Gendarme forces move toward protesters in Piata Universitatii square, Bucharest January 19, 2012.

Romania’s Prime Minster Emil Boc has resigned following weeks of public protest against IMF-backed austerity measures amid the debt crisis sweeping the European Union.

Announcing his resignation on Television on Monday, Boc said that he wanted to “defuse political and social tension” and to protect the stability of the country.

“We made this decision in order to alleviate the social and political situation in the country, but to not lose what Romanians have won with so much suffering, the country’s economic stability,” Boc said.

The resignation comes after three weeks of public demonstrations demanding the resignation of President Traian Basescu and the Boc government for imposing harsh austerity measures including a 25 percent cut in public sector wages, 24 percent increase in sales tax and a freeze on pensions.

Romania needed to implement the measures to qualify for the next installment of a 20bn euro bailout loan from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Boc’s resignation makes Romania the sixth European country to see a prime minister fall to the debt crisis.

Basescu has nominated former Justice Minister Catalin Predoiu as interim Prime Minister on Monday.

The European debt crisis has forced EU governments to adopt harsh austerity measures and tough economic reforms, triggering incidents of social unrest and massive protests in many European countries.

There are fears that more delays in resolving the eurozone debt crisis, which began in Greece in late 2009 and infected Italy, Spain and France last year, could push not only Europe but also much of the rest of the developed world back into recession.

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Brazilian police officers block an area during a demo.

Nineteen people have died on the third day of clashes between Brazilian government forces and striking police officers in the northeastern city of Salvador, Press TV reports.

Large shops and supermarkets were looted during the clashes and riots on Friday.

Meanwhile, the authorities have dispatched around 2,000 army soldiers and a group of elite federal police officers to contain the demonstrations in the country’s third largest city. In addition, protesters have been warned that they will receive a fine of up to $46,000 if caught demonstrating.

Another 13 people were killed during a demonstration on Thursday, while seven deaths were recorded on Wednesday.

The protesting police officers are holding demonstrations to demand salary increases and better working conditions.

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Team El-Ahly football players get away from the field during a football match riot at a stadium in Port Said of Egypt on Feb. 1, 2012. The death toll from a football riot in Egypt's Port Said rose to 79, state TV reported on Wednesday night.

A riot in the Egyptian city of Port Said has left 79 dead and hundreds wounded after football fans stormed the pitch before engaging in running battles inside the stadium. The government has announced three days of mourning in the country.

The majority of the victims died from suffocation and head injuries, health ministry officials said. Doctors are calling on the local population to donate blood for the injured because the violence has drained hospital reserves.

Some of the more seriously injured were evacuated by transport helicopter from the northern city of Port Said to be treated in military hospitals. The army also dispatched troops to the city to prevent further violence from flaring.

Stadium mayhem

­The deadly fight broke out on Wednesday night following a match between the local Al-Masry and the visiting Al-Ahly football teams, which have a long history of rivalry.

The home players scored a rare victory against one of Egypt’s strongest clubs, and the team’s fans rushed onto the pitch.

Some of the Al-Masry fans were said to be offended by an insulting sign held up by Al-Ahly supporters held during the game. In a bid to take revenge, they cornered rival fans, players and coaches.

“The players’ room has turned into a morgue,” said Ahmed Nagy, Al-Ahly’s goalkeeper and coach.

Speaking to the club’s television channel, player Mohamed Abo Treika described the violence as a war.

“This is not football. This is a war and people are dying in front of us. There is no movement and no security and no ambulances… This is a horrible situation and today can never be forgotten,” he said, as cited by Al Arabiya.

As the ensuing clash erupted, thousands of people tried to flee the violence. Dozens were crushed in the resulting stampede.

Although what triggered the violence remains unclear, Bel Trew, a freelance journalist talking live to RT from Cairo described eye witness reports of security forces who “stepped aside and actually opened the gates which allowed the two fan clubs to come onto the pitch and fight each other,” raising doubts over the security in place at the match.

The journalist spoke of exits to the stadium being blocked, preventing the Al-Ahly fans targeted by the violence from escaping, and causing a fatal crush. She also referred to eyewitness accounts of knife wounds, saying, “we believe the Port Said fans may have been carrying knives.”

While shedding light on the possible contributing factors that led to the Port Said violence Bel Trew signaled the “vacuum of security” that followed the January anniversary of the uprisings that overthrew former leader President Mubarak. She called the lack of a security presence “unprecedented” and linked it to the sharp escalation of crime in the Egypt during recent months.

Mourning and conspiracy

The Egyptian government has called an emergency parliamentary meeting to discuss the deadly football row at Port Said, amid claims that the ruling military council allowed the violence to happen – and even had a hand in causing it.

In response to the violence, Egyptian Prime Minister has accepted the resignation of the governor of Port Said and dissolved the board of the Egyptian Football Association. In addition to this, a full investigation will be launched into why the match went ahead given early signs that fan violence was likely.

FIFA, the international governing body of the game, has appealed to Egypt to release the exact details of the tragedy, while the EU has called for an independent probe to be carried out.

The Egyptian state football federation has postponed all national league matches indefinitely. A match which was underway when the violence in Port Said started was halted.

Thousands of Egyptians took to the streets overnight to honor the victims of the riot, as the country announced three days of mourning. In Suez the commemoration was marred when some radical Al-Ahly fans clashed with police. The attack on a security post was cut short with tear gas.

The tragedy, coming on the heels of the first anniversary of Egypt’s revolution, may have political reverberations. The Muslim Brotherhood’s Isam Al Aryan accused allies of ousted President Hosni Mubarak of orchestrating the bloody clashes.

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A large number of US-based organizations plan to hold a national day of action to demand "No war, no sanctions, no intervention, no assassinations against Iran."

A large number of US-based anti-war organizations have planned a nation-wide demonstration to demand Washington stop its warmongerings against Iran.

According to the StopWarOnIran website, “No war, no sanctions, no intervention, no assassinations against Iran” will be the demand of the coordinated demonstrations which will be held across the US on February 4, 2012.

The ad hoc group organizing the demonstrations has agreed “on the need to stop US imperialism and/or Israel from launching a military attack on Iran.”

They all believed that the new sanctions imposed against Iran by the United States “were themselves an act of war aimed at the Iranian people.”

On December 31, 2011, President Barack Obama signed into law fresh economic sanctions against the Central Bank of Iran (CBI) in an apparent bid to punish foreign companies and banks that do business with the Iranian financial institution.

The bill requires foreign financial firms to make a choice between doing business with the CBI and oil sector or with the US financial sector.

The organizations that called for the demonstration or endorsed the action include the United National Anti-War Coalition (UNAC), the International Action Center (IAC), SI! Solidarity with Iran, Refugee Apostolic Catholic Church, Workers World Party, World Can’t Wait, American Iranian Friendship Committee, ANSWER Coalition, Antiwar.com, Peace of the Action, ComeHomeAmerica.us, St. Pete for Peace, Women Against Military Madness (WAMM), Defenders for Freedom, Justice & Equality-Virginia, WESPAC Foundation, Peace Action Maine, Occupy Myrtle Beach, Minnesota Peace Action Coalition, Twin Cities Peace Campaign and Bail Out the People Movement (BOPM).

The US, Israel and their allies accuse Iran of pursuing a military nuclear program and have used this allegation as a pretext to sway the UN Security Council to impose four rounds of sanctions on Iran.

Iran has refuted the allegations, arguing that as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the IAEA, it has the right to develop and acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Source

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Police in Oakland, California, have used tear-gas and flash-grenades as a 2,000-strong Occupy Oakland march turned violent, with some protesters claiming that rubber bullets were also fired into the crowd. At least 400 people were arrested.

Initially, authorities had said 200-300 people were detained. But later the figure was revised to over 400 arrests, reports Reuters citing the Oakland emergency operations center.

The demonstrators had attempted to take over vacant buildings to use as their headquarters, they also broke into City Hall and tried to occupy a YMCA. Police spokesman Jeff Thomason told media most of the arrests came around 8 pm local time. Police took many protesters into custody as they marched through the city’s downtown area, with some entering a YMCA building.

