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unhappycamper

unhappycamper's Journal
unhappycamper's Journal
December 12, 2013

Sandy Hook massacre: Gun lobby targets Australia

http://www.theage.com.au/world/sandy-hook-massacre-gun-lobby-targets-australia-20131212-hv5ed.html



Sandy Hook massacre: Gun lobby targets Australia
December 12, 2013
Nick O'Malley

As America prepares to mark the first anniversary of the murder of 20 children and six staff at the Sandy Hook elementary school, Australia has again become a focus of the increasingly bitter debate over gun control in the United States.

At issue for activists on both sides is the decision by former prime minister John Howard to ban a range of gun types in Australia following the Port Arthur massacre, in particular semi-automatic rifles. To gun control advocates in America the laws proved that regulation can reduce gun deaths. To gun rights activists they are evidence that US President Barack Obama is pursuing gun control measures that are nothing short of tyrannical.

The editorial in the December issue of the National Rifle Association’s gun rights magazine, America’s First Freedom, is typical of how Australia’s gun laws are seen by some conservative Americans.



In the piece, titled "Standing Guard", the organisation’s increasingly strident public face, executive vice president Wayne LaPierre, argues that elements of the American media back Mr Obama’s alleged plan to create “a US version of the Australian/British tyranny”.
December 12, 2013

Azerbaijan oil cash lost in the shadows

http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/MID-01-121213.html



Azerbaijan oil cash lost in the shadows
By Charles Recknagel
Dec 12, '13

A new report on Azerbaijan's oil industry documents how millions of dollars of revenue disappear into the hands of obscurely owned private companies with the apparent cooperation of the government-controlled state oil company.

The report by the NGO Global Witness, presented in London on December 10, found a pattern in Azerbaijan's oil industry of partnering with shadowy companies that make hundreds of millions of dollars handling oil but whose business role remains unclear:

"Little-known private individuals, private companies, have been inserted into the oil industry of Azerbaijan, and nobody knows who these people are or why they have been included," says Tom Mayne, a lead researcher in the yearlong investigation.

The report details in particular the case of one individual who offers a clear example of the pattern. He is Anar Aliyev, a 35-year-old Azerbaijani entrepreneur who has created multiple offshore companies that either hold contracts with or engage in joint ventures with Socar, Azerbaijan's state oil company.
December 12, 2013

Sec. Hagel threatens to cut $1.6 bn Pakistan aid b/c Drone Protests Blocking NATO Convoys

http://www.juancole.com/2013/12/pakistan-protests-blocking.html

Sec. Hagel threatens to cut $1.6 bn Pakistan aid b/c Drone Protests Blocking NATO Convoys
By Juan Cole | Dec. 12, 2013
by Sarah Lazare

U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel threatened Pakistani (eaders) on Monday with cutting off up to $1.6 billion in aid if the country's mass protests against U.S. drone strikes continue, Pentagon officials said, according to The New York Times.

The warning came after nonviolent blockades in protest of U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan forced the United States to halt ground transport of NATO military supplies from Afghanistan via Pakistan last week, as Common Dreams previously reported.

A statement from Pakistan's foreign ministry reported by Reuters says Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif "conveyed Pakistan's deep concern over continuing U.S. drone strikes, stressing that drone strikes were counterproductive to our efforts to combat terrorism and extremism on an enduring basis."

Yet Pentagon officials said Sharif gave his assurances that he would end the blockade and ensure safe passage of military equipment, The New York Times reports.
December 12, 2013

Five Women Human Rights Activists who are Changing the Middle East

http://www.juancole.com/2013/12/activists-changing-middle.html

Five Women Human Rights Activists who are Changing the Middle East
By Juan Cole | Dec. 12, 2013
By Tasnim Nazeer

~snip~

1. Tawakkol Karman

The first Yemeni and the first Arab woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize and the youngest Nobel Peace laureate to date, Tawakkol Karman tops our list.

~snip~

2. Razan Ghazzawi

Razan Ghazzawi is an award winning Syrian blogger, campaigner and human rights activist. She has been actively involved in the events during the Syrian Civil War, and has been particularly outspoken on activists’ arrests and the violations of human rights committed by the Bashar al Assad regime.

~snip~

3. Moushira Mahmoud Khattab

Moushira Mahmoud Khattab is an Egyptian human rights activist, former politician and diplomat. She has previously held the positions as Minister of Family & Population as well as ambassador to South Africa, the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

~snip~

4. Nawal El Saadawi

Nawal El Saadawi is an Egyptian feminist writer, human rights activist, physician and psychiatrist. Saadawi has authored many books on the subject of women and Islam and advocates human rights issues involving women. The founder and president of the Arab Women’s Solidarity Association and co-founder of the Arab Association for Human Rights, she has been awarded numerous honorary degrees on three continents.
December 12, 2013

Edward Snowden: NSA isn’t like East German Stasi, but still dangerous

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/11/edward-snowden-nsa-isnt-like-east-german-stasi-but-still-dangerous/



Edward Snowden: NSA isn’t like East German Stasi, but still dangerous
By Agence France-Presse
Wednesday, December 11, 2013 12:38 EST

Former US national security contractor Edward Snowden hopes his leaks of classified documents will lead to greater transparency by governments, he said in rare comments published Wednesday.

The fugitive Snowden, Time’s runner-up behind the pope for its person of the year, told the magazine he chose to defy his obligations when he learned the scope of surveillance programs conducted without being disclosed.

“What we recoil most strongly against is not that such surveillance can theoretically occur, but that it was done without a majority of society even being aware it was possible,” he told Time in an email interview.

