Welcome! "The Evening Blues" is a casual community diary (published Monday - Friday, 8:00 PM Eastern) where we hang out, share and talk about news, music, photography and other things of interest to the community.
Just about anything goes, but attacks and pie fights are not welcome here. This is a community diary and a friendly, peaceful, supportive place for people to interact.
Everyone who wants to join in peaceful interaction is very welcome here.
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Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features New Orleans r&b singer Lee Dorsey. Enjoy!
Lee Dorsey - Get Out Of My Life, Woman
“We are beckoned to see the world through a one-way mirror, as if we are threatened and innocent and the rest of humanity is threatening, or wretched, or expendable. Our memory is struggling to rescue the truth that human rights were not handed down as privileges from a parliament, or a boardroom, or an institution, but that peace is only possible with justice and with information that gives us the power to act justly.”
-- John Pilger
News and Opinion
New York Times editor: we failed to do our job after 9/11
Dean Baquet admits that US mainstream media did not ask ‘hard questions’ about Bush administration’s prosecution of so-called war on terror
Dean Baquet, the executive editor of the New York Times, believes his newspaper – in company with the US mainstream media – failed their audiences after 9/11.
He told the German news magazine Der Spiegel that he agreed with the criticism originally made by an NYT reporter, James Risen,
Baquet said: “The mainstream press was not aggressive enough after 9/11, was not aggressive enough in asking questions about a decision to go to war in Iraq, was not aggressive enough in asking the hard questions about the war on terror. I accept that for the Los Angeles Times and the New York Times”
Baquet, in charge of the NYT since May 2014, was previously editor-in-chief of the LA Times. In his wide-ranging interview with Der Spiegel, Baquet also spoke about the NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden having chosen to tell his story to the Guardian.
He said he regards the Guardian as “a new competitor [for the NYT] in the digital age.” He said: “Does it make me nervous that they compete with us and in fact beat us on the Snowden story? Yes.
Der Spiegel asked: “How painful was it as an institution that Edward Snowden didn’t approach the New York Times?” Baquet replied:
It hurt a lot. It meant two things. Morally, it meant that somebody with a big story to tell didn’t think we were the place to go, and that’s painful. And then it also meant that we got beaten on what was arguably the biggest national security story in many, many years.
Not only beaten by the Guardian, because he went to the Guardian, but beaten by the [Washington] Post, because he went to a writer from the Post. We tried to catch up and did some really good stories that I feel good about. But it was really, really, really painful.
It was suggested that Snowden didn’t approach the NYT because it had refused to publish the initial research about the NSA’s bulk collection in 2004.
Ushered by US Intervention, Chaos in Yemen Threatens Wider War
The ousted government of President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi was a close U.S. ally, who cooperated with the United States in drone strikes against Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) holed up in the remote regions of Yemen.
The United States was so confident of its ally that the resignation of the government “took American officials by surprise,” according to the New York Times.
Matthew Hoh, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy (CIP), told IPS, “I don’t know if Yemen will split in two or not. [But] I believe the greater fear is that Yemen descends into mass chaos with violence among many factions as we are seeing in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria, all nations that have been the recipient of interventionist U.S. foreign policy.”
According to an Arab diplomat, the Houthis who have taken power are an integral part of the Shiite Muslim sect, the Zaydis, and are apparently financed by Iran.
But the country is dominated by a Sunni majority which is supported by neighbouring Saudi Arabia, he said, which could trigger a sectarian conflict – as in Syria, Iraq and Lebanon.
Ironically, all of them, including the United States, have a common enemy in AQAP, which claimed responsibility for the recent massacre in the offices of a satirical news magazine in Paris.
“In short, it’s a monumental political mess,” said the diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity.
Israeli rights group questions legality of targeting Gaza homes in war
Serious questions have been raised by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem about the legality of Israel’s policy of targeting dozens of Palestinian homes during last summer’s war in Gaza – a strategy that led to hundreds of civilian deaths.
