INDI, Calif. – Sean Penn spoke at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival on Sunday, urging the young crowd to involve themselves politically.
The Oscar-winning actor, a late addition to the music festival, joking referred to his out-of-place billing among the 125-plus performers.
Wearing a T-shirt and jeans and smoking a cigarette while he sat on a stool, Penn said he unfortunately couldn’t perform his “a cappella Celine Dion cover act” since he had “compromised his upper register.”
Instead, Penn urged festival-goers to join him on his “Dirty Hands Caravan,” a biodiesel cross-country bus trip he plans to launch Monday, arriving in New Orleans on May 4. The purpose of the trip, which he hopes 300 will join, is to encourage young people to be more politically and environmentally involved.
“The government can’t do it,” Penn said. “They can’t save this thing.”
Penn said that while younger generations were smarter and more technologically savvy than any before it, they were separating themselves through technology.
He also criticized the war in Iraq.
“For the 3,000 people we lost on 9/11, we’ve lost 4,000 in this war, and that’s just American soldiers,” Penn said.
“And why did we let it happen?” he added. “It’s simple: We let it happen.”
The “most powerful third party is you and me,” Penn said.
Penn was one of the few participants to discuss politics at the Southern California festival, where dancing and music were far more prevalent.
Greg Bluestein, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
ATLANTA – Cars passing O’Terrill’s pub screech to a halt at the sight of a 136 kilogram, waist-high robot marked “SECURITY” rolling through downtown long after dark.
The regulars hardly glance outside. They’ve seen bar owner Rufus Terrill’s invention on patrol before – its bright red lights and even brighter spot light blazing, infrared video camera filming and water cannon at the ready in the spinning turret on top.
“You’re trespassing. That’s private property,” Terrill scolds an older man through the robot’s loudspeaker. The man is sitting at the edge of the driveway to a child care centre down the street. “Go on.”
The man’s hands go up and he shuffles into the shadows. Almost immediately, a group of men behind him scatters too.
The Bum Bot’s reputation, it seems, has preceded it.
The electronic vigilante – on the beat since September – has enraged neighbourhood activists, who have threatened protests. Street people say it’s intimidating. And homeless advocates question the intentions of its inventor, who uses the Bum Bot as a marketing tool and a political prop. Read the rest of this entry »
Not to sound too preachy, but here’s today’s words of love:
LOVE MORE, LIVE MORE, BE HAPPY, BE CONFIDENT, BE LESS MATERIAL, BE MORE WISE, and LIVE as FREE as you possibly can… all the while LOVE your LIFE and realize that we need to be in harmony with NATURE (and right now collectively our society is not) to be living life to our optimal.
So celebrate the beauty of NATURE today and strive to live your life from this moment on as in balance and in harmony with nature as you can. It will benefit not only you, but all of humanity and all of nature as well.
Last Updated: Saturday, April 19, 2008 | 5:54 PM ET Comments141Recommend162
CBC News
BY AMBER HILDEBRANDT — The suicide rate among Canada’s soldiers doubled from 2006 to 2007, rising to a rate triple that of the general population, according to data obtained through access to information requests.
Last year, the number of suicides among regular and reserve members of the Canadian Forces rose to 36, the highest in more than a decade, military police records obtained by Maj. Michel Sartori show.
Sartori, a Laval University doctoral student, has been gathering information about military suicides for years. It’s the subject of his thesis and a topic close to his heart, since five of his colleagues killed themselves after a tour of duty in Yugoslavia in 1994.
He believes the rise is linked to the intensification of Canada’s mission in Afghanistan when soldiers moved into the volatile southern region in 2006.
Sartori has been gathering information about military suicides since 1994.
Based on the military police reports, he found that the average suicide rate among Canadian Forces military members, both regular and reserve, between 1994 and 2007 was 16 per year.
Year Suicides Regular force & reserves Rate per 100,000
2003 14 86,937 16.1
2004
17 90,772 18.7
2005 17 91,285 18.6
2006 20 96,318 20.7
2007 36 87,000 41.4
But the number of suicides among members of the military rose to 20 in 2006 and then jumped even higher to 36 in 2007, or a rate of 41.4 suicides per 100,000 soldiers. That’s double the rate in the previous year.
Sartori says he was alarmed when he received the latest numbers.
“It was a shock, total shock,” said Sartori. “I almost fell out my chair.”
Starting in 2006, Sartori also noticed an abrupt change in the terms the military reports used to describe suicide in documents. The 36 suicides in 2007 were listed as sudden deaths, with 12 clearly marked suicide and 21 cases listed as “investigated.” National Defence officials did not dispute that the document is a suicide list, but did not respond to requests from CBC to explain the new categories.
The 2007 numbers put the military suicide rate at triple that of the general Canadian public. Over the past two decades Canada’s overall rate has ranged from 11.6 to 14 suicides per 100,000, though recent numbers are not available.
Dr. Greg Passey, a former military psychiatrist and head of a post-traumatic stress disorder clinic in Vancouver, says the spike in military suicides is “disturbing” but not surprising. He says he believes it’s related to what he calls the “increased tempo” of the Afghanistan mission, which began in 2002.
“We’re now a number of years into that mission and the frontline, the combat soldiers, and even the support staff are having to do multiple tours,” he said.
The psychological stress of those missions is cumulative, he said, and Sartori’s discovery may be the wake-up call the military needs to deal with the issue.
Veterans Affairs says that the number of vets experiencing some kind of operational stress injury, such as PTSD, has tripled in the past five years, and they expect it to continue rising with Canada’s mission in Afghanistan likely to last until 2011.
Roughly 2,500 Canadian soldiers are serving in and around Afghanistan’s Kandahar region, where they are battling Taliban insurgents.
Incomplete Olympic oval in Richmond, B.C., needs repair
Last Updated: Thursday, April 17, 2008 | 9:42 PM ET
The Canadian Press
The speed skating oval in Richmond, B.C., that is still under construction for the 2010 Winter Olympics already needs some of its roof membrane replaced.
The $178-million project — already triple the cost first projected — needs to have the portion of the roof membrane replaced that covers the wood panels making up the main roof, city officials said.
