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Photo credit for "Human Rights, go to video" graphic: © 2007 see embedded video» |
THE OPEN INTERNET IS A FORCE FOR DEMOCRACY & OPEN GOV'T, NOW IT IS UNDER THREAT FROM THOSE WHO WISH TO BOTTLENECK THE FREE PRESS 9 August 2007 The concept of 'net neutrality' refers to the current state of affairs in the free democracies of the world, where those who control the physical infrastructure of the Internet are not allowed to police its content or to charge for provider-user access. It is a vital ingredient in the make-up of the Internet, because it guarantees the freedom of information that makes the web so useful to free society and so valuable to those who do well what works in that open environment. [Full Story] RUPERT MURDOCH WINS BID TO BUY DOW JONES Controversial media tycoon Rupert Murdoch, through his company Newscorp, has reportedly persuaded the Bancroft family, which holds a controlling interest in the financial company Dow Jones, to sell the firm for $5.6 billion, giving him control of the Wall Street Journal newspaper. Until now, there had been opposition from within the Bancroft family, based on concerns Murdoch would distort the editorial culture and diminish the Journal's reputation for journalistic independence. [Full Story] ECONOMY STRONG OR REPORTING WEAK? It was amazing to see an article entitled "Strong U.S. economy helps slow drop in world markets" in a major international newspaper, knowing that the dollar is falling, people are struggling to make ends meet, we're constantly hearing about bankruptcies on the rise, and the housing market is, well, contributing to a potential global credit crisis, with major mortgage lenders under investigation for lending-to-loot. The story was based on figures reported by the US Commerce Department, which had just reported (Friday) that the "US economy" (ostensibly, GDP) had grown by 3.4 % in the 2nd quarter of 2007. [Full Story] DEVELOPMENT BECOMES A NEW GLOBAL IDEOLOGY Ideologically-driven revolutions have sought to implant Utopian movements where authoritarian regimes once stood, but all too often, they have brought about new authoritarian regimes, which view dissenters as immoral or unthinking pawns of the old regime, and therefore, a universal threat. Now, Foreign Policy magazine has asked the question of whether "development", as an international policy agenda, is becoming the new universalizing ideology, with all the relevant risks. [Full Story] 'OBJECTIVELY VERIFIABLE TRUTH NOW SUSPECT' The foundation of a free society is a press with the freedom to criticize instruments of power and influence and to reveal wrongdoing as it actually takes place. War is not a sufficient reason to institute a system of broad censorship criteria or to rein in the news media, as if they posed a direct threat to the wellbeing of the nation. But increasingly, it appears that American news media are intolerant of facts as such, waiting for members of the government themselves to come forward with complaints. [Full Story] ABC TO AIR 'DOCU-DRAMA' USING FABRICATIONS AS EVIDENCE ABC plans to air a "docu-drama" entitled Path to 9/11, a 6-hour TV movie detailing in fictional re-enactment events its writers allege occurred in the US counterterrorism community in the years before the attacks of 11 September 2001. It clearly assigns blame to members of the Clinton administration for thwarting efforts to kill Bin Laden, and many now say the film directly misrepresents the truth, fabricating scenes, words and events either for dramatic or for political effect. [Full Story] FEAR ENDANGERS BY DECEIVING The fear and uneasiness that provokes human beings to conflict is never what it seems to be; that is its nature and its method: to take hold by way of complex deceptions. Fear wages a coup d'esprit by deceiving the mind into thinking it promises clarity and intellectual comfort, peace of mind, justice and the healing of wounds, that it may actually generate the only feasible path to physical or political safety. [Full Story] UN NAMES 10 MOST UNDER-REPORTED STORIES FOR 2006 Every year, the United Nations publishes a list of the 10 most serious stories most overlooked by global press, world governments and international bodies. The list often includes multiple crisis situations which could degenerate into full-scale war. Developing nations, whose situations are often misunderstood or dismissed by news media, as too complicated, intractable, or of marginal relevance, take the spotlight this year. [Full Story] SCIENCE ABOVE TECHNOCRACY, FOR A FULLER FUTURE Science is in many ways an artform, but it is specifically and most importantly, the art of knowledge. It is not philosophy, not a study of how knowledge comes about, what it is, whether it can be trusted or whether we need to adjust our thinking; it is, instead, a direct study of the natural world, its tendencies, its evidence, and its capacity to work with us, for us and around us. [Full Story] OUR COLLECTIVE STUDY OF THE UNIVERSE People want to believe what their friends, neighbors, teachers, political representatives tell them. They will express skepticism, and they will be brash and indignant about public scandals or about dubious claims, but ultimately, they err on the side of credulity. The human being in society, is able to suspend disbelief and participate in sometimes elaborate fantasies, in the interests of sustaining the feeling of belonging to the ongoing project to understand the universe we inhabit... [Full Essay] CBS NEWS REPORT DISTORTS POLL RESULTS, SAYS BUSH "LIKELY NOT" OBLIGED TO FOLLOW LAW In a report from the White House regarding the president's response to criticism from the public, from Congress and from legal and national security experts that his warrantless wiretaps are illegal, CBS White House correspondent John Roberts falsely cites a recent poll to claim Bush has broad support from the public for warrantless wiretaps. [Full Story] GOOGLE TO COLLABORATE IN CENSORING INFORMATION DELIVERED TO CHINESE USERS The premier internet search engine Google has launched a new Chinese service, under the domain Google.cn, which it will voluntarily censor in keeping with the mandates of Chinese authorities. The announcement came earlier this week, as the Davos trade talks opened and on the same day as China's government announced it was ordering the closing of a weekly newspaper known for publishing articles on topics the Chinese Communist party's propaganda office had banned or which included criticism of government policy. [Full Story] AIDS