June 30, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Como parte de su visión particularmente amplia de reforma y recuperación económicas, el presidente de Estados Unidos, Barack Obama, ha iniciado su campaña para promover una reforma migratoria, para lograr que el Congreso formule, debata y vote una iniciativa comprensiva antes del fin de año. La semana pasada, Obama invitó a participar en un debate abierto en la Casa Blanca a los líderes del Congreso, con una gama diversa de perspectivas, comunidades, metas y estrategias, en este asunto.
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June 30, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Democratic-Farmer-Labor challenger Al Franken has been declared the winner of the Minnesota race for US Senate, in the November 2008 election. The Minnesota Supreme Court ruled today that Franken was the winner, after a properly conducted recount. Norm Coleman, who had brought the election contest in the state courts, conceded defeat shortly after the ruling was announced, saying “We have reached the point where further litigation damages the unity of our state”.
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June 30, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
A military coup that ousted democratically elected Honduran president Manuel Zelaya has come under increasing criticism across the world. The US administration of Pres. Barack Obama said the coup was illegal and called for the democratically elected president to be reinstated. Thousands of demonstrators have taken to the streets of the capital Tegucigalpa, demanding Zelaya’s return, only to be confronted by heavily armed military and police deployments.
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June 30, 2009 :: staff :: 2 Comments
As part of a uniquely broad vision for economic reform and recovery, Pres. Barack Obama is seeking to push Congress to craft, debate and vote on comprehensive immigration reform legislation by the end of this year. Last week, Obama announced plans to start discussions on immigration reform and called Congressional leaders with a diverse range of views, constituencies, goals and strategies on the issue.
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June 30, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
A federal civil rights lawsuit has been filed by David Boies and Ted Olsen, who argued for Al Gore and George W. Bush, respectively, in the historic confrontation over the 2000 Florida recount. They have found common ground in the defense of intellectual honesty regarding the federal civil rights issues caught up in a state [...]
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June 29, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: One Comment
Swiss-based Solar Impulse unveiled this month the first ever 100% solar-powered airplane with global reach. The HB-SIA is the culmination of six years of daring research and hard work. The aim of Solar Impulse is to demonstrate the ability of solar power to enable a plane to fly around the world with no combustible fuel.
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June 29, 2009 :: Riga Listin :: One Comment
Citing foreign “propaganda”, Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has formally requested in a letter to Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi, head of Iran’s judiciary, that an investigation be launched into the circumstances surrounding the shooting death of Neda Agha Soltan. Soltan was shot in the chest and died within minutes, while protesting election results that show Ahmedinejad won re-election.
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June 29, 2009 :: staff :: One Comment
Minnesota governor Tim Pawlenty said on Sunday he would certify Al Franken as winner of the November 2008 US Senate race, if the Supreme Court of his state orders it. He told CNN that he would sign the certification as soon as the court gives him the “green light” and that he would not delay Franken’s certification just to facilitate a federal appeals process.
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June 29, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
Disgraced financier Bernard Madoff has received the legal maximum 150-year sentence for a fraud in which over $65 billion were stolen or lost. Madoff’s investment business was revealed to be the largest pyramid scheme ever created; his lawyer said today his business handled as much as 10% of all transactions on Wall Street at one time. 9 of Madoff’s victims testified during today’s sentencing, one of them saying she now has to sift through garbage to collect bottles in order to pay the bills.
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June 29, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 3 Comments
The US is considering a climate and energy bill, H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 (ACES), amid much controversy over competing methods of calculating costs and benefits. Climate skeptics that rule out global climate change as a real long-term cost are concerned that energy-industry economics will be “distorted” by this legislation, leading to massive losses across the economy; environmentalists are concerned that widespread rapid climatic variation could destabilize not only natural ecosystems and reliable agriculture, but political institutions, borders and nation states.
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June 29, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
It has been said in recent decades that leaders of nuclear-armed states have a “finger on the button”. It is an alarming yet somewhat convenient concept, but it has not generally been all that accurate. It turns out, as we look back on the Cold War “brinksmanship” of mutually-assured destruction (MAD), that both the USSR and the USA guarded their superpotent polarity with carefully complex systems of security, multiple-key activation and other failsafes.
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June 28, 2009 :: staff :: 3 Comments
The White House is open to public comment on the issue of comprehensive healthcare reform. Individual members of the public can submit 2o to 30 second video responses to the president’s video (shown above). Citizens can also contact the White House staff through the Office of Public Engagement (OPEn), at any time.
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June 28, 2009 :: staff :: 2 Comments
I’d like to thank you again for your peaceful objections which have received widespread coverage across the world, and would like to ask you that by using all legal channels, and by remaining faithful to the sacred system of the Islamic Republic, to make sure that your objections are heard by the authorities in the country. I am fully aware that your justified demands have nothing to do with groups who do not believe in the sacred Islamic Republic of Iran’s system. It is up to you to distance yourself from them, and do not allow them to misuse the current situation.