Over the past two months, tests have determined that some fungi and algae have developed on the bottom of one of the two insulation layers covering the roof, said Greg Scott, director of major projects for the City of Richmond.
The main roof structure was completed in January and consisted of hundreds of panels of B.C. wood that were lifted into place and secured like a checkerboard. Two layers of insulation were placed over the wood roof and a protective membrane placed over the two insulation layers.
Scott said fungi and algae were discovered at the bottom of the first layer of insulation, next to the wood roof.
“We’ve got to take the membrane off to get at the lower piece of insulation,” he said.
About 70 per cent of the roof area insulation needs to be replaced, he said, and the top protective membrane must be removed as well as the top layer of insulation to get at the bottom insulation layer.
“Then we do an inspection to see if there is fungi or algae growing on it and if there is, throw it away and put a new piece of insulation down and continue.”
Replacement costs are covered by Richmond, the oval’s owner, and are estimated at between $2 million to $2.2 million, Scott said.
The city is looking at recovering the replacement costs from the contractor that installed the insulation, including taking legal action if necessary.
City spokesman Ted Townsend said the wood roof was not affected by the fungi damage.
The oval, the largest building constructed for the 2010 Winter Olympics, is scheduled to open this autumn.
At least 56 homeless British Columbians died during 2006 and 2007, according to provincial statistics obtained by The Tyee.
B.C.’s homeless died at a rate that’s at least 19 per cent higher than the general population, according to the office of the chief coroner.
Read the Coroner’s report
The original three-page document tallying homeless deaths, done at the request of The Tyee, can be found here.
“These deaths were preventable,” said MLA David Chudnovsky, a New Democrat who serves as the opposition critic for homelessness. “These are people who would still be alive if they’d had someplace to live.”
The report tallies 31 homeless deaths in 2006 and another 25 in 2007. But housing advocates criticized the coroner for excluding the deaths of some formerly homeless people who died in hospital.
“Our governments are culpable for these preventable deaths,” said David Eby, an attorney at Pivot Legal Society. “People are literally dying in the streets.”
Overdoses, blunt injuries, hangings
The office of the chief coroner prepared this report in response to requests from The Tyee. Among its findings:
The death rates among homeless persons in 2007 was 21.3 per 10,000 people, while the rate among the general population in 2006 was 17.9 per 10,000. So using the coroner’s indirect comparison, B.C.’s homeless population is dying at a rate 19 per cent higher than the general population.
Two thirds of the homeless dead were living on the street, while the remaining third lived in a homeless shelter. Thus the (uncalculated) rate of death among street homeless is higher than 19 per cent above average.
Poisoning by drugs or alcohol was the leading cause of death, followed by blunt injuries (e.g., hit by a car), hangings and stabbings. One drowned and one died of smoke inhalation. Another nine deaths are either undetermined or still under investigation.
All of those counted were found in B.C.’s cities: 13 in Vancouver, 11 in Victoria, four in New Westminster, three each in North Vancouver and Surrey, and two each in Chilliwack, Kelowna and Nanaimo.
Young and Aboriginal
Aboriginals represented 14.3 per cent of the deaths in the coroner’s report, while comprising just 4.4 per cent of B.C.’s population.
Mayor Sam Sullivan and the Non-Partisan Association have rejected pleas for more new social housing by 2010. Critics warn that Thursday night’s decision by Vancouver City Council assures that homeless Canadians will outnumber athletes at the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games.
“Homelessness is going to get a lot worse in this city, and the NPA is fully responsible,” said City Councillor David Cadman, who represents the opposing Council of Progressive Electors (COPE).
In a series of 6-5 votes, the NPA strong-armed Vancouver City Council into approving a misleading report drafted in the office of Housing Minister Rich Coleman and approved by the organizers of the 2010 games (VANOC). The report, awkwardly titled the Joint Partner Response to the Inner-City Inclusive Commitments (ICI) Housing Table Report, asserts that the housing recommendations developed for VANOC are “not binding.”
“We don’t need this motion,” Sullivan said. “We are working on a lot of things … Huge things.” The mayor did not provide details.
“Sullivan hasn’t delivered anything,” responded Councillor Cadman. “He claims credit for social housing at Woodward’s in spite of the fact that he voted against it. He claims credit for social housing at Southeast False Creek in spite of the fact that his first action as mayor was to slash social housing at that site. He claims credit for the SRO rooms purchased by the province, even though Minister Coleman has plainly said the city had nothing to do with that purchase.”
The Non-Partisan Alliance’s party-line votes came after a half-day of passionate public testimony, in which Vancouver citizens implored council to reject VANOC’s draft report and invite senior governments to a sit-down. Mayor Sullivan rolled out of council chambers during the second speaker, and remained missing-in-action for the remaining four hours of public testimony.
One of the many presentations that Sullivan refused to hear was a plan presented by Pivot Legal Society under which new homeless housing could be paid for out of existing provincial, city and VANOC funds. Pivot and 2010 Watch released documents on Thursday that they say show the city will earn $64.5 million from development of the Olympic Village, which is now under construction at Southeast False Creek.
The June 26 editorial was uncharacteristically blunt: “…this is no time for the Olympic partners to walk away from promises made. Many of the housing commitments were key to gaining community support for the Games, and they must be honoured.”
Vision Vancouver and COPE councillors warned that since it takes a minimum of two years to develop social housing, Thursday night’s vote was probably the last chance this council would get to address Olympic homelessness.
“In all likelihood there will be a strike,” Cadman said. “That will place a hiatus on everything. And that hiatus will effectively delay action on housing until the fall. At that point, it will simply be too late to develop, permit and build new social housing in time for the 2010 Olympics.”
“I don’t want to give up hope until the day before the opening ceremonies,” said David Eby, a housing activist and staff lawyer at Pivot Legal Society. “But I’m getting a sinking feeling that the streets of Vancouver are going to look a lot worse when the Olympics arrive.”
