Category: Politics

24 Hours to Save Sakineh

Posted by Nexus – 02/11/2010

Iranian authorities could kill Sakineh Ashtiani tomorrow.

This July, a global outcry saved her from death by stoning. Now, the Iranian government has issued execution orders based on trumped-up charges — and she could be killed within a day. We have 24 hours to get world leaders with influence in Iran to do all they can to save her life.

Fill in the form below to send an emergency message directly to the leaders of Turkey, Brazil, and key UN nations who could sway Iran to halt the execution. These leaders heeded our calls in July and August, and their intervention made the difference. Now they must hear from us again, massively, and respond quickly. If enough of us raise our voices now, an outrage and a tragedy may yet be averted.

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Coporate corruption controls: close the revolving doors

Posted by Nexus – 02/11/2010

Top European Commission politicians are taking lucrative corporate lobbyist jobs.

It’s outrageous — over half of top European Union politicians move straight from their posts into lucrative corporate lobbying jobs — turning the EU into a “lobbyocracy” run by big business, not the people.

The European Parliament is up in arms and has just threatened to withhold EU budget money until a new code of conduct is introduced to block officials rushing to become lobbyists. In a few days parliamentarians will meet to hear the Commission’s proposals, but they need support to force a decisive change.

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British Government warns that it intends to religionise Britain

Posted by Nexus – 17/09/2010

[via secularism.org.uk]

Baroness Warsi

Conservative Party chairman Baroness Warsi has insisted that the coalition Government not only “does God” but that faith groups should have a greater role in public services under the auspices of David Cameron’s Big Society.

Speaking this week to a meeting of Church of England bishops in Oxford, Baroness Warsi said that whereas the coalition intended to be “on the side of” faith, the Labour government had seen religion as “essentially a rather quaint relic of our pre-industrial history”.

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Media-Mogul Attacks Avaaz

Posted by Nexus – 16/09/2010

Avaaz has come under attack from a major media-mogul.

Huge numbers of Canadian Avaazers recently mobilized against government favours for a new radical-right propaganda network run by the Prime Minister’s former spin doctor. The media empire behind the network and its billionaire owner, Pierre Karl Peladeau, has attacked our community with several smear pieces in their own newspapers, and one of their executives admitted insider knowledge of a criminal sabotage of our campaign. Now the mogul has threatened to sue Avaaz if we don’t take down our campaign within 24 hours!

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Gaza: investigate the raid, end the blockade

Posted by Nexus – 01/06/2010

Israel’s deadly raid on a flotilla of aid ships headed for Gaza has shocked the world.

Israel, like any other state, has the right to self-defence, but this was an outrageous use of lethal force to defend an outrageous and lethal policy — Israel’s blockade of Gaza, where two thirds of families don’t know where they’ll find their next meal.

The UN, EU, and nearly every other government and multilateral organization have called on Israel to lift the blockade and, now, launch a full investigation of the flotilla raid. But without massive pressure from their citizens, world leaders might limit their response to mere words — as they have so many times before.

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Music industry spokesman loves child porn

Posted by Nexus – 05/05/2010

[via boingboing.net]

A music-industry speaker at an American Chamber of Commerce event in Stockholm waxed enthusiastic about child porn, because it serves as the perfect excuse for network censorship, and once you’ve got a child-porn filter, you can censor anything:

“Child pornography is great,” the speaker at the podium declared enthusiastically. “It is great because politicians understand child pornography. By playing that card, we can get them to act, and start blocking sites. And once they have done that, we can get them to start blocking file sharing sites”.The venue was a seminar organized by the American Chamber of Commerce in Stockholm on May 27, 2007, under the title “Sweden — A Safe Haven for Pirates?”. The speaker was Johan Schlüter from the Danish Anti-Piracy Group, a lobby organization for the music and film industry associations, like IFPI and others…

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Canadian DMCA Bill Within Six Weeks

Posted by Nexus – 05/05/2010

[via michaelgeist.ca]

Months of public debate over the future of Canadian copyright law were quietly decided earlier this week, when sources say the Prime Minister’s Office reached a verdict over the direction of the next copyright bill.  The PMO was forced to make the call after Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore and Industry Minister Tony Clement were unable to reach consensus on the broad framework of a new bill. 

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LEGO dumped Brown – and apologised

Posted by Nexus – 05/05/2010

[via politiken.dk]

LEGOLAND in Britain let Clegg and Cameron chuck Brown out of 10 Downing Street.

LEGO has apologised for a somewhat premature staging of Prime Minister Gordon Brown being evicted from 10 Downing Street by Messrs. Cameron and Clegg.

Irrespective of the outcome of tomorrow’s UK election, the company, which privately staged the ‘event’ at LEGOLAND Windsor for a Press Association photographer, says it should not have done so.

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The People vs Murdoch

Posted by Nexus – 02/05/2010

In just a few days, Britain could elect an unprecedented coalition with a mandate for urgently-needed reform and the support of most voters – it’s democracy in action!

But a few partisan hacks want to hang onto politics as usual — and some of them own powerful tabloids. Hacks like billionaire Rupert Murdoch, whose Sun is pushing nasty hysteria about coalition government threatening Biblical disasters — working to ensure that Murdoch, not we voters, is the “kingmaker” in our country.

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Classified CIA report into shoring up Afghan war support in Western Europe

Posted by Nexus – 01/04/2010

This classified CIA analysis from March, outlines possible PR-strategies to shore up public support in Germany and France for a continued war in Afghanistan. After the Dutch government fell on the issue of Dutch troops in Afghanistan last month, the CIA became worried that similar events could happen in the countries that post the third and fourth largest troop contingents to the ISAF-mission.

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