a couple internet blogs, one from palestine/ one from bolivia

[greentreee]

article from:
http://interact.newint.org/beach-life



GAZA BLOG: BEACH LIFE
Submitted by Louisa Waugh on July 1, 2008 - 5:51am.

Ten days into the Tahdiya, or ‘Calm’ between Hamas and Israel, we haven’t seen anything change here inside Gaza. In fact the only real difference I’ve noticed is that over the last couple of weeks the power cuts have been worse than ever. Like many other people, I have power cuts at home for eight hours at a time now. So the food in my fridge gets ruined and wasted.
Please tell me how that contributes to security in Israel.


Photo: Louisa Waugh

On Saturday, a group of us decided to go to the beach for a picnic. This being Gaza, a culture where people enjoy doing things together in large numbers, there were about 25 of us, women and kids, and except for me they were all locals. We decamped en masse a few miles outside Gaza city, on a long strip of tranquil beach, where the Mediterranean looked clean and enticing. The state of the Gaza Mediterranean Sea has been creating a stink over the last few months. Because of the ongoing Israeli siege, the Gaza Water Utility is operating on a third of the fuel it needs to clean Gaza’s sewage and waste water, and is also chronically short of essential spare parts. To avoid flooding residential areas with sewage, it has been dumping 50-60 million litres of untreated and partially treated sewage and waste water into the Gaza Mediterranean every day for the last six months. Some of the beaches around Gaza city are now, literally, swimming in sewage.

This sewage dumping is a tragedy for many reasons: the local sea, and sea life, is being slowly poisoned, while families have nowhere else to go to relax and enjoy a sense of space. My friends assured me our strip of beach was clean – and after a lengthy picnic we plunged in. The water was warm as a bath, and we all became kids, splashing and wriggling in the water as more women and children joined us in a rabble of laughter and life-affirming fun. Five-year-old Sandera grabbed my hand and jumped up and down, drenched and beaming. ‘Hurriyah!’ she shrieked. ‘Hurriyah!’ Freedom!


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article from:
http://interact.newint.org/blog/vanessa-ba...bolivia-divided

BOLIVIA DIVIDED
Submitted by Vanessa Baird on June 24, 2008 - 4:53pm.

Bolivia divided


It comes as no surprise that the southern province of Tarija voted for autonomy from Bolivia last weekend.

The province – which contains much of the country’s oil and gas wealth – was joining three others, Santa Cruz, Beni and Pando, in seeking independence from central government.

But the naked racism, hatred and violence with which right-wingers, opposed to indigenous president Evo Morales, are pursing their autonomy campaign is shocking even to hardened locals.

Recently, in the city of Sucre, 50 indigenous community leaders were violently attacked by right-wing activists, forced to strip and parade naked around the central square and watch their traditional clothing being burned.

‘Kill the Indian, they said, and all of this occurred in the presence of the President of the Municipal Council of Sucre, Fidel Herrera, and the Mayor Aidée Nava; they applauded everything these violent groups did,’ reported the Mayor of Mojocoya, Ángel Vallejos, who was punched and forced to walk on his knees.
A reporter for Radio ALCO – working in partnership with the British aid agency CAFOD to give indigenous people a voice – was beaten and drenched with alcohol and left fearing for her life.

When I was in Santa Cruz a few months ago several of the people I met described the, mainly white and mestizo, autonomy-seekers as ‘racists’ (see NI 410 – I will return) Subsequent events have proved that the word was not being used lightly. Humiliation seems to be a key part of the opposition’s psychological arsenal against indigenous peoples who have been enjoying something of a cultural revolution since Evo Morales’ electoral victory in late 2005.

Autonomy is red hot issue for more than cultural reasons, though. Bolivia depends on gas and oil wealth which brings in 1.2 billion dollars a year in taxes and revenues. The Government’s raft of new social welfare reforms such as free health care for the young and the old, grants for children in education, universal old aged pension, and specific programmes for indigenous development, are all paid for out gas and oil revenues. The traditionally ruling elites in the would-be autonomous provinces want to have greater control over such revenues to use as they see fit. These elites are also fiercely – at times violently – resisting an ambitious land reform programme that will take away some land from families with massive estates.

So what is in store now for Morales and the Movement Toward Socialism party he heads? On 10 August there will be a recall referendum for the President, Vice-President and eight of the country’s nine Governors. If successful in the ballot, Morales says he wants to hold a public referendum on a draft constitution which has been awaiting approval since last year. The Constitution would, among other things, enshrine land redistribution to Bolivia’s indigenous majority and a sharing of wealth with the poorer western regions. MAS, which still has strong support in the West of the country, including La Paz, and from the social movements that brought it to power, is saying it expects a repetition of the 53 per cent victory it polled in 2005. But with food shortages, strikes and rising inflation to add to their woes, it looks like tough times ahead.