UN’s harsh view of Vancouver
Any doubt that the world is watching was erased by a top-of-page-one headline in Thursday’s The Vancouver Sun, which declared “Vancouver a scarred paradise.” The Sun report described Vancouver as “a city with staggering wealth and soul-crushing poverty.” The article cited a report by the United Nations Population Fund stating that the Downtown Eastside “is home to a hepatitis C (HCV) rate of just below 70 per cent and an HIV prevalence rate of an estimated 30 per cent — the same as Botswana’s.”
Another high-profile report issued this week seemed to predict the NPA’s failure to act. Shelter: Homelessness in a Growth Economy was written by Gordon Laird and published by the Alberta-based Sheldon Chumir Foundation. The report estimated that as many as 300,000 Canadians are already homeless, at a cost to taxpayers of between $4.5 and $6 billion every year.
“Canadian governments,” Laird wrote, “have focused more on short-term crisis management over long-term strategic investment. Their response to homelessness over the last decade has sometimes bordered on outright neglect. In practical terms, absenteeism on housing and homelessness has exacerbated efforts to reduce poverty in Canada.”
The term perpetual motion, taken literally, refers to movement that goes on forever. However, perpetual motion usually refers to a device or system that delivers more energy than was put into it. Such a device or system would be in violation of the law of conservation of energy, which states that energy can never be created or destroyed, and is therefore deemed impossible by the laws of physics. The most conventional type of perpetual motion machine is a mechanical system which (supposedly) sustains motion while inevitably losing energy to friction, and air resistance. -www.wikipedia.org
News Flash: The ‘laws’ that define physical reality and reality itself have changed…
Who would benefit from free energy? Every human being on earth and the earth itself.
Who would suffer? The Machine. (who impose the current system of energy dependence)
Why then are all our resources committed to technologies that destroy and enslaved and not technologies the enrich and liberate? We have arrived to the next step of human evolution with our potential technological capabilities; our social/spiritual evolution just needs to catch up. If you are human you should work towards humanity (ie. your own personal happiness) and by doing so stop this apocalyptic machine. If your not human then you a tool.
~Nims (special thanks to Ocean Kapono for the youtube link)
The B.C. Coroners Service is investigating the death of a Cowichan Bay woman at Victoria General Hospital Tuesday morning who is suspected to have died from a yeast-like fungus found on trees on Vancouver Island.
Regional coroner Rose Stanton said the 45-year-old woman’s death is under investigation but she is suspected to have died from Cryptococcus gattii. Results won’t be available until the end of the week. About one person dies from the disease in B.C. each year.
Cryptococcus is a microscopic yeast-like fungus.
A variety of this fungus is called Cryptococcus gattii, according to the B.C. Centre for Disease Control.
The fungus has been living on trees on the east coast of Vancouver Island, first identified in Parksville’s Rathtrevor Park in 1999. About eight people have died from the disease since that time.
People and animals exposed to this fungus can become sick with cryptococcal disease — a rare fungal disease that can affect the lungs, resulting in pneumonia, and nervous system, manifesting as meningitis in humans.
Location of Mass Graves of Residential School Children Revealed for the First Time;Independent Tribunal Established
Squamish Nation Territory (“Vancouver, Canada“)
Thursday, April 10, 2008 11:00 am PST
At a public ceremony and press conference held today outside the colonial “Indian Affairs” building in downtown Vancouver, the Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared (FRD) released a list of twenty eight mass graves across Canada holding the remains of untold numbers of aboriginal children who died in Indian Residential Schools.
The list was distributed today to the world media and to United Nations agencies, as the first act of the newly-formed International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada (IHRTGC), a non-governmental body established by indigenous elders.
In a statement read by FRD spokesperson Eagle Strong Voice, it was declared that the IHRTGC would commence its investigations on April 15, 2008, the fourth Annual Aboriginal Holocaust Memorial Day. This inquiry will involve international human rights observers from Guatemala and Cyprus , and will convene aboriginal courts of justice where those persons and institutions responsible for the death and suffering of residential school children will be tried and sentenced. (The complete Statement and List of Mass Graves is reproduced below).
Eagle Strong Voice and IHRTGC elders will present the Mass Graves List at the United Nations on April 19, and will ask United Nations agencies to protect and monitor the mass graves as part of a genuine inquiry and judicial prosecution of those responsible for this Canadian Genocide.
Eyewitness Sylvester Greene spoke to the media at today’s event, and described how he helped bury a young Inuit boy at the United Church’s Edmonton residential school in 1953.
“We were told never to tell anyone by Jim Ludford, the Principal, who got me and three other boys to bury him. But a lot more kids got buried all the time in that big grave next to the school.”
I have been a fan of your journalism since first reading your articles in the Vancouver Sun. I am a physical education highschool teacher in the lower mainland, educated at UBC, and have played, and continue to play, a variety of sports at a very high amateur level. While I whole-heartedly support sports and other physical endeavours and recreational pursuits, my position towards the 2010 Olympics has changed drastically since learning of the effects the Games have and will continue to have on my Vancouver community. I celebrated the winning of the games when I first learned they were awarded to Vancouver; now, however, I am quite adamantly opposed to the Olympics because of the tragic and inhumane effect they are having and will continue to have on the most vulnerable members of our community.
Your article, “blaming olympics for housing ills is wrong”, is, unfortunately, one of your worst pieces to date. How a reputable investigative journalist like yourself failed to report on the reality behind the government rhetoric is deplorable. “I think any link between Vancouver’s housing problems and the coming Olympics is misguided if not dead wrong“; perhaps you should interview Am Johal or David Eby and find out what’s really happening on the ground. Perhaps your opinion would be swayed if you interviewed tenants residing in the downtown eastside and learned of their illegal eviction stories. Please read David Eby’s blog http://davideby.blogspot.com/ … he has pasted hyperlinks into your article that challenge everything you convey as being ‘factual’. In a true democracy, the press has a responsibility to inform the people at large of the TRUTH, and neglecting to do so (whether to sell papers or to promote Government/business interests) is unbecoming of a journalist and jeopardizes your integrity. As a respected journalist, you have lost integrity with this article; you have the ability to win it back by writing a legitimate and informative article. Please do your research.