The report is the latest alleging serious breaches of international humanitarian law by Israel during the 50-day conflict. According to B’Tselem, the policy of striking residences led to the deaths of 606 people in 70 attacks on homes that it examined. Among the dead were 93 children under the age of five.
The claims come at a sensitive time for Israel following the announcement this month of an initial investigation by the international criminal court into whether war crimes were committed in Gaza.
Although a number of individual incidents are being investigated by the Israeli military attorney general, the specific policy of targeting residences is not under investigation, despite the high death toll. The issue could potentially be taken up by an ICC investigation.
The prosecution of the war is also being investigated by the UN Human Rights Council, by a commission of inquiry set up by the UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, and by the Israeli state comptroller, Joseph Shapira, who has been tasked with investigating decisions made by Israeli political and military leaders.
Two Israeli soldiers killed as Hezbollah missile hits military vehicle on Lebanon border
Two Israeli soldiers were killed when a military vehicle was hit by an anti-tank missile fired from inside Lebanon amid rapidly mounting tensions on the country’s northern border with Lebanon and Syria.
Another seven soldiers were reportedly wounded and the vehicle was set on fire in the incident, which took place at about 11.30am on Wednesday near Har Dov mountain. Hezbollah claimed responsibility.
As residents living along Israel’s northern border were ordered to stay indoors, Israel emphatically denied claims that one of its soldiers had been kidnapped by Hezbollah during the attack, but said there were unspecified casualties. ...
Tensions have been mounting on Israel’s northern border for months but have escalated sharply in the last week and a half after an Israeli strike near the Syrian border town of Quneitra killed an Iranian general and a senior Hezbollah commander who were travelling in a convoy of several cars.
Both Hezbollah and Iran have threatened retaliation for that attack.
Iran: Israel’s Assassination of General Crossed ‘Red Lines’
Iran’s Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian says his government has passed a threat to retaliate against Israel for a recent assassination of a top general by way of meetings with the US.
Abdollahian said the killing of General Mohammed Allahdadi during an Israeli attack on Syria on Janaury 18 crossed a “red line” and that they should expect retaliation for it.
As 18 Die on Anniversary of Revolution, Egypt Intensifies Crackdown on Activists, Journalists
Jordan says ready to free militant in return for release of Isis hostage
Jordan has accepted a key demand of Islamic State (Isis) militants holding a Japanese journalist and Jordanian pilot by agreeing to release a prisoner in a proposed swap.
A government spokesman said Jordan had agreed to free Sajida al-Rishawi from death row if Jordanian pilot Muadh al-Kasasbeh – being held by Isis – is released.
There has been no word on whether Kenji Goto, a Japanese journalist who has appeared in videos released by the terrorist group, is involved in the proposed deal.
“Jordan is ready to release prisoner Sajida al-Rishawi if the Jordanian pilot Lieutenant Muath al-Kasaesbeh was released and his life spared,” Mohammad al-Momani, a government spokesman, was quoted on state television as saying. He did not make any reference to Goto.
On Tuesday, Isis militants said the hostages had 24 hours to live unless Rishawi was released.
Rishawi, 44, had been sentenced to death after being convicted for her part in an al-Qaida attack on astring of hotels in Amman in 2005 that killed 60 people.
CIA’s Failed Syria Rebel Arming Program in Tatters
There’ve been stories going around for awhile about how poorly the CIA program to smuggle arms in to various Syrian rebel factions is going, but the Wall Street Journal is offering some of the most stark details of a failed program, which failed to get those so-called moderate rebels any real gains, and indeed has seen a large number of them abandoning the battlefield, or joining ISIS and other Islamist groups outright. ...
The previous secular rebels note that accepting US aid put a huge bullseye on their backs, and the weapons that came with it certainly weren’t worth the cost. The rebel factions the US was backing were never particularly successful, and US funding didn’t make them any moreso. Instead, it just underscored that the real rebellion was the Islamist rebellion.
Ukraine rebels say government forces pushed back near Donetsk
Rebel separatist forces said on Tuesday they had pushed Ukrainian government troops out of two districts on the outskirts of their main stronghold Donetsk, and their aim was to expand their control to the entire region.
