Archive for the 'Dictatorship' Category
Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory
January 16th, 2012Update: Apple’s Chinese iPhone Plants Employ Forced Interns, Claim Campaigners Via: Guardian: Apple’s factories in China are employing tens of thousands of students, some of them on forced internships, according to campaigners lobbying for better labour conditions at Foxconn plants, which assemble iPhones. Some students could be as young as 16. The Foxconn chairman, Terry […]
Value Afghan Opium Yield Rose 133 Percent from 2010
January 14th, 2012Via: AFP: Production of opium and the illicit crop’s value soared in Afghanistan last year, the United Nations said in a report released Thursday. According to the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime, farmer income derived from Afghanistan’s opium crop in 2011 was $1.4 billion (1.09 billion euros), representing nine percent of GDP. “Opium is […]
U.S. Marines Urinating on Afghan Corpses
January 13th, 2012Via: Washington Post: Top U.S. officials moved swiftly Thursday to try to prevent diplomatic damage and contain public disgust from the release of a video that appeared to show Marines urinating on three Afghan corpses — images that spread quickly around the globe. Defense Secretary Leon E. Panetta said he had viewed the video and […]
U.S. Debt Limit Will Increase by $1.2 Trillion
January 12th, 2012Via: Washