uawchild
uawchild's JournalThird Russian air strike on Syrian rebel group kills leader
Source: Reuters
Russian air strikes in Syria's Latakia province killed a rebel commander and four other fighters from a group armed by President Bashar al-Assad's foreign enemies, a spokesman for the group said on Tuesday.
The attack on Monday evening marked the third time Russian war planes have targeted the First Coastal Division group since Moscow began its air strikes in support of President Bashar al-Assad on Sept. 30, the group's spokesman Fadi Ahmad said.
He said a further 15 civilians had been killed in the air strike in Jabal Akrad, a rural, mountainous area in the province. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights earlier put the death toll at 45 rebels and civilians.
The First Coastal Division is one of several groups that have received foreign military support including U.S.-made anti-tank missiles, the most potent weapon in the rebels' arsenal. The group, which fights under the umbrella of the "Free Syrian Army", confirmed the death of its chief of staff, Basil Zamo, formerly a captain in the Syrian military. Ahmad said a fighter trained in the use of the anti-tank TOW missiles had also been killed. The Russian jets had struck one of the group's headquarters, and then struck the same target again after rescue workers had arrived on the scene.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/10/20/us-mideast-crisis-syria-latakia-idUSKCN0SE0M420151020
Continued military actions are not the answer. They are the problem.
Civilian casualties will continue to climb until all sides stop thinking they can achieve a military "solution". Clearly, neither Assad, ISIS, nor US-backed moderate Islamist will get the clear-cut victory they each desire.
Once again, its time for compromise and serious peace talks.
Grad students fight back at Yale: “I’m trying to support myself and my son - but it’s not working"
“I should not have to fight for Yale to respect me but I will keep fighting until they do.”
That’s what Grant Mao, a Chinese citizen, who claims his struggles with depression precipitated his expulsion from the university last April, told the New Haven Register during a recent on-campus demonstration in support of graduate student-employees’ right to form a union. Mao told the Register that the university’s administration “did nothing” to help him with his illness, but was quick to inform him that his health insurance was no longer valid — and that he had 15 days to leave the country. “I’m fighting because I want to get reinstated,” Mao said, “but also because I don’t want this to happen to anyone else.”
According to graduate student-employees and organizers, Mao’s story is not unique. And the allegedly brusque manner with which the administration treated him is, they say, not unusual, either. That’s one of the reasons why those urging Yale to recognize its graduate student-employees’ union are calling on the university to stop an anti-union campaign intended to “intimidate and confuse” graduate school faculty and students, and to agree to a neutral — or “no intimidation” — vote.
http://www.salon.com/2015/10/20/graduate_students_fight_back_at_yale_im_trying_to_support_myself_and_my_son_but_its_not_working/
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I am always shocked when stories like this surface about liberal institutions like Yale University. My friends in New Haven say its not just grad students and adjunct profs getting the short shrift from Yale, but it's their entire hourly-wage support staff too.
Make me shake my head.
Jay Carney: Corporate Mouthpiece now? Apparently.
Amazon Still Pretty Angry About That New York Times Story
Jay Carney offers detailed response to front-page story -- two months later.
Two months after the New York Times published a damning investigation into its workplace culture, Amazon is fighting back.
In a blog post on Medium published Monday morning, Amazon spokesperson Jay Carney claims that the Times' reporters Jodi Kantor and David Streitfeld failed to check the accuracy of the anecdotes in the piece.
"Had the reporters checked their facts, the story they published would have been a lot less sensational, a lot more balanced, and, let’s be honest, a lot more boring," he writes. "It might not have merited the front page, but it would have been closer to the truth."
The Times' executive editor, Dean Baquet, tore apart Carney's post in his own blog on Medium. Kantor and Streitfeld spoke with more than 100 current and former Amazon employees, Baquet said. Nothing in Carney's latest response refutes their claims, he writes, adding, "This story was based on dozens of interviews. And any reading of the responses leaves no doubt that this was an accurate portrait."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/amazon-jay-carney-new-york-times-story_5624ee94e4b08589ef47f960
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OMG, it's the actual Jay Carney defending Amazon's horrendous workplace conditions? OK, I give up. Apparently almost everyone sells out to our Corporate Overlords.
Amazon spokesman and former White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.
Saw a bumper sticker today...
Made me laugh -- then think. lol It said:
DON'T BELIEVE WHAT YOU THINK YOU KNOW
Canadian's urged to see government as part of the solution in upcoming federal elections
The Toronto Star had an interesting editorial endorsing Justin Trudeau and the Liberals to out the decade long conservative government led by Stephen Harper. Besides election specific stuff, it made some cogent points about the role of government in a nation's society.