The situation for many residing in the downtown Eastside is very visibly dire. The complaint sent to the United Nations by UBC student Mike Powar makes a very strong case that Canada is violating fundamental human rights with regards to housing in the downtown eastside, and I hope that through ‘embarrassment’ and ‘shame’ the government will finally take affirmative action to improve the lives of our society’s most vulnerable. There’s no place like home…. In a country as prosperous as Canada, there’s no place for homelessness.
As much as I support the Tibetans and the ongoing struggle for human rights protections in China, it would be hypocritical of me to ignore the human rights violations taking place in our own back yard. The government can and should do more to ensure that adequate social housing is available to all Canadians, regardless of one’s socio-economic situation. As homelessness in our city as well as the rest of the GVRD increases, the situation is much more than embarrassing, it is tragic, and our government should feel ashamed of their inadequate ‘solutions’ to this issue.
Please help us out by sending as many letters to different papers/media outlets as possible. Here’s some sample templates to help you out so we can send as many letters to the editors as possible and show that there is much support in our communities for this cause. See links at bottom of this post for quick access to editors. If you can, send one to your MP.
Peace and Love (and thanks!!)
D-F(ng)s
Dear editor,
The situation for many residing in the downtown Eastside is very visibly dire. The complaint sent to the United Nations makes a very strong case that Canada is violating fundamental human rights with regards to housing in the downtown eastside, and I hope that through ‘embarrassment’ and ‘shame’ the government will finally take affirmative action to improve the lives of our society’s most vulnerable, There’s no place like home…. In a country as prosperous as Canada, there’s no place for homelessness.
Dear editor,
As much as I support the Tibetans and the ongoing struggle for human right protections in China, it would be hypocritical of me to ignore the human rights violations taking place in our own back yard. The government can and should do more to ensure that adequate social housing is available to all Canadians, regardless of one’s socio-economic situation. As homelessness in our city increases, the situation is much more than embarrassing, it is tragic, and our government should feel ashamed of their inadequate ‘solutions’ to this issue.
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/letters.html
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/feedback/
The Province:
provletters@png.canwest.com or call 604-605-2029
(To permit speedy verification, and confirmation that the text received is uncorrupted, please provide your full name and full postal address including hometown, and a daytime telephone number.)
If you’d like to learn more about the Downtown Eastside issue, check out the link to the official web page that provides details of the ‘No Place Like Home’ complaint that will be sent to the United Nations today. You can view the actual complaint in PDF format from the website.
VANCOUVER — Tourist dollars are trumping local needs, resulting in hundreds of evictions and violating international human rights, three Vancouver community groups are alleging in a complaint being filed to the United Nations.
The three groups say the ongoing evictions from single room-occupancy hotels in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside will only get worse as the city’s real estate market continues to explode in the lead-up to the 2010 Winter Games in Vancouver.
More than 1,000 rooms have already been converted from low-income use or closed altogether since Vancouver won the bid for the Games in 2003, according to a tally being prepared by Pivot Legal Society, one of the groups filing the complaint.
“Looking at the amount of money that’s being spent on the Olympics, looking at the public relations that’s being done around the token efforts towards dealing with the homeless problem, we feel it’s time for some international scrutiny to come to British Columbia and Vancouver about the Downtown Eastside,” said David Eby, a lawyer with Pivot.
The complaint, which will officially be filed next week, alleges that the right to housing is being violated in part by a loophole that allows tenants to be evicted while landlords carry out renovations to buildings.
Since most of the people living in low-income rentals don’t have the option to move somewhere else, it kickstarts a cycle of homelessness that’s a clear violation of international protocols agreed to by Canada and dozens of other nations, said Am Johal, the founder of Impact on Communities Coalition, another one of the groups involved in the complaint.
With more than 200,000 people expected to converge on Vancouver for the Olympics in 2010, the situation is only going to get worse, he said.
“There are options for cruise ships and homestays, but this is going to place an incredible burden on the existing rental housing stock and without closing these loopholes, even for a temporary period of time, its our view that there will be thousands of evictions,” he said.
In 2006, a U.N. committee described the state of homelessness and inadequate housing in Canada as a “national emergency,” and in the fall of 2007, the U.N. special rapporteur on housing took a two-week tour of Canada and recommended a national large-scale project of social housing.
The complaint also alleges rights violations connected to the failure to provide safe housing, police protection, accountability to displaced people and the failure to involve the inner city in development plans for the neighbourhood.
The province, the city and Vancouver Olympic officials have all launched initiatives designed to mitigate the potential social impact of the 2010 Games on the city.
Olympic organizers committed to leaving a legacy of 250 beds for social housing and the city of Vancouver has bought up 17 single room-occupancy hotels, effectively placing them out of reach of private developers and promising to build social housing units on a dozen other sites.
But Eby said those 17 purchases represent only 20 per cent of the stock of homes in the community.
“We’re concerned about the remaining 80 per cent,” he said.
“That’s full of about 5,000 people who are on social assistance, who are desperately afraid they are going to end up on the streets before the Olympic games come.”
Once the complaint has been filed, it will be reviewed by the United Nations Human Rights Commission and, if judged valid, Canada and the province will have to answer to international community on the concerns raised, Eby said.
The process will likely take a year and a half to resolve, coming to a head just in time for the 2010 Winter Games.
Christina Montgomery , Canwest News Service
Published: Sunday, April 13, 2008
VANCOUVER – The battle over social housing for Vancouver’s poorest residents is moving to a new battlefield – the United Nations, which will be asked shortly to weigh a human-rights complaint against Canada for failing to protect the low-cost rooms.
Housing activists will focus the complaint to the UN Human Rights Council on the ongoing conversions of low-cost hotel rooms in the Downtown Eastside.
The move is based on a study by University of B.C. students Gayle Stewart and Mike Powar, who took a walking tour of the poverty-stricken neighbourhood last fall as part of a class in global politics and international law.
Michael Byers, their professor, arranged the tour and challenged them to apply international issues to the grim social scene.
Powar and Stewart took up the challenge with an analysis of whether Canada is fulfilling its international commitments to ensuring adequate housing for citizens.