KILLED MORE THAN 3 MILLION IN 2005 The human immuno-deficiency virus (HIV) and its deadly end-stage syndrome, AIDS, killed at least 3 million people in 2005. HIV also infected 5 million new people around the world, the largest single increase on record, though similar numbers were reported for 2003. The pandemic is still extremely deadly, and spreading. [Full Story] WASHINGTON POST REPORTS SECRET GLOBAL NETWORK OF EXTRAJUDICIAL CIA INTERROGATION CAMPS Dana Priest, a Washington Post writer, reported yesterday astounding revelations about the existence of a global network of secret CIA-managed prisons which appear to violate numerous provisions of international law. The so-called "black sites" are said to exist or to have existed in at least 8 countries, including in eastern Europe, a fact which has sparked outrage across the continent. [Full Story] CHINA PLANS "SMOKELESS WAR" AGAINST PRESS, DISSIDENTS In a high-level Communist party meeting, China's president Hu Jintao has reportedly called for an intensive crackdown on media liberties. While China's government has sought to project an image of a more market-oriented, open system, it continues to forbid basic press freedoms and still persecutes journalists at an alarming rate. [Full Story] JENNINGS DEATH IS LOSS TO JOURNALISM Peter Jennings, top news anchor at ABC News in the US, died on Sunday after delivering TV news in five separate decades. Jennings, a long-time smoker, had been suffering from lung cancer, having only announced four months ago he would seek treatment. His death may mark the true end of an era of broadcast news... [Full Story] AFRICA SUFFERS SPREAD OF FAMINE, HUNGER As the world begins to focus on the nearly 3 million facing hunger in Niger and the catastrophic refugee crisis in Darfur, in western Sudan, an estimated 31.1 million people across the continent face food shortages. Arable land, foodstocks and agriculture in general are suffering dangerous setbacks, making it increasingly difficult to feed African populations, some of which are growing rapidly. [Full Story] US BROADCASTERS BRUSH DARFUR ASIDE, FAVOR JACKSON TRIAL A new study shows major US broadcasters have brushed genocide in Darfur aside, while giving widespread coverage to the trial of popstar Michael Jackson. Glolablinfo.org writes that "U.S. broadcast media are failing to provide even minimal coverage of the ongoing crisis". [Full Story] JUDGE IMPRISONS REPORTER FOR REFUSING TO BREAK CONFIDENTIALITY, REVEAL SOURCE New York Times reporter Judith Miller has been jailed by a Special Prosecutor investigating the leak by White House officials of the identity of an undercover CIA agent to the press. Many believe it signals an assault on the First Amendment's vital "freedom of the press", moreso because many details of the case make it unclear what value Miller's testimony would have and whether other reporters (such as Robert Novak, who published the name itself) have faced similar prosecutorial rigors. [Full Story] EVOLUTION BEING PUSHED OUT OF US CLASSROOMS The New York Times is reporting that evolution is an increasingly persecuted field of scientific knowledge in US schools. According to the story, teachers in an around Birmingham, Alabama are being openly and/or indirectly discouraged from discussing the existence of the theory of evolution, the validity of which is not in doubt among scientists in any relevant field. Teachers are reported to cite fear of raising the issue, due to the opposition of fundamentalist groups in many communities. [Full Story] MEDIA MATTERS FINDS DRUDGE SLUR ABOUT KERRY FILMS UNFOUNDED The non-profit media watchdog organization Media Matters for America has reported that its analysis finds there is no truth to the Matt Drudge allegation that John Kerry's footage of Vietnam combat is inauthentic. According to Media Matters, Drudge deliberately ignored factual reports and evidence of authenticity in order to give priority to unfounded claims made by individuals with a history of distorting Kerry's record in order to benefit Republicans. [Full Story] TWO LINGUISTS STAND AS LAST BASTION OF FADING CALIFORNIA LANGUAGE MotherJones reports this month that the 82-year-old linguist, William Shipley, is one of the last handful of speakers of Mountain Maidu, a language spoken by aboriginal Californians. He is passing his knowledge of the language to a young "protégé", who is actually of Maidu descent and seeks to return the language to use among his people. Shipley has devoted many years of his life to the study and propagation of knowledge about Maidu. According to Dashka Slater's report, "He developed a system for writing the language and has published a grammar, a dictionary, and a lyrical translation of Maidu myths and stories. He is now one of the last living speakers of the language... [Full Story] WORLD'S FRESH WATER RAPIDLY BEING DEPLETED, GLOBAL SHORTAGE FEARED The United Nations has been pushing for some time for a global strategy to deal with the looming scarcity of fresh water. A BBC report from June 2000 indicated 1 in 5 of all living human beings already lacks access to safe drinking water. Dramatically making the point that our oceans cannot solve the problem, the report says "Only 2.5% of the world's water is not salty, and two-thirds of that is locked up in the icecaps and glaciers." Immediately available, clean fresh water, not contaminated by industrial chemicals, parasites or natural toxins, simply does not exist in the abundance needed... [Full Story] 235 MILLION ACRES OF WILDERNESS LAND OPENED TO MINING, LOGGING The new book by Carl Pope and Paul Rauber, Strategic Ignorance, details a complex maze of government actions, which the authors say are designed not only to gut regulatory protections of our natural environment, but to overturn all aspects of the historical role of government in stewardship of the nation's natural heritage. They note the many rulings and rule changes put forward by the Bush cabinet that directly impact the safeguards that prevent big corporate interests from plundering the last wild places. One of the more insidious facts put forth in this book is that the Bush administration has so far removed protection from 235 million acres of American wilderness, opening public lands to logging and mining interests. In fact, a lawsuit is now pending to obtain the release of documents which are alleged to hatch a so-called "no more wilderness" deal in which protections against logging and development are lifted. [For more: CommonDreams]
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