North Korea successfully launched a rocket on Wednesday, boosting the credentials of its new leader and stepping up the threat the isolated and impoverished state poses to opponents.
The rocket, which North Korea says put a weather satellite into orbit, has been labeled by the United States, South Korea and Japan as a test of technology that could one day deliver a nuclear warhead capable of hitting targets as far away as the continental United States.
“The satellite has entered the planned orbit,” a North Korean television news reader clad in traditional Korean garb announced, after which the station played patriotic songs with the lyrics “Chosun (Korea) does what it says”.
The rocket was launched just before 10 a.m. (0100 GMT), according to defense officials in South Korea and Japan, and was more successful than a rocket launched in April that flew for less than two minutes.
READ ON: North Korea launches rocket, raising nuclear arms stakes
Police pepper spray anti-austerity protesters in Portland
November 4, 2012Several anti-austerity protesters were pepper-sprayed by police Saturday afternoon in the Lloyd District apparently over the issue of what route the protesters were marching along.
The Portland Police Bureau said the event, which grew to several hundred demonstrators, did not have a permit.
There was one arrest, and police said they used pepper spray after demonstrators used wooden shields to directly confront police officers.
Meredith Reese, 31, of the Portland Action Lab, said not everyone knew the route. When the group turned left on Northeast 14th Avenue from Multnomah Street, a line of police officers blocked them from passing.
She said several high school students headed the rally. When a few protesters tried to push through, Portland police forces, including officers in riot gear and several police on horse, tackled them and sprayed pepper-spray into the crowd. At least five people dropped to the ground, Reese said.
“It was really crazy how the police started spraying everybody,” Reese said. “It was unexpected.”
She said the police seemed to target those holding signs.“They were going after people I think just to discourage us,” she said. “But this is just the beginning. It’s going to be a long fight.”
Reese said the event was meant to be family-friendly.
“I think the police targeted people based on what they were wearing and their signs,” she said.
Portland police said in a release Saturday afternoon, “In the weeks leading up to this event, the Police Bureau attempted to contact event organizers to discuss the intent of the march and to ensure that the event would be peaceful. To date, no organizers or responsible parties responded to these requests.
“It should be clear that free speech events do not require a permit; but, marches or demonstrations occurring in public streets that restrict movement of other community members do require a permit issued by the city of Portland.”
Marcher Laura Czarniecki is a certified elementary education teacher but started working for a private preschool when she couldn’t find a job.
The 31-year-old stood was among the demonstrators earlier Saturday as hundred they rallied together against austerity cuts Saturday afternoon at Holladay Park in Northeast Portland.The group marched along Northeast Multnomah Street.
The protesters represented different facets “the 99 percent,” and fought for causes such as health care reform, cutting military spending and, like Czarniecki, public education.
“I believe strongly in social services for all,” she said. “I am deeply troubled by the privatization of our public education systems.”
Most of the protesters were peaceful, chanting “Enough is enough.” They whistled. They waved flags and signs. Then they took to the streets.
Nicholas Caleb, 29, a spokesman for Portland Action Lab, said the rally was an attempt in continuation of the Occupy Portland movement to bring together those fighting for different causes in order to bring down austerity cuts.
“It’s another effort to get that energy organized,” he said. “People oppose the status quo. Occupy was one of those and there will be many more.”
Caleb said he hopes the rally will make a difference.
“Each act of dissent shows the reality,” he said. “People are suffering and desperate. These types of rallies show that the energy is still here and will be for a while.”
Organizers said they had hoped to draw as many as 1,000 people to participate in a mass demonstration against corporations.
The event is organized by Portland Action Lab, a group that spun out of Occupy Portland gatherings and organized the F29 Shut Down the Corporations protest last February and the N17 Occupy the Banks action. Occupy Portland and other organizations are endorsing the event.
Organizers are hoping protesters in other cities across the country will also stage demonstrations as part of the campaign. “Mobilizing the Saturday before the election was an intentional tactic to call attention to the lack of true democracy in the political system,” the group said in a press release. “Both political parties have agreed to force the burden of this ‘crisis’ on the people.”
(via ragemovement)
More Live-Action “Akira” Storyboard Art
The Akira live-action movie may currently be in production limbo, but that hasn’t stopped the outpour of storyboard art that’s recently hit the web.
Part of me is starting to think that these releases are meant to generate positive interest in the film, or at least suggest to fans that maybe this wasn’t going to be Dragonball Evolution 2: Electric Boogaloo. I’ll let you be the judge.