Officials say, at one point protesters began tearing down perimeter fences around the Henry J. Kaiser Convention Center, as some attacked police officers, throwing rocks, bottles and other objects. Police declared an unlawful assembly and used force, according to the Oakland Tribune newspaper.

While police were taking people into custody near the YMCA, about 100 officers surrounded City Hall, while others swept the inside of the building for protesters who had broken in. Inside the building, protesters burned flags, broke into an electrical box and damaged several art structures, according to Oakland Mayor Jean Quan.

“The City of Oakland welcomes peaceful forms of assembly and freedom of speech, but acts of violence, property destruction and overnight lodging will not be tolerated,” the press release by city officials stated. “The Oakland Police Department is also committed to facilitating peaceful forms of expression while protecting personal safety and property through ethical and constitutional policing.”

At the moment, the Occupy crowd in the city’s central square is being monitored by dozens of police officers.

Oakland has seen one of America’s largest and most vocal Occupy protests, with thousands of people attending since the demos started in October. Some 300 people have been arrested since then. The Occupy Wall Street movement started in September in New York and claims to represent the 99 per cent of Americans, who suffer from corporate greed and economic injustice.

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Senegalese demonstrators protest against the decision to allow President Abdoulaye Wade to run for a third term in Dakar on January 27, 2012.

Senegalese police have clashed with demonstrators protesting against a constitutional court ruling that allows President Abdoulaye Wade to run for a third term in the upcoming presidential election.

On Friday, police in Dakar used batons and tear gas to disperse thousands of protesters throwing stones at them to show their discontent with the ruling.

The demonstration was held in the streets of the working class district of Colobane.

The five-judge court issued a statement late on Friday, listing 14 eligible candidates for the presidential election, which is scheduled to be held on February 26.

The list includes Wade, three ex-prime ministers, Idrissa Seck, Macky Sall, and Moustapha Niasse, and main opposition leader Ousmane Tanor Dieng.

However, famous singer Youssou N’Dour was excluded from the list.

According to the constitutional court, N’Dour had not introduced the minimum 10,000 signatures of voters supporting his candidacy. The court said N’Dour had produced a list of 12,936 voters, but only 8,911 could be identified and their signatures validated.

A number of Senegalese media outlets often criticize the incumbent president for excessive spending, while the country experiences “poverty and inequality.”

However, the 86-year-old president has also been credited with building roads, an airport, and other key elements of infrastructure.

Wade was first elected president in 2000 and was reelected in 2007 to a five-year term after a constitutional reform shortened the presidential term by two years. The constitution was changed again in 2008 to allow for two seven-year terms from 2012.

Wade says he can “even legally stand again in 2019,” according to state media.

The opposition says the decision to allow Wade to run for a third term is “illegal.”

The June 23 Movement (M23), a coalition of Senegalese activists and political groups, has called for “active resistance” against the approval of Wade’s candidacy.

Wade’s ruling party, the Senegalese Democratic Party, announced that he would run for a third term in the February presidential election on December 23, 2011.

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A massive demonstration has shaken the Damascus suburb of Saqba, that has fallen under the control of the Free Syrian Army. RT’s Sara Firth traveled to the rebel-controlled area to explore how the fighters managed to overcome superior forces.

­Clashes between Assad’s armed forces and the Free Syrian Army continue in many parts of the country including the capital. Some Damascus suburbs have seen nearly two dozen killed in the past two days, with buildings heavily shelled by regime loyalists. At least two people have been killed in the suburb of Saqba on Friday.

RT’s Sara Firth travelled to this area with other members of the press, while the Arab League observers, who initially led the group, decided to circle around the central part of Damascus.

The Free Syrian Army is now in control of the area, Firth says. They took journalists to the center of the suburb, where a massive anti-government demonstration was taking place. A funeral procession was going on at the same time.