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June 28, 2009 :: staff :: 4 Comments
Iranian authorities have reportedly shut down Kalemeh, the official website of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi. Kalemeh was considered to be Mousavi’s only remaining independent means of communicating directly with supporters or with the world beyond Iran’s borders. The development is an escalation of the government’s efforts to disrupt opposition channels of communication and organizing capacity.
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June 28, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 3 Comments
Iranian authorities have reportedly detained at least 8 employees of the British embassy in Tehran, saying they had been “playing major parts” in stirring up anti-Ahmedinejad sentiments. The government of Pres. Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has taken an extreme hard line on the issue of dissent over the election, accusing unarmed demonstrators of “terrorism” and calling the US president Barack Obama’s criticism of the shooting of demonstrators “unconventional, abnormal and discourteous”.
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June 27, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
One of the main objections made by those who criticize efforts to control carbon emissions is that “carbon dioxide is not an atmospheric pollutant”. This line of reasoning tends to argue that emissions-induced global climate destabilization is an elaborate anti-corporate hoax aimed at creating a one-world socialist government. The problem is that this line of reasoning conveniently, or unknowingly, ignores altogether the crises that emerge not from essential contaminants but from substances crossing a threshold, a tipping point.
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June 26, 2009 :: staff :: 2 Comments
The Kenyan president Mwai Kibaki has ordered troops to the border with Somalia, in an apparent effort to bolster Ethiopian efforts to stabilize the war-torn, largely ungoverned country. Ongoing unrest and the prospects that a range of Islamist militia might take full control of Somali territory have stirred Ethiopia and Kenya to discuss means of strengthening the UN-backed provisional government, which has until now failed to bring order to the troubled nation, even as piracy and other international security threats have been spreading.
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June 26, 2009 :: staff :: 2 Comments
Congressman Henry Waxman, one of the main sponsors of the “ACES” climate bill, H.R. 2454, has added the Titus-Giffords-Heinrich amendment, which would require the federal government to steadily ramp up contracted clean energy agreements over the next 20 years. The clean energy amendment had been pushed by a number environmental and progressive advocacy groups, including MoveOn.org, which urged millions of supporters to contact Congress to demand inclusion of the amendment.
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June 26, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 5 Comments
The Guardian newspaper is reporting that sources inside Iran say there appears to be an ongoing attempt by the government to use torture and street violence to induce detained reformists to give false confessions of conspiracy in a “foreign plot” to overthrow the regime. The aim appears to be to produce videotaped “confessions” that would be broadcast on state TV accusing opposition candidates Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karoubi of complicity in a foreign plot to take over the Iranian government.
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June 26, 2009 :: Webb Tisch :: Comments Off
Michael Jackson was ‘the king of pop’, an informal title he acquired through the relentless echo chamber of American celebrity. He won this title by topping the charts from a young age, by having the “it” quality, by innovative body motions that changed dance, like the “moonwalk”, by way of record music sales, by way of conquering the video medium, by staging a massive global drive to fund food aid to Africa, by being odd enough to garner endless headlines, or because none of us really understand what it takes to rise to the top of the popular culture that elevated him and defamed him, or what it’s like to be there. So he was “king”, the way any royalty lives a life incomprehensible —for its opulence, its complications, its stresses— to the rest of society.
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June 26, 2009 :: Anjika Sridhar :: 5 Comments
Dr. Arash Hejazi is one of the bystanders who attended to Neda Agha Soltan when she was shot and killed at a demonstration in Tehran. Hejazi lives and works in England, and he was in Iran visiting. He told the BBC, after returning to Britain, of how the shocking events of that day transpired, and says bystanders seized an armed Basij militiaman who admitted he had shot Soltan.
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June 25, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 2 Comments
Chinese rights activist Liu Xiaobo has been detained on charges of “inciting subversion of state power”. Liu was jailed for 2 years following the TIananmen Square protests in 1989 that ended with a massacre of unarmed protesters. He was one of the co-authors of Charter 08, a petition calling for the diversification of China’s one-party system. Human Rights Watch and other watchdog organizations have strongly condemned his arrest.
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June 25, 2009 :: staff :: 3 Comments
There is increasing evidence of a brutal campaign of violence and suppression being waged against the opposition and against demonstrators calling for a full accounting of the votes cast on 12 June. Ahmedinejad’s chief rival Mir Hossein Mousavi, the leading reformist candidate, has said “I will not leave the scene in response to the deception, the essence of which has become clear to the people”.
