My Bookmarx 06/30/2013

• From Tahrir and Rio to Taksim, we can smell the tear gas | ROAR Magazine

  “From Taksim to Tahrir, from Bulgaria to Brazil, we fight the same struggle against oppressive state structures that benefit only a tiny wealthy elite.”

  tags: Egypt june30 Tahrir turkey Taksim Brazil Rio_De_Janeiro protests comrades

• #Solidarity | PostVirtual

  “The two biggest popular forums in Istanbul are Beşiktaş and Kadıköy. They host thousands of people every day. The former is a point of reference for the European side of the city, the latter for the Asian side. Both are apparently very distinct in nature, like all the districts of Istanbul. Beşiktaş is left wing with a tendency towards anarchism. Kadıköy is mixed, leaning towards nationalism. Other districts, like Üsküdar are more islamist.”

  tags: turkey protests Istanbul People_Committees self_governing anarchism

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My Bookmarx 06/29/2013

• Hevallo. Turkey and The Kurdish Question. And Rojava Kurdistan!: Lice. Kurdish town in Turkey. Burnt down by Turkish Army in 93. New Pictures.

  “All of these pictures were taken under the most extreme circumstances. They were taken clandestinely as we were under very close ‘supervision’ by different teams of Turkish Army and Police Intelligence Agencies. They were presented to the European Court of Human Rights by the Kurdish Human Rights Project in their case against Turkey. “

  tags: turkey Kurds massacre ethnic_cleansing murder Lice_Kurdistan

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My Bookmarx 06/28/2013

• Battlefield Indonesia | libcom.org

  “In Indonesia, workers are resisting low wages and demanding health care coverage, and indigenous communities are resisting corporate-enforced destruction.”

  tags: Indonesia protests workers wages prices fuel Neoliberalism

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My Bookmarx 06/27/2013

• Good News: A co-operative solution to the media crisis | Co-operatives UK

  “n this new edition to the “Fresh Ideas” series, Dave Boyle argues that the crisis in the media is a moment of opportunity to bring co-operative structures and business models to the sector, and in so doing, better shore up the social and democratic role of the media through a business model based on using commercial success to provide social benefit.”

  tags: coop Cooperative media crisis

• Battle of Indonesia: resisting corporate destruction | ROAR Magazine

  “The protests against fuel price hikes in Indonesia are merely the latest outburst of resistance to corporate destruction in both city and countryside.”

  tags: Indonesia protests fuel Neoliberalism

• إدكو – مجتمع منسي يقف في وجه المزيد من التدهور البيئي | المبادرة المصرية للحقوق الشخصية

  “إدكو المدينة الساحلية الجميلة بمحافظة البحيرة التي تطل على البحر الأبيض المتوسط شرقي الأسكندرية، يقطنها مجتمع رزقه منذ القدم في الصيد بين الماء العذب في بحيرة إدكو وماء البحر. وإلى جانب الصيد الذي يمثل النشاط الاقتصادي الأول للسكان، يوجد النشاط الزراعي؛ قد عرفت إدكو بفواكهها المميزة، خصوصا  الجوافة، ولا زال سكانها يتحاكون بفخر عن “العنب الإدكاوي” الذي يقولون عنه أنه “من أفخر أنواع العنب في العالم”.”

  tags: Egypt Idku gas BP British_Petroleum community resistance activism

• Winning against the odds – How an Egyptian community stopped BP in its tracks

  “BP, having drilled for oil in the deep waters of the North Alexandria block, wanted to build yet another new gas plant on Idku’s beach. This is part of a larger $11 billion project (62% owned by BP and 38% by German RWE), including sub-sea pipelines, oil platforms and the gas terminal itself. But the community was tired of their sea being polluted by large corporations. Emboldened by the ongoing revolution that also enable them to organise more publicly, local activists mobilised against BP’s plans.”

  tags: Egypt Idku gas BP British_Petroleum community resistance activism pollution environment corporates

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My Bookmarx 06/26/2013

• As-Safir Newspaper – احمد عبد الفتاح : مصر ومذبحة «زاوية أبو مسلم»: موجة إدانات… وصمت يشجع التكفير!

  “فر الكثيرون من «زاوية أبو مسلم» وما حدث فيها الأحد الماضي. يتبرأون من مسؤوليتهم عن المذبحة التي راح ضحيتها أربعة مواطنين بينهم شيخ أزهري. يعتبرونها حادثاً عابراً. يدينون الجناة، لكنهم يهينون الضحايا. قليلون يملكون الجرأة على تحديد المسؤول الحقيقي عن تلك الجريمة الفارقة في تاريخ مصر الحديث. “

  tags: Egypt sectarianism sectarian_violence murder Shiite

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My Bookmarx 06/23/2013

• Peace in, peace out: Selective empathy and dangerous nationalism: “Kurdish terrorists, Turkish revolutionaries”?

