Afghan govt. demands arrest of US "death squad":

Afghan govt. demands arrest of US "death squad":

 

Kai Eide, UN Representative to Afghanistan confirmed the Afghan government's investigative conclusions that US troops handcuffed and then executed eight students enrolled in grades 6 through 10 in a night raid on December 27, 2009. The US military and NATO responded the troops involved were non-official. The most likely source of para-military "non-official" troops in Afghanistan is Blackwater/Xe.
http://snipurl.com/tzyn1

 

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Viva Palestina Update From Gaza Interview With George Galloway By Press TV

Viva Palestina Update From Gaza
Interview With George Galloway

 

By Press TV

 

Interview with George Galloway following his entry in Gaza with the Viva Palestina Aid Convoy.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24343.htm

 

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AVAAZ: 2010: anything is possible

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Dear friends,

It's a new year, and there's something in the air.

Thousands of emails are pouring in to Avaaz -- filled with hope, excitement, determination. The world's facing a lot of challenges this year, but there's something different too - an optimism that if we all stick together, anything is possible.

It's time to chart our course for 2010. Click below to join the all-member poll to set the agenda for where Avaaz and global people power should go next, then view the results:

http://www.avaaz.org/people_power_in_2010

Here's a quick snapshot of what we've achieved so far:

• grown to become the largest global online citizens' movement in history
• nearly 4 million members, 15 million actions, 55 million friends told
• 2500 house parties, 3000 flashmobs, 3300 vigils for climate action all around the world
• millions of dollars/euros/yen donated to campaigns, democracy movements and humanitarian relief
• Over 200 campaigns conveying tens of millions of voices to leaders at critical moments

Together, we've built a new force for a better world – one shaped by the views and values of the world's people. Now it's time to decide where we go next. Click below to see a slideshow of highlights and take the global poll on what we should do in 2010 -- the results and slideshow will be available on the last page of the survey:

http://www.avaaz.org/people_power_in_2010

With hope and optimism,

The Avaaz team

-------------------------------------------------

Want to support Avaaz? We're entirely funded by donations and receive no money from governments or corporations. Our dedicated online team ensures even the smallest contributions go a long way -- donate here.


ABOUT AVAAZ Avaaz.org is an independent, not-for-profit global campaigning organization that works to ensure that the views and values of the world's people inform global decision-making. (Avaaz means "voice" in many languages.) Avaaz receives no money from governments or corporations, and is staffed by a global team based in Ottawa, London, Rio de Janeiro, New York, Buenos Aires, and Geneva. Click here to learn more about our largest campaigns. Don't forget to check out our Facebook and Myspace and Bebo pages! You can also follow Avaaz on Twitter!

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JEREMY SCAHILL: Blackwater and the Khost Bombing--The Nation

Blackwater and the Khost Bombing
JEREMY SCAHILL | Two Blackwater contractors died in a December 30 suicide bombing at a CIA station in Afghanistan, suggesting that the company is more enmeshed in CIA business than the agency admits.

Geithner's New York Fed Pushed AIG to Keep Sweetheart Deals Secret

Geithner's New York Fed Pushed AIG to Keep Sweetheart Deals Secret
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/01/07-5

