#Anonymous - Spirit of MLK Launches Worldwide #WaveofAction ~*~ This video was created in support of the Anonymous call for a Worldwide Wave of Action. We have set up an organizing site here: https://waveofaction.org Video transcript: Martin Luther King, Jr.: "We have come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism.... It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.... I am happy to join with you today in what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for freedom..." On the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, April 4th, 2014, the spirit of MLK will rise again. We will engage a worldwide wave of action, "from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city. From every mountain side..." We will "let freedom ring." Anonymous, Occupy and the 99% Movement have set up the dominoes for an unprecedented Worldwide Wave of Action. The tipping point is near. We are calling on all Anons, nonAnons, collectives, organizations and conscious individuals to take autonomous nonviolent direct action throughout the global spring. For a sustained three-month cycle, we will swarm corrupt targets and rally around solutions to the vast problems we are confronted by. This time, we will not have stationary targets for the police state to crush. We will be everywhere, fluid and evasive. The movement will be an unstoppable crowdsourced, decentralized and autonomous revolutionary force. You lead, in your own way. Engage in a diversity of nonviolent tactics, from large-scale mobilizations to small daily acts, knowing that millions of people throughout the world will also be engaged at the same time you are, in whatever way they can. Without revealing too much strategic information, here are some action ideas to get a fire going in your mind: • Mass gatherings, demonstrations; • Marches, parades; • Flash mobs, swarms; • Shutdown harmful corporate and governmental operations; • Worker Strikes; • Hunger strikes; • Sit-ins; • Strategic defaults, debt strikes; • Foreclosure prevention; • Boycotting corrupt corporations; • Move your money out of the big banks and the stock market; • Use alternative currencies and economic systems; • Cancel your cable television and support independent media; • Use independent online tools that don't sell your info and protect your privacy; • Online civil disobedience, Anonymous operations; • Leak information on corruption; • Use alternative energy; • Build your own urban and hydroponic farms, or get your food from them; • Support local businesses; • Join local community organizations; • Take part in food banks and help develop community support systems; • Start or join intentional and autonomous communities; • Experiment with new governing systems, Liquid Democracy; • Host teach-ins; • Organize socially conscious events; • Make conscious media; • Guerrilla postering, messages on money; • Help inspiring groups and organizations spread their message; • Random acts of kindness and compassion; • Mass meditations, prayer sessions and spiritual actions. You know what you can do to play a part. Do whatever you feel inspired to do. Amplify what you are already doing. Think about what you are willing to do to be the change that we urgently need to see in the world, and then do it. Don't get bogged down in infighting and caught up in negativity. Ignore the saboteurs. Collaborate with people who inspire you. Keep moving forward with an indomitable will, a compassionate spirit and radiate a positive attitude. Moods are contagious. Be passionate and have fun! Create a culture of transformation. If we begin preparing now, a massive Spring offensive will lead to a Summer of transformation, a Fall of the empire and the birth of a new era. United we will blaze a contagious nonviolent wave of action through mass consciousness. United we will signal the end of the old world. United we will usher in a new paradigm. Now is the time. Ride the Worldwide Wave of Transformation // End transcript

The Ayoreo are outraged at new revelations that Paraguay has granted a license to bulldoze the last refuge of their uncontacted relatives.

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 Paraguay has caused outrage by quietly granting cattle ranchers a license to bulldoze a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve which is also the last refuge of uncontacted Ayoreo Indians.

Paraguay’s Environment Ministry (SEAM) has violated national and international law by issuing an environmental license to ranching company Yaguarete Pora S.A. which puts the lives of the uncontacted Indians in extreme danger.

Contacted members of the tribe have been working tirelessly to gain legal title to the land inhabited by their uncontacted relatives. Many Ayoreo who were in the past forcibly brought out of the forest now suffer from respiratory diseases such as tuberculosis, and many have died as a result.

The Ayoreo expressed their outrage at the revelations and said, ‘Our relatives came out of the forest in 2004 because they were under pressure from the ranchers, because they had no peace. If the bulldozers start to make a lot of noise, our uncontacted relatives will be forced to hide where there isn’t any food and they will suffer. We want to continue using the forest, and for the ranchers to stop harassing our relatives who remain there.’

