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Is Prison Obsolete runs at Brisbane’s Royal on the Park from Wednesday 19th
150 years since the abolition of slavery the practice has moved from the farms of the USA to the prisons, according to new documentary Locked Up: in the Land of the Free.
The prison population is now 7 times larger than it was in 1970 and 40% of the prisoners in the US are African-American. You are six times more likely to be locked up as a black man than anyone else.
The 8th “Is Prison Obsolete” conference takes place in Brisbane today, tomorrow and Friday. US activist Angela Davis is keynote speaker at the conference organised by Sisters Inside and held at the Royal on the Park.
Mass incarceration in the US is the new form of slavery targeting Black people.
The US prison population rose from 357,000 in 1970 to 2.3 million in 2014, the documentary notes. While Black men account for some 6.6% of the US population, they currently make up 40.2% of the prison population.
Turkey and Russia signed a deal last week securing a gas pipeline from Russia through Turkey to Europe. The deal makes Turkey the gateway for European fossil fuels to travel from the source.
Military analysts note that the USA is fighting to retain control of fossil fuels in Syria. Were Russia and Turkey to gain free access to Syrian fuel the USA would be cut out of a large section of the European market.
Harvard Professor Mitchell A Orenstein observed “the people of Syria can only count the blessings bestowed on them by the oil beneath their homes.”
Turkey and Russia on Monday signed the Turkish Stream gas pipeline agreement.
A region already marred by pipeline geopolitics gets another one! The West is not going to be amused by this new bonhomie between Russia and Turkey. Their animosity will be played out in the battle fields of Syria, while the people of Syria suffer. We don’t know what’s in the offing there after.
Global Cleanup’s photograph of larger items in the Gyre
A sea of plastic garbage larger than Australia is visible from space as it swirls around the Pacific Ocean, trapped by Ocean currents in what is known as a Gyre. The core of the North Pacific Gyre is one million square kilometres in size. That is completely covered by floating plastic, ranging from entire items or garbage to small grains. Even as the plastic breaks down into microparticles it hangs together, creating the so-called dead-zone that is uninhabitable to the vast bulk of lifeforms.
Great Pacific garbage patch’ far bigger than imagined
The heart of the garbage patch is thought to be around 1m sq km, with the periphery spanning a further 3.5m sq km. The dimensions of this morass of waste are continually morphing, caught in one of the ocean’s huge rotating currents. The north Pacific gyre has accumulated a soup of plastic waste, including large items and smaller broken-down micro plastics that can be eaten by fish and enter the food chain. The great Pacific garbage patch is growing so fast that it is visible from space.
Social media feeds information to US agencies despite Wikileaks evidence
Google and Yahoo are cooperating with US Government agencies to shape search results so that “mainstream” views are given prominence over dissent.
New Google technology called Jigsaw has already been tested on jihadist messages and Yahoo has confessed to screening and storing email on behalf of US agencies.
At the same time, Wikileaks celebrates ten years of activism to resist this trend, with its founder, Julian Assange, hiding from US authorities in the Ecuadorian embassy in London and an active campaign by Hollywood and mainstream media to discredit him.
In this premier episode of The Geopolitical Report we examine Google’s Jigsaw, an emerging technology that will be used to counter ideas considered “extremist” by the global elite. Initially beta tested on radical Islamists, Google and its partners plan to leverage the technology to marginalize and ultimately eliminate opposition to the establishment.
Yahoo ‘secretly monitored emails on behalf of the US government’
Company complied with a classified directive, scanning hundreds of millions of Yahoo Mail accounts at the behest of NSA or FBI,Yahoo last year secretly built a custom software program to search all of its customers’ incoming emails for specific information at the request of US intelligence officials,
WikiLeaks, 10 Years Of Pushing The Boundaries Of Free Speech
WikiLeaks came into existence. How it changed free speech! How it motivated more truth tellers to come forward ! Let there be more WikiLeaks, more transparency in governance.
The Sierra Club develops technology to empower locals against corporate feudalism
Greece is in turmoil again after the parliament narrowly passed legislation moving the ownership of all public utilities to the nation’s creditors. Unions and advocates of social democracy have protested the move with support of global activists against corporate feudalism.
In separate news, US based activist group the Sierra Club has developed a tool that shows Americans which foreign corporations are profiting from fossil fuels mined in their locality.
One more country to be sold off to big business
Greece approves plan to transfer state utilities to new asset fund
State assets, including water and electricity utilities, are to be transferred to a new asset fund created by international creditors. The plans have sparked demonstrations and public sector strikes across the country.
TTP & TTIP: Map Shows How Trade Deals Would Enable ‘Polluter Power-Grab’
The environmental organization plotted out the coast-to-coast potential threats on a new interactive map. It captures over 400 fossil fuel projects, and “for the first time … gives people a chance to see if toxic trade is in their own backyard. How do the deals enable such a power grab? By way of a corporate-friendly provision included in many trade deals.”
KashmirGlobal photograph of corpses killed in border war
Kashmir is mired in lockdown with strict curfews keeping residents in their homes without the use of telephones and internet as the ongoing territorial dispute between India and Pakistan escalates.
India’s home minister has accused Pakistan of being a terrorist state and Pakistan’s defense minister has threatened to use nuclear weapons. India has also threatened to revoke the 56 year old Indus Water Treaty that governs the sharing of water from the Indus River that flows through Kashmir.
Water is an increasingly scarce resource in the region as water tables fall due to pumping of ground water and Himalayan ice disappears.
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Why the India-Pakistan War Over Water Is So Dangerous
As New Delhi and Islamabad trade nuclear threats and deadly attacks, a brewing war over shared water resources threatens to turn up the violence.
How to Stop Kashmir from Spiraling into All-Out War
Kashmir has again become the venue for a confrontation between India and Pakistan. Seeking to restore order, the authorities in Kashmir instituted curfews, shut down newspapers, internet and cellphone services.
