U.S. Hegemony at Root of Ukraine Crisis
Russian President Vladimir Putin said the Ukraine crisis can be traced to a U.S. refusal to accept any challenge to its global dominance. “It’s a fact that there clearly is an attempt to restrain our development with different means. There is an attempt to freeze the existing world order which formed in the decade which followed the collapse of the Soviet Union, with one incontestable leader who wants to remain as such, thinking he is allowed everything while others are only allowed what he allows and only in his interests. This world order will never suit Russia. If someone likes it, if someone wants to live under conditions of semi-occupation, let him. We will never do this.” Russian President Vladimir Putin said.
DEA Builds National Database to Track Vehicles
The Wall Street Journal is reporting the Justice Department has been building a national database to track in real time the movement of vehicles around the United States. The secret domestic intelligence-gathering program scans and stores hundreds of millions of records about motorists. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration created the license plate-tracking program to combat drug trafficking, but many state and local law enforcement agencies are accessing the database for a variety of investigations. High-tech cameras placed strategically on major highways are used to collect data about vehicle movements, including time, direction and location, as well as visual images of drivers and passengers. Sen. Patrick Leahy, the senior Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, criticized the program, saying Americans shouldn’t have to fear “their locations and movements are constantly being tracked and stored in a massive government database.”
[individual freedom, individualism what else there … but now US has more secret camera than any other countries to spy on citizen. Thats why some said long back than even if the system seems liberal, the concentration of money will make it fascism in future]
Guatemala Marks 35th Anniversary of Spanish Embassy Massacre Following Verdict
Guatemala has marked the 35th anniversary of the Spanish Embassy massacre just weeks after a historic verdict in the case. Thirty-seven peasant activists and student organizers were burned to death in 1980 after the Spanish Embassy in Guatemala City was set on fire. The activists had been occupying the embassy to protest government repression. Last month, former police chief Pedro García Arredondo was found guilty of ordering the attack and sentenced to 90 years in prison. A memorial was held to mark the 35th anniversary on Saturday. Rigoberta Menchú, whose father, indigenous peasant leader Don Vicente Menchú, died in the massacre, said a copy of Arredondo’s guilty sentence will be stored at the memorial.
U.S. Oil Strike Expands to 2 More Refineries
The largest oil strike to hit the United States in decades has grown larger. Union workers at two BP refineries in Indiana and Ohio have walked off the job, joining colleagues from nine other sites across the country. In total, more than 5,000 workers have joined the strike to demand safer conditions, higher pay, better healthcare and an end to unsafe staffing levels.
Israel Hit With Massive 600,000 Gallon Oil Spill
A nature reserve has been flooded with oil and more than 80 people have been hospitalized from exposure to toxic fumes after approximately 600,000 gallons of crude oil spilled from a pipeline in southern Israel on Wednesday, according to media reports there. The massive spill, which resulted from a breach in the 153-mile Trans-Israel pipeline, has been described as “one of the gravest pollution events in the country’s history.” The breach and subsequent spill took place in the desert near Eilat, a southern Israel city with a population of about 50,000 people. 4.3 mile river of oil is reportedly making its way toward the Jordanian border.
Harvard Students Launch Sit-in for Fossil Fuel Divestment
Students at Harvard University are staging a sit-in to demand their school join the growing list of institutions divesting from fossil fuels. The campus-led divestment movement calls for purging investment portfolios of assets tied to companies that drive and profit from global warming. Harvard’s endowment is the largest of any school in the world, at $36.4 billion. The students launched their sit-in inside a building housing the offices of school administrators, including President Drew Fast. Protest was part of Global Divestment Day actions.