A rebel advance launched last week has dashed a five-month truce, reignited a war that has killed more than 5,000 people and brought threats of new sanctions on Moscow, which NATO accuses of backing the separatists with money, arms and troops.
The separatists say their initial objective is to drive back government forces to push artillery out of range of their cities and improve their grip on their main strongholds. ...
Both sides say the rebels are fighting to encircle Debaltseve, a small town between the two main rebel bastions of Donetsk and Luhansk which straddles key road and rail routes linking them.
"The enemy is trying to carry out an offensive on Ukrainian units and occupy strategically advantageous positions for further military operations," government military spokesman Andriy Lysenko said in a televised briefing. Nine Ukrainian servicemen were killed and 30 wounded in the past day, he said.
Documents Show N.S.A. Wiretapped Months Before Congress’s Approval
A federal judge ruled in 2007 that the U.S.A. Patriot Act empowered the National Security Agency to collect foreigners’ emails and phone calls from domestic networks without prior judicial approval, newly declassified documents show.
The documents — two rulings of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court — fill in a chapter in the history of the N.S.A.’s warrantless surveillance program. They show the agency’s secret moves in the months before Congress authorized the spying by enacting the Protect America Act in August 2007.
The disclosure also brought into public view a previously unknown example of how the surveillance court, which hears arguments only from the government before issuing secret rulings, sometimes accepts novel interpretations of the law to bless government requests for spying powers. ...
[Judge Vinson] approved continued surveillance on a long list of accounts that were already under watch, while signing off on a process that allowed the N.S.A. to systematically begin monitoring new phone numbers and email addresses without waiting for judicial approval.
Instead, the government would compile lists of all its new targets and its reasons for going after them, which it would show to the court in weekly reports. The court would then make after-the-fact findings that the probable cause requirements had been met for those, too.
This is worth clicking the link and reading in full. Here's a taste:
Barrett Brown’s sentence is unjust, but it may become the norm for journalists
Investigative journalist Barrett Brown was sentenced to an obscene 63 months in prison on Thursday, in part for sharing a hyperlink to a stolen document that he did not steal, and despite the fact that he was not guilty of a crime for linking to it.
Maybe journalists think this is an anomaly, and some will ignore his case entirely since Brown also pled guilty to other charges that led to part of his sentence too. But be warned: if the White House passes its dramatic expansion of US computer law, journalists will constantly be under similar threat and reporting on hacked documents could become a crime. ...
Part of the reason the Justice Department likely dropped the linking charge against Brown to begin with, besides the obvious press freedom concerns, was because he had no intent to defraud. In fact, he repeatedly stated he did not want to use or publish the credit card numbers found in the documents, only the newsworthy information.
But the White House recently issued a proposal for radically expanding the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act CFAA, which would make it much easier for journalists to be charged for linking to hacked documents containing passwords—regardless of intent.
The trouble comes in a section where the White House removes the phrase “with the intent to defraud” from the section criminalizing “trafficking” in passwords. So instead of sharing passwords for the purpose of committing fraud, you know merely have to share them purposefully with the knowledge they may be used by others.
Canada Casts Global Surveillance Dragnet Over File Downloads
Canada’s leading surveillance agency is monitoring millions of Internet users’ file downloads in a dragnet search to identify extremists, according to top-secret documents.
The covert operation, revealed Wednesday by CBC News in collaboration with The Intercept, taps into Internet cables and analyzes records of up to 15 million downloads daily from popular websites commonly used to share videos, photographs, music, and other files.
The revelations about the spying initiative, codenamed LEVITATION, are the first from the trove of files provided by National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden to show that the Canadian government has launched its own globe-spanning Internet mass surveillance system.
According to the documents, the LEVITATION program can monitor downloads in several countries across Europe, the Middle East, North Africa, and North America. It is led by the Communications Security Establishment, or CSE, Canada’s equivalent of the NSA. (The Canadian agency was formerly known as “CSEC” until a recent name change.)