The complaint will be launched formally by the Pivot Legal Society, the Impact on Community Coalition and the Carnegie Community Action Project – activists who have been critical of the impact of the 2010 Olympics on the supply of low-cost housing.
Most recently, the groups have applauded efforts by the city and the province to purchase and preserve 17 low-rent hotels in the area. But they’ve taken aim at the failure to find a legal way to prevent owners from legally evicting tenants of the hotels.
Their work was spurred on by a visit in October by Miloon Kothari, a UN official who reports on adequate housing.
Kothari visited shortly after a provincial announcement of $41 million for housing initiatives, including 24-hour emergency shelters, rent supplements planning money to fast-track approvals for housing on 12 sites donated by the city.
Despite the plans, Kothari noted he had heard stories of “hundreds of people who have died as a result of Canada’s nationwide housing crisis.” His preliminary report says a recent review by the UN found Canada’s homelessness and inadequate housing were a “national emergency.”
“Downtown Eastside hotels are the homes of last resort for low-income people,” said Jean Swanson, Coordinator of the Carnegie Community Action Project. “Almost half are already closed, at risk, or charge too high a rent. If the city and the province don’t act now, the rest of the hotels could push low income people out on to the street.”
Vancouver Province
Here is the press release from Reporters Without Borders:
MONTREAL, Dec. 10 /CNW Telbec/ – A large flag showing the Olympic rings transformed into handcuffs was unfurled outside the Liaison Office of the central people’s government of China in Hong Kong today by five Reporters Without Borders representatives, including secretary-general Robert Ménard, in a protest to mark Human Rights Day. Two days before Chinese authorities refused to give visas to members of the press freedom organisation.
“We had initially planned to stage this demonstration in Beijing, but the authorities refused to give us visas,” Reporters Without Borders said. “We know that some of us are blacklisted by the Chinese immigration services. At a time when the government is compiling files on foreign journalists and human rights activists in advance of the Olympic Games, this refusal is evidence of its determination to keep critics at a distance.
“The Chinese authorities are clearly not prepared to let people remind them of the undertakings they gave to improve the situation of human rights and, in particular, press freedom when they were awarded the 2008 Olympics in 2001.
“We have to do something as we are just eight months away from the start of the Olympic Games. In view of the International Olympic Committee’s silence and the Chinese government’s refusal to keep its promise to improve respect for rights and freedoms, we have a duty to draw attention to the disastrous situation for free speech in China. The Chinese government must take firm action before the games, starting with the release of the hundred or so detained journalists and cyber-dissidents.”
Reporters Without Borders added: “We are not trying to spoil a major sports event, but who will be able to say these games have been a success when thousands of prisoners of conscience languish in Chinese jails overshadowed by these sports stadiums? Who will be able to believe in the ‘One World, One Dream’ slogan of these games when Tibetan and Uyghur minorities are subject to serious discrimination?”
The five Reporters Without Borders activists unfurled the 15-square-metre flag outside the Chinese government’s Liaison Office in Hong Kong at 2.30 p.m. local time. The image on the flag, the Olympic rings transformed into handcuffs, and the accompanying words, “Beijing 2008,” refer to the terrible situation of free expression in China.
In a previous protest, four Reporters Without Borders representatives, including its president, Fernando Castello, its vice-president, Rubina Mvhring, and Ménard gave an unauthorised news conference outside the building of the Olympic Games Organising Committee, the BOCOG, in Beijing on 6 August. They were arrested later the same day at their hotel and escorted to the airport.
The world’s biggest prison for journalists
China is the world’s biggest prison for journalists (33 detained), cyber-dissidents (49 detained) and free speech activists. In all, about 100 of them are currently serving prison sentences in appalling conditions after being convicted on charges of “subversion” or “disseminating state secrets.”
Although the Chinese media, now subject to the law of the market, have been evolving rapidly, the Propaganda Department and the political police continue to monitor, censor and arrest recalcitrant journalists.
In January, the authorities eased the regulations governing the work of foreign journalists because of this year’s Olympics. Since then there have nonetheless been at least 60 cases of police detaining, manhandling or otherwise obstructing foreign correspondents in the course of their work. In one recent case, a Swiss TV reporter was hit and detained for seven hours by officials in a village near Beijing.
After Beijing had just been awarded the 2008 Games in Moscow in 2001, a representative of the Beijing Candidate Committee said: “By entrusting the organisation of the Olympic Games to Beijing , you will help the development of human rights.” Six year later, Reporters Without Borders has not seen any durable improvement in press freedom or online free expression.
Chinese journalists continue to push back the limits of censorship but the authorities monitor and punish the most critical ones. In November, the Propaganda Department banned the Chinese media from carrying “negative” stories on matters such as air pollution, a dispute over Taiwan’s inclusion in the Olympic torch relay, and public health issues.
The Internet is also controlled. Chinese Internet users are prevented from accessing thousands of news websites based abroad. Chinese cyber-police and cyber-censors scrutinise online content looking for criticism. Around 20 companies, some of them American, had to sign a “self-disciplinary pledge” in August undertaking to censor the blogs they host in China and to ask bloggers to reveal their real identity.
The IOC’s silent complicity
All over the world, concern is growing about what is happening with the 2008 games, which are being exploited by a government that refuses to take action to guarantee freedom of expression and respect the Olympic Charter’s humanistic values.
Reporters Without Borders has written several letters to IOC president Jacques Rogge asking him to intervene. He has never replied personally, but his close aides regularly point out the IOC is not a “political” organisation and cannot put pressure on a “sovereign state.”
The IOC is constantly trumpeting the progress being made with the work on the Beijing games infrastructure but it has not made any public statement of concern about the lack of freedom of expression, which will undermine the work of the media and the transparency that is needed for the games.
In a letter to Rogge on 29 November, Reporters Without Borders wrote: “It is your silence that has unfortunately made all these abuses possible. We continue to think that the IOC should do everything it can to influence the policies of the Beijing games organisers towards Chinese and foreign journalists. A failure to rise to this key challenge would represent an enormous setback in the history of the Olympic movement.”