  “In no way am I questioning the legitimacy of the Gezi Park protests. The overwhelming demonstrations in Istanbul, which have now spread across the country, illustrate the increasing dissent among the people in Turkey against the government’s horrid human rights violations and authoritarian rule. These protests need solidarity – they are necessary and positive developments. And it was about time!”

  tags: turkey Gezi_Park protests Kurds nationalism

• Politics of Nakedness and Freedom of Expression: The Case of FEMEN | Women Reclaiming and Redefining Cultures

  “WLUML calls for the immediate release of FEMEN activists, including Amina Tyler, and demands that the Tunisian government drop all charges.  WLUML does not endorse FEMEN’s tactics or specific platforms, but we find the imminent imprisonment of FEMEN activists for exercising their right to freedom of expression to be a violation of fundamental human rights. However we may feel about nude protest as a method, it is critical to defend the right of free expression, particularly in the post-dictatorship countries of the Middle East. “

  tags: feminism radicalism femen free_expression nude_protests women activism Tunisia

• A-Infos (en) Brazil, Gaucha Anarchist Federation – Take to the streets for an agenda against the right and governismo. Next a program of popular solutions! (pt)

  “The long night of fights June 17 changed the situation in Brazil and resized social protests. The massive mobilization of nearly 1 million protesters in dozens of cities and capitals of the country and the world did not happen in our political history from the Outside Collor in 1992. There is a before and after putting on the national scene a new collective historical subject that catalyst is a powerful social force in the streets.”

  tags: Brazil protests Rio_De_Janeiro Sao_Paulo Neoliberalism anarchism

• Brazilian Movements Against Neo-Liberalism | Robert Graham’s Anarchism Weblog

  “Here I reproduce two recent pieces on the protests in Brazil. The first piece is by Peter Storms, from ROARMAG.org. The second is by an active participant, part of a movement for free transportation that goes back to 2005. The Brazilian anarchist movement has deep roots.”

  tags: Brazil protests Rio_De_Janeiro Sao_Paulo Neoliberalism anarchism

  • In Brazil, students and the indigenous may be fighting different fights, but they are ultimately part of the same struggle against the neoliberal state.

• Pepe Escobar : Brazil burning: The Story of an Illusion Gone Sour

  “When, in late 2010, Dilma Rousseff was elected President after eight years of the impossibly popular Lula, a national narrative was already ingrained, stressing that Brazil was not the “country of the future” anymore; the future had arrived, and this was a global power in the making.”

  tags: Brazil protests Rio_De_Janeiro Sao_Paulo

  • Not unlike China, Brazil was breathlessly exploiting natural   resources – from its hinterland to parts of Africa – while   betting heavily on large agribusiness mostly supplying, you   guess it, China.
  • Brazil remained one the most (deadly) unequal nations in the   world, peppered with retrograde landowning oligarchies and some   of the most rapacious, arrogant and ignorant elites on the   planet – inevitable by-products of ghastly Portuguese   colonialism.
  • In Brazil as in Turkey,   participative democracy was co-opted, ignored or forcefully   diluted among an orgy of “mega-projects” generating   dubious profits for a select few. In Turkey it revolves around   the ruling party AKP’s collusion with business interests in the  “redevelopment” of Istanbul; in Brazil around public   funds for the hosting of the World Cup and the Olympics.

• Protest rallies held in Brazil’s major cities – Americas – Al Jazeera English

  “Protesters have massed across Brazil to demonstrate against the rising costs of both public transport and the 2014 World Cup to be held in the country, following clashes with police over several days.”

  tags: Brazil protests Rio_De_Janeiro Sao_Paulo

• What Cop T-Shirts Tell Us About Police Culture

  “Earlier this week, an anonymous public defender sent Gothamist this photo of an NYPD warrant squad officer wearing a t-shirt with a pretty disturbing quote from Ernest Hemingway:”

  tags: police culture violence fascism pigs

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My Bookmarx 06/22/2013

• Occupy Angara: A Situation Assessment in a State of Emergency

  “The protests that started in Gezi Park took on different shapes in different cities, as they were recast by the unique sociopolitical characters of those cities. Gezi Park protests reached various cities in Turkey, including İzmir, Ankara, Adana, Antalya, Samsun, Konya, Muğla, and Diyarbakır. But amongst those uprisings, the struggle in the capital, as “an Ankara struggle,” was unique.”