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June 25, 2009 :: staff :: 5 Comments
First, I’d like to say a few words about the situation in Iran. The United States and the international community have been appalled and outraged by the threats, the beatings, and imprisonments of the last few days. I strongly condemn these unjust actions, and I join with the American people in mourning each and every innocent life that is lost.
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June 25, 2009 :: staff :: 7 Comments
Reports from Wednesday protests in Tehran include harrowing though unconfirmed accounts of axe-wielding thugs, brutal assaults against civilians and mass detentions. Baharestan Square was reportedly the scene of a messy attempt to stage a pro-opposition rally, but accounts of what took place are hard to verify. At least one victim’s family may have been taken into custody and bans on public mourning have been reported.
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June 24, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Malalai Joya is a pioneer in Afghan politics, one of the female members of Parliament, as of 2005, and a voice for women’s and human rights generally in a nation increasingly beleaguered by corruption, mass violence and social disintegration. Joya was stripped of her seat in parliament in 2007, in extralegal proceedings, for criticizing the warlords among her colleagues.
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June 24, 2009 :: staff :: 6 Comments
After a few days of relative calm, opposition demonstrators again sought to organize a rally to demand a full accounting of all ballots cast in the 12 June presidential election. Sporadic reports from the capital, Tehran, say demonstrators were confronted by a heavy security presence when trying to assemble for a pro-democracy rally. An eyewitness has reportedly said security forces were beating people like “animals”.
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June 24, 2009 :: staff :: 4 Comments
In the past two and half years, the Committee has held dozens of hearings on energy and
climate change policy and has built a detailed factual record on the need for legislation in this
area. The nation’s dependence on foreign oil has significantly increased over the last decade.
Consumers have faced increasing and volatile energy prices. Other countries have overtaken us
in the manufacture of wind and solar energy. Energy company investments are paralyzed
because of uncertainty about what policies the Congress will establish. Meanwhile, global
warming pollution has increased unchecked.
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June 24, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 3 Comments
Major new climate legislation is pending before the United States Congress. The bill has been called the most important climate-related legislation ever to be voted on by the US House of Representatives, and has been the cause of intense policy negotiations among supporters, opponents and legislators. The League of Conservation Voters has taken the decision that it will not endorse any member of the House of Representatives that does not support the legislation.
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June 24, 2009 :: staff :: 10 Comments
I’d like to say a few words about the situation in Iran. The United States and the international community have been appalled and outraged by the threats, the beatings, and imprisonments of the last few days. I strongly condemn these unjust actions, and I join with the American people in mourning each and every innocent life that is lost.
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June 24, 2009 :: staff :: 5 Comments
The Guardian Council, which conceded on Monday that at least 50 cities saw counts that exceeded the eligible number of voters, has reportedly rejected the idea of re-running the election, due to the disputed validity of the official count. Despite an admission that would seem to suggest massive, nationwide, organized fraud, the Guardian Council, through a spokesman, said there was “no major fraud or breach in the election”.
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June 23, 2009 :: Riga Listin :: Comments Off
The French parliament has formed an investigative panel to explore banning the wearing of a full-body veil, or burqa, in France. The move comes after Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy announced in a state of the nation address at the Palace of Versailles that “The burka is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience”, adding that “It will not be welcome on the territory of the French republic”.
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June 23, 2009 :: staff :: 2 Comments
A crop-borne fungus that targets wheat, named Ug99 because it was first identified in Uganda in 1999, has become one of the primary threats to global food security. Newfound virulence in the evolving stem-rust strain suggests the fungus could destroy as much as 80% of the world’s most widely grown crop: wheat.
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June 23, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 8 Comments
As Iran’s presidential election has morphed into a massive international spectacle, with opposition protesters demanding justice and a full accounting of how votes were tallied, the regime has used every technological advantage at its disposal to obstruct online communications and mobile phone traffic. The government now has a wealth of powerful technologies, from western firms, it can use to spy, block communications, and even alter messages before they are delivered.
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June 23, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 3 Comments
When hearings were held to decide the outcome of the protracted Minnesota Senate race, Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, released a statement predicting that Al Franken, US Senate candidate for the Democratic Farmer Labor party (Minnesota’s branch of the national Democratic party), would soon prevail. More than 3 weeks later, there are questions as to what is stalling the delivery of a verdict that would seat the nation’s 100th senator.
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June 22, 2009 :: staff :: 3 Comments
In what is described as “the strongest language” ever to emerge from the White House on climate change, a new 190-page report warns that climate destabilization is happening now, around the world, and beginning to impact every level of the economy and of living standards.
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June 22, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 11 Comments
Iran’s Guardian Council announced today for the first time that it has found irregularities after reviewing some of the ballots cast in the disputed presidential election. According to state media, the Guardian Council has found that in at least 50 cities across Iran, the number of votes counted exceeded the total number of eligible voters. The Council also has said it would recount all ballots for the effected districts, if the candidates request it.
