This is an open letter to NDP leader Adrian Dix and his Energy Critic, John Horgan.
It’s time, gentlemen, to pee or get off the pot.
The issues of the proposed Enbridge pipelines and tanker traffic on our coast demand your immediate statement of policy.
In
order that there be no misunderstandings, here are the facts, gentlemen
- not assertions or opinions but plain simple to understand facts: A spill from both pipelines and tankers is a dead certainty. There is no way these spills can be cleaned up.
Navy Training Blasts Marine Mammals with Harmful Sonar: Wildlife Protection Agency Challenged for Not Doing Its Job
by Earthjustice
SAN
FRANCISCO - A coalition of conservation and American
Indian groups today sued the National Marine Fisheries Service for
failing to protect thousands of whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals and
sea lions from U.S. Navy warfare training exercises along the coasts of
California, Oregon and Washington.
Earthjustice,
representing InterTribal Sinkyone Wilderness Council, Center for
Biological Diversity, Friends of the Earth, Friends of the San Juans,
Natural Resources Defense Council and People For Puget Sound, today
filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the District of Northern
California challenging the Fisheries Service’s approval of the Navy’s
training activities in its Northwest Training Range Complex. The
lawsuit calls on the agency to mitigate anticipated harm to marine
mammals and biologically critical areas within the training range that
stretches from Northern California to the Canadian border.
“These
training exercises will harm dozens of protected species of marine
mammals — Southern resident killer whales, blue whales, humpback whales,
dolphins and porpoises — through the use of high-intensity
mid-frequency sonar,” said Steve Mashuda, an Earthjustice attorney
representing the groups. “The Fisheries Service fell down on the job and
failed to require the Navy to take reasonable and effective actions to
protect them.”
New documents cast serious doubt on Provincial Health Officer’s claims that smart meters are safe
by StopSmartMeters.ca
In collaboration with the Coalition to Stop Smart Meters, the directors of StopSmartMeters.ca will be holding a press conference at which we will deliver the two attached documents to the Provincial Health Officer, Dr. Perry Kendall.
Organized labour wants to expand the Canada Pension Plan to provide a better retirement for people. Private pensions are having problems, the CPP can provide a successful alternative as long as we are careful about how it is managed.
We all know about the CPP, but maybe not as much as we think; Stan Dzbik of the Victoria Labour Council fills us in, along with Ken Georgetti of the Canadian Labour Congress, Mike Eso of the VLC, and others...
An important issue that we'd better be keeping our eye on.
On December 7, following the U.S. Supreme Court's
refusal to consider the Philadelphia District Attorney's final avenue of
appeal, current DA Seth Williams announced that he would no longer be seeking a death sentence for the world-renowned death row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal – on death row following his conviction at a 1982 trial deemed unfair by Amnesty International,
the European Parliament, the Japanese Diet, Nelson Mandela, and many
others.
Abu-Jamal's sentence of execution was first “overturned” by a
federal court in December 2001, and during the next ten years, he was
never transferred from death row at the level five supermax prison, SCI
Greene, in rural western Pennsylvania.
Shortly after the DA's announcement in early December, Mumia
Abu-Jamal, now 57 years old, was transferred to SCI Mahanoy in
Frackville, PA, 100 miles from Philadelphia. Once there, it was expected
that he would be released from solitary confinement and transferred
into general population where he would finally have contact visits and
generally less onerous conditions.
However, he was immediately placed in
“Administrative Custody,” in SCI Mahanoy's “Restrictive Housing Unit”
where his conditions of isolation and repression are now in many ways
more extreme than they were on death row.
The World is at a critical crossroads. The Fukushima
disaster in Japan has brought to the forefront the dangers of Worldwide
nuclear radiation.
The crisis in Japan has been described as "a nuclear war without a war". In the words of renowned novelist Haruki Murakami:
"This time no one dropped a bomb on us ... We set the
stage, we committed the crime with our own hands, we are destroying our
own lands, and we are destroying our own lives."
Nuclear radiation --which threatens life on planet
earth-- is not front page news in comparison to the most insignificant
issues of public concern, including the local level crime scene or the
tabloid gossip reports on Hollywood celebrities.
While the long-term repercussions of the Fukushima
Daiichi nuclear disaster are yet to be fully assessed, they are far more
serious than those pertaining to the 1986 Chernobyl disaster in the
Ukraine, which resulted in almost one million deaths*.
Moreover, while all eyes were riveted on the
Fukushima Daiichi plant, news coverage both in Japan and internationally
failed to fully acknowledge the impacts of a second catastrophe at
TEPCO's (Tokyo Electric Power Co Inc) Fukushima Daini nuclear power
plant.