Ayoreo following first contact in 2004. Uncontacted Ayoreo are forced to flee from bulldozers destroying their forest home.

Satellite images reveal that Brazilian beef company Yaguarete – owned by Sr. Marcelo Bastos Ferraz – has already started destroying vast stretches of forest inhabited by the uncontacted Ayoreo. The rancher’s beef is destined for the European market – prompting Survival International to write to the European Commission over Yaguarete’s activities.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said today, ‘Government officials risk sacrificing Ayoreo lives in their greedy scrabble for foreign profits. Cattle ranching is steadily destroying the last refuge of Paraguay’s only uncontacted tribespeople. Sooner or later, beef produced illegally on the tribe’s land will be on supermarket shelves in the EU.’

Note to editors: - Download the full statement by the Ayoreo organization OPIT (PDF, 34 kb)

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The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) enshrine the rights of Corporations under International Law, restricting future governments from overturning the changes through fear of costly legal action. They are the largest trade agreements in history, and yet are not open for review, debate or amendment by national parliaments or the public.

The Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP)

  The agreement between the US and 11 other Pacific Rim countries representing 40% of global GDP, has been under negotiation for three years.  The US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Mexico, Malaysia, Chile, Singapore, Peru, Vietnam, and Brunei will shortly be signing up to the TPP, with only a handful of people in each nation aware of the content of the deal.

It was recently revealed that only three individuals in each TPP nation have been given full access to the agreement, while 600 ‘trade advisors’, those are corporate lobbyists from corporations such as Monsanto, Chevron, Haliburton and Walmart have been granted access.

In fact, if it were not for WikiLeaks, we would still be unaware of the contents of the TPP.  In mid-November, WikiLeaks published a draft chapter of the agreement – and the reasons for secrecy became clear.  This agreement tips the scales in the balance of power between Corporations and the State – tipping them firmly in favour of corporations.

The section of the agreement published by Wikileaks focuses on ‘intellectual property’, a chapter it chose “due to its wide-ranging effects on medicines, publishers, internet services, civil liberties and biological patents.” The subsections of the chapter make “agreements relating to patents (who may produce goods or drugs), copyright (who may transmit information), trademarks (who may describe information or goods as authentic) and industrial design.”  And as WikiLeaks state in their press release:

“The longest section of the Chapter – ’Enforcement’ – is devoted to detailing new policing measures, with far-reaching implications for individual rights, civil liberties, publishers, internet service providers and internet privacy, as well as for the creative, intellectual, biological and environmental commons. Particular measures proposed include supranational litigation tribunals to which sovereign national courts are expected to defer, but which have no human rights safeguards. The TPP IP Chapter states that these courts can conduct hearings with secret evidence. The IP Chapter also replicates many of the surveillance and enforcement provisions from the shelved SOPA and ACTA treaties.”

All, in just one 30,000 word chapter of this agreement.

However, the TPP is the forerunner for its sister project – the EU/US Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).  This next agreement rolls out the principles of the TPP across the EU and the UK.

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership

  The TTIP is a secret agreement, negotiated behind closed doors by anonymous representatives. This agreement will deliver the corporate privilege of TPP to the EU and UK, with the same lack of democratic scrutiny.

The EU announced earlier this year that a High Level Working Group on Jobs and Growth, U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk and EU Trade Commissioner Karel De Gucht, would research and report on plans to proceed with negotiations for the TTIP.  They did not produce a list of the membership of this group.  All subsequent reports failed to mention authorship, contributors, or even the names of those reviewing or approving the reports for release.  Research and campaign organising Corporate Europe Observatory issued a Freedom of Information request to garner this information and were told “there is no document containing the list of authors of the reports”, and therefore that the matter did not fall under FOI rules.

A quick look at the website of the working group shows that 65% of input for the two public consultations on the EU/US trade agreement came from companies and industry associations. CEO rightly ask “But who were the 114 respondents? What are they lobbying for?”

