoning children who often had no access to a lawyer. The case offers an extraordinary glimpse into the shameful private prison industry that is flourishing in the United States.

Listen to the colum at : http://www.democracynow.org/

Direct link : Democracy now

Noam Chomsky speaks about Gaza, Palestine, Israel at a meeting in Boston. 1-21-09 filmed by Paul Hubbard at the Palestine Cultural Center for Peace

The United States - Israel's Godfather

Barack Obama is recognized to be a person of acute intelligence, a legal scholar, careful with his choice of words. He deserves to be taken seriously -- both what he says, and what he omits. Particularly significant is his first substantive statement on foreign affairs, on January 22, at the State Department, when introducing George Mitchell to serve as his special envoy for Middle East peace.

Mitchell is to focus his attention on the Israel-Palestine problem, in the wake of the recent US-Israeli invasion of Gaza. During the murderous assault, Obama remained silent apart from a few platitudes, because, he said, there is only one president -- a fact that did not silence him on many other issues.