A scene from the controversial upcoming film Young People F—ing. Productions like this one might be in jeopardy if the Canadian Senate passes the Conservative government’s Bill C-10. (Copperheart Entertainment)
What is Bill C-10?
Bill C-10 is an omnibus bill amending the Income Tax Act and contains a series of amendments affecting a variety of different industries, funds and individuals. It has been passed by the House of Commons and is now before the Senate.
The issue that concerns Canada’s film and television community is Section 120, which would allow the Heritage Minister (currently Josée Verner) to withdraw tax credits from productions determined to be “contrary to public policy.”
How would it work?
The minister would create a set of guidelines for film and television producers. The guidelines have not yet been established but would cover violence, hatred and sexual content in film and TV productions, or anything else the minister believes should not be financed by Canadian taxpayers. Committees within the heritage and justice departments would be charged with vetting productions and implementing the guidelines. Any film or television program found to have contravened the guidelines could have its tax credits withdrawn and might be asked to repay funding given through Telefilm, the federal film funding agency, or the Canadian Television Fund, the federal funding agency for TV.
“Bill C-10 has nothing to do with censorship and everything to do with the integrity of the tax system,” Heritage Minister Josee Verner has said. “The goal is to ensure public trust in how tax dollars are spent.”
Who is in favour of C-10?
The federal Conservative party; conservative religious leaders including Charles McVety, president of the Canada Family Action Coalition; lobby groups such as Canadians Concerned about Violence in Entertainment and Real Women of Canada.
Who opposes it?
Canada’s creative community, including the producers’ associations, the performers’ union ACTRA, the Writers Guild of Canada, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, as well as all the opposition parties. Some members of the Senate are against it, including Wilfred Moore, who has asked, “Are we trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist?”.
What are their concerns?
The film and television industry is concerned Bill C-10 would restrict the kinds of movies and TV shows that can be made in this country. The Writers Guild of Canada says writers would be forced to self-censor and second-guess how a government committee might respond to any given production. There is also concern that the minister has the power to set a community standard for the whole country.
Screenwriter Rebecca Schechter, president of the Writers Guild of Canada, said the bill will “put a chill on the entire film industry.”
“What the guidelines will do is force writers to self-censor,” she told the Senate committee examining Bill C-10. “They will be trying to decide how much violence is appropriate and whether the sexuality shown will meet the criteria for educational purposes.”
The Canadian industry has given rise to controversial works such as The Boys of St. Vincent and The Valour and the Horror and violent yet critically acclaimed films such as David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises. Enforcing a steady diet of innocuous family-friendly productions would result in a less vibrant industry and force Canadian talent to go elsewhere, says actor and director Sarah Polley. Polley said her own film, Away from Her, could not have found funding under the proposed new rules.
“To say to us, ‘Well, you can replace the government tax credit with private money,’ has no basis in reality,” she told the Senate committee. “When you are telling us to make it with private money, you are telling us to leave the country if we want to making anything remotely controversial.”
What are the existing rules for publicly funded films?
Pornography is already excluded from receiving government financing and tax credits. Productions that are contrary to the Criminal Code, including child pornography and content that contravenes Canadian hate laws, also do not qualify.
There are already vetting mechanisms to weed out such films at Telefilm, at provincial funding agencies and through the broadcast system, in which broadcasters demand work for a specific audience or in a particular genre.
What are the possible effects on the film-financing system?
Canada’s independent film and television creators apply for tax credits to help support financing of a production before it is made. Banks lend money to producers based on both the expected return from the work and the expected tax credit due to the producer. Co-producers, including international investors, also consider such credits when providing financing. The tax credit usually doesn’t come until 18 months later.
Producers say uncertainty over whether the credits will be honoured could mean lenders would not be willing to back Canadian films and TV. Film- and television-makers say the system will collapse if the government can retroactively withdraw tax credits or force producers to repay grant money from organizations such as Telefilm or the Canadian Television Fund.
The Canadian Film and Television Production Association estimates film and TV production is worth $5 billion to the Canadian economy and employs 127,000 people.
What are the rules for foreign productions?
Foreign productions, including U.S. films and television made in Canada and employing Canadian crew, would not be covered by the provisions that withdraw tax credits. Canadian film- and television-makers say this is a double standard that places Canadian productions at a disadvantage.
The government says foreign productions should be exempt, because they do not get tax credits for Canadian content but have been a force for building the Canadian industry.
Zimbabwe is on a knife’s edge between democracy and chaos. Results still have not been released from the 29 March elections–and each day, more signals emerge that Mugabe will resort to violence and fraud to hold on to power.
Mugabe is unlikely to listen to the world’s outcry–but he might listen to his old friend and powerful neighbour Thabo Mbeki, president of South Africa. Click below to add your name to a petition calling for the results to be released, verified, and peacefully honored, and we will do all we can to deliver it to Mbeki–through diplomatic channels, over the radio, and in a public event when Mbeki travels to New York for a United Nations meeting next week.
The more of us sign the petition, the powerful the message that South Africa’s reputation as a world leader is on the line. Click here to add your name, and then forward this email to friends and family:
South African president Thabo Mbeki said on Monday that “it’s time to wait” on Zimbabwe. But the more time passes, the greater the danger grows that the will of Zimbabwe’s people will be ignored. Avaaz launched this petition earlier in the week to its African members, and thousands signed on; now, we need people around the world to add their voices in solidarity and take the pressure to the next level.
In a crisis like this, a petition is just a small step–but it’s something all of us can do, to raise our voices and call for what’s right. And as history shows, international solidarity can be a powerful thing.
With hope,
Ben, Graziela, Ricken, Galit, Paul, Iain, Pascal, Milena, and Esra’a–the Avaaz.org team
PS: Here’s what to expect this week:
On Saturday, leaders of the Southern Africa Development Community will gather in Lusaka, Zambia to discuss the crisis. We’re working to buy radio time to reach these regional leaders with Avaaz members’ global message.
On Monday, the Zimbabwe high court has promised to decide whether to release of the voting results. But a lawyer for the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission said Wednesday that it would be “dangerous” if the court did order the release, raising fears of violence.