The answer is: we don’t know, and those who do are refusing to tell us.

What we do know, is the scope of the agreement.

The Final Report of the anonymous High Level Working Group, and a Briefing Paper from the UK government tell us that the final agreement will seek to achieve the same ends as TPP.  Key areas for concern are:

Remove/reduce trade tariffs – remove tariffs on imports which favour consumers choosing domestically produced goods and services.

Intellectual Property – European governments rejected the US led Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in response to mass opposition to this potential tool of internet censorship.  Despite protestations to the contrary, the TTIP could bring in ACTA through the back door, in secret, without the requirement for a democratic mandate.

Investor-State Disputes – the creation of yet further grounds for which corporations can sue national governments directly, at supra-national courts.  This means that rules laid down in this agreement cannot simply be overturned domestically by a subsequent government, as they face the threat of costly litigation.  Given that US firm Walmart has a larger GDP than 157 countries in the world, including Norway, South Africa and Luxembourg – many states would be financially outgunned by corporations seeking to over rule them.

Food Standards – the EU has stricter rules than the US on food production, particularly around Genetically Modified (GM) foods and meat (chlorine washed chicken, growth hormone use etc.)

The US President has explicitly stated plans to use TTIP to overturn these (as he sees them) “unscientific rules”.

Corporate Power vs State Power

  Proponents of Capitalism who so vociferously oppose the threat of state power (even in a democratic state), appear to have no such issues with the rise of Corporate Power, which has no democratic foundation or restraint whatsoever.  This is either gross naivety, or complicity in what is, ostensibly, a corporate coup.

A significant number of corporations now have greater financial power than the majority of states, and they have used this to infiltrate and leverage the structural power of states to implement laws and subsidies on their behalf.  In this final stages of this coup, the corporations will be able to cut out the middle man.  Here are just two examples among many, of recent outcomes.

Removal of Tariffs

In a perfect world, protectionism through taxing imports would be unnecessary and rightly condemned.  But we don’t live in a free market economy, we have a small number of overwhelmingly powerful corporations and national economies using the theory of ‘trade liberalization’ to decimate internal markets of smaller nations, for their own ends.

One such example would be rice and Haiti.

Thirty years ago, Haiti could feed itself.  A rapidly growing and developing population meant that by the late eighties, it begin to look elsewhere to meet its full requirements.  In the early 90’s, the IMF and the US government pressurised Haiti to reduce its tariffs on imports, and tiny Haiti capitulated. The US government then subsidised US farmers $13bn from 1995 on, in order that they undercut domestic producers overseas.  Haiti’s domestic rice market (and with it, much of its agriculturally based economy) was decimated.

US food producers won twice.  Firstly, Haiti became the second most important US rice importer on the planet.  Secondly, the resulting poverty and starvation caused by the collapse of Haiti’s rice market, was a boon for US Food Aid.  Each year, the US taxpayer gives $1.5bn to US food corporations to produce food for Food Aid, much of which would not be required without these market wrecking policies.

Investor-State Disputes

Last year, tobacco firm Philip Morris used “Investor to State Dispute” rights created by the North American Free Trade Agreement to launch legal action against Uruguay at the World Trade Organisation.  Uruguay had implemented rules that 80% of cigarette packaging must be devoted to health warnings. Philip Morris seek to claim “substantial” damages from the state for what it deems a trademark infringement – the remaining space not adequate for their logo and branding.

Corporations are also using Investor-State Disputes to overturn government subsidies and policy that favours renewable energy, and reverse planning decisions adverse to corporate interests.

Corporations will actively exploit the increased rights in TPP and TTIP to extend the interests of the corporation – which is to maximise profits.  Questions of the public interest will not factor.

The Corporate Take Over

  The UK Parliament’s Briefing Paper on TTIP proudly announces that the plans will be worth an estimated 119bn euro’s a year.

Tax Evasion costs Europe one trillion euro’s each year – this is more than the combined spending on health, and four times total spending on education.

