Truthout

Today, Gazan farmers from Kuzaa, a small village near Khan Younis, worked on their land in defiance of Israeli military harassment. Farmers ploughed approximately seven dunams and then sowed wheat in a plot that they had previously been denied access to before the November 21st, 2012 ceasefire. The farmers successfully worked up to 100 meters from the separation fence. The Israeli military arbitrarily designates this area as a restricted military buffer zone, otherwise known as the "kill zone." According to the workers, they have not been able to farm on this specific plot of land for the past ten years. Formerly an orchard, Israeli forces bulldozed the field multiple times during military incursions and regularly shoots at farmers who attempt to work there.

The Treasury Department today announced that it has sold off the rest of its stake in A.I.G. Treasury will focus on the claim that taxpayers made a profit on the deal. As I've written before, the story is a bit more complicated.

But that's a sideshow. The point of nationalizing A.I.G. (what else do you call it when the government buys 80% of a company?) wasn't to make money; it was supposedly to save the global economy. In any case, things have worked out pretty well: the global economy is intact, though still not healthy, and A.I.G. is a private company again.

Flagstaff, Arizona - On the same day that secretary Tom Vilsack of the US Department of Agriculture issued a final report on Sacred Sites and an inter-agency memorandum to work towards Sacred Sites protection, the Coconino Forest Service filed federal charges against four Sacred Sites advocates who were part of a protest at the Forest Service offices three months earlier.

In hindsight, there may have been no better way to bookend a trip to the 2012 biennial conference of the International Peace Research Association (IPRA) than by visiting Beijing and Hiroshima. Two unique and very different cities project to the world the themes which underscore the work of peace studies today: the need for revolutionary action in the face of seemingly impossible odds, and the need for nonviolent resistance against the forces of militarism which still leave us on the brink of global devastation. Though this year’s recent IPRA conference did not quite pay homage to revolutionary nonviolence, it did contain substantial presentations indicating some roads we must follow and still uncharted paths.

Today, Gazan farmers from Kuzaa, a small village near Khan Younis, worked on their land in defiance of Israeli military harassment. Farmers ploughed approximately seven dunams and then sewed wheat in a plot that they had previously been denied access to before the November 21st, 2012 ceasefire. The farmers successfully worked up to 100 meters from the separation fence. The Israeli military arbitrarily designates this area as a restricted military buffer zone, otherwise known as the “kill zone.” According to the workers, they have not been able to farm on this specific plot of land for the past ten years. Formerly an orchard, Israeli forces bulldozed the field multiple times during military incursions and regularly shoots at farmers who attempt to work there.

On the 64th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we call on the international community to act against the human rights abuses taking place in Haiti in the form of arbitrary and illegal forced evictions.

On January 12, 2010, a catastrophic earthquake hit Haiti, killing over 250,000 people and displacing 1.5 million. 358,000 men, women and children still remain in displacement camps in and around Port-au-Prince. Haiti’s displaced face not only the challenges inherent to living in tent camps, but one in five are currently at risk of forced eviction.

We the people of Detroit are seeking justice in the international human rights arena because we have no avenue of redress in state courts. Duly elected school board members have been sued by the state attorney general for being elected to our office. The court which has been designated to hear our case continuously delays the hearings. The people of Michigan voted to repeal the unjust emergency manager law (Public Act 4), which strips all Black and Brown communities in the state of our voting rights, and yet the emergency managers remain.

The will of the people is being ignored with impunity. The state has set up a separate and unequal school district (EAA), which relegates the poorest and most vulnerable students into classrooms of despair. 

New Jersey's first Alternative Treatment Center is scheduled to open today in Montclair. Greenleaf Compassion Center will see patients by appointment only, beginning at 10:00 a.m. At the moment, the center has scheduled about 20 patients in the order of their initial registration for the program. To date, several hundred state residents are successfully registered. Patients are limited to no more than two ounces of medical grade marijuana a month, though doctors may recommend less. Initially, Greenleaf will dispense no more than half an ounce per person, in order to stretch its available supply to every patient.

Imagine that you are on Death Row, but innocent of any crime. Clinging to the hope that the legion of supporters working on your case will achieve a breakthrough before it's too late, you prepare yourself for an update on their campaign. Yet nothing in your recurring nightmares can hold a candle to the news you are about to hear.

The messenger -speaking on behalf of a cadre of marquee advocacy groups- informs you that your closet-sized living area will be expanded by one-square foot and the quality of your food will soon be improved. He also reports that, when the time comes, care will be taken to provide you with a less painful method of execution. When you press him about efforts to secure your release, he confesses that he and his peers have adopted a more pragmatic philosophy -assigning a growing percentage of their resources to programs designed to "alleviate unnecessary suffering," while simultaneously distancing themselves from the goal of saving lives.

Dear Representative Jackson Lee,

We, the undersigned representatives of not-for-profit criminal justice organizations, respectfully urge you to reintroduce the Private Prison Information Act (PPIA) during the 113th Congress. The bill, which would extend Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) reporting obligations to private corrections companies that contract with federal agencies, is a critical first step in bringing transparency and accountability to the private prison industry.

We are deeply troubled by the secrecy with which the private corrections industry presently operates. Whereas the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) and state departments of corrections are subject to disclosure statutes under the Freedom of Information Act and state-level public records laws, private prison firms that contract with public agencies generally are not. This lack of public transparency is indefensible in light of the nearly $8 billion in federal contracts that Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the GEO Group (GEO)—the two largest private prisons firms—have been awarded since 2007.