"Beyond the specifics of each party’s policies, voters should also turn away from the Conservatives’ implicit message that Canada as a whole just shouldn’t aspire to much. They have spent so much time and energy whittling away at the very concept of government that they devalue the idea of collective achievement itself.
The Liberals under Trudeau’s leadership are rekindling the sense among Canadians that we can do better, and that government can be an essential part of that effort. As we wrote last week, they offer hope for “those who believe Canada can be more generous, more ambitious and more successful.” That’s no small thing."
http://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorials/2015/10/16/liberals-and-justin-trudeau-are-the-best-election-choice-editorial.html
"Why One of the Richest Countries on Earth Is So Poor: The Facts that Drive the Sanders Revolt"
"The United States is among the richest countries in all of history. But if you're not a corporate or political elite, you'd never know it.
In the world working people inhabit, our infrastructure is collapsing, our schools are laying off teachers, our drinking water is barely potable, our cities are facing bankruptcy, and our public and private pension funds are nearing collapse. We - consumers, students, and homeowners - are loaded with crushing debt, but our real wages haven't risen since the 1970s.
How can we be so rich and still have such poor services, so much debt and such stagnant incomes?
The answer: runaway inequality - the ever-increasing gap in income and wealth between the super-rich and the rest of us."
snip
"Most Americans believe that the U.S. has the most upward mobility and highest standard of living in the world. We think that the U.S. is the fairest nation on Earth, offering the best prospects for everyday people. (And for anyone who isn't moving up, it's their own fault.)
But the facts in this book will undermine that perspective. While America may have had the most prosperous working class from World War II to 1980, it doesn't anymore. In fact, today the U.S. is the most unequal country in the developed world. We have the most child poverty and homelessness. We have more people in prison than China and Russia. And Americans are less upwardly mobile than most Europeans.
We'll see that our public services don't stack up either. Our health care costs more, covers fewer people and produces worse outcomes. And we are nearly last among developed nations in energy effi¬ciency and overall infrastructure.
No question about it, the top 1 percent never had it so good. But the rest of us are losing sight of the American Dream as runaway inequality accelerates."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/les-leopold/why-the-richest-country-o_b_8316102.html
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These were excerpts from the HuffPo article on the book "Runaway Inequality: An Activist's Guide to Economic Justice"
All I can add is AMEN, brother. AMEN. Well, OK, I can add this --- the bottom 40% of Armerican families are suffering. The Top 1% is doing fantastic. People might argue "but the MEDIAN income has risen!", but looking more closely shows more accurately who has benefited and who has been left behind.
The U.S. Investigation Into The Kunduz Hospital Bombing Is Off To A Rough Start
Source: Huffington Post
WASHINGTON -- An American armored vehicle on Thursday barged unannounced into the wreckage of the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Afghanistan that the U.S. bombed earlier this month, reigniting tensions between Washington and the aid organization over the Oct. 3 attack.
The armored vehicle forced its way through the closed gate of the ruined hospital in Kunduz at 1:30 p.m. local time, Doctors Without Borders told The Huffington Post in a statement Friday. The organization said it received no prior notice that American officials would be visiting and only learned after the vehicle's arrival that it contained investigators planning to explore the wreckage. Doctors Without Borders said the move violated a commitment by U.S., NATO and Afghan investigative teams to inform Doctors Without Borders before taking any steps involving the aid organization's team or facilities.
The intrusion may have damaged evidence at the site that could help explain the bombing, the organization says. "Their unannounced and forced entry damaged property, destroyed potential evidence and caused stress and fear for the team," said Tim Shenk, a press officer for Doctors Without Borders. The organization lost 12 staff members and 10 patients in the bombing.
Gen. John Campbell, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, has called the bombing a "mistake," and President Barack Obama apologized to the president of Doctors Without Borders. The Pentagon, a joint U.S.-Afghan team and NATO are all investigating the causes of the incident. (Shenk declined to clarify on Friday which of these investigative teams had made commitments to provide notice before visiting the hospital site, but said members of all three teams were on the armored vehicle.)
But the incursion suggests that the government probes may be heavy-handed and ineffective, trampling on the aid organization's rights and, perhaps, on clues that remain at the site of the bombing. Photographs released Wednesday by Foreign Policy magazine showed how precarious the situation is within the ruined hospital, where charred human remains appear to lie on the dusty ground amid broken beds and ruined medical equipment.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/msf-hospital_5620fa51e4b06462a13ba11f
Good lord. I am still shaking my head after reading and posting about this.