Yet, while pan-EU agreements on ending tax evasion languish unresolved – TTIP, which will benefit domestic economies to just one tenth of the value, and hand swathes of national sovereignty over to corporations and faceless supranational bodies will be completed in just 18-24 months.

According to the UK Parliament’s Briefing Paper, the Trans Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) between the EU and the US enters the third round of negotiations on 16th December this year, with an aim to conclude “well before the pressure of the 2016 US presidential election bear down”.  All democratic barriers are being moved aside in order to support this goal.

In the US, there are plans to invoke the President’s ‘Trade Promotion Authority’ to make it impossible for Congress to amend or debate TPP.

While in the UK, the High Level Working Group may well be ceded powers from Downing Street enabling sections of the agreement to come into force before UK parliament has ratified it.

A significant number of the world’s ‘democracies’ are being railroaded into these undemocratic agreements, by corporatized governments.  These agreements will supress internet freedom, restrict civil liberties, decimate internal economies, stop developing countries distributing the lowest cost drugs, imperil public healthcare, and hand corporations the right to overturn decisions made by democratic governments in the public interest.

Your democratic representative will not be able to see or amend these agreements before they become legally binding – while corporate lobbyists will not only be able to see them, but will have written them.  That such an egregiously undemocratic circumstance exists, speaks volumes for the corporate control of our national governments.  Why on earth would we stand by and allow the scales to tip yet further in their favour?

Don’t get angry, get involved!

As environmentalists began ratcheting up pressure against Canada's tar sands three years ago, one of the world's biggest strategic consulting firms was tapped to help the North American oil industry figure out how to handle the mounting activism. The resulting document, published online by WikiLeaks, offers another window into how oil and gas companies have been scrambling to deal with unrelenting opposition to their growth plans.

The document identifies nearly two-dozen environmental organizations leading the anti-oil sands movement and puts them into four categories: radicals, idealists, realists and opportunists—with how-to's for managing each. It also reveals that the worst-case scenario presented to industry about the movement's growing influence seems to have come to life.

The December 2010 presentation by Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor, a global intelligence firm based in Texas, mostly advised oil sands companies to ignore or limit reaction to the then-burgeoning tar sands opposition movement because "activists lack influence in politics." But there was a buried warning for industry under one scenario: Letting the movement grow unopposed may bring about "the most significant environmental campaign of the decade."

"This worst-case scenario is exactly what has happened," partly because opposition to tar sands development has expanded beyond nonprofit groups to include individual activists concerned about climate change, said Mark Floegel, a senior investigator for Greenpeace. "The more people in America see Superstorm Sandys or tornadoes in Chicago, the more they are waking up and joining the fight."

[View the documents at Inside Climate News]

Since the presentation was prepared, civil disobedience and protests against the tar sands have sprung up from coast to coast. The movement has helped delay President Obama's decision on the Keystone XL pipeline—designed to funnel Canada's landlocked oil sands crude to refineries on the Gulf Coast—and has held up another contentious pipeline in Canada, the Northern Gateway to the Pacific Coast.

The Power Point document, titled "Oil Sands Market Campaigns," was recently made public by WikiLeaks, part of a larger release of hacked files from Stratfor, whose clients include the Departments of Homeland Security and Defense, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon and the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry lobby. It appears to have been created for Calgary-based petroleum giant Suncor Energy, Canada's largest oil sands producer.

The company told InsideClimate News that it did not hire Stratfor and never saw such a presentation. Suncor is mentioned 11 times in the document's 35 pages and all of Stratfor's advice seems to be directed at the energy company. For example, one slide says, "Campaign ends quickly with a resolution along the lines Suncor had wanted." In several emails released by WikiLeaks, Stratfor employees discuss a $14,890 payment Suncor owes the company for two completed projects, though no details were provided.

The presentation is the latest in a series of revelations that suggest energy companies—which for most of their history seemed unfazed by activists—have been looking for ways to dilute environmentalists' growing influence.

Earlier this year, TransCanada, the Canadian energy company behind the Keystone XL, briefed Nebraska law enforcement authorities on how to prosecute demonstrators protesting the 1,200-mile project. In 2011, Range Resources, an oil and gas company, allegedly hired combat veterans with experience in psychological warfare to squash opposition of natural gas drilling.