Many of the Free Syrian Army members are in fact defectors who joined the opposition. While the government security forces rely mostly on heavy weaponry, the Free Syrian Army tends to use light weaponry and guerilla tactics, which has allowed them to capture Saqba and other areas, Sara Firth said after talking with some of the rebels.

In many parts of the county it is not clear who is actually in control. The situation is certainly very dangerous for civilians, Firth says.

Meanwhile, activists say that at least 30 people have been killed during the last day of mortar and machine-gun attacks in the city of Homs, besieged by the Syrian Army. The report, however, couldn’t be independently verified on the ground.

As the situation is deteriorating, the UN has stopped updating the death toll for the Syrian uprising. According to the UN human rights chief, Navi Pillay, it is too hard to get credible information about the situation on the ground.

“Some areas are totally closed such as parts of Homs, so we are unable to update that figure, but in my view 5,000 and more is a huge figure and should really shock the international community into taking action,” Pillay said as cited by AFP.

Since the Arab League monitors arrived in Syria, at least 400 people have been killed, according to UN estimates. Earlier this week, Saudi Arabia and its five partners in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) pulled out their 55 representatives from the observer mission, leaving only 110 members to continue their work in Syria.

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Billionaire investor George Soros has a new prediction for America. While it might be as dire as it gets for the financial wiz, this bet concerns more than just the value of the buck. According to Soros, there’s about to be an all-out class war.

Soros, 81, previously bet against the British pound in the early 90s and made $1 billion off its collapse. In the years since, he’s remained active in investing, but also in advocacy. He’s helped keep Wikipedia afloat thanks to impressive contributions and through donations to the Tides Center, has indirectly funded Adbusters, the Canadian anti-capitalist magazine that put Occupy Wall Street on the map. Speaking to Newsweek recently, Soros neglected to acknowledge his past successes, but instead offered a word of warning: a period of “evil” is coming to the western world.

“I am not here to cheer you up. The situation is about as serious and difficult as I’ve experienced in my career,” Soros tells Newsweek. “We are facing an extremely difficult time, comparable in many ways to the 1930s, the Great Depression. We are facing now a general retrenchment in the developed world, which threatens to put us in a decade of more stagnation, or worse. The best-case scenario is a deflationary environment. The worst-case scenario is a collapse of the financial system.”

Soros goes on to compare the current state of the western world with what the Soviet Union was facing as communism crumbled. Although he would think that history would have taught the globe a thing or two about noticing trends, Soros says that, despite past events providing a perfect example of what is to come, the end of an empire seems imminent.

“The collapse of the Soviet system was a pretty extraordinary event, and we are currently experiencing something similar in the developed world, without fully realizing what’s happening,” adds Soros.

Soros goes on to say that as the crisis in the Eurozone only worsens, the American financial system will continue to be hit hard. On the way to a full-blown collapse, he cautions, Americans should expect society to alter accordingly. Riots will hit the streets, says Soros, and as a result, “It will be an excuse for cracking down and using strong-arm tactics to maintain law and order, which, carried to an extreme, could bring about a repressive political system, a society where individual liberty is much more constrained, which would be a break with the tradition of the United States.”

The recent adoption of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012 and the proposed Enemy Expatriation Act, if approved, have already very well paved the way for such a society. Under the NDAA, the US government is allowed to indefinitely detain and torture American citizens suspected of terror crimes without ever bringing them to trial. Should lawmakers Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Charles Dent (R-PA) get their Enemy Expatriation Act through Congress, the US will also be able to simply revoke citizenship without trial, essentially removing constitutional rights from anyone deemed a threat.

Others have cautioned that, as inequality becomes more rampant in America, the country’s citizens are becoming increasingly agitated with those on the other side of the extreme. In a recent survey released by the Pew Research Center, 66 percent of the adults studied believe that either “very strong” or “strong” conflicts exist between America’s elite and the impoverished, a statistic that has skyrocketed in recent years. Between 2009 and 20011, the proportion of those that sense conflicts exist as such between the class groups grew by 19 percentage points. While less than half of Americans fearing a fight brewing at the dawn of the Obama administration, today two-out-of-three Americans feel that there is a strong conflict between both extremes of society.