South Africa is chairing the United Nations Security Council this month, and Mbeki will be joined by other world leaders for a special meeting in New York on Wednesday. Expect Zimbabwe to be high on the agenda.
Theorizer of subatomic ‘God particle’ confident it will be confirmed next year
Alexander G. Higgins, THE ASSOCIATED PRESS – GENEVA –
The father of a theoretical subatomic particle dubbed “the God particle” says he’s almost sure its existence will be confirmed in the next year.
British physicist Peter Higgs first postulated the existence of the particle in the makeup of the atom more than 40 years ago.
Higgs, speaking during a visit the site of a massive new atom smashing accelerator in Switzerland, says scientists in both Europe and North America are about to confirm his theory.
Higgs was visiting the new $2-billion Large Hadro Collider in Geneva, which is expected to begin operation in June.
The collider, the world’s most powerful, has been installed in a 27-kilometre circular tunnel under the Swiss-French border. It is operated by the European Laboratory for Particle Physics, known as CERN.
Higgs said Monday the particle may already have been created at the rival Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory outside Chicago, but that analyzing data from the lab’s Tevatron accelerator is a time-consuming task.
“The Tevatron has plenty of energy to do it,” Higgs said. “It’s just the difficulty of analyzing the data which prevents you from knowing quickly what’s hiding in the data.”
The new, even more powerful Geneva collider, will re-create the rapidly changing conditions in the universe a split second after the Big Bang. It will be the closest that scientists have come to the event that they theorize was the beginning of the universe. They hope the new equipment will enable them to study particles and forces yet unobserved.
But Fermilab still has time to be first if it can show that it has discovered the Higgs boson, Higgs said.
Nobel laureate Leon Lederman has dubbed the theoretical boson “the God particle” because its discovery could unify understanding of particle physics and help humans “know the mind of God.”
Higgs told reporters he is hoping to receive confirmation of his theory by the time he turns 80 in May 2009.
If not, he added, “I’ll just have to ask my GP to keep me alive a bit longer,” referring to his general practitioner, not the God particle, a term he does not embrace because he fears it might offend some people.
Higgs predicted the existence of the boson while working at the University of Edinburgh to explain how atoms – and the objects they make up – have weight.
Without the particle, the basic physics theory – the “standard model” – lacks a crucial element, because it fails to explain how other subatomic particles – such as quarks and electrons – have mass.
The Higgs theory is that the bosons create a field through which the other particles pass.
The particles that encounter difficulty going through the field as though they are passing through molasses pick up more inertia, and mass. Those that pass through more easily are lighter.
Higgs said he would be “very, very puzzled” if the particle is never found because he cannot image what else could explain how particles get mass.
Higgs said initial reaction to his ideas in the early 1960s was skeptical.
“My colleagues thought I was a bit of an idiot,” he said, noting that his initial paper explaining how his theory worked was rejected by an editor at CERN.
He said a colleague spent the summer at CERN right after he did his work on the theory.
“He came back and said, ‘At CERN they didn’t see that what you were talking about had much to do with particle physics.’
“I then added on some additional paragraphs and sent it off across the Atlantic to Physical Review Letters, who accepted it. The mention of what became known as the Higgs boson was part of the extra which was added on.”
Not to sound too preachy… but I think one of the goals in life is to be internally happy, healthy, fulfilled, wise, at peace etc. and perhaps this ‘advice’ can help you attain inner freedom. With all of the crazy issues that we think are important to be conscious about, we can’t forget that freeing our soul, body, and mind are extremely important in our quest for inner fulfillment and purpose. Neglecting our personal health and happiness should not be compromised for any reason. If you can find relevance in your own life to these suggested ideas, and if they benefit you, then try implementing some of them in your own daily life….feel free to share with others too!
Peace and Love,
D-F(ng)s
1. Take a 10-30 minute walk every day. And while you walk, smile. It is the ultimate anti-depressant. 2. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day. Buy a lock if you have to. 3. Buy a DVR/TIVO, tape your late night shows and get more sleep. 4. When you wake up in the morning complete the following statement, “My purpose is to ______today.” 5. Live with the 3 E’s: Energy, Enthusiasm, Empathy. 6. Watch more movies, play more games and read more books than you did in 2007. 7. Make time to practice meditation and prayer. They provide us with daily fuel for our busy lives. 8. Spend more time with people over the age of 70 and under the age of 6. 9. Dream more while you are awake. 10. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants. 11. Drink green tea and plenty of water. Eat blueberries, wild Alaskan salmon, broccoli, almonds & walnuts. 12. Try to make at least three people smile each day. 13. Clear your clutter from your house, your car, your desk, and let new and flowing energy into your life. 14. Don’t waste your precious energy on gossip, energy vampires, issues of the past, negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment. 15. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class, but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime. 16. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a college kid with a maxed out charge card. 17. Smile and laugh more. It will keep the energy vampires away. 18. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good. 19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone. 20. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does. 21. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree. 22. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present. 23. Don’t compare your life to others’. You have no idea what their journey is all about. 24. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, and wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special! 25. No one is in charge of your happiness except you. 26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: “In five years, will this matter?” 27. Forgive everyone for everything. 28. What other people think of you is none of your business. 29. Time heals almost everything. Give time, time. 30. However good or bad a situation is, it will change. 31. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch. 32. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful. 33. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need. 34. The best is yet to come. 35. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up. 36. Do the right thing! 37. Call your family often. 38. Each night before you go to bed complete the following statements: “I am thankful for __________. Today I accomplished _________.” 39. Remember that you are too blessed to be stressed. 40. Enjoy the ride. Remember that this is not Disney World and you certainly don’t want a fast pass. You only have one ride through life so make the most of it and enjoy the ride.
These days you hear a lot about the world financial crisis. But there’s another world crisis under way — and it’s hurting a lot more people.
I’m talking about the food crisis. Over the past few years the prices of wheat, corn, rice and other basic foodstuffs have doubled or tripled, with much of the increase taking place just in the last few months. High food prices dismay even relatively well-off Americans — but they’re truly devastating in poor countries, where food often accounts for more than half a family’s spending.