"The Stratfor presentation isn't a complete surprise," said Scott Parkin, a senior campaigner for the Rainforest Action Network and volunteer organizer for Rising Tide North America, both grassroots environmental groups. "As opposition has grown, coal, oil and gas companies are all starting to put more money into responding—from surveillance to protection to public relations."

Who Was Targeted?

For each of Stratfor's categories of environmental activist—radicals, idealists, realists and opportunists—the presentation explains how their campaigns are structured and how the fossil fuel industry could deal with them.

Three grassroots organizations—Rising Tide North America, Oil Change International and the Indigenous Environmental Network—were labeled radicals. Greenpeace and the Rainforest Action Network were classified as a cross between radicals and idealists. Sierra Club, the nation's largest environmental group, Amnesty International and Communities for a Better Environment, among others, were labeled idealists. Several mainstream environmental groups, including the National Wildlife Federation, World Wildlife Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council and Ceres, a nonprofit that organizes businesses, investors and public interest groups, were called realists.

It then lays out tactics the groups would use to push for change. They include holding demonstrations outside annual meetings and marketing events, generating fear of oil spills and other environmental disasters, targeting CEOs and their families, collaborating with other green groups, and splitting the fossil fuel industry on the issue by praising companies working with activists and publicly shaming those that aren't.

The presentation says that while environmental groups are publicly fighting to stop the expansion of the oil sands, their "real demand" is for fossil fuel companies to adopt a "global code of conduct"—a set of best practices not required by law, but that take into consideration things like greenhouse gas reduction policies and human rights.

The Power Point also describes all the ways fossil fuel companies like Suncor could choose to react to green groups' campaigns, such as limiting contact with the organizations, intentionally delaying negotiations, developing its own environmental initiatives to overshadow activists' demands, or simply not responding. It provides the pros and cons of each public relations decision, as well as the best- and worst-case outcomes for each.

For example, Stratfor said that choosing not to respond could be useful because in 2010, "activists are not stopping oil sands' growth and they have no power in Alberta or Ottawa. Chance of success with U.S. government is slim." The best outcome from a no-response strategy, according to the presentation, is that green "groups move to fracturing [natural gas fracking] or some other venue to press for the first major code of conduct."

Stratfor would not answer questions about the presentation because it has a policy not to comment on any of the WikiLeaks documents.

Several environmental groups named in the Stratfor presentation said they weren't surprised by the consulting firm's assessment of their work, but were disappointed, especially by its assumption that all they wanted was a code of conduct.

"The environmental community has been very united in saying that we need to stop tar sands expansion and clean up the mess already made there," said Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council's international program. "That's the only real path forward if we're going to protect not only the health of communities on the ground in the boreal forests near the tar sands region, but also around the world from the impacts of climate change. We're not looking for a code of conduct."

For many, the leaked presentation provided proof that their work was having an impact, boosting their confidence to keep protesting.

"Knowing that groups like Stratfor are targeting us, surveying us, and also analyzing us shows how powerful these movements have become," said Parkin of the Rainforest Action Network and Rising Tide North America. "Obviously this wasn't meant for public consumption, but this doesn't intimidate us. If anything, it emboldens us. It encourages us to push harder."

The battle for control of cyberspace is turning nasty, with young hackers, pirates and activists facing long prison sentences. We report from the frontline

*          *          *

....Back in January, the young tech entrepreneur Aaron Swartz killed himself. His body was found in his Brooklyn apartment. He was facing prison for downloading a mass of copyright-protected academic journals belonging to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It was hardly the crime of the century, and he'd probably have got not much more than a warning had federal prosecutors not intervened. But they did. They announced their intention to send him to jail for up to 35 years. It was like drawing battle lines between the old world that valued copyright protection and privacy of information, and the new world that valued the opposite. Swartz, who had suffered from depression for years, hanged himself. He was 26. He left behind him, among other innovations, Reddit, the open-source social media site, which he co-owned....