Addressing the issue of inequality, Soros tells Newsweek that the main issue that will make or break a reelection for US President Barack Obama will be whether or not the rich end up being taxed more. Among the current frontrunners in the Republic Party’s race for the GOP nomination, wealth and taxes have been of the biggest concern of party rivals. The top candidates have made millions off of investments, and at a time of immense inequality, represent what 99 percent of Americans don’t. Taxing the rich to a bigger degree might finally bring a chance, and Soros says, “It shouldn’t be a difficult argument for Obama to make.”

Soros adds that if the US manages to make it through the troubled times to come, it come allow the nation to enter another golden era. “In the crisis period, the impossible becomes possible. The European Union could regain its luster. I’m hopeful that the United States, as a political entity, will pass a very severe test and actually strengthen the institution,” he tells Newsweek.

With almost seven percent of Americans living below half of the poverty line, four unemployed Americans for each job, a shrinking middle class and an increasingly overzealous police state, it could very well be a tough road to get there, though.

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Protesters waving Romanian flags shout anti-president slogans atop a monument in the central University Square in Bucharest on January 22, 2012.

Romanian protesters have taken to the streets of the capital Bucharest for a tenth consecutive day to demand the resignation of the government over its austerity measures.

Scores of protesters again gathered in the capital’s central University Square on Sunday to show their fury at President Traian Basescu and Prime Minister Emil Boc.

“Staying at home can severely damage democracy,” read a placard held by one protester, urging more Romanians to join the demonstrations.

Another protester held a sign reading, “QUIT,” while she was chanting slogans against Basescu and Boc.

No clashes were reported. However, tens of people have been injured as a result of confrontations between riot police and protesters since the beginning of the rallies against the center-right government.

The demonstrations were originally held as a show of support for the country’s former Deputy Health Minister Raed Arafat, a Palestinian-born doctor, who was forced to resign days earlier due a series of public attacks led against him by Basescu.

People are also protesting against a pension freeze and a 25-percent cut in public sector wages approved by the government in July 2010.

In 2009, as its economy shrank by 7.1 percent, Romania took a EUR-20-billion loan with a two-year-long repayment deadline from the International Monetary Fund, the European Union, and the World Bank.

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Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr

A prominent Shia cleric in Saudi Arabia has warned the kingdom against the brutal crackdown on protesters amid ongoing anti-regime demonstrations in Eastern Province.

Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, who is Friday Prayers leader of Saudi eastern town of Awamiyah, also called on Al Saud regime to stop bloodshed.

He predicted that the Saudi regime would be toppled if it fails to end the month-long crackdown.

On Thursday night, protesters gathered in Awamiyah, located in the Qatif region of the Eastern Province, and demanded the release of the country’s political prisoners.

The protests in Saudi Arabia come despite heavy crackdown by regime forces.

There have been demonstrations in the Eastern Province on an almost daily basis over the past few months, with protesters calling for political reform.

The protests have intensified since November when security forces opened fire on protesters in Qatif, killing five people and leaving many more injured.

Eastern Province is home to the majority of the kingdom’s Shia population of around two million, who represent around 10 percent of Saudis.

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Anti-government protesters shout slogans in the Romania capital Bucharest on January 19, 2012.

Romanian police have fired teargas canisters at demonstrators protesting against the government’s austerity measures in the Romanian capital Bucharest.

On Thursday, the police arrested about 50 people, who allegedly threw bricks and bottles and other materials at them.

Earlier on the day, thousands of protesters, including teenage students who abandoned their classes, held a demonstration demanding the resignation of the government for imposing harsh austerity measures.

Police said about 7,000 protesters attended the rally from all over Romania; however, organizers claimed the crowd was far larger.

It was one of the biggest anti-government demonstrations held recently in Bucharest.

Demonstrators stopped traffic at the University Square and chanted slogans against President Traian Basescu.

In 2009, Romania received a two-year €20 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the World Bank as its economy shrank by 7.1 percent.

The government imposed tough austerity measures under the agreement, reducing public wages by 25 percent and raising taxes.

