Monthly Archives: August 2016

Israel Calls on Citizens to Track and Report Activists in ‘Ruthless’ War Against BDS

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“This latest weapon in the intensifying Israeli legal, espionage, and propaganda war against the BDS movement for Palestinian rights is a strong indicator of how desperate and irrational Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism, and apartheid has become,” said campaign spokesperson

By Lauren McCauley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 8-8-2016

A campaigner in the West Bank puts up a poster in support of a BDS campaign. The Israeli government wants you to report this man. (Photo: Palestinian BDS Movement)

A campaigner in the West Bank puts up a poster in support of a BDS campaign. The Israeli government wants you to report this man. (Photo: Palestinian BDS Movement)

Amplifying the growing crackdown on dissent and specifically the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement for Palestinian rights, the Israeli government this weekend unveiled a new initiative to track and deport activists suspected of supporting the campaign.

Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan and Interior Minister Arye Dery on Sunday announced the creation of a new government task force charged with gathering intelligence on pro-Palestininian activists and organizations with the intent, as Haaretz put it, of collecting enough evidence to legally deport them from Israel or the occupied West Bank. Continue reading →

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Florida Now Spraying Neurotoxic Pesticide Banned in Other Countries to Combat Zika

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By Claire Bernish. Published 8-7-2016 by The Free Thought Project

Areas of Miami, Florida, are now being sprayed with the insecticide naled in an attempt to eradicate the Aedes aegypti mosquito — carrier of the zika virus. Naled, a potent neurotoxin that kills mosquitoes on contact, is perfectly safe, or so the Environmental Protection Agency insists, despite Puerto Rico’s rejection of its use to combat the spread of zika there — due to concerns about its safety.

To keep naled airborne where it would be most effective, the agent is sprayed in very fine aerosol droplets — about two tablespoons can be dispersed to cover an area the equivalent of two football fields, a local CBS affiliate reported. Continue reading →

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Audit Reveals the Pentagon Doesn’t Know Where $6.5 Trillion Dollars Has Gone

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By Jay Syrmopoulos. Published 8-7-2016 by The Free Thought Project

Photo: Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Photo: Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Washington, D.C. – A new Department of Defense Inspector General’s report, released last week, has left Americans stunned at the jaw-dropping lack of accountability and oversight. The glaring report revealed the Pentagon couldn’t account for $6.5 trillion dollars worth of Army general fund transactions and data, according to a report by the Fiscal Times.

The Pentagon, which has been notoriously lax in its accounting practices, has never completed an audit, would reveal how the agency has specifically spent the trillions of dollars allocated for wars, equipment, personnel, housing, healthcare and procurements allotted to them by Congress. Continue reading →

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ACLU Forces US Government to Release Secret Drone Playbook

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The long-awaited guidelines provide “a timely reminder of the breadth of the powers that will soon be in the hands of another president,” said ACLU deputy legal director

By Lauren McCauley, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 8-6-2016

Three years and thousands of deaths later, the administration of U.S. President Barack Obama late Friday finally made public its guidelines for conducting lethal drone strikes.

The release of the Presidential Policy Guidance (PPG), also known as “the Playbook,” came in response to a lawsuit filed last year by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) seeking the framework—which Obama said at the time was created in the interest of greater transparency and oversight over the expansive targeted killing program Continue reading →

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From Rio, Olympic Refugee Team Urges Compassion for Displaced People

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“It’s only a name to be a refugee”

By Nadia Prupis, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 8-3-2016

Yusra Mardini, a Syrian swimmer on the Refugee Olympic Team.. Photo via Wikimedia commons

Yusra Mardini, a Syrian swimmer on the Refugee Olympic Team.. Photo via Wikimedia Commons

It’s hard to imagine good news emerging from environmental chaos in Brazil and warfare around the globe, but a team of refugees competing at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro this month stood in the spotlight on Tuesday, and took the opportunity to urge compassion for displaced people worldwide.