For more see


http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1347/68/


http://www.boliviainfoforum.org.uk/


http://www.newint.org/features/2008/04/01/power-struggle/

[GhostChild]

Too Those Who Can Not See: We Sovereigns Are Under Attack. All Those With Sovereign Original Allodial Claim Are Being Harressed: Intimdated: Schemed: Threatened: Socially Molested. I Keep Waiting For That U.N. CHARTER FOR INDIGENOUS RIGHTS: Too Actually Meaning Some: Force And Effect To The Protection Of The Allodial Creditor's: Benefactor's: Beneficairy's: Who Have Yet To Be Protected By The GREAT FLEET OF U.N._CORPORATESHIPS: I Think A Course Correction Is In Order. Sad But True: It Is Not Good To See: That We Are Not Alone.....The GhostChild.

[GhostChild]

Well everyone It happened in Nicaragua Sovereignty for Indigenous peoples 27 groups!
What great news. Nicaragua is the geographical center of the Western hemisphere. This is very good.

Carol
Mazatepetl
The Deer Nation

Topic 4: National Assembly Committee approves Law of Indigenous Peoples

In another obvious sign that it makes a difference which party is in power, this week the Committee on Ethnic Affairs of the National Assembly approved the Law of Indigenous Peoples of the North Central Pacific of Nicaragua. This law will probably go to the floor of the Assembly sometime this year and if passed will establish state recognition of four ethnic groups on the Pacific side of the country and would turn over possession of large expanses of land that would be owned by the groups communally. The first Sandinista government negotiated peace with the indigenous groups of the Caribbean side of the country and passed the 1986 Autonomy Law, the most advanced of any country on earth, although routinely ignored and undermined by succeeding right-wing governments.

The law would also recognize the Councils of Elders as a legal form of organization of the indigenous peoples. This recognition does not exist under current laws.

The Chamorro and Bolaños governments had presented reports to the UN Committee against Racial Discrimination in 1995 and 2007 respectively, claiming that in the Central and Northern Pacific, no indigenous groups existed and therefore no racial discrimination existed. Ironically, if the law is approved, the state would recognize the royal titles given to the indigenous peoples by the Spanish crown in colonial times. People now on these lands would lose ownership and have to make leasing arrangements with the indigenous people.

Consuelo de Jesus Rivera, President of the Coalition of Indigenous Peoples of the Pacific, Center, and North, which includes 27 indigenous groups, said that property owners should not be alarmed because they will not be removed from the land. "They only need to respect and preserve the property...we will just legalize them." According to Rivera, they will need to protect natural resources and pay a tax to the indigenous owners, similar to what they currently pay to a municipality.

My Mother's village Masatepe has been virtual for a year
http://masatepe.org/historia/mas-ecologia.htm

[GhostChild]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush signed a law on Thursday overhauling the rules for eavesdropping on terrorism suspects but immediately met a civil liberties challenge calling it a threat to Americans' privacy.

"This law will protect the liberties of our citizens while maintaining the vital flow of intelligence," Bush said at a White House ceremony to mark a rare legislative victory for the president during his last year in office.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit in Manhattan federal court as Bush signed the measure and called for the law to be voided as a violation of constitutional speech and privacy protections.

"Spying on Americans without warrants or judicial approval is an abuse of government power, and that's exactly what this law allows," ACLU Executive Director Anthony Romero said in announcing the suit.

The action was filed on behalf of human-rights groups, journalists, labor organizations and others who say they fear the law will allow the U.S. government to monitor their activities, including compiling of critical reports on the United States.

Bush quickly signed the bill a day after Congress gave it final approval, with Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama dropping earlier opposition to vote for passage. Obama's Republican rival, Sen. John McCain, has supported the bill but was absent for Wednesday's vote.

The bill authorizes U.S. intelligence agencies to eavesdrop without court approval on foreign targets believed to be outside the United States.

The administration says the measure will allow it to swiftly track terrorists. But the suit charges the law permits warrantless surveillance of phone calls and e-mails of U.S. citizens who may have legal and legitimate reasons for contacting people targeted by government spying.

The bill seeks to minimize such eavesdropping on Americans, but the suit says the safeguards are inadequate.

The law lets government "conduct intrusive surveillance without ever telling a court who it intends to surveil, what phone lines and e-mail addresses it intends to monitor, where its surveillance targets are located, or why it's conducting the surveillance," said ACLU national security director Jameel Jaffer, the lead attorney in the suit.

The most contentious issue in negotiations over the bill was a provision that grants liability protection to telecommunication companies that took part in a warrantless domestic spying program Bush began after the September 11 attacks.

The law shields those firms from billions of dollars in potential damages from privacy lawsuits.

McCain criticized Obama's vote in favor of the law as an inconsistency, and ACLU Legislative Director Caroline Fredrickson called it "very disappointing."

The Democrat's campaign had earlier said he would support efforts to block legislation with a telecommunications immunity provision, but Obama voted for the overall bill Bush signed after casting a losing vote to strip the immunity provision.

"Given the choice between voting for an improved yet imperfect bill, and losing important surveillance tools, I've chosen to support the current compromise," Obama said on his campaign Web site.

(Additional reporting by Edith Honan in New York; Editing by David Alexander and David Wiessler)