  tags: turkey protests Gezi_Park Istanbul Ankara Erdogan AKP

• هل يمكن تطوير الجدل حول المثلية الجنسية؟

  “كلما أثيرت قضية المثلية الجنسية في مصر تهيج العواصف قليلاً ثم تهدأ بلا إحراز أي تقدم. قد يكون السبب في ذلك طغيان القضايا السياسية والحقوقية الكبرى، والانتهاكات الموسعة بدنياً واقتصادياً واجتماعياً، فضلاً عن الصراع حول انتزاع الحق في المجال العام إجمالاً دون خوض في فرعيات أو تفاصيل. ولكن يبقى السؤال: لماذا لا يحدث تقدم نسبي كلما تجدد الجدل عن المرة السابقة؟”

  tags: Egypt LGBT sexuality gender

  • وبالتعمق قليلاً، نجد أن غياب المعرفة بالسياقات التربوية والسلوكية التي يظهر فيها الميل الجنسي المثليّ وطغيانه على الميل الجنسي “الطبيعي” – أو تزاوجهما سوياً – يؤدي إلى الخلط بين من اختار/ت المثلية ومن أجبر/ت عليها أو اضطر/ت لها. وبالتالي يختلط المثليّون المتزنون في سلوكهم الجنسي (المنخرطين في علاقة واحدة جادة) بنظرائهم المضطربين سلوكياً، والذين قد تقترن المثلية لديهم بالعلاقات العابرة الكثيرة أو حتى الحفلات الجنسية (مثلهم كمثل المضطربين جنسياً من ذوي الميل الجنسي “الطبيعي”).
    • This paragraph is totally fucked up!

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My Bookmarx 06/21/2013

• Islamists Press Blasphemy Cases in a New Egypt – NYTimes.com

  “Egypt’s prosecutors have been flooded with blasphemy complaints since 2011 as Islamists exercising their new societal clout have pushed for prosecutions and courts have handed down steep fines and prison terms for insulting religion.”

  tags: Egypt religious_freedom sectarianism blasphemy law muslim_brotherhood

• Vol 4, No 1 (2010)

  “Cooperative practices and values that challenge the status quo while, at the same time, creating alternative modes of economic, cultural, social, and political life have emerged with dynamism in recent years. The 15 articles in this issue–written by activists, coop practitioners, theorists, historians, and researchers–begin to make visible some of the myriad modes of cooperation existing today around the world that both directly respond to new enclosures and crises and show pathways beyond them. Prefiguring other possibilities for organizing life and provisioning for our needs and desires, we call these cooperative experiments the new cooperativism.”

  tags: coop Cooperative cooperation resources reference

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My Bookmarx 06/20/2013

• Press Release | Embassy of the United States

  “I have been the Ambassador to Egypt for two years now, and I am in a position of authority to talk about my government’s relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood. “

  tags: Egypt USA muslim_brotherhood protests Jun30 diplomacy Ann_Patterson

• Assemblies emerging in Turkey: a lesson in democracy | ROAR Magazine

  “The protesters are starting to counter-pose their own direct democracy to the sham of a democracy proposed by Erdogan’s authoritarian neoliberal state.”

  tags: turkey protests district_assemblies self_management direct_democracy Istanbul

• أوهام النموذج الاقتصادي الأردوغاني | مجلة راديكال

  “أعلنت الحكومة التركية في وقت سابق من العام الجاري أنها ستقوم بتسديد آخر دفعات ديونها لصندوق النقد الدولي بحلول منتصف شهر أيار/مايو الماضي، وخرج علينا رئيس الحكومة التركية رجب طيب أردوغان في تلك الفترة ليزّف الخبر للشعب التركي، مؤكداً إغلاق ملف ديون تركيا الخارجية.”

  tags: turkey Erdogan economy debt islamists

  • وصل إجمالي الدين العام والخاص الخارجي (الخارجي فقط) في تركيا إلى 306.6 مليار دولار أمريكي بحلول نهاية العام 2012، في حين كانت تلك المستويات تقف عند 104 مليار دولار أمريكي في العام 2000، أي قبيل تولي حزب العدالة والتنمية لسدّة الحكم في البلاد.
  • تظهر الدراسات إلى أن انخفاض مستويات البطالة في تركيا خلال عهد أردوغان كان مقتصراً على موسم الصيف، ويرتبط بشكل رئيس بقطاعات السياحة والإنشاءات والزراعة فقط، دون النظر إلى المواسم الأخرى

• JURIST – Forum: Is Egypt’s Stance on the Blue Nile Dam Legally Justified?