The 10 athletes on the first-ever Refugee Olympic Team (ROT) were given a standing ovation as they joined the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

“We are ambassadors for the other refugees. We cannot forget this chance that you gave us,” said Yiech Pur Biel, a track and field athlete originally from South Sudan. “We are not bad people. It’s only a name to be a refugee.” Continue reading →

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Canada Finally Launches Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women

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Long-promised independent commission will investigate ‘national human rights crisis’ of violence against Indigenous women and girls

By Nika Knight, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 8-4-2016

Photo: Pinterest

Photo: Pinterest

Canada’s federal government announced Wednesday that it will finally launch a long-awaited inquiry into the country’s murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls.

Al Jazeera reports: Continue reading →

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How Europe Is Getting Rich by Fueling Its Own Terror Epidemic

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By Darius Shahtahmasebi. Published 8-3-2016 by The Anti-Media

Though Europe do not have the rates of gun violence the United States continues to grapple with, European governments have made over a billion euros by fueling gun violence in the Middle East and North Africa.

A report conducted by a team of reporters from the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network (BIRN) and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) found a group of European nations has been funneling arms into the Middle East region since 2012, making at least 1.2 billion euros in the process. Continue reading →

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Climate Change is Here and Now, Dire NOAA Report Warns

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‘The impacts of climate change are no longer subtle. They are playing out before us, in real time’

By Nadia Prupis, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 8-2-2016

Last year's record heat was fueled by a combination of the effects of global warming and one of the strongest El Niño events on record since at least 1950. (Photo: Project LM/flickr/cc)

Last year’s record heat was fueled by a combination of the effects of global warming and one of the strongest El Niño events on record since at least 1950. (Photo: Project LM/flickr/cc)

Environmental records of all kinds are being shattered as climate change takes effect in real time, scientists warned on Tuesday.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) released its annual State of the Climate report with the dire warning that 2015 was the hottest year on record since at least the mid-to-late 19th century, confirming the “toppling of several symbolic milestones” in global temperature, sea level rise, and extreme weather.

“The impacts of climate change are no longer subtle,” Michael Mann, a leading climate scientist at Penn State, told the Guardian. “They are playing out before us, in real time. The 2015 numbers drive that home.” Continue reading →

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Superbugs, Sewage, and Scandal: Are Rio Olympics Poised for Disaster?

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Companies at center of grafting scheme construct Olympic Village, raw sewage pours into Rio de Janeiro, and protests sweep nation

By Nika Knight, staff writer for Common Dreams. Published 8-1-2016

Thousands of dead fish float in the Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon, where the Olympics rowing and canoeing competitions will take place, in 2015. (Photo: Marcelo Sayao/EPA)

Thousands of dead fish float in the Rodrigo de Freitas lagoon, where the Olympics rowing and canoeing competitions will take place, in 2015. (Photo: Marcelo Sayao/EPA)

A biology professor has simple advice for athletes and tourists descending on Rio de Janeiro, Brazil for the Olympics’ start on Friday: “Don’t put your head underwater.”

Dr. Valerie Harwood, chair of the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of South Florida, remarked on the dangers posed by Rio’s water to AP, which reported Monday that a 16-months-long study revealed that “the waterways of Rio de Janeiro are as filthy as ever, contaminated with raw human sewage teeming with dangerous viruses and bacteria.” Continue reading →

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Turkey: US Air Base, Nuclear Bombs Surrounded By Citizens, Troops & Trucks

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Is it a good idea to have nuclear weapons stored in Turkey at this point?

By Common Dreams staff for Common Dreams. Published 7-31-2016

A frontal view of four B-61 nuclear free-fall bombs on a bomb cart. (DoD photo)

A frontal view of four B-61 nuclear free-fall bombs on a bomb cart. (DoD photo)

Thousands of Turkish troops, citizens and police ‘surrounded’ the Incirlik air base it operates with the United States Saturday night — blocking all entrances to the air base with heavy vehicles and security forces sent to secure its perimeter.

Turkish authorities restored access to and from the key US air base early Sunday, local media reported, the day the U.S. top military official is scheduled to visit the country and tour the base. Continue reading →

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