ACLU: Airport Security and Your Privacy, School to Prison Pipeline, and more

An Outpouring of Support for the ACLU Airline Security Must Protect Rights As Well As Safety Putting Politics Aside: Protect Access to Abortion Care in Health Care Reform Patriot Act: Extended But Not Forgotten What Do These Three Stories Have in Common? 300,000 Disfranchised Voters is Unacceptable 17…and in Solitary 300,000 Disfranchised Voters is Unacceptable Right now in Virginia, approximately 300,000 people with past felony convictions who have finished their sentences -- meaning they are not in prison and are not on probation or parole -- are barred from voting for life because they have past felony convictions. Only one other state (Kentucky) has such a punitive disfranchisement policy; all other states have realized that barring so many people from voting is just plain un-American. Among these 300,000 disfranchised Virginians are people like Frank Anderson, whose story was reported recently in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Anderson volunteered for Gov. Kaine's gubernatorial campaign, but when he applied for the restoration of his voting rights, his application was denied because he had several speeding tickets. In order to get your voting rights back in Virginia, you have to submit an individual application to the governor and can have "no convictions for violations of the law." Apparently, "this includes moving violations, such as speeding." Virginia's disfranchisement law is a holdover from the Jim Crow era. At the 1901-02 Virginia Constitutional Convention (where felony disfranchisement laws were debated), one delegate explained: "This plan will eliminate the darkey as a political factor in this State in less than 5 years, so that in no single county…will there be the least concern felt for the complete supremacy of the white race in the affairs of government." The remnants of this racially-biased policy are still clear today. While 6.8 percent of Virginia's voting age population as a whole is disfranchised, 19.8 percent of the state's African-American voting age population -- approximately 200,000 individuals -- is barred from voting. During his last weeks in office, the ACLU of Virginia and other organizations are calling upon Gov. Kaine to end the state's excessively harsh voter disfranchisement policy. With the stroke of a pen, he can restore voting rights to all Virginians who have finished their sentences and can put in place a process for automatically restoring rights to others who complete their sentences in the future. >>Learn more about the ACLU Voting Rights Project. back to top 17…and in Solitary As a young child, "Robert Doe" suffered at the hands of an abusive father who beat him with belts and clothes hangers and encouraged his siblings to beat him with baseball bats. Robert was often locked in a room for days or weeks on end -- alone. As a direct consequence of his abusive upbringing, Robert, now 17, suffers from mental illness. The state that should be helping him has chosen to torture him instead. Robert's childhood was marked by instability. He was placed with various relatives, foster care and institutional facilities while growing up before being placed in Pine Hills Youth Correctional Facility. While there, an altercation with two correctional officers led to Robert being convicted of assault. Rather than treat the root causes of his actions, the state simply gave up on him, and threw him into Montana State Prison, an adult facility. Deprived of his medication, he acted out and was kept in solitary confinement where he has remained for the past eight months -- reliving the confinement of his earlier childhood. As well as being forced to endure prolonged solitary confinement, Robert has been pepper-sprayed, tasered and stripped naked in full view of other inmates. As punishment for acting out in solitary, Robert was put into the prison's "behavior modification plans" where he has been denied clothing, given only bread and water and has had just a hole in the floor to use for a toilet. In complete despair, Robert has twice tried to kill himself by biting his wrist to puncture a vein. Other inmates were so concerned that they contacted us to get help for Robert, not themselves. The ACLU is suing to get Robert out of adult prison and into appropriate mental health treatment. The lawsuit charges that Robert's treatment violates not only the Montana constitution and other state laws, but is also in violation of Robert's universally-recognized human rights. As the New York Times recently highlighted, Robert's case is not isolated; rather, it is a stark example of an all-too-common practice in the United States of treating child prisoners as adults. No one, especially a child, should be subjected to the kind of abuse Robert has been. Montana law and international human rights law require a fundamentally different approach, one where the state authorities act in Robert's best interests to treat his illness, and not punish him for it. >>Learn more about the ACLU's National Prison Project. back to top Do you know somebody who would be interested in getting news about the ACLU and what we're doing to protect civil liberties? Help us spread the word about ACLU Online — forward this newsletter to a friend. January 7, 2010  An Outpouring of Support for the ACLU In a remarkable showing of support, 119,952 people came together to support the ACLU last month in order to carry forward our vitally important work. Now that 2010 is under way, I want to take