  “Egypt and Ethiopia are in a war of words concerning the damming of the Blue Nile. Ethiopia intends, and has already completed twenty-one percent of the construction of the dam, to generate 6000 megawatts of electricity, which is equivalent to six nuclear power plants, in order to support and improve its sustainable development standing, thereby increasing the living standards of millions of its citizens.”

  tags: Egypt Ethiopia the_nile water dam_building international_law

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My Bookmarx 06/19/2013

• Turkey: A History of Sexual Violence | Global Development Professionals Network | Guardian Professional

  “The rape and torture of Kurdish prisoners in Turkey are disturbingly commonplace”

  tags: turkey Kurds torture rape women

• BBC News – Africa’s middle class: Fact or fiction?

  “Africa’s billion-plus population is increasingly being investigated by foreign and local companies alike for signs of a burgeoning middle class.”

  tags: africa economy growth middle_class poverty capitalism

• BBC News – Africa rising – but who benefits?

  “Against the backdrop of a prolonged slump that has brought financial paralysis to much of the Western world, experts have identified Africa as having many of the world’s fastest-growing economies.”

  tags: africa economy growth middle_class poverty capitalism

• Ready for more interventions in Africa? Obama is – Waging Nonviolence

  “While most of the coverage of the recent reshuffle of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy team has been focused on how it will (or won’t) change his administration’s approach to Syria, the continent most affected by it could turn out to be Africa.”

  tags: USA africa obama interventionism imperialism

• BBC News – Kofi Annan: Africa plundered by secret mining deals

  “Tax avoidance, secret mining deals and financial transfers are depriving Africa of the benefits of its resources boom, ex-UN chief Kofi Annan has said.”

  tags: africa mining investment raw_materials primitive_accumulation expropriation exploitation Neoliberalism capitalism

• Biggest protests in 20 years sweep Brazil | Reuters

  “As many as 200,000 demonstrators marched through the streets of Brazil’s biggest cities on Monday in a swelling wave of protest tapping into widespread anger at poor public services, police violence and government corruption.”

  tags: Brazil protests Neoliberalism police_brutality

• Rio de Janeiro: From the City of Wonder to the City of Business – CIP Americas

  “The City of Wonder has become “the place with the highest concentration of public and private investment in the world” [2], thanks to the big events of this decade: the Rio +20 conference held in 2012, the 2014 World Cup and the 2016 Olympics, in addition to the Military World Games in 2011 and the 2013 Confederations Cup. It is estimated that by 2020 the city will receive one billion dollars for infrastructure, services and industry [3].”

  tags: Brazil Sao_Paulo investment poor Rio_De_Janeiro business

• ‫Ahmed El-Naggar – مقالي اليوم في جريدة الأهرام بدون أخطاء الموقع…‬

  “أدى الغضب والاحتقان الشعبي من الأداء السياسي والاقتصادي والاجتماعي لحكومة د. محمد مرسي، إلى استجابة هائلة للدعوة السلمية لسحب الثقة منه أو التمرد عليه التي أطلقها الشباب سواء كانوا مستقلين أو ينتمون إلى مختلف التيارات المعارضة أو حتى مواطنين عاديين والذين تتركز مطالبهم في رحيل د. محمد مرسي وإجراء انتخابات رئاسية مبكرة واستعادة كل ما اغتصبه من سلطة تشريعية ولجنة تأسيسية وإصلاح الدستور المشوه. وسوف نعرض أهم النتائج الاقتصادية-الاجتماعية لعام من حكم د. محمد مرسي، لنرى بصورة موضوعية هل نحن أم حصاد طيب، أم حصاد مر…
  “

  tags: Egypt economy muslim_brotherhood Mohamed_Morsi budget health deficit debt loans education

• QIZs Boost Egyptian Exports to the U.S. – 124% Growth Since 2004

  “Egyptian exports to the United States increased dramatically since the first Qualifying Industrial Zone (QIZ) was established.  Since 2004, the year prior to the establishment of the first Egyptian QIZ, Egyptian exports totaled $1.3 billion and by 2012 they grew nearly 124% to $2.9 billion.  Since 2005, QIZ exports grew at an even more impressive rate of 265% from $266 million to $971 million in 2012.”

  tags: Egypt USA Israel QIZ economy exports growth industry textile

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