More info and images after the break.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has admitted that some of his most famous media adventures with wildlife have been carefully staged but has said they were worthwhile because they drew the public’s attention to important conservation projects.
His macho appearances with everything from tigers to whales have been a staple of Russian state TV for years, cementing his image as a man of action but drawing mockery from critics who have likened them to Soviet-style propaganda.
Although Putin’s spokesman has previously revealed that at least one of the stunts was a set-up, Putin until now has appeared to play along with the exercises, allowing state media to present them as they seem rather than how they really are.
But in a rare meeting with a Kremlin critic after his latest wildlife stunt - taking to the skies in a light aircraft with a group of cranes last week - Putin admitted he had often taken part in media exercises which were carefully staged.
Sometimes, he said the stunts had been over the top.
(via fyeaheasterneurope)
Only one American has been busted so far with the aid of a predator surveillance drone since domestic law enforcement began using the weapons of war-turned-spy machines in the last few years. Thanks to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) documents obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) this spring, we know there are 60 entities (including the military, various federal agencies, local police and universities) in 20 states permitted to use drones. But the case of Rodney Brossart of Lakota, North Dakota, represents the first time a drone has been unleashed by police (in conjunction with the Department of Homeland Security) to help sniff a suspect out of his own property. Once police knew where he was and that he wasn’t armed, a SWAT team swooped in and grabbed Brossart and his family members. This final action and his subsequent arrest occurred after a heated cattle dispute led to “sovereignist” Brossart & family allegedly chasing police off their 3,000 acre farm with guns and engaging in a 16-hour standoff. Read more about Rodney Brossart here and here.
Sounds like the Old West range war meets Minority Report (remember, those creepy robotic spider spies?), but this weekend it became a much bigger and very real story, as Brossart’s motion for dismissal based on what he believed to be the unconstitutional use of drone surveillance by the government was rejected by the court and the charges against him upheld. According to U.S News & World Report’s Jason Koebler, who has been following Brossart’s travails:
Brossart’s lawyer argued that law enforcement’s “warrantless use of [an] unmanned military-like surveillance aircraft” and “outrageous governmental conduct” warranted dismissal of the case, according to court documents obtained by U.S. News. District Judge Joel Medd wrote that “there was no improper use of an unmanned aerial vehicle” and that the drone “appears to have had no bearing on these charges being contested here,” according to the documents.
Experts suggested that Brossart’s case was thin from the outset as the Supreme Court had already upheld the use of helicopter surveillance of private property in the 1986 case California v. Ciraolo. In that case, the highest court said the police did not violate the Fourth Amendment rights of Dante Carlo Ciraolo, who was growing marijuana in his backyard. The police helicopter’s warrantless “hover and stare” at his uncovered cultivation from 1,000 feet was well outside Ciraolo’s reasonable expectation of privacy. SCOTUS then reaffirmed this precedent three years later when it sided with the government in upholding a conviction against a man who was busted for growing pot in his 5-acre backyard. In Florida v. Riley, the court said it was perfectly constitutional for police to gather evidence, without warrant, by hovering 400 feet in a helicopter above the man’s property, peeking into two broken windows of his private greenhouse where the illegal weed was growing.
This does not bode well for folks hoping to draw a line in the sand against the dragonfly stealthiness of drone surveillance in America. And that’s the key. Unlike the damnable noise made by your standard helicopter, drones, which can get lower, are quiet and often undetectable. Brossart said he didn’t even know about the drone on his property until the case was presented to him in court. Drones are intrusive, and we know from experience that if the government, not to mention private corporations once they get the green light, will presume sweeping authority until the courts tell them to knock it off.
Right now, those 60 aforementioned entities have taken out some 750 authorizations from the FAA to use drone technology on U.S soil since 2006. No one knows how many of these mechanical insects are being deployed (here is a map of what we do know). But expect to see much more of their use in law enforcement surveillance operations — now that they’ve been given the blessing to use them, sans warrant.
The Akira Project Aims For Live-Action Trailer
As a general rule, I tend to take remakes and adaptations with a grain of salt. I’ve been let down in the past by horrible renditions of my favorite films, novels, comics, and games, and it’s gotten to the point where I don’t even bat a lash at certain iterations. I’m sure you can relate.
So when I stumbled upon The Akira Project, I’ll admit that I was skeptical. There’s only so much that a fan-made film (or trailer, in this instance) can accomplish, purely out of a lack of resources and budget constraints. Upon closer inspection, I realized this project had something that a lot of remakes didn’t: it had heart. Each member working on The Akira Project is honestly doing it with love. That, in itself, was enough to incite me to take a closer look.