Three legislative bills were recently introduced that would require all GMOs to be properly labelled, as well as prohibit the import and sale of GM salmon. The bill would not only require all GMOs to be labelled in the state of Oregon, but any food products that  contain GMOs that are not properly labelled beginning on January 1, 2014 will be deemed misbranded with the manufacturer held liable for breaking the food labelling requirements. If the bill isn’t passed, a new bill as a backup will be introduced that will at least require all GE salmon to be properly labelled. You can view the three bills below.

The Oregon House Committee on Agriculture and Natural Resources recently heard testimony on the three bills. Supporters of GMO labelling throughout the state have been busy spreading the word about the lack of proper GMO safety testing. GMOs have been linked to causing organ damage, gastrointestinal problems, allergies, and even cancer. Biotech employees are required to wear a full body suit and mask while spraying our food with toxic chemicals, on top of the GMOs. The Centre for Food Safety, a nonprofit public interest and environmental advocacy group, says GMO labelling legislation has been proposed in nearly half of all states. Even though a single one has yet to pass, awareness about the presence of GMOs throughout the food supply is growing.

https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2013R1/Measures/Overview/HB2175

https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2013R1/Measures/Overview/HB2530

https://olis.leg.state.or.us/liz/2013R1/Measures/Overview/HB3177

“The profit-driven motives to prohibit GMO labelling are reprehensible and represent an egregious indictment of the current health care system,” said Dr. Mary Zesiewicz, a board-certified psychiatrist, to state lawmakers in Colorado during a recent hearing. During her testimony, Dr. Zesiewicz explained that she has “seen an alarming increase in chronic health conditions” at her practice, many of which appear to be linked to GMO consumption. (2)

All across the world people are waking up and paying attention to what is happening within the food industry. It’s funny how the major shareholders in multinational food an biotech corporations are also major shareholders in major multinational pharmaceutical corporations, like fidelity investments, the vanguard group and state street corporation. A genetically engineered food is a product that has had its DNA artificially altered. The safety of genetically engineered foods for human consumption is not adequately tested. There have been no long-term studies conducted on the safety of genetically engineered foods. Over 50 countries that make up a majority percentage of Earth’s population currently require mandatory labelling for all GMO “food.”

Not to long ago, Barack Obama signed a bill into law that allows Monsanto and other biotechnology companies to override United States federal courts on the issue of planting experimental genetically engineered crops all across the US. This act gives more authority to the corporations then it does the US government. This new law forces the USDA to approve all GMO planting permits desired by the Monsanto corporation and other biotech firms no matter what. You can read more about it here.

GMO labelling was introduced to give people the freedom to choose between GMOs and conventional foods. If food is produced using genetic engineering, it must be indicated on its label. Although they shouldn’t be, labelling practices are quite complicated and must be regulated along side issues of legality, feasibility, standardization and coherence. What must be labelled and why shouldn’t be so complicated, but it is. It’s no secret that those who work for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) or the U.S. Department of Agriculture (UDSA) have admitted that corporate interests force the agencies to change policies that harm their agenda. The UCS sent question surveys to approximately 8000 workers from both the FDA and USDA, over half who work as field inspectors responded saying that their agency practices harm public health in order to appease corporate interests.

Most foods that contain any genetically modified plants or micro organisms that were used in production require indication of some sort. This is a problem because numerous products are exempt from labelling obligations. These exemptions primarily concern additives, and processing aids, but also apply to meat, milk and eggs. The United States has openly admitted to believing that there is no difference between GMOs and natural organisms. The FDA and USDA, along with the Codex Alimentarius Committee, suggest that no country should require mandatory GMO labelling on food items. This is ridiculous, science has already shown that GMOs act differently in the body and are a threat to health. Workers usually have to wear full body suits and masks when spraying our food with toxic chemicals. They are toxic chemicals that are responsible for mutating cells and causing cancer. Cancer is a billion dollar industry and big pharmaceutical companies fund all major medical research.