the opportunity to thank each and every one of our supporters and members for your commitment and dedication to the ACLU. It was extremely heartening to see the response, as tens of thousands of people from all across the country stood up for our organization and our essential work. As you may know, the ACLU learned last fall that our most generous individual donor would not be able to lend his financial support to the ACLU in 2010. The unexpected news meant that our entire organization's budget would drop by nearly 25% in 2010, which is why we launched the Acting Together: 100,000 Gifts Campaign. The incredible response to the Acting Together campaign gives us the kind of momentum we need to carry on our critical work. But there's still a lot of that work ahead and the battles aren't going to be easy. After seeing how the ACLU community rallied together at the end of 2009, I'm confident that we'll be able to take on any challenge we may face in 2010. You can still add your energy to the ACLU's important efforts -- send a gift to the ACLU today and start the New Year by taking a stand for personal freedom. Sincerely, Anthony D. Romero Executive Director back to top Airline Security Must Protect Rights As Well As Safety According to the Associated Press, many Americans feel largely comfortable with the use of scanners that see through clothes. What do you think? In the wake of an attempted terrorist attack on a plane headed for Detroit on Christmas Day 2009, much talk has centered on increasing security measures at airports, including subjecting the citizens of 14 nations who are flying to the United States to intensified screening at airports. Expanded use of body scanners and adding individuals to the terror watch list are also being strongly pushed. In the face of fear and panic, the first reaction is all-too-often to surrender our liberties for a false sense of security. We must not repeat this error. History shows us that surrendering our liberties out of fear and panic ends up restricting our freedoms, fundamental privacy and due process rights -- without making us any safer. The government should enact procedures that pose the least threat to our civil liberties and are also proven to be effective -- but racial profiling, routine full body scanning and the overly expansive terror watch lists do not fit that criteria. "Singling out travelers from a few specified countries for enhanced screening is essentially a pretext for racial profiling, which is ineffective, unconstitutional and violates American values," said Michael German, national security policy counsel with the ACLU Washington Legislative Office and a former FBI agent. "Empirical studies of terrorists show there is no terrorist profile, and using a profile that doesn't reflect this reality will only divert resources by having government agents target innocent people." Full body scanners present serious threats to personal privacy and are of unclear effectiveness. According to security experts, the explosive device used in the attempted attack on a Detroit-bound plane on Christmas Day may well not have been detected by the body scanners. The current terrorist watch lists are bloated, keep innocent travelers from flying, and are broken. Their enormous size not only harms innocent travelers but also wastes the time of screeners and obscures true threats, as the recent attempted attack demonstrates. To be effective, no-fly lists must be narrow and focused on the very few true terrorists who pose a genuine threat to flight safety. "We welcome President Obama's emphasis on better information and intelligence sharing between government agencies," said Anthony Romero, Executive Director, ACLU. "Our limited security resources should be invested where they will do the most good and have the best chance of thwarting attacks, and that means developing competent intelligence and law enforcement agencies that will stop terrorists before they get to the airport. >>Take action now: Demand sanity when it comes to security. back to top Putting Politics Aside: Protect Access to Abortion Care in Health Care Reform By Louise Melling, Director, ACLU's Reproductive Freedom Project We can all agree: health care reform should improve people's lives. That's simple enough. That's how we got into this overhaul process in the first place. At minimum, health care reform should make health care more affordable and more accessible. But things in Congress don't seem to be shaping up that way, at least not when it comes to women and reproductive health care. First, the House of Representatives included an abortion coverage ban in its health care reform package and then the Senate followed suit with its own restrictions. While not as extreme as the House coverage ban, the Senate's bill requires anyone purchasing an insurance plan that covers abortion to write two separate checks -- one to pay for the cost of the abortion services and another to pay for the rest of the covered care. This is an arbitrary and burdensome requirement that stigmatizes abortion and creates hurdles for both the insurer that wants to include abortion care in its health plan and the insured who wants the coverage. It's just common sense. No woman plans for an unplanned pregnancy. No woman expects to hear that the baby she's been looking forward to holding will likely not survive the pregnancy. No woman wants to hear that carrying her pregnancy to term will seriously threaten her own health. Everyone's circumstances and health care needs are different. Each of