Anger against the government has mounted over the wage cuts, slashed benefits, higher taxes and widespread corruption.

Source

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Cockroaches scatter as spotlight is pointed at Internet censorship bill.

Lawmakers have begun to jump ship following a day of protest against the draconian internet legislation, the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Senate version of the bill, the Protect IP Act (PIPA).

As many major websites such as Wikipedia and Google participated in a “blackout” in opposition to the bills, several former co-sponsers of the legislation have reversed their positions and retreated away from the bills.

Reports of flood of calls to the offices of elected representatives, as well as widespread media coverage seems to be having a significant effect.

Among those to disavow the bill today was influential Florida Republican Senator Marco Rubio, a former co-sponsor who now says that the legislation should be completely re-written to addresses the concerns “raised by all sides.”

“I have been a co-sponsor of the PROTECT IP Act because I believe it’s important to protect American ingenuity, ideas and jobs from being stolen through Internet piracy, much of it occurring overseas through rogue websites in China,” Rubio said in a Facebook post.

“As a senator from Florida, a state with a large presence of artists, creators and businesses connected to the creation of intellectual property, I have a strong interest in stopping online piracy that costs Florida jobs.”

“However, we must do this while simultaneously promoting an open, dynamic Internet environment that is ripe for innovation and promotes new technologies.” the Senator added.

South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint also proclaimed opposition to the legislation, commenting via Twitter “I support intellectual property rights, but I oppose SOPA & PIPA. They’re misguided bills that will cause more harm than good.”

Sen. Robert Menendez (D-.N.J.) separately tweeted that he, too, had concerns and is “working to ensure critical changes are made to the bill.”

Arizona Republican Representative Ben Quayle, another former co-sponsor, has also withdrawn support of the House bill, along with Nebraska Congressman Lee Terry.

Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.), a libertarian leaning Republican, went as far as changing his Facebook profile photo to a logo of the words SOPA and PIPA crossed out, while also disabling key functions on his Facebook wall, preventing guest posts.

“These bills give the federal government unprecedented power to censor Internet content and will stifle the free flow of information and ideas,” Amash wrote. “Demand that Congress and the president keep the Internet open and free.”

A further six Republican Senators penned a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in which they stated:

“We have increasingly heard from a large number of constituents and other stakeholders with vocal concerns about possible unintended consequences of the proposed legislation, including breaches in cybersecurity, damaging the integrity of the Internet, costly and burdensome litigation, and dilution of First Amendment rights,”

The letter was signed by Senators. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), Orrin Hatch (Utah), Jeff Sessions (Ala.), John Cornyn (Texas), Mike Lee (Utah) and Tom Coburn (Okla.) – both Grassley and Hatch had previously co-sponsored PIPA in the Senate.

The authors of the legislation refuse to back down, however. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) said Wikipedia’s protest was a “publicity stunt” that promotes “fear instead of facts.”

“Perhaps during the blackout, Internet users can look elsewhere for an accurate definition of online piracy,” he said.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), who authored the Senate bill, maintained that protesters were “misunderstanding” the legislation.

“The PROTECT IP Act will not affect Wikipedia, will not affect reddit, and will not affect any website that has any legitimate use,” he said.

“Perhaps if these companies would participate constructively, they could point to what in the actual legislation they contend threatens their websites, and then we could dispel their misunderstandings. That is what debate on legislation is intended to do, to fine-tune the bill to confront the problem of stealing while protecting against unintended consequences.” he added.

As things stand a test vote on the legislation will go ahead in the Senate on Tuesday, despite increasing requests to further delay the decision. Lamar Smith recently postponed a vote to send SOPA to the chamber floor until next month.

A breakthrough for opponents of the legislation was made last week when Smith and Leahy agreed to remove a provision in the legislation that would have allowed the government to seek a court order to block access to the domain names, or Web addresses, of websites they believed were pirating copyrighted material.

As we have detailed in depth, the definitions of ‘facilitating’ ‘copyright infringement’ in the bills are so broad that entire web sites could come under threat of being effectively seized and shut down for merely displaying one offending hyperlink.