The Council on Foreign Relations put out a statement not to long ago saying:

It’s funny how The Council on Foreign Relations is headed by the Rockefeller family. The Rockefeller’s and it’s foundation is heavily involved with all of the major food corporations that control the worlds food supply, not to mention that this family has their hand in the same corporations that control the health/pharmaceutical companies as well. Why do we give so much credibility to these corporations and the people that run them? Why do we continue to believe everything that is written and ‘sourced’ from corrupt organization? All it takes is a little research. People say “what can we do about it?” Well the first step is becoming aware, then the next step is to begin making changes you can make yourself. From there, things will expand outwards. Don’t forget, you always have a choice. You can buy organic, grow your own food or choose to minimize your GMO and conventional food consumption.

I live in Canada and fortunately my country does have a regulation on GMOs. But we are no different, the corporations that control the food industry and the governing bodies that set the standards are global organizations. Countries can easily hide behind the ‘right act’ simply by setting regulations. Canadian regulation of foods derived from biotechnology is a seven to ten year process to research, develop, test and assess the safety of a new GM food. By the time this is complete, the damage has already been done. The problem is, labelling is only required if there is a health and safety issue. The same group of people who fund the medical industry and all of it’s research are funded by the big pharmaceutical companies, which are the same group of people who own the food industry! Conflict of interest, don’t you think? It’s time to stop handing over our power to multinational corporations.

Sources:

http://www.gmo-compass.org/eng/regulation/regulatory_process/

http://www.cfr.org/genetically-modified-organisms/regulation-gmos-europe-united-states-case-study-contemporary-european-regulatory-politics/p8688 (1)

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/sr-sr/pubs/biotech/reg_gen_mod-eng.php

http://www.naturalnews.com/039734_Oregon_GM_salmon_GMO_labeling.html (2)

http://www.oregonrighttoknow.org

http://www.denverijournal.com/article.php?id=8362

It's been confirmed. Congress will bring back a bill that would tread on our most basic rights to privacy. They need to hear from us soon before CISPA goes any further.

Tell Congress right now: "Violating our privacy is not an option."

Fight for the Future and Center for Rights will contact you about future campaigns. Privacy Policy

Send Congress a message: our rights are not negotiable.

We need to send a message right now that voters will not tolerate an attack on our right to privacy.

If you live in one of the states below, can you pick up the phone right now and call the House Intelligence Committee? CISPA will be introduced on Wednesday. Call them now and leave a message so that when they get to work on Monday they know that voters don’t support this bill.

If you’re not sure what to say, use this script:

“I just learned that CISPA (the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act) will be reintroduced next week. In its previous form, the bill would have given federal agencies unlimited access to virtually any of my personal data and online communication-- without a warrant. Our rights online are not negotiable. Please oppose any bill that would let companies share my personal information with the government.”

CALIFORNIA:

FLORIDA:

GEORGIA:

ILLINOIS:

KANSAS:

MARYLAND:

MICHIGAN:

MINNESOTA:

NEVADA:

NEW JERSEY:

NEW YORK:

RHODE ISLAND:

TEXAS:

Full Documentary -> #TPB #AFK: "The Pirate Bay - Away From Keyboard" (by The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard)

~

The documentary about the founders of the Pirate Bay. Share it with the world! Support the filmmakers of this free film here www.tpbafk.tv A film by Simon Klose

~

The film is out

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 01:16:18 +0000

Dear internets!

Premiering the film at the Berlinale and the internet was an amazing, tumultous, mindblowing ride. I won’t write about it at length today. Too exhausted!

A day after the release the film has 408,360 views on Youtube, 27 000 seeders on TPB (although TPB doesn’t keep stats). The film also flooded the web with thousands of tweets!

Also the community created Dutch, French, Russian and Portugese subtitled versions. Here are the subtitles in txt format. (eng) (es) Also, please send us links to your translations!

I <3 YOUR PICTURES!!!!

TPB AFL team will have updates regarding the extra material, the DVD and the Remix-version next week.

Thank you for making the release of TPB AFK one of the most thrilling experiences in my life!