these women should be able to decide what is best for her health and her family. Health care reform should ensure that basic health care is covered, and that we all have something to fall back on when we need it most. Given disincentives in both the House and Senate reform bills, private insurance companies may well decide not to offer any plan in the exchange that covers abortion. These restrictions effectively jeopardize the abortion coverage millions of women currently have. In the coming weeks, members of the House and Senate will work to reconcile their two bills. The final legislation must not diminish women's access to abortion care. Let's make sure that the president gets to sign a measure that recognizes the importance of respecting everyone's right to make personal private health care decisions without government interference, and that our health care coverage will truly meet our health care needs. That's the kind of health care we can all get behind. >>Take action: Tell Congress to Get It Right! Protect Women's Access to Abortion in Health Care Reform. back to top Patriot Act: Extended But Not Forgotten In late December, Congress voted on a 60-day extension for the expiring Patriot Act provisions. The extension came as part of the Defense Department Appropriations Act, which the Senate is expected to pass in the coming weeks and extended the provisions through February 28, 2010. The expiring provisions -- the John Doe roving wiretap provision, Section 215 or the "library records" provision and the never before used "lone wolf" provision -- all lack proper privacy safeguards. They were up for renewal last year and would have expired on December 31 if Congress did not take action. Given that Congress could have taken the easy way out by simply renewing the expiring provisions, this small extension is a huge opportunity. Now both chambers will be able to give these provisions and various proposed changes to the Patriot Act the time and debate they deserve. The two bills most likely to move forward in the coming weeks are the House's USA Patriot Amendments Act and the Senate's USA Patriot Extension Act. The Senate bill has been endorsed by the administration, but the ACLU has several reservations about that legislation and is still hopeful the House bill which provides much better civil liberties protections will be the bill that passes both chambers. >>Learn more about the USA Patriot Amendments Act and the USA Patriot Extension Act. back to top What Do These Three Stories Have in Common?   The "school-to-prison pipeline" describes an alarming trend where public elementary, middle, and high schools are pushing youth out of the classrooms and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. >> How easy is it to get stuck in the school-to-prison pipeline? When 12-year-old Richard, an African-American honor student in Mississippi, read a text message from his father during class, school officials confiscated his phone, searched it, and found photos of Richard dancing in the bathroom of his home. The school then turned the phone over to the police, who claimed the pictures constituted "gang-related activity" and "indecent pictures." Richard was suspended for three days and ultimately expelled. Sam, a Native American 6th grader in South Dakota, hit a Caucasian classmate who taunted him by calling him "prairie nigger" and shoving him. Upon learning of the altercation, the school principal referred 12-year-old Sam -- but not the white student who had initiated the fight -- to the police. Sam was escorted out of the school in handcuffs and adjudicated delinquent. When D.J., a 15-year-old African-American student from Blakely, Georgia, moved to Atlanta with his family, various bureaucratic delays prevented him from enrolling in the local public school. He missed over a month of classes and, as a result, was sent to a privately-run disciplinary alternative school. There he received little instruction and no homework, and was required to submit to intrusive searches upon entering school each day. Conditions were so bad that D.J. was physically assaulted by a school security guard and his academic performance deteriorated. These incidents, all the subject of ACLU lawsuits, crystallize the disturbing yet growing national trend known as the school-to-prison-pipeline, wherein children -- particularly youth of color -- are pushed out of public schools and into the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Annual suspension rates have exceeded 3 million, triple the rate in 1974, and almost 70% of students report the presence of security guards and/or assigned police officers at their schools. Far from making our schools safer, these practices that prioritize incarceration over education create detrimental school climates and further limit access to opportunities for far too many young people across the nation. >>Learn more about the School-to-Prison Pipeline. back to top Join us on... American Civil Liberties Union 125 Broad Street, 18th Floor New York, New York 10004-2400 Geraldine Engel, Lisa Sock and Shannon Scanlan, Editors Privacy Statement Privacy Statement This mail is never sent unsolicited. You, or someone on your behalf, has subscribed to receive this information from the American Civil Liberties Union. At the ACLU Web site, the ACLU gathers anonymous summary statistics on the responses to our email newsletters in order to better serve list subscribes and ACLU members. To review our Privacy Statement, click here. Click here to forward this message.