CineGround, the Canadian production company responsible for helming the project, are eager to take their adaption of Akira to the next level. They have a tight-knit team working to keep this adaptation as close to the original as possible. Their ultimate goal? “To do Akira justice.”
Hollywood has been tossing around the idea of a live-action Akira film for years, with talks of present-day Manhattan replacing Neo-Tokyo and other such blasphemies. CineGround wants to turn that idea on its head, and their desire to fund a full-length trailer for the manga-turned-anime seems like it has the right idea.
You can find out more information about the project here, and you can donate over at their IndieGoGo if you want to help these guys get their awesome project off the ground. If this is in any way successful, there’s a good chance that this could truly mean some wonderful things for the world of Akira.
at the very least i can get behind no kristen stewart, no neo-new york and no white washing
Seventy members of an Islamist sect in Russia have been found living in an underground bunker without heat or sunlight on the outskirts of the city of Kazan, according to Russian media.
The sect members – including 20 children, the youngest of whom was 18 months old – are thought to have been underground for nearly a decade.
Many of the children were born underground and had never seen daylight until the prosecutors discovered them on 1 August. After health checks, a 17-year-old girl turned out to be pregnant.
The group, known as the Fayzarahmanist sect, was named after its 83-year-old organiser Fayzrahman Satarov, who declared himself a prophet and his house an independent Islamic state, according to a report by state TV channel Vesti.
Satarov was described as a former deputy to a Sunni Islamic cleric in the 1970s. His followers were encouraged to read his manuscripts and most were banned from leaving their eight-storey underground bunker, which had been dug in the basement of a building, Vesti said.
Why would the United States choose such allies to protect its so-called “strategic interests.” On the face of it, this would seem like a formula for endless war in the region. Even before the mass killings of Tutsis in 1994, they never comprised more than 15 percent of the population in Rwanda or in Burundi, where Hutu people make up the vast majority. Having lorded it over the Hutus during and prior to the arrival of European colonialism, and having massacred many Hutu in both nations after independence, the Tutsi are not loved by their fellow countrymen. They have since become a primary source of destabilization and genocide in Congo. So the question is: Why does the United States place its strategic interests in the hands of the elite of a warlike minority in the heart of Central Africa? Why would Washington invest millions in minority-ruled governments of tiny countries like Rwanda and Burundi, which can only be sources of permanent instability in the region? Don’t the Americans understand that support for tiny, aggressive elites guarantees continued chaos?
The answer is: Yes, they do understand. Since independence, U.S. policy in Africa has almost always been to choose chaos in those places where it cannot rule directly. And chaos brings genocide. The U.S. reasons that, at any given moment, chaos contains many options, an infinity of possibilities for superpower action – whereas stable regimes with broad popular support provide less room for the foreigner to maneuver, less possibilities for a quick change of policy or regime.
Which is one reason that China looks good to Africa and to much of the rest of the formerly colonized world. The Chinese do not foment coups, or encourage whole regions to become saturated in arms. They just want to do business in a stable environment. That’s why China has surpassed the U.S. as Africa’s trading partner, and why U.S. imperialism will ultimately be defeated. Because nobody wants someone around who spreads chaos and mass death everywhere he goes.
— The Genocidal Fruits of U.S. Africa Policy (via arielnietzsche)NSA whistleblower: They’re assembling information on every U.S. citizen
NSA whistleblower William Binney was interviewed by internet journalist Geoff Shively at the HOPE Number 9 hackers conference in New York on Friday.
Binney, who resigned from the NSA in 2001 over its domestic surveillance program, had just delivered a keynote speech in which he revealed what Shively called “evidence which we have not seen until this point.”
“They’re pulling together all the data about virtually every U.S. citizen in the country … and assembling that information,” Binney explained. “So government is accumulating that kind of information about every individual person and it’s a very dangerous process.” He estimated that something like 1.6 billion logs have been processed since 2001.
Shively and livestreamer Tim Pool, who was filming the interview, concluded by noting that videos of Binney’s keynote address will be available shortly.
In case you weren’t scared yet.
This Week in War. A Friday round-up of what happened and what’s been written in the world of war and military/security affairs this week. It’s a mix of news reports, policy briefs, blog posts and longform journalism.
- Reports of a new massacre in Syria, this time of more than 200 people in the village of Tremseh near Hama.
- Alarmingly, the US believes that Syria has begun to move part of its chemical weapons stockpile out of storage facilities.
- The Syrian ambassador to Iraq has defected.
- The video Syria Through a Lens pays tribute to the life and work of slain young Syrian filmmaker Bassel Shahade. He was a 22-year-old Fulbright scholar studying at Syracuse University.