A Whistleblower’s Open Letter to the Citizens of Canada: Prime Minister’s Office Tries to Silence Pipeline Critics; Labels
Environmental Group “Enemy of the Government of Canada” and “Enemy of
the people of Canada.”
by Andrew Frank
Today, I am taking the extraordinary step of risking my career, my reputation and my personal friendships, to act as a whistleblower and expose the undemocratic and potentially illegal pressure the Harper government has apparently applied to silence critics of the Enbridge Northern Gateway oil tanker/pipeline plan.
As I have detailed in a sworn affidavit, no less than three senior managers with TidesCanada and ForestEthics (a charitable project of Tides Canada), have informed me, as the Senior Communications Manager for ForestEthics, that Tides Canada CEO, Ross McMillan,was informed by the Prime Minister’s Office, that ForestEthics is considered an “Enemy of the Government of Canada,” and an “Enemy of the people of Canada.”
This language was apparently part of a threat by the Prime Minister’s Office to challenge the charitable status of Tides Canada if it did not agree to stop funding ForestEthics, specifically its work opposing oilsands expansion and construction of oilsands tanker/pipeline routes in Canada.
This is especially concerning because ForestEthics is a legally registered intervenor in the National Energy Board’s Joint Review Panel process, currently examining the Enbridge oiltanker/pipeline proposal. By attempting to silence a registered participant in the review, I fear the Harper government may have permanently damaged the integrity of this process.
Presented by Bo Filter, MA, Social
Scientist, and Author
Friday, January 27
1:30 P.M
Saint John The Divine Anglican Church
1611 Quadra Street
Free to the public. Bring a
friend.
Sponsored by the World Federalists
Wikileaks: The Haiti
Files
Kim Ives, journalist, filmmaker
and editor of the newspaper Haiti
Liberté, reveals US lies about intervention and aid in Haiti. Straight
from the U.S. diplomatic cables on Haiti,
you will hear how the U.S. conspires to keep Haiti poor, who is
running Haiti, and what happened to the earthquake relief
effort.
Friday, January 27
7:30 pm
University of Victoria
David Strong Building, Room 103
Free Admission
Sponsors: UVic Social Justice Studies, Victoria Peace Coalition,
Victoria Friends of Cuba
More information: info@vicpeace.ca
250-655-6691 http://victoriapeacecoalition.wordpress.com/
The Struggle Continues: US vs. Genuine Reforms at the United Nations
by Ramzy Baroud l PalestineChronicle.com
The country that has long been known to abuse its powers and privileges in the United Nations is now leading a campaign to reform the same organization. While UN reforms are welcomed, if not demanded, by many of its member states, there is little reason to believe the recent US crusade is actually genuine.
Rather, it seems a clear attempt to stifle any semblance of democracy in the world’s leading international institution.
Most American politicians actually despise the UN. While the Security Council is directed or tamed by the US veto (often to shield the US and its close ally Israel from any criticism), other UN bodies are not as easily intimidated. When the UN education and science agency, UNESCO, accepted Palestine’s bid for full membership last October, following a democratic vote by its members, the US could do little do stall the process. Still, it immediately cut funding to the agency (about 20 percent of its total budget).
Hey you redeemers, rebels and radicals out there: Against the backdrop of a global uprising that is simmering in dozens
of countries and thousands of cities and towns, the G8 and NATO will
hold a rare simultaneous summit in Chicago this May.
The world’s
military and political elites, heads of state, 7,500 officials from 80
nations, and more than 2,500 journalists will be there.
And so will we.
On May 1, 50,000 people from all over the world will flock to
Chicago, set up tents, kitchens, peaceful barricades and #OCCUPYCHICAGO
for a month. With a bit of luck, we’ll pull off the biggest
multinational occupation of a summit meeting the world has ever seen.
And this time around we’re not going to put up with the kind of
police repression that happened during the Democratic National
Convention protests in Chicago, 1968 … nor will we abide by any phony
restrictions the City of Chicago may want to impose on our first
amendment rights. We’ll go there with our heads held high and assemble
for a month-long people’s summit … we’ll march and chant and sing and
shout and exercise our right to tell our elected representatives what we
want … the constitution will be our guide.
Deep Green Resistance Responds to Stratfor Intelligence Leaked by Anonymous that Reveals Spying on Occupy Movement and DGR
by DGR
Internet group Anonymous has leaked information from October and
November 2011 suggesting that private intelligence firm STRATFOR has
been working with Texas law enforcement to infiltrate the Occupy
movement and spy on the Deep Green Resistance movement.
In December 2011, Anonymous attacked the STRATFOR website, allegedly
stealing 200 gigabytes of data and shutting the site down for weeks.
This isn’t the first time Anonymous has gone after such corporations.
In
early 2011, Anonymous went after internet security firm HBGary,
releasing private documents that included secret plans by HBGary and
others to attack and discredit Wikileaks on behalf of big banks.
Hey you redeemers, rebels and radicals out there: Against the backdrop of a global uprising that is simmering in dozens
of countries and thousands of cities and towns, the G8 and NATO will
hold a rare simultaneous summit in Chicago this May.