Some felonies under SOPA, such as “streaming copyrighted content” – again the terminology is vague at best – carry a five-year prison sentence.

As we reported back in October, the bill will also force compliance from search engines and Internet Service Providers, demanding they create a list of banned web sites and prevent their users from accessing the sites. Advertising networks, payment providers and credit card processors would also be ordered to stop doing business with any site deemed to be acting unlawfully under SOPA.

“…all those entities are compelled to comply. Indeed, the bill imposes stiff penalties on anyone who doesn’t, and offers immunity to ad networks and payment processors that follow orders. As such, SOPA is chock-full of incentives for ISPs, content-hosting sites and other such entities to go along with the government’s demands.” writes Omar El Akkad of The Globe & Mail.

SOPA is not legislating for anything that the government isn’t already engaged in carrying out. The Department of Homeland Security has already seized dozens of web sites merely for linking to copyrighted material, despite the fact that such material isn’t even hosted on the web site itself, a process the Electronic Frontier Foundation has criticized as, “Blunt instruments that cause unacceptable collateral damage to free speech rights.” Most recently, the DHS seized a popular music blog and shut down the web site for over a year on charges it now admits were completely false.

Under SOPA, even domain name server (DNS) forwarding, a core functionality of the internet as a whole, would have to be suspended for any site accused of “piracy”. Enacting the legislation would constitute a massive internet-wide operation.

Furthermore, experts contend that anyone who is determined to download pirated content from a forbidden site could easily switch their computer settings to bypass SOPA restrictions, by using a foreign-based DNS, for example.

In short, intense lobbying from the entertainment industry, urging the government to protect copyrighted content, is being used as yet another front by an establishment hell bent on restricting freedom of speech and the free flow of information to ramp up a long running crack down on the internet.

As we have ceaselessly documented, legislation is being drafted left, right and center in an effort to ensure complete control over cyberspace.

Lawmakers like Senator Joe Lieberman have teamed up with Department of Homeland Security officials to push draconian legislation in an effort to mimic the Communist Chinese system of policing the Internet.

Legislation such as The Protecting Cyberspace as a National Asset Act is written around the notion that big government decides who can say what on the web. The nightmare vision provides the President the power to shut down the entire Internet with a figurative flick of a switch.

Simultaneously, legislation such as The Cybersecurity Act and the “Protecting Children from Internet Pornographers Act of 2011″ propose allowing the federal government to tap into any digital aspect of every citizen’s information without a warrant. Banking, business and medical records would be wide open to inspection, as well as personal instant message and e mail communications.

The push to restrict and control the internet, as we have repeatedly warned for years, is being pursued by an elite few petrified at the fact that alternative and independent sources of information are now eclipsing corporate and government controlled outlets in terms of audience share, trust, and influence.

Regulation and censorship of the Internet would not only represent a massive assault on free speech, it would also create new roadblocks for e-commerce and as a consequence further devastate the economy. The move, which will not end with SOPA and PIPA, should be met with fierce opposition at every level and from across the political spectrum.

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French workers attend the rally in Paris on January 18, 2012.

Thousands of people have participated in a rally in Paris, attacking French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s plans for dealing with the country’s unemployment crisis, Press TV reports.

As France gauges the international fallout from losing its triple-A credit rating, Sarkozy has called for the formation of an emergency jobs council to try and boost his dipping popularity at home ahead of presidential elections, which are to be held in two rounds in April and May.

After a four-hour-long meeting at the Elysée Palace with labor and business leaders, the president on Wednesday announced an EUR 430 million (USD 550 million) plan to reduce unemployment and restart economic growth.

On Wednesday, the protesters took to the streets of the capital to voice discontent over the measures included in the plan.

Activists have blamed Sarkozy’s failed economic leadership for the official unemployment rate, which stands at over 10 percent, the unofficial figure amounting to over 17 percent, and the recent downgrading of France’s credit rating by the New York-headquartered credit rating agency, the Standard & Poor’s.

