International

Unlike Internet censorship in China or Iran – which the US denounces vociferously – the fact that the US is such a hub of servers for the whole world means that any censorship to its cyberspace has worldwide repercussions. We report here on a campaign by Avaaz to resist new censorship legislation at present being debated in the Senate.

We write this letter as participants in the movements, and as an invitation to a conversation. We hope to raise questions about how
we continue to
deepen and transform the new social relationships and processes
we have begun… to open the discussion
towards
a common horizon.

By Luis Moreno-­Caballud and Marina Sitrin

Berlin – In a situation reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s ‘Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb’, none of the nuclear weapon states is actively contemplating a future without nukes. On the contrary, the potential for using dreadful atomic arsenal is growing, says a [new report.](http://www.basicint.org/sites/default/files/commission-briefing1.pdf)

Occupy Wall Street initiative called ‘Occupy the Highway’ arrives in Washington DC, having marched from NYC. Two weeks ago, OWS participants in Manhattan embarked on the epic journey. Their goals were to make the new movement visible in more communities, to connect with other occupations along the way, and to further a national dialogue about how to reclaim our democracy.

The Occupy movement continues to expand its influence and develop awareness in different fronts. Harvard Economics students decide to raise the issue of what kind of models are taught and what has been the influence of such models in the creation of the present international crisis. Professor teaches “Neo-Kensyan”(!?) doctrine but students describe it as neo-liberal

Egypt’s military rulers have completely failed to live up to their promises to Egyptians to improve human rights and have instead been responsible for a catalogue of abuses which in some cases exceeds the record of Hosni Mubarak, Amnesty International said in a new report.

Maimouna Alammar clutched her baby girl to her chest last Friday in her home in Daraya, a suburb of Syria’s capital, Damascus. Security agents appeared at her door at 8 p.m., with Maimouna’s younger brother Suhaib in shackles. They stormed the home searching for her husband, then demanded she hand little Emar Nassar over.

A town of about 200,000 Daraya is notable mainly for its grapes — and, truth be told, for its lack of social diversity. If Damascus is too full of people of different faiths, military sorts, and Baathist Party members, you beat a retreat to Daraya, where a calm coexistence has traditionally existed among only Christian Arabs, and the town’s majority: Sunni Arab Muslims.

In the middle of Argentina 3.000 people gathered, at the summit of a lost mountain.
Summoned by three local gurus, the flock anxiously awaited for the miraculous hour, 11:11
of the 11th date of the 11th month of year 2011, the moment when the 11th portal of cosmic
energy would open. It is a new beginning, so they claim.

“Another Iraq is Possible with Peace and Human Rights,”
agree 250 representatives of civil society organizations who met October 8-9 in Erbil, Iraq.

A final declaration from their work together has been just released in Arabic, French, Italian,
and English and lays out a vision for social activists working to promote national sovereignty
of Iraqi people.