FIFA To Investigate If Germany Used Bribes To Secure 2006 World Cup
Source: AP/Huffington Post
ZURICH -- FIFA says allegations that Germany used bribes to secure the 2006 World Cup are "serious" and will be reviewed as part of its ongoing investigation into corruption in soccer.
German newsweekly Der Spiegel reported Friday that the bidding committee set up a slush fund of 10.3 million Swiss francs (about $6 million at that time) that was contributed in a private capacity by former Adidas chief Robert Louis-Dreyfus.
The money was used to secure four votes from FIFA's 24-member executive committee before Germany won the bid vote in 2000, the report said.
Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/fifa-germany-world-cup-bribes_56213447e4b08589ef472cfd
OMG, bribery you say? In international football? Egads. And a western European, straight shooting, NATO member, and solid neo-liberal country like Germany too? Oh, my. /sarcasm
I thought only despicable and suspiciously, well, non-European Qatar and the generally pariah-ish, militarily resurgent Russia stooped so low to bribe FIFA Officials to be selected as World Cup venues. Go figure. /sarcasm
Will there be calls to never give another world cup hosting to Germany now? Somehow, I don't think so.
Seriously, it would be nice if every single news event was not political fodder for the corporate/neo-liberal media but I don't think we have heard the last of calls like "Lets take the world cup away from Qatar and Russia they are corrupting the sport" when the actual agenda is anti-Muslim and anti-Russian spin.
"The actual strategy behind his (Putin's) Middle East push and why the NYTIMES might be obscuring it
[snip]
"This line of thinking causes me to reflect on two other questions arising from the Syria conflict.
One concerns the migration crisis combined with incessant insistence that there is, somewhere and the CIA will find it yet, a moderate opposition in Syria. It is time to reconcile these two phenomena.
Were there refugees in any number before the rise of the Islamist anti-Assad formations? Where are the refugees going now that they number in the millions?
Answers: No. As Gary Leupp, a historian at Tufts, argues in a superb piece of commentary CounterPunch also published recently, “The bulk of peaceful protesters in the Syrian Arab Spring want nothing to do with the U.S.-supported armed opposition but are instead receptive to calls from Damascus, Moscow and Tehran for dialogue towards a power-sharing arrangement…. What pro-democracy student activists and their allies fear most is the radical Islamists who have burgeoned in large part due to foreign intervention since 2011.”
Thank you, professor. Now we know why the flow of refugees runs toward secular, democratic Europe and not areas of the nation Assad has lost to rebel militias. The former represents the refugees’ shared aspirations, while the latter fight not as Syrians but as religious fanatics and/or CIA clients. As a friend wrote the other day, “There are likely moderate Syrian forces, but you will I think find them mostly in the coffee shops of Istanbul.” [snip]
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Some interesting thoughts from alleged Putin apologist Patrick L. Smith on Syria. The guy makes some cogent points though, this is a hard call -- believe what a apologist for Russia says or believe our corporate media. Hmmm, is it possible to not trust Smith but acknowledge he's making some valid points too? Decide for yourself, read the entire article at Salon:
http://www.salon.com/2015/10/14/putin_might_be_right_on_syria_the_actual_strategy_behind_his_middle_east_push_and_why_the_new_york_times_keeps_obscuring_it/
The Most Mysterious Star in Our Galaxy
"Astronomers have spotted a strange mess of objects whirling around a distant star. Scientists who search for extraterrestrial civilizations are scrambling to get a closer look. In the Northern hemisphere’s sky, hovering above the Milky Way, there are two constellations—Cygnus the swan, her wings outstretched in full flight, and Lyra, the harp that accompanied poetry in ancient Greece, from which we take our word “lyric.”
Between these constellations sits an unusual star, invisible to the naked eye, but visible to the Kepler Space Telescope, which stared at it for more than four years, beginning in 2009. “We’d never seen anything like this star,” says Tabetha Boyajian, a postdoc at Yale.
[snip]
“It was really weird. We thought it might be bad data or movement on the spacecraft, but everything checked out.” In 2011, several citizen scientists flagged one particular star as “interesting” and “bizarre.” The star was emitting a light pattern that looked stranger than any of the others Kepler was watching. The light pattern suggests there is a big mess of matter circling the star, in tight formation."
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Who knows, eh? Wouldn't it be awesome if this turned out to be actual aliens?
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