The downgrade comes, despite Sarkozy’s having used to present himself as the person capable of steering the eurozone’s second-largest economy out of crisis.

After the meeting, Sarkozy also said that he would introduce his employment plans before the end of January.

The president stated that he would shift part of the burden of social welfare from companies onto consumers and convince workers to agree to payment cuts in exchange for job security.

Source

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Hundreds of Occupy Wall Street activists have rallied on Capitol Hill to “Occupy Congress”, decrying corporate influence on the American government in a direct message to lawmakers.

­The protesters had permission to hold a rally on the Capitol’s West Lawn. However one step outside the sanctioned area brought the risk of arrest.

Demonstrators were unable to resist the temptation to test the limits of police tolerance, and RT’s crew at the scene witnessed several people being arrested.

The protesters say that when the interests of big corporations are at stake on Capitol Hill, their interests, their voice, no longer count.

They are angry at the fact that the influence of money on politics in their country is only set to grow.

Following a Supreme Court decision, corporations are now allowed to funnel as much money as they want into promoting their chosen candidates for political office.

Protesters call it legalized corruption.

The cozy relationship between big business and lawmakers in the US led to a complete lack of oversight as Wall Street ran amok, bringing about the financial crisis of 2008. The ensuing chaos affected not only Americans, but the whole world.

It is understandable that Americans now want money out of politics. But it is easier said than done.

“I think that the tents and the banners are a crucial part of being publicized and being public about it, because it is so easy to ignore a movement, unless it’s in your face” one of the protesters told RT’s Gayane Chichakyan, who was there at the scene.

“The movement has a huge impact. There are a lot of things that are not even talked about in the political agenda usually, which are now being talked about. They are in the news on a constant basis, talking about income inequality, the fact that corporations are running our government and have stolen our elections. So many times we saw the legalized bribery in the campaign finance system and other things which are not as legal,” said another.

But a lot of people, especially outside the movement, are deeply skeptical about whether the protests can actually change anything.

Moving into the night, hundreds more, if not thousands joined the protest and they marched all the way from Capitol Hill to the White House. They were there to protest about, among other things, the National Defense Authorization Act – NDAA.

Whether the demonstrations succeed in persuading the US government to changes its policies or not, one thing is certain: they are taking control of the agenda for media focus and public debate in a manner not seen in the US for some time.

Source

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• Bloggers unite to crush SOPA

Wikipedia going on strike

The world’s most popular online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, is going on strike on Wednesday. The “knowledge blackout” is aimed at protecting the Internet – and the website’s very existence – from online censorship.

The Wikipedia community and the Wikimedia foundation decided on a global blackout of the English version of the website for 24 hours starting at 05:00 UTC on January 18. The move followed a heated discussion which attracted the highest number of participants in the project’s 11-year history.

The blackout of one of the Internet’s most-visited places is meant to stop SOPA and PIPA, two controversial anti-piracy bills currently on the table in the US Congress. The bills, if they pass into law, would greatly increase the powers of law enforcement agencies and copyright holders to prosecute online infringement.

The bills would cripple the Internet, effectively killing all websites allowing user-uploaded content, endangering potential whistleblowers and severely damaging online freedom of speech, say its numerous opponents. Those include Internet giants Google, Yahoo, Facebook, AOL, Mozilla Corporation, and the human rights organizations Reporters Without Borders, Human Rights Watch and the ACLU, as well as journalists, lawyers and many others.

Supporters, mainly entertainment industry companies, say the legislation is necessary to combat online crimes.

Wikipedians hope the knowledge blackout will greatly raise public awareness of the threat and put pressure on legislators. The only pages which will be available to users during the action are those related to SOPA, PIPA and the protest.

The community was split roughly in half over whether the blackout should be limited to the US or go global. The latter point of view finally prevailed. “American law is America’s business, but law that affects Wikipedia worldwide is an issue of worldwide interest,” one of the editors argued.

The protest move was inspired by a similar action in Italy in October 2011, where local Wikipedia went down for three days in a protest against a bill submitted to the country’s parliament.

Source

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