New Internationalist
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‘I was the fall guy’: Julian Assange in his own words
Is the digital activist world robust enough to survive legislation attacks by the world’s superpowers? The legislative attacks are not the big problem, either for the internet or for the communications revolution – which has given us such ability to understand the world by learning through the experiences of other people. Rather, the problem is the huge expansion by state intelligence agencies, which are now monitoring nearly every border and nearly every internet traffic flow. For example, companies around the world are selling equipment to states for $10 million per year, to record every single telephone call, email and SMS going in and out of a country. Billions of hours of telephone calls – and not to just look at them and then perhaps discard them, but to record that information permanently.
Why outlawing squatting will be way too expensive -- New Internationalist
More than 720,000 properties across the UK lie empty. As regular readers of the New Internationalist blog will know, proposals are currently before the House of Lords which will see people who use empty residential buildings for shelter facing up to a year in prison or a £5000 ($7800) fine. In response, Squatters’ Action for Secure Homes ( SQUASH ) released a report ‘ Can We Afford to Criminalise Squatting ?’ on Friday, which is backed by a range of academics and legal practitioners. In it, we show that clause 136 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders ( LASPO ) Bill is likely to cost the UK taxpayer around £790 million ($ US 1.24 billion) over the next five years. In other words, the costs of criminalising squatting will obliterate any savings made by a bill that has savaged Legal Aid for the poorest to make savings of just £350 million ($548 million).
US drones invade Iraqi skies -- New Internationalist
When is a US troop pullout not a pullout? asks Felicity Arbuthnot . First the world was sold imaginary weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, with General Colin Powell asserting at the United Nations in February 2003: ‘My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we’re giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence.’It has been said that compassion is ‘the only beauty that truly pleases’. 1 While beauty ordinarily provokes the fiery itch of desire or the sullen shadow of envy, compassion is cooling, blissful, inspiring awe and wonder. It implies an ability to stand outside our own needs as observers, to perceive the suffering of others as of equal or greater importance. But like all forms of beauty, compassion can be faked, exploited. On 4 February, Western politicians and journalists responded with outrage to the Russian and Chinese vetoing of a UN security council resolution calling for Syrian president Bashar Assad to step down as part of a ‘political transition’. UK foreign secretary, William Hague, said : ‘More than 2,000 people have died since Russia and China vetoed the last draft resolution in October 2011.
UN ‘travesty’: resolutions of mass destruction (Part 1) -- New Internationalist
Killing Gaddafi: the death of legal justice -- New Internationalist
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. - Ephesians: 6:12. What a decade it has been for assassinations, liquidations, exterminations - for state terrorism led by the Land of the Free. Summary executions include Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
I was recently invited to be a speaker at the upcoming Rebellious Media Conference in London – a celebration of the role of alternative media in bringing about social change. With all of the tickets sold and Noam Chomsky delivering the keynote, it looks likely to be significant. Chomsky is known for showing how the current structure of the media business can serve to squeeze out radical viewpoints. But this is not a new phenomenon. Indeed, throughout history élites have consistently sought to stifle those media sources that challenge them.
Rebellious media: history gives us hope -- New Internationalist
Somaliland: an oasis of success -- New Internationalist
The guard spoke out of the place where his front tooth used to be. He sat in the passenger seat of an aged Toyota station wagon with a muddied rifle leaning against his knee. A former liberation soldier, he clapped his hands to the blaring sound of Somali rap music as we sped through the desert east of Hargeisa, the administrative hub of Somaliland: a place that no longer exists. He turned around to face us and pointed out the window. ’Tank, tank,’ he said. In a place like this, the natural reaction would be to panic. But just off the road his referent became clear.
When explaining why countries in the Global South face stark levels of inequality and deprivation, you just say it’s due to a common penchant for bribery and fraud. You treat it as a cultural deficiency. Following this approach, institutions such as the World Bank trumpet their work in ‘good governance’ and anti-corruption. No need to examine the disastrous results of neoliberal policies such as privatization, deregulation and austerity. Nor do élites in wealthy countries have to acknowledge how foreign corporations have propagated kickbacks and cronyism.
Let’s end corruption – starting with Wall Street -- New Internationalist
Every month we invite two experts to debate, and then invite you to join the conversation online. The best comments will be printed in the next magazine. Andrew Religious schools select pupils on the basis of their parents’ religion, which entrenches religious (and in some cases ethno-religious) divisions in society, as well as perpetuating socio-economic inequality. This is bad for social cohesion. Religious schools are also permitted to select their staff – both teaching and non-teaching – on grounds of their religion, which is unfair on potential applicants and also hampers the efficiency of the school as a school.
Are religious schools bad for society? -- New Internationalist