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June 22, 2009 :: staff :: 11 Comments
The Iranian government must understand that the world is watching. We mourn each and every innocent life that is lost. We call on the Iranian government to stop all violent and unjust actions against its own people. The universal rights to assembly and free speech must be respected, and the United States stands with all who seek to exercise those rights.
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June 21, 2009 :: staff :: 7 Comments
Ali Larijani, speaker of the Iranian parliament, has criticized the Guardian Council, alleging that some of the 12 clerics have taken sided with an apparent effort to falsify election results in favor of incumbent pres. Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. Larijani said “a majority of people are of the opinion that the actual election results are different than what was officially announced”.
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June 21, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
As concerned people inside and outside Iran try to get a grip on what is taking place in the anti-government demonstrations, pro-democracy rallies and security crackdown, following the presidential vote of 12 June 2009, social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook have been useful to those trying to get word out about abuses and harsh security measures; the use of proxy servers has allowed journalists, activists and concerned citizens, to circumvent controls on media freedom.
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June 21, 2009 :: staff :: 16 Comments
Today Iranian state television published comments by the government blaming “terrorists” for yesterday’s clashes. With video and numerous eyewitness accounts indicating that government-backed militia attacked unarmed civilians, raided homes and fired live rounds and tear gas at unarmed demonstrators, the use of the word “terrorists” suggests the regime is now classifying all opposition supporters in this way.
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June 20, 2009 :: staff :: 12 Comments
This article is an update to an earlier report on shots fired at pro-opposition demonstrators in Iran. Throughout the day on Saturday and late into the night, the internet was buzzing with rumor and conjecture, anecdotal reports and amateur video footage showing evidence of security forces attacking, beating and even shooting unarmed civilians. The following video shows police attacking students and opposition supporters at Shiraz University, on Saturday…
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June 20, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: Comments Off
Taking the ability to reason as the basis for a civilization’s deep resilience, we should emphasize reasoning and knowledge as wealth, as the bases for wealth in the life of every individual. Our education policy needs to work toward methods that do the most to stir the creative process of learning in the widest number of young people possible.
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June 20, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
We are going to promote markets that work for those who play by the rules. We’re going to stand up for a system in which fair dealing and honest competition are the only way to win. We’re going to level the playing field for consumers. And we’re going to have the kinds of rules that encourage innovations that make our economy stronger – not those that allow insiders to exploit its weaknesses for their own gain.
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June 20, 2009 :: staff :: 17 Comments
Iranian opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi has declared he is “ready for martyrdom” and has urged his supporters across the nation to strike if he is detained or harmed. Responding to the supreme leader’s vocal support for the use of violence to suppress the demonstrations, security forces have reportedly fired shots at or over a crowd of demonstrators in central Tehran. Mousavi has written a letter to the nation’s highest electoral authority, demanding a re-run of the election; the move is being seen as the most overt show of defiance to date against the supreme leader.
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June 20, 2009 :: J.E. Robertson :: 20 Comments
The Ayatollah Ali Khamene’i, head of state of the Islamic Republic of Iran, has called for an end to massive public demonstrations against the disputed results of last week’s presidential election. He reiterated his view that the results are legitimate and said the Islamic Republic would never cheat. He also declared his personal support for some of the views of Pres. Ahmedinejad. Today it appears security forces have responded by using force.
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June 19, 2009 :: Webb Tisch :: 4 Comments
This is not news, but it’s worth repeating: Sen. John Cornyn, of Texas, has in the past suggested that the Republican challenge to Minnesota’s seating Al Franken as its junior senator could last for “years”. Coleman has challenged every single court ruling so far, despite losing every one of them and losing more ground in the vote-count with each examination of new votes. The last court to rule found that there was no evidence of any legitimate votes still uncounted, and ordered that Franken be certified the winner and Coleman pay court costs.
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June 19, 2009 :: staff :: 13 Comments
We commend the remarkable and resilient actions of the grassroots organizations of Iranian civil society led by courageous women, students, teachers and workers, and support their demands for democracy, individual liberties, and political and religious freedoms.
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June 19, 2009 :: staff :: Comments Off
The Hot Spring Network has launched a video-embed service, and allows you to upload video to our video library. We also embed video in your blog posts, discussion threads and profiles. Search for video across the Hot Spring Network, or add your own.
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June 19, 2009 :: staff :: 18 Comments
Navi Pillay, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, warned Iran that illegal violence by militia groups could sow unrest. Pillay called for the regime to exercise restraint and cease its attacks on demonstrators and organizers. With the legal basis for recent arrests “not clear”, Pillay called on Iran to explain “Why have some of those who have been arrested been denied access to lawyers and members of their families? And why is the whereabouts of others unknown?”
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