Please watch the movie here, we love your feedback:

Free Download at The Pirate Bay Buy it at VHX Watch on SVT and Youtube

Simon

#SpreadThis #KeystoneXL #TarSands -> Oil in Eden: The Battle to Protect Canada's Pacific Coast (by @PacificWildLive)

It's one of the last bastions of Canadian wilderness: the Great Bear Rainforest, on BC's north and central Pacific coast. Home to humpback whales, wild salmon, wolves, grizzlies, and the legendary spirit bear - this spectacular place is now threatened by a proposal from Enbridge to bring an oil pipeline and supertankers to this fragile and rugged coast. The plan is to pump over half a million barrels a day of unrefined bitumen from the Alberta Tar Sands over the Rockies, through the heartland of BC - crossing a thousand rivers and streams in the process - to the Port of Kitimat, in the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest. From there, supertankers would ply the rough and dangerous waters of the BC coast en route to Asia and the United States. Dubbed the Northern Gateway Pipeline, the project is of concern for three main reasons: 1. It would facilitate the expansion of the Tar Sands, hooking emerging Asian economies on the world's dirtiest oil; 2. the risks from the pipeline itself; 3. the danger of introducing oil supertankers for the first time to this part of the BC coast.

Activists and warriors have launched a drive for funds and supplies to sustain their ongoing organizing and resistance in the Great Plains region. The following message is from their online drive: “In 2011 we met and began working together in a good way. Members of Deep Green Resistance and Lakota warriors and activists joined together to fight on the Great Plains. In 2012 we joined with others to fight against the liquid genocide of White Clay NE, temporarily shutting it down three times. We are fighting and organizing against the Keystone XL pipline. We must protect our sacred water. We joined together in solidarity with Lakota elder Vern Traversie against the racist abuse of Rapid City Regional Hospital. The KKK has reared its ugly head in the sacred black hills and we must stand and fight against them in 2013. We cannot do this work without material support. Besides material support we need bodies willing to join us on the frontlines. Please help us continue fighting in 2013.” For more information click here or email [email protected] People can also relay this message via Facebook. For more background on the situation in White Clay and the connections between DGR and Lakota activists, check out the article “Crazy Horse was a Sober Warrior: 31 Notes on the Alcohol Wars at Pine Ridge“, posted September 7 on the EF! Newswire

The Hernandez family stands strong, Fight back! #FortHernandez - (by fort hernandez)

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On October 15, 2012, the Hernandez family received a visit from LAPD, where they were issued more citations for their 1st amendment protest against Bank of America. Even one to Ulissies, who was not even around. LAPD, DFS, and the County Health Department, have all participated in a campaign of harassment and intimidation against our family since we decided to stand up against the BOA, and the fraudulent lending practices that led us to this point. We once again ask the LAPD and all these other agencies to back off, and investigate the only party in this situation who has actually committed a crime Bank of America.

Computer hackers claiming to be from the Anonymous network took over the official website of Sweden's National Board of Health and Welfare. The attacks come just days after police on Monday raided a Stockholm-based webhosting company, PRQ, and a video was posted on YouTube - allegedly made on behalf of the hacker group Anonymous - warning Swedish authorities of repercussions.

Hacktivist network Anonymous has warned that Sweden’s Riksbank will suffer a cyber-attack on Wednesday night. “It’s come to our attention that Swedish government raided PRQ servers in order to shut down numerous file sharing and torrent websites,”

“This has gone too far. This is unacceptable. Anonymous says this stops right now. You don’t fuck with The Internet… Today we hit their wallets hard.” wrote the Anonymous group on 4chan.

The Riksbank is taking the threat seriously: “We recognize this as a public threat against websites and we are always trying to keep the web as safe as possible. We have people who are responsible for taking care of the web and IT security,” said Charlotta Edler, spokesperson of the Riksbank.

PRQ Head Mikael Viborg says his company previously hosted servers for file-sharing site the Pirate Bay and still houses some servers for the secret-spilling website WikiLeaks.

"The raid on PRQ disabled many of our torrent sites. We see this as a crime against freedom to information," says a masked spokesperson in a video posted on YouTube by a user claiming ties to Anonymous. "Swedish government; you know our capabilities and what we want! The choice is yours."