By Monia Ghanmi, Magharebia | Nate Anderson Ars Technica | Haiti Chery. Tunisian bloggers have formed the first anti-censorship political party in Africa and the Arab world: the Tunisian Pirate Party. “The ideology of this party is freedom and use of the internet as infrastructure and democracy, because free Internet is an indicator of democratic nations.” – Slim Amamou
Continue reading →By Jennifer Baker, IDG News. In a major victory for the campaign against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), the European Parliament’s trade committee rejected by a vote of 21 to 5 a plan to send the proposed accord to the European Court of Justice (ECJ). This means that the European Parliament vote on ACTA will not be delayed 1 1/2 years and could happen as early as June 2012.
Continue reading →Press Release, Prometheus Radio Project | FCC. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has decided to open the airwaves to Low Power FM (LPFM) stations; this will allow for the first new urban community radio stations in the U.S. in decades. The FCC will start to accept applications as early as Fall 2012.
Continue reading →By Stephen C. Webster, Raw Story | Tiffany Kaiser, Daily Tech | Haiti Chery. The City of Boston settled a lawsuit filed by Simon Glik, an attorney arrested in 2007 as he recorded police using force to subdue a man. According to a First Circuit Court of Appeals Aug 2011 decision: “Gathering information about government officials in a form that can readily be disseminated to others serves a cardinal First Amendment interest in protecting and promoting the free discussion of governmental affairs….”
Continue reading →By Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. It is hardly worthwhile to entertain some notion that the U.N. force MINUSTAH and the new paramilitary gangs are somehow at odds with each other. Both are supported by the U.S. and France, and both prey on the Haitian population and National Police. MINUSTAH’s abuses are given as the reason why a Haitian army is needed to defend the national sovereignty, and the threat of abuse by paramilitaries serves to justify MINUSTAH’s continued stay.
Continue reading →By Andrew Nikiforuk, The Tyee. Hydraulic fracturing was identified by the U.S. as an earthquake trigger as early as 1990, and scientists have long known that injection of fluid where the Earth’s crust lies closest to faults and fractures can cause earthquakes.
Continue reading →By Marcela Valente, IPS | Staff, Cuba Debate. The Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo are finally getting heard in court after 35 years of demanding their stolen grandchildren. Eight former officials of the brutal Argentinian dictatorship that began on March 24, 1976 and lasted 7 years, are accused of “taking, retaining, hiding and changing the identities of” 34 children born to political prisoners held in clandestine prisons during the dictatorship. UPDATE on Mar 27th: Closing arguments. (English | Spanish)
Continue reading →By Allison Deger, Mondoweiss | Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel and Al-Haq joint statement | Vivien Sansour, YouTube. Despite Hana Shalabi’s immediate risk of death, the Israeli Prison Service refuses to transfer her to a hospital, and an Israeli military judge of the Court of Appeals has postponed yet again making a decision regarding the order of a four-month long administrative detention.
Continue reading →By Orfilio Peláez, Granma. Three Cuban cave painting sites were discovered in a nature reserve in Imías municipality, Guantánamo province, in February 2012, by the Cuban Speleological Society. A use of the color red, found in these paintings, is rare and presumed to be linked to important events in the lives of the original pre-Columbian inhabitants.
Continue reading →By Rachelle Charlier Doucet, AlterPresse | Commentary and translation by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. A massive industrial park is scheduled to open in the Caracol Bay area of Haiti, although no plan is in place to mitigate the park’s impact on a region that has been proposed as a World Heritage Site for its ecological, historical, and archaeological importance. (English | French)
Continue reading →By Richard Raznikov, The Rag Blog | Democracy Center | Haiti Chery. About 20 years ago, it dawned on the bankers and some major corporations that if oil was a lucrative commodity, water would be even more so…. The trick was how to take it away from the people and sell it back to them.
Continue reading →By Charundi Panagoda and Jim Lobe, IPS | Karlos Zurutuza, IPS. The U.S. civil rights group Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) has filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of the Sexual Minorities of Uganda (SMUG) against a U.S. right-wing evangelist leader for inciting hatred against homosexuals in Uganda that has led to the murder of activist David Kato and other kinds of violence. Meanwhile, dozens of bodies of murdered gays and lesbians are appearing in Baghdad’s streets, and over 720 LGBT persons have been killed in Iraq in the past 6 years. A rhetoric of likening gays to satanists is associated with the violence in both Uganda and Iraq. (English | Spanish)
Continue reading →By Mergenat Exalus, AlterPresse | Commentary and translation by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. The city of Gonaives, Haiti, has been without water since a sabotage of three water pumping stations three months ago. The forced dependence of the Haitian population on bottled water, not inspected by local health authorities, poses a grave danger. (English | French)
Continue reading →By Staff, AHP | Translation by Dady Chery, Haiti Chery. Just out in Haitian bookstores: a new book by former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide titled “Pwezi filosofik pou dekolonizasyon mantal” (Publisher: Henri Deschamps, 2012). It is the Creole version of “Philosophical Reflections for Mental Decolonization” (Publisher: Paradigm Press, 2011). (English | French)
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