NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

In the middle of this year's regional seminar of the UN C24, the proceedings stopped briefly in order to recognize the release of Oscar Lopez Rivera, a long-time Puerto Rican political prisoner. Rivera was part of the Puerto Rican independence group named FALN, which was involved in more than 100 bombings around the US during the 1970s. He was convicted of seditious conspiracy along with other crimes and spent 35 years in prison. Rivera has been mentioned each year I have attended the regional seminar, as some Latin American countries feel a strong sense of solidarity with Puerto Rico and its independence activists, and therefore consider his case to be that of a political prisoner or a prisoner of war, who should have been subject to international court proceedings, as he was fighting for the liberation of Puerto Rico from US colonial control. Vilma Reveron, who frequently attends the seminars to discuss the state of affairs in Puerto Rico made the announcement and held up her

Democracy Now! is doing some great coverage of the protests over the North Dakota Access Pipeline in North Dakota. Here are some interviews and a column from Amy Goodman after a warrant was put out for her arrest in response to her coverage. If you are able, please consider donating in order to support their continuing efforts. ******************** Native American Activist Winona LaDuke at Standing Rock: It's Time to Move On from Fossil Fuels September 12, 2016 Democracy Now! While Democracy Now! was covering the Standing Rock standoff earlier this month, we spoke to Winona LaDuke, longtime Native American activist and executive director of the group Honor the Earth. She lives and works on the White Earth Reservation in northern Minnesota. She spent years successfully fighting the Sandpiper pipeline, a pipeline similar to Dakota Access. We met her right outside the Red Warrior Camp, where she has set up her tipi. Red Warrior is one of the encampments where thousan

Since I can't speak Japanese, I have to rely on translators and interpreters to learn more about recent protests in the country. I'm grateful for a growing group of people who have been helping me understand more and more about continuing and recently developing protests. Videos on Youtube, some thankfully subtitled with English have also helped. I wanted to share some of them below, to help others understand more about life in Japan in terms of peace and protest.

Faces and Fake Names Behind the Planned Parenthood Attacks Videos Democracy Now! July 31, 2015 As the Senate prepares to vote to defund Planned Parenthood, we look at the Center for Medical Progress, the anti-choice group behind the attacks on Planned Parenthood. The group was founded by David Daleiden who is seen in the undercover sting videos using a fictional name. We speak to RH Reality Check’s Sharona Coutts, who wrote the piece, "Exclusive: The Faces and Fake Names of People Behind Planned Parenthood Attack Videos." This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form. AMY GOODMAN : I want to turn to who David Daleiden is, of the Center for Medical Progress, the group responsible for attacking Planned Parenthood. This is Daleiden speaking on Fox News. DAVID DALEIDEN : For the past two-and-a-half years, the Center for Medical Progress conducted a long-term, in-depth, comprehensive, investigative journ

"Disgraceful," "Criminal Act": Israel Condemned as 10 Die in Another Strike on UN Shelter in Gaza Monday, 04 August 2014 11:34   By Amy Goodman , Democracy Now! The United States and the United Nations have condemned Israel after an air strike killed 10 people near the entrance of a United Nations school sheltering Palestinian civilians. The school was reportedly being used as a shelter for about 3,000 people. It was the second attack on a U.N. school in less than a week, and the seventh over the course of Israel's offensive in Gaza. The coordinates of the school were reportedly communicated to the Israel Defense Force no fewer than 33 times, the last time just an hour before the shelling. Shortly after Sunday's attack, the State Department issued a statement saying: "The United States is appalled by today's disgraceful shelling outside an UNRWA school." U.N. Secretary-Gene

In Our Collective Name Tuesday, 15 July 2014 12:55 By David Theo Goldberg , Truthout | Op-Ed Mourners bury the body of a person killed during an overnight Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, July 13, 2014. The airstrike killed an estimated 21 Palestinians. (Photo: Wissam Nassar / The New York Times)   Israel is at it again. It has been bombing Gaza and its inhabitants mercilessly, even indiscriminately. Some say disproportionately though that judgment is predicated on accepting that there is some self-defending legitimacy to killing almost at random women, children and men, even the unborn, simply to be rid of them in the name of "hunting out the terrorists." This, surely, is a deeply questionable rationalization at best. To date upwards of 150 Gazans have been killed, while rockets fired from Gaza on southern Israel have killed one . Disproportio