The latest disclosure sheds light on Canada’s broad existing surveillance capabilities at a time when the country’s government is pushing for a further expansion of security powers following attacks in Ottawa and Quebec last year.
European counter-terror plan involves blanket collection of passengers’ data
A new European commission counter-terror plan will require the blanket collection and storage for up to five years of personal data records of all passengers flying in and out of Europe, the Guardian can reveal.
Civil liberty campaigners say the revised European passenger name record plan – in the aftermath of the Paris attacks – breaches a recent European court of justice ruling that blanket collection of personal data without detailed safeguards is a severe incursion on personal privacy.
The European commission plan to be published on Wednesday would require 42 separate pieces of information on every passenger flying in and out of Europe, including their bank card details, home address and meal preferences such as halal, to be stored on a central database for up to five years for access by the police and security services.
The proposal, seen by the Guardian, describes itself as a “workable compromise” between European interior ministers, who want to see its swift adoption for all flights within Europe as well as flights in and out of Europe, and the European parliament’s civil liberties committee, which blocked the plan nearly two years ago.
European interior ministers, including the home secretary, Theresa May, who has been pushing the issue most strongly, agreed in Paris on the day of the “Je Suis Charlie” unity march that their main counter-terrorism priority in tracking foreign fighters was to overturn the European parliament’s opposition to the plan.
Greek PM Tsipras pushes on with radical change, markets tumble
Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras promised "radical" change on Wednesday as his new government swiftly moved to roll back key parts of Greece's international bailout, prompting a third day of losses on financial markets.
A swift series of announcements signaled the newly installed government would not back down from its anti-austerity pledges, setting it on course for a clash with European partners, led by Germany, which has said it will not renegotiate the aid package needed to help Greece pay its debts.
Even before the first meeting of the new cabinet, ministers had hit the airwaves to reassure voters they would honor campaign pledges to roll back the tough economic policies imposed under Greece's 240-billion-euro bailout program.
The planned sale of a 30 percent stake in Public Power Corporation of Greece (PPC), the country's biggest utility, was halted while ministers pledged to raise pensions for those on low incomes and reinstate some fired public sector workers. ...
Financial markets have looked on nervously, with Greek 10-year bond yields up 50 basis points at 10.30 percent, the main Athens stock index down 4 percent and bank stocks down 12.6 percent to extend losses into a third day.
Marxist Economists, Academics and Philosophers Sworn In to the Greek Cabinet
Unforgettable scenes at the Greek finance ministry
Yanis Varoufakis’s first ever press conference at the finance minister was quite an event.
As hand-overs of government posts go, today’s at the finance ministry will remain indelible in the minds of those who were there. Pained, raucous and joyful (with lots of spontaneous applause), it brought home in every way that this was a changing of guard – a turning not of the page but a book – in the country at the centre of the debt crisis.
Out went the old era and in came the new, the besuited Gikas Hardouvelis looking both relieved and alarmed as he passed the chair to Yanis Varoufakis, his successor in trendy jacket and open-necked shirt. “I sincerely wish the [new] government well,” said Hardouvelis, eyes fixed firmly ahead, adding;
“Greece doesn’t have the luxury of waiting to June to conclude the review of its programme with our partners.”
And then Varoufakis was off, rocking and rolling his way through Hardouvelis’ script, demolishing the philosophy of a government that had, he said, thrown Greece into a self-perpetuating economic death spiral as a result of “the huge toxic mistake that had been made in this very building.”
Greece had no intention of clashing with its creditors but the logic of austerity was such that policies conducted in its embrace could only fail. “You don’t need to be an economist to see that,” he said as some of those in the room (ministry staff perhaps?) began to clap.
“Today the denial of the problem is over, we are determined to change the logic [behind] the problem.”
