Jan
25
2013
A leaked internal memo shows how Saudi officials commuted 1,200 death row inmates under the condition they go and fight against Assad in Syria, according to the Assyrian International News Agency.
From the memo:
We have reached an agreement with them that they will be exempted from the death sentence and given a monthly salary to their families and loved ones, who will be prevented from traveling outside Saudi Arabia in return for rehabilitation of the …
Read more
Jan
25
2013
The history of the South Central Farm acreage is telling.
Developer Ralph Horowitz owned the land before selling it to the city by eminent domain in 1986 for use as a city garbage incinerator (Lancer Project). The community fought having another insult added to their already blighted and bleak streets. And they won.
In 2003, Horowitz sued to get the land back and got a settlement with Jan Perry’s help without even a token for the …
Read more
Jan
24
2013
WASHINGTON — Paula Coughlin and Jennifer Norris finished each other’s sentences, laughed loudly and put a hand on the other’s shoulder. Coughlin is a retired Navy lieutenant and helicopter pilot; Norris a retired Air Force technical sergeant. But what brought them together and to the Capitol is that both are survivors of military sexual assault — and Norris was preparing to testify to Congress Wednesday on the armed forces’ ongoing sexual assault problem.
More than two …
Read more
Jan
24
2013
Attawapiskat Chief Theresa Spence has decided to end the hunger strike she started on December 11 after representatives from the Assembly of First Nations and two Canadian opposition party caucuses endorsed a declaration of commitment to First Nations. Although Prime Minister Stephen Harper declined Spence’s initial demand to meet with all Assembly of First Nations chiefs and Governor General David Johnston, the declaration outlines a broad pledge to pressing First Nations issues.
Spence, who has lost …
Read more
Jan
24
2013
Dalit Baum is the co-founder of Who Profits from the Occupation, an activist research initiative of the Coalition of Women for Peace in Israel. She is also the Middle East Program Director for American Friends Service Committee, working out of San Francisco.
Dalit was in Los Angeles recently, a few days after the January 2013 Israeli elections. Uprising host Sonali Kolhatkar spoke with her about the election results and her …
Read more
Jan
24
2013
Qatar sits like an oasis of hypertrophic capitalism amid a landscape barren in all respects except for its oil reserves. The emirate sustains itself by pumping out vast fossil fuel resources while importing human ones, in the form of legions of migrant workers from Bangladesh, Nepal and other Global South countries.
Labor activists say this fierce imbalance between the elite and the laboring underclass is headed for catastrophe as the country prepares to host the …
Read more
Jan
24
2013
U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice objected Wednesday to the Palestinians’ latest bid to capitalize on their upgraded U.N. status when their foreign minister spoke at the Security Council while seated behind a nameplate that read “State of Palestine.”
It was the first Palestinian address to the Security Council since the U.N. General Assembly voted overwhelmingly on Nov. 29 to upgrade the Palestinians from U.N. observer to non-voting member state.
Rice said that the United States does not …
Read more
Jan
24
2013
In the same week that Jewish ultra-Orthodox counselor Nechemya Weberman was sentenced to 103 years in prison for sexually abusing a teenage girl in 2007, documents were released this past Monday showing that Catholic religious leader Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Los Angeles Archdiocese knowingly conspired with other church officials to protect priests who were known to have sexually abused …
Read more
Jan
24
2013
Incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu emerged as the winner in Israeli elections this week. Israelis went to the polls on Tuesday morning in an election that, despite high turnout, was considered fairly lackluster. Having reduced the number of seats his Likud Beiteinu party won in the Knesset or Israeli parliament, Netanyahu will have to build coalitions with smaller parties.
Also …
Read more