There have already been food riots around the world. Food-supplying countries, from Ukraine to Argentina, have been limiting exports in an attempt to protect domestic consumers, leading to angry protests from farmers — and making things even worse in countries that need to import food.
How did this happen? The answer is a combination of long-term trends, bad luck — and bad policy.
Let’s start with the things that aren’t anyone’s fault.
First, there’s the march of the meat-eating Chinese — that is, the growing number of people in emerging economies who are, for the first time, rich enough to start eating like Westerners. Since it takes about 700 calories’ worth of animal feed to produce a 100-calorie piece of beef, this change in diet increases the overall demand for grains.
Second, there’s the price of oil. Modern farming is highly energy-intensive: a lot of B.T.U.’s go into producing fertilizer, running tractors and, not least, transporting farm products to consumers. With oil persistently above $100 per barrel, energy costs have become a major factor driving up agricultural costs.
High oil prices, by the way, also have a lot to do with the growth of China and other emerging economies. Directly and indirectly, these rising economic powers are competing with the rest of us for scarce resources, including oil and farmland, driving up prices for raw materials of all sorts.
Third, there has been a run of bad weather in key growing areas. In particular, Australia, normally the world’s second-largest wheat exporter, has been suffering from an epic drought.
O.K., I said that these factors behind the food crisis aren’t anyone’s fault, but that’s not quite true. The rise of China and other emerging economies is the main force driving oil prices, but the invasion of Iraq — which proponents promised would lead to cheap oil — has also reduced oil supplies below what they would have been otherwise.
Three people protesting China’s human rights record and the impending arrival of the Olympic torch climbed the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco on Monday and tied a Tibetan flag and two banners to its cables. (Paul Sakuma/Associated Press)
Three pro-Tibet protesters climbed the suspension cables of the Golden Gate Bridge on Monday to protest the coming arrival of the Beijing Olympics torch relay in San Francisco.
The protesters, tethered together on the suspension cables halfway up the bridge, unfurled two giant banners reading “One World, One Dream” and “Free Tibet ‘O8″ — a play on the official slogan of the Beijing Games. One of the climbers also displayed a Tibetan flag.
The climbers spent about three hours suspended more than 25 metres above traffic before descending around 1:15 p.m. PT to be taken into police custody, the CBC’s Chris Brown reported from the city.
The climbers are all American citizens and supporters of Students for a Free Tibet, said Tsering Lama, a spokeswoman for the activist group.
Four other members, including a Canadian student who attends the University of British Columbia, were arrested at the site, Lama told CBC News.
All seven face charges related to trespassing, conspiracy and causing a public nuisance, CNN reported.
The torch is due to arrive Wednesday in San Francisco, its only North American stop on a tour that has been marked by protests against China’s policies toward Tibet and Sudan.
The highly visible protest has forced San Francisco officials to make some changes to the torch procession, and police said they were taking “extraordinary precautions,” the CBC’s Brown said.
“All in all, it’s going to be a very sizable police presence,” he said.
Last leg of Olympic torch run cancelled in Paris
Meanwhile Monday, the last segment of the Olympic torch run through Paris was cancelled after thousands of anti-China protesters repeatedly prompted officials to stop the procession, extinguish the flame and put the torch aboard a bus.
Despite beefed-up security, the relay had to be suspended at least five times as demonstrators threatened the torch. A vehicle carried the Olympic flame for the last part of the route but a runner was allowed to carry the torch for the final five metres into a sports stadium in the south of Paris.
At least 28 people were arrested during the relay as thousands of people including demonstrators lined the torch’s route through the city streets.
The protesters, tethered together on the suspension cables halfway up the bridge, unfurled two giant banners reading “One World, One Dream” and “Free Tibet ‘O8″ — a play on the official slogan of the Beijing Games. One of the climbers also displayed a Tibetan flag.
The climbers spent about three hours suspended more than 25 metres above traffic before descending around 1:15 p.m. PT to be taken into police custody, the CBC’s Chris Brown reported from the city.
The climbers are all American citizens and supporters of Students for a Free Tibet, said Tsering Lama, a spokeswoman for the activist group.
Four other members, including a Canadian student who attends the University of British Columbia, were arrested at the site, Lama told CBC News.
All seven face charges related to trespassing, conspiracy and causing a public nuisance, CNN reported.
The torch is due to arrive Wednesday in San Francisco, its only North American stop on a tour that has been marked by protests against China’s policies toward Tibet and Sudan.
The highly visible protest has forced San Francisco officials to make some changes to the torch procession, and police said they were taking “extraordinary precautions,” the CBC’s Brown said.
“All in all, it’s going to be a very sizable police presence,” he said.
Here’s a link to the blog which covers a variety of issues in the dtes and elsewhere. It’s the one which was instrumental in the barring of homeless man and Carnegie director, William Simpson. There’s a posting on a CCAP rally on February 29th, and you may have to scroll around a bit to get other homeless posts. http://www.downtowneastsideenquirer.blogspot.com
This one is for the Sun article on William Simpson.
I was at a little gathering today at the old Storyeum in Gastown which shut down in November ‘06 and has been empty since. There are some proposals coming in from the community for a new use for the space, one of which is a fitness facility. The group today is trying to promote it’s use as a homeless shelter, community centre and support services. It’s headed by a woman and Carnegie member named Audrey Laferriere. She has a petition going with about 3000 signatures but is not well-supported, especially by CCAP, who have a different perspective. Her site is:
Another activist slightly outside the mainstream (she is against the present head of DERA, and I think she may be at odds with David Eby as well), but a really nice person, well-spoken, passionate and knowledgeable about the history of the dtes. I met her today in person at the “rally”. This is her blog: www.downtowneastside.blogspot.com
Here’s a story in The Tyee about the Backpackers Inn on Hastings, which is owned by the same group of six friends who own the SRO next to me I was telling you about. Interesting background if you haven’t read it already. http://thetyee.ca/News/2008/03/20/Backpackers/