- The Atlantic posted a story about Women Under Siege’s crowdsourced project to map the use of rape as a weapon in the war in Syria.
- At Russia’s arms bazaar in June, TIME followed around the delegation from Syria. The story is available to subscribers only, but the LightBox blog has a write-up and photo slideshow.
- According to the office of the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, violence by settlers against Palestinians in the West Bank has increased roughly 150 percent each year since 2008.
- Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi has agreed to abide by a court ruling that struck down his order to reconvene parliament.
- Wartime Prime Minister and leader of the moderate liberal National Forces Alliance Mahmoud Jibril has taken a huge landslide lead over the Islamists in Libya’s elections.
- Jailed Moroccan rapper El Haqed announced a hunger strike through a friend earlier this week.
- The UN special tribunal for the 2005 assassination of Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri has decided to push ahead with trials in absentia of four suspects.
- Omani author Hammoud Rashedi and poet Hamad al-Karusi have been sentenced for defamation of the sultanate.
- UN peacekeepers have been redeployed to Goma in the DRC to protect the city from mutineers.
- Congolese warlord Thomas Lubanga was sentenced to 14 years by the Hague for recruiting child soldiers.
- Aid workers in Kenya’s Dadaab refugee camp, the world’s largest, are appealing for help, saying they are running out of funds and tens of thousands are at risk as a result.
- Ibrahim al-Qosi, a convicted member of Al Qaeda, has been repatriated from Guantánamo Bay prison to Sudan.
- South Sudan marked the first anniversary of its independence.
- The US granted Afghanistan special ally status.
- Afghan President Hamid Karzai called on Taliban chief Mullah Omar to give up fighting, saying he could return and even run for office as long as he gave up violence.
- An Afghan women’s affairs official in Laghman, Hanifa Safi, was assassinated in a car bombing today, which has left her husband and daughter critically injured.
- Matthieu Aikins investigated the rash of poisonings of Afghan schoolgirls and came up with evidence that the recent suspected poisonings were collective psychogenic illness brought on by fear. He gets lots of points for never once referring to the girls as hysterical.
- A few extracts from Michael Semple’s interview with a senior Taliban official. You can read the full interview in the print edition of The New Statesman.
- The US will apparently retain control over non-Afghan detainees at Bagram.
- In a letter to opposition activist Mohammed Nourizad, an anonymous former general from Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps gave insight into dissent and fracture among the IRGC’s ranks and accused the Ayatollah of having blood on his hands.
- The U.S. has announced a tightening of sanctions against Iran, seeking to plug loopholes and impose further measures. Fears of violence in the Persian Gulf as a result of sanctioning have driven oil prices up.
- The US has deployed tiny underwater drones to the Persian Gulf to clear Iranian mines.
- The FBI is investigating a top Chinese maker of phone equipment for selling spy gear to Iran.
- Bahraini activist Nabeel Rajab and president of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights was jailed for a tweet against Prime Minister Khalifah Ibn Sulman al-Khalifah.
- The U.S. formally eased sanctions on Myanmar.
- Secretary Clinton became the first Secretary of State to visit Laos since John Foster Dulles in 1955, the first high-ranking official to visit since the Vietnam War era.
- Satellite imagery shows increased activity at a North Korean nuclear facility.
- Bosnia marked the anniversary of the 1995 Srebrenica massacre, where 8000 and more Muslim men and boys were killed by Bosnian Serb forces, with a mass reburial of 500 victims.
- Between 2001 and 2006, Boston College recorded interviews with current and former members of the I.R.A. on the condition that the recordings would not be shared in the interviewees’ lifetimes. A court has now ordered the college to turn over the tapes of Dolours Price’s interviews to assist with an investigation into the 1972 killing of Jean McConville.
- The notoriously grueling Marine Corps’ Infantry Officer Course will open to women in September. The commander of the Basic School says that he has no more concern with women than with men and that he expects they will be well-trained upon entering the course.
- A letter home from a 22-year-old Kurt Vonnegut, writing home from a repatriation camp in 1945 after his stint as a P.O.W. in a Dresden work camp known as Slaughterhouse 5. He survived the bombing of Dresden.
Photo: Camp Leatherneck, Helmand Province, Afghanistan. June 2, 2012. A Marine removes a bandolier of ammo from his neck during a shooting lesson for Afghan Uniformed Police. Adek Berry/AFP/Getty. Check out the rest of The Atlantic’s collection of photography from the month of June in Afghanistan.
(via brashblacknonbeliever)