At some point Hardouvelis, slumped in his chair, his deputy Christos Staikouras seated to his right, and now looking anything but happy, began to drum his fingers. An expression of disbelief flashed across his face as Varoufakis, all guns blazing, declared that
- the ministry would clamp down on expensive advisers and re-hire the cleaners that had become the face of austerity’s injustice (much applause there) (and outside)
- that it would seek a Pan European New Deal to “reboot” the economies not only of Greece but the continent at large,
- that under the radical leftists Athens would build a relationship “of friendship and sincerity” with Europe.
"We are going to destroy the Greek oligarchy system"
How Greece Could Change the Future of Europe
Even the limited-accountability, Wall Street-dominated form of democracy that prevails in the US proved vastly superior to the economic autocracy of the eurozone. Although the Great Recession was America's worst downturn since the Great Depression, it lasted just 18 months before the recovery began. The eurozone had a recession of similar length, then lapsed into another one in 2011, and has only recently begun a sluggish recovery. As a result, unemployment in the region stands at 11.5 percent, more than twice that of the United States (5.6 percent).
The difference is due to economic policy. The US got a modest stimulus; the weakest economies of the Eurozone got budget tightening. ... Officials making policy decisions in the US were at least somewhat accountable to an electorate. Voters in the eurozone removed more than 20 governments from power, but the destructive policies imposed by unelected European authorities — the European Commission, the European Central Bank, and the International Monetary Fund — have marched forward for years, effectively disenfranchising popular sentiment in Europe. Perhaps nowhere in the eurozone have these policies failed more miserably than in Greece.
The election of Syriza is the biggest breakthrough in the painfully slow-motion process of European voters reclaiming their democratic input on fundamental economic policy issues. An anti-austerity backlash put Socialist French President François Hollande in office in 2012, but he didn't deliver the economic relief he had promised. Now it is Tsipras's turn.
Syriza has certain advantages due to the passage of time. First, the fiscal austerity that Greece signed on to — a combination of tax increases and spending cuts to reduce the budget deficit — is pretty much done. Budget-tightening measures amounted to just 0.3 percent of GDP for 2014, as compared to 3.2 percent, 3.8 percent, and 5 percent respectively in the three previous years. This explains why the economy finally began to grow at 0.6 percent of GDP for 2014. It was not because the tough medicine of austerity had "worked," as some now disingenuously claim, but because it basically came to an end.
The people of Greece have spoken, a government has been formed, and now the ball is in the court of the European authorities. They will have to decide whether they have accomplished enough in terms of restructuring eurozone economies by chipping away at the welfare state, reducing labor's bargaining power, cutting healthcare spending (by 40 percent in Greece), and generally constructing a more unequal society. For years now, European authorities have been using the crisis to force the governments of more troubled member nations to accept economic changes that the electorates of these countries would never vote to approve. That is the main reason that these economic troubles have gone on for so long.
Koch brothers set $889m budget for 2016 presidential election
The Koch brothers’ political network plans to spend nearly $900m on the 2016 presidential election.
Freedom Partners, a group that serves a central role in the political activities of the brothers Charles and David Koch, unveiled its plan to spend $889m in the upcoming election to donors at an annual meeting in California on Monday. That amount is nearly double what the Kochs’ network spent in the 2012 presidential election.
Only some of the money would come from the Kochs themselves; the rest of the funding to be spent by the coalition that the brothers have helped to build and fund would be contributed by other donors.
The funding goal toes the $1bn that the campaigns of the major party presidential nominees are each expected to spend during the campaign. The money will be used for field operations, policy work and other campaign projects.
Senator Rand Paul re-introduces 'Audit the Fed' bill
Republican Senator Rand Paul, a potential 2016 presidential candidate, on Wednesday re-introduced a bill that would expose the Federal Reserve's monetary policy discussions and decisions to a congressional audit.
The Kentucky senator's move to re-introduce the bill, along with 30 co-sponsors, comes as Republican lawmakers and some Democrats increase their efforts to rein in the U.S. central bank and make it more transparent.
The Fed gained broad regulatory powers and implemented massive stimulus measures after the 2007-2009 financial crisis, expanding its balance sheet to $4.5 trillion. ...