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Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Symposium

January 6, 2010

	Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
	Vasily Kandinsky, Several Circles, 1926 (detail) Oil on canvas, 140.3 x 140.7 cm. Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York © 2009 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris		The Universe Resounds: Kandinsky, Synesthesia, and Art Symposium Tuesday, January 12, 2010 2–7 pm Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Peter B. Lewis Theater 1071 Fifth Avenue (entrance on 88th Street) New York City http://www.guggenheim.org/universe-resounds
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	In conjunction with the final days of the Kandinsky exhibition on view through January 13, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum is pleased to announce The Universe Resounds: Kandinsky, Synesthesia, and Art, an interdisciplinary examination of painting, synesthesia, and abstraction from modern to contemporary times, including from the perspectives of art history, neuroscience, music, film, physics, and performance. A reception and exhibition viewing follows the symposium. Topics and Speakers Kandinsky's Synesthetic Vision: Color/Sound/Word/Image Magdalena Dabrowski, Special Consultant, Department of Nineteenth-Century, Modern, and Contemporary Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York Notes on Kandinsky and Schönberg James Leggio, Head of Publications, Brooklyn Museum, New York Kandinsky's Legacy in Film and Popular Culture Kerry Brougher, Deputy Director and Chief Curator, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, D.C. Nonobjective Films Courtesy the Center for Visual Music, Los Angeles Neuroscience and Music David Soldier, Professor of Neurology, Psychiatry, and Pharmacology, Columbia University Medical School, New York, with Brad Garton, Director of the Columbia Computer Music Studio, Columbia University, New York Hypermusic Prologue Matthew Ritchie, artist, New York Moderated Discussion Caroline Jones, Professor of Art History and Director, History Theory Criticism Section, Department of Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston For complete information, schedule, and tickets check online or call the Box Office at 212 423 3587, Mon–Fri, 1–5 pm. Eyetracking Forum Wednesday, January 13, 2010 9 am Martin Segal Theatre The City University of New York Graduate Center 365 Fifth Avenue (at 34th Street) New York City Science & the Arts at the CUNY Graduate Center and the Sackler Center for Arts Education are pleased to announce an Eyetracking Forum. This session for art and science professionals examines the science of eyetracking from multiple perspectives, including filmmaking, interface technology, psychology, and data visualization, and concludes with an exhibition walkthrough. Moderators: Adrienne Klein and Grahame Weinbren Space is limited, RSVP required: publicprograms@guggenheim.org Participants Kenneth J. Ciuffreda, O.D., Ph.D., is the former Chairman of the Department of Vision Sciences at SUNY State College of Optometry, New York, whose current research involves normal and abnormal oculomotor systems. Isaac Dimitrovsky is a programmer who lives and works in New York. Rebecca Shulman Herz is Senior Education Manager of the Learning Through Art program at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and author of Looking at Art in the Classroom: Art Investigations from the Guggenheim Museum (Teachers College Press, 2010). Bruce Homer is Associate Professor for the Ph.D. Program in Educational Psychology at the CUNY Graduate Center. Adrienne Klein is Co-Director of Science & the Arts at the CUNY Graduate Center. Ken Perlin is Professor of Computer Science at New York University, directing the NYU Games for Learning Institute. John F. Simon, Jr. is a practicing new media artist who works with LCD screens and computer programming. Paula Stuttman is an artist, independent art lecturer, and part-time Assistant Professor at the New School, New York. Grahame Weinbren is an interactive filmmaker whose work is represented in the permanent collection of the Guggenheim Museum; he is also a member of the graduate faculty of the School of Visual Arts, New York. George A. Zikos, O.D., M.S., directs the Manhattan Vision Associates/Institute Vision Research, New York.
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DBChirot sent you a video: "Bringing Rios Montt to Justice Guatemala"

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DBChirot has shared a video with you on YouTube: Bringing Rios Montt to Justice Guatemala January 2010 Strongmen like Slobodan Milosevic and Augusto Pinochet are now being called to account internationally for their alleged crimes. But in the roll call of former leaders being called before the courts for crimes against humanity, the name Rios Montt is missing.
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