~snip~

“The NSA is surely not the (East German) Stasi, but we should always remember that the danger to societies from security services is not that they will spontaneously decide to embrace mustache twirling and jackboots to bear us bodily into dark places, but that the slowly shifting foundation of policy will make it such that mustaches and jackboots are discovered to prove an operational advantage toward a necessary purpose,” he told Time.
December 12, 2013

GOP holds ‘factual’ climate hearing and decides half of scientists are global warming deniers

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/11/gop-holds-factual-climate-hearing-and-decides-half-of-scientists-are-global-warming-deniers/



GOP holds ‘factual’ climate hearing and decides half of scientists are global warming deniers
By David Edwards
Wednesday, December 11, 2013 13:17 EST

Republicans in the House of Representatives on Wednesday held a so-called “factual” hearing about climate change and used the testimony of skeptical witnesses to conclude that about half of scientists suspected global warming was a hoax.

At a Subcommittee on Environment hearing titled “A Factual Look at the Relationship Between Climate and Weather,” Chairman Lamar Smith (R-TX) asked University of Alabama in Huntsville Professor John Christy — a well-known global warming skeptic — if it was really true that “97 percent of climate scientist think that climate change is real.”

“No, not at all,” Christie replied. “The American Meteorological Society, by the way, did do a survey of its professional members and found only 52 percent said that climate change of the past 50 years was due mostly to human kind. So, 52 percent amount is quite small, I think, in terms of confidence.”

~snip~

A survey published earlier this year the journal Environmental Research Letters looked and the work of 29,000 climate scientists published in nearly 12,000 academic papers and found that 97.1% agreed that human activity was causing climate change.
December 12, 2013

JPMorgan Chase will spend $2 billion a year to meet settlement terms

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/11/jpmorgan-chase-will-spend-2-billion-a-year-to-meet-settlement-terms/



JPMorgan Chase will spend $2 billion a year to meet settlement terms
By Agence France-Presse
Wednesday, December 11, 2013 16:23 EST

US banking giant JPMorgan Chase expects to spend $2 billion in annual compliance costs starting in 2014, chief executive Jamie Dimon said Wednesday.

The spending is double what the bank previously projected and comes on the heels of several major settlements over alleged law and banking rules violations with regulators.

“The $2 billion for the most part is permanent,” Dimon said at a Goldman Sachs conference. “It’s not going to go away.”

Dimon said the spending would go to hire compliance staff, conduct training, employ auditors and take other steps to ensure the US’ largest bank by assets operates in line with the rules.
December 12, 2013

Man must repay $183,000 to Kochs after joining ‘Anonymous’ protest for one minute

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/11/man-must-repay-183000-to-kochs-after-joining-anonymous-protest-for-one-minute/



Man must repay $183,000 to Kochs after joining ‘Anonymous’ protest for one minute
By Travis Gettys
Wednesday, December 11, 2013 12:35 EST

A Wisconsin man who joined an Anonymous online protest for one minute has been sentenced to two years of probation and ordered to repay $183,000 to Koch Industries.

Eric Rosol admitted to federal prosecutors that he took part in a distributed denial-of-service attack Feb. 28, 2011, coordinated by the hacker activist group that shut down the company’s Kochind.com website for about 15 minutes.

~snip~

The DDoS attack lasted for only one minute, but Rosol was prosecuted under a 1980s law – the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act – that many online activists say encourages sentences that rarely fit the crime.

Rosol’s attorney and prosecutors agreed that the company lost less than $5,000 as a result of the DDoS attack, but Koch Industries complained that it had hired a consulting firm to improve security for its websites at a cost of $183,000.
December 12, 2013

Public defenders keep quitting on North Dakota white supremacist Craig Cobb

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/11/public-defenders-keep-quitting-on-north-dakota-white-supremacist-town-founder/



Public defenders keep quitting on North Dakota white supremacist Craig Cobb
By Travis Gettys
Wednesday, December 11, 2013 16:24 EST

By the time his case goes to trial, white supremacist Craig Cobb may have worked with every full-time public defender in the state of North Dakota.

A fourth attorney has been appointed to represent Cobb, who’s accused of terrorizing a small town he hopes to turn into a whites-only enclave.

Bismarck attorney Ryan Heintz will represent Cobb after three previously appointed public defenders asked to be removed from his case, said Robin Huseby, executive director of the state Commission on Legal Counsel for Indigents.

She said that’s certainly unusual, but she was confident that one of the state’s 16 full-time public defenders or 80 or so attorneys who work on a contract basis would be able to represent Cobb.
December 12, 2013

Mexican lawmakers stage lock-in to block oil reform bill

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/11/mexican-lawmakers-stage-lock-in-to-block-oil-reform-bill/



Mexican lawmakers stage lock-in to block oil reform bill
By Agence France-Presse
Wednesday, December 11, 2013 17:59 EST

Leftist lawmakers locked themselves inside Mexico’s chamber of deputies Wednesday to prevent the lower house from debating a controversial oil reform bill that passed the Senate hours earlier.

Around 20 lawmakers took over the chamber’s podium, unfurling a banner with the words “traitors” in big letters after wrapping chains around the handles of a door and piling up chairs.

“We cannot allow a handful of people to take and give away the nation’s property,” deputy Maria Luisa Alcalde of the Citizen Movement Party said from the podium, joined by members of the Democratic Revolution Party (PRD) and the Workers Party.

~snip~

The legislation would let private firms explore and extract oil and gas, as well as share profits, production and risk with the state-run energy giant Pemex, ending a ban cemented in the country’s very constitution.

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