The moves are a continuation of last year's congressional efforts to subject the Fed to a full audit, in addition to other measures proposed by lawmakers that would limit the central bank's authority.
The debit card fee driving US banks crazy – and costing consumers more than they realize
On the national plague of our debit cards, the supremes have spoken.
Or rather, they have refused.
You can’t blame them. This is a little bit of financial arcana that has passed over most of our heads while we were swiping our cards at the nearest Target or supermarket.
The justices of the US supreme court have refused to referee a long-simmering dispute between banks and retailers in their fight over fees on the estimated $1.4bn worth of card transactions that Americans make annually.
Here’s the problem, which most of us can relate to: banks love fees. But banks can’t levy a fee that isn’t “reasonable and proportional” to the cost of processing the transaction. That’s the rule under the terms of the Durbin amendment, which is part of the Dodd-Frank package of Wall Street banking reforms.
The Federal Reserve got to decide what that meant – and who kept the $16bn a year in so-called “interchange fees” charged on these debit card payments before 2010. Back then, retailer paid banks a rich fee of 44 cents per transaction.
The Fed ultimately ruled that the correct fee should be less than half of that, at 21 cents: higher than its original proposal of 12 cents a transaction, but still a figure calculated to make no one happy.
Banks have been lobbying relentlessly, but in the meantime they have found a more effective method: taking the difference out of consumers’ bank accounts.
Protesters Interrupt U.S. Trade Rep at TPP Hearing
Hellraiser Preview
Sherman, set the time machine for tomorrow's Hellraisers Journal which will feature a report on the meeting between Mother Jones and John D Rockefeller Jr.
Tune in at 2pm!
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"The Hunting Ground": Film Exposes How Colleges Cover Up Sexual Assault and Fail to Protect Students
Obama drops college-savings tax as plan to swap out breaks on rich crumbles
Facing pressure from both sides of the aisle in Washington as well as parents and students across the United States, President Barack Obama has abruptly dropped a proposal to tax earnings on withdrawals from a popular college savings plan.
After an idea to swap out tax breaks for the wealthy turned into “a distraction”, White House officials on Tuesday confirmed that the administration would not implement its proposal to tax earnings on so-called 529 accounts. The initiative was part of a wider program, unveiled as part of his State of the Union speech last week, to amend the US tax code and help middle class families.
The Evening Greens
A Government Science Agency Had To Redo Its Graphs Because Ocean Temperatures Went Off the Charts
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) had to redesign a graph of ocean heat content last week because data collected by the agency went off the charts.
The graph's upper bound was raised 25 percent in order to plot the rise in the amount of energy stored in the oceans, an event triggered by increasing amounts of human-generated greenhouse gas emissions.
It's not the first time the agency was forced to revise the size of its graphs. NOAA has amended charts three other times, including once for sea level rise, since they began posting them in 2008.
"The ocean is in a state that has never previously been observed," Amy Clement, Associate Dean and Professor at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, told VICE News. "We're in unchartered waters."
According to research published by NOAA scientists in 2012, the spike in ocean heat content from 1955 to 2012 was around 24 x 10^22 Joules: That's 2,400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 Joules. For perspective, if that amount of heat were transferred to the lower six miles of the atmosphere, temperatures would rise about 36 degrees Celsius (65 Fahrenheit).
The Corporate Takeover of Ukrainian Agriculture
The stakes around Ukraine’s vast agricultural sector – the world’s third largest exporter of corn and fifth largest exporter of wheat – could not be higher. Ukraine is known for its ample fields of rich black soil, and the country boasts more than 32 million hectares of fertile, arable land – the equivalent of one-third of the entire arable land in the European Union. ...
The presence of foreign corporations in Ukrainian agriculture is growing quickly, with more than 1.6 million hectares signed over to foreign companies for agricultural purposes in recent years. While Monsanto, Cargill, and DuPont have been in Ukraine for quite some time, their investments in the country have grown significantly over the past few years. ...
