by Saed Bannoura

[So follow along...first they arrest and handcuff a protester. Then they shoot him. Why? Then, they arrest the father of the woman who films the entire incident. He is sentenced to 100 days in prison. You have to wonder who learns these tactics from whom? Includes video footage of the shooting.]

NAIROBI - More than 14 million people in the east Africa region require urgent food aid due to drought and spiralling cereal and fuel prices, aid agencies say.

Fwd -

Wednesday, July 30, 2008
5:00pm
Vancouver Art Gallery

Tell Stephen Harper:
Bring Omar Khadr Back to Canada!

By Amos Schocken - July, 16 2008

The claim that there are characteristics of an apartheid state in Israel is widely heard in the Western world. The word apartheid is catchy and understood in many parts of the world, which makes it useful to send a message that [Israeli's] resent and which we claim has no connection with reality in Israel. However, we do not need to replicate exactly the characteristics of South African apartheid within discriminatory practices in civil rights in Israel in order to call Israel an apartheid state. The amendment to the Citizenship Law is exactly such a practice, and it is best that we not try to evade the truth: Its existence in our law books turns Israel into an apartheid state.

By john teevins

Somewhere between 15 and 18 years ago I wrote my first batch of songs. The lyrics to the chorus of one of them are as follows: "we the abused we stand accused - of crimes committed against us"

I am a 39 year old survivor of physical, emotional and sexual violence and I am a full time smoker. I have been and still am receiving focused, trustworthy, loving and professional help for the first time in my life and the positive results are astounding.

JERUSALEM - Shopping malls. Schools. Medical centres. Charities, orphanages. Soup kitchens. These are the latest targets in the campaign the Israeli military is waging against Hamas in the West Bank. Israeli military officials have identified Hamas’s civilian infrastructure in the West Bank as a major source of the Islamic group’s popularity, and have begun raiding and shutting down these institutions in cities like Hebron, Nablus and Qalqilyah.

"Education in a scientific society may, I think, be best conceived after the analogy of the education provided by the Jesuits. The Jesuits provided one sort of education for the boys who were to become ordinary men of the world, and another for those who were to become members of the Society of Jesus. In like manner, the scientific rulers will provide one kind of education for ordinary men and women, and another for those who are to become holders of scientific power. Ordinary men and women will be expected to be docile, industrious, punctual, thoughtless, and contented. Of these qualities probably contentment will be considered the most important. In order to produce it, all the researches of psycho-analysis, behaviourism, and biochemistry will be brought into play."

"Last year’s [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] pepper-spraying of several Sechelt band infants, youths, and elders was 'regrettable' but 'appropriate in the circumstances', according to an [internal RCMP] police report...[Former Chief] Stan Dixon laid a complaint into the July 2007 incident with the Sunshine Coast RCMP...Of the four allegations of misconduct the RCMP looked into—improper use of force, improper attitude, irregularity in procedure, and a driving irregularity—the investigation cleared the officers of every one..."

Statimc Native Youth Movement Warrior Society

Please accept this letter as a declaration of opposition to the upcoming [Vancouver/Whistler] 2010 [Winter] Olympics set to take place within traditional St’at’imc Borders. Many members of our Nation, including children, youth, elders and land users do not support the Olympics taking place in Whistler....

The Guardian/UK

DARFUR - Thousands of child refugees from Darfur, some as young as nine, are being abducted and sold to warring militias as child soldiers, a British human rights group reports today.

St. Johns: Results just released from the first phase of Egale Canada’s National Survey on homophobia and transphobia in Canadian Schools reveal that over two-thirds of those students who identified as lesbian, gay, bi, trans and Two-Spirit, queer and questioning (LGBTQ) feel unsafe at school.

by MARK HUME - Globe and Mail

A new public health study that looked at more than 500 young aboriginal drug users in two British Columbia cities produced such shocking data that people wept openly when it was first presented to a panel of elders...[T]he problem of sexual abuse in native communities has its roots in the residential school system, which created a generation of victims who in turn found victims of their own. She said it has created a cycle of abuse that is destroying young lives through violence, suicides and substance abuse.

Who said crime doesn't pay? Read on.

University of Toronto Administration threatens Code of Student Conduct against student representatives speaking out against tuition fee increases.

The students at the college of Menominee Nation in Keshena, Wisconsin recently collected about two tons of electronic waste and 23 pounds of pharmaceuticals as part of the EPA Great Lakes 2008 Earth Day Challenge.

The collections brought to over four tons the amount of electronics (e-waste) recycled by members of the Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin as part of the challenge involving over 100 projects in eight states across the Great Lakes Basin thus helping the EPA exceed its goals many times over of one million pounds of e-waste and one million pills.
During the hours of the actual collection on campus, the students learned they had also been awarded a major recycling grant.
In both cases, they were the only tribal college out of numerous participants.
The collection was one of several Earth Week projects sponsored by the tribe including several by youngsters and teens at the tribal school.
The story includes a video detailing the college project and numerous photos.