Western corporations have not just taken control of certain profitable agribusinesses and agricultural activities, they have now initiated a vertical integration of the agricultural sector and extended their grip on infrastructure and shipping.
For instance, Cargill now owns at least four grain elevators and two sunflower seed processing plants used for the production of sunflower oil. In December 2013, the company bought a “25% +1 share” in a grain terminal at the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk with a capacity of 3.5 million tons of grain per year.
All aspects of Ukraine’s agricultural supply chain – from the production of seeds and other agricultural inputs to the actual shipment of commodities out of the country – are thus increasingly controlled by Western firms. ...
The European Union and the United States are working hand in hand in the takeover of Ukrainian agriculture. Although Ukraine does not allow the production of genetically modified (GM) crops, the Association Agreement between Ukraine and the European Union, which ignited the conflict that ousted Yanukovych, includes a clause (Article 404) that commits both parties to cooperate to “extend the use of biotechnologies” within the country.
Dominican activists decry mining projects as ‘new form of colonialism’
ALGARROBOS, Dominican Republic — “This is no longer a local fight, but a fight for the life of this country as a whole,” said Tony Sánchez, referring to Loma Miranda, a mountain in central Dominican Republic that activists say is threatened by mining. ...
Loma Miranda, covering about 16 square miles, is home to a unique environment that contains much of the Dominican Republic's biodiversity, as well as dozens of springs, creeks and rivers that provide fresh water to the region. ...
Escalín Gutiérrez of Agua y Vida, an NGO focused on water rights, called Loma Miranda a "water mine," underscoring activists' contention that the water supply is too valuable to the country to risk polluting.
In June 2014, after news of the government’s plans to break ground on a nickel mine at Loma Miranda, more than 1,500 protesters gathered at the mountain to voice their opposition. Activists mounted other protests across the country, demanding that the mountain not be touched.
To appease protesters, the country’s Senate passed a bill in August to designate Loma Miranda a national park, effectively shielding it from mining companies. However, President Danilo Medina rejected the bill on the grounds that it violated the constitution and harmed the country’s investment interests. ...
Refusing to back down, activists established a permanent camp at Loma Miranda, from which they have launched a national movement to protect the mountain and founded the headquarters of a future national park.
Blog Posts of Interest
Here are diaries and selected blog posts of interest on DailyKos and other blogs.
What's Happenin' Is On Hiatus
Our privacy is for sale, we have to accept that. But what’s the price tag?
'It's an issue of what's right': New Jersey city reflects on Jerame Reid shooting
Trust Reality Rather Than President Obama's Words on Drones
Yanis Varoufakis: Greece's finance minister is no extremist
Source Code Similarities: Experts Unmask 'Regin' Trojan as NSA Tool
Learning to Count Past Two (Theory revisited)
A Little Night Music
Lee Dorsey - Working In The Coal Mine
Lee Dorsey - Sneakin' Sally Through The Alley
Lee Dorsey - Ya Ya
Lee Dorsey - Everything I Do Goin' Be Funky
Lee Dorsey - Ride Your Pony
Lee Dorsey - Yes We Can
Lee Dorsey - Holy Cow
Lee Dorsey - Give It Up
Lee Dorsey - Work, Work, Work
Lee Dorsey - Do Re Mi
Lee Dorsey - The Greatest Love
Lee Dorsey - People Gonna Talk
Lee Dorsey - Who's gonna help brother get further
Lee Dorsey - A Lover Was Born
Lee Dorsey - Can You Hear Me
Lee Dorsey - Great Googa Mooga
Lee Dorsey - Confusion
Lee Dorsey - Gator Tail
It's National Pie Day!
The election is over, it's a new year and it's time to work on real change in new ways... and it's National Pie Day. This seemed like the perfect opportunity to tell you a little more about our new site and to start getting people signed up.
Come on over and sign up so that we can send you announcements about the site, the launch, and information about participating in our public beta testing.
Why is National Pie Day the perfect opportunity to tell you more about us? Well you'll see why very soon. So what are you waiting for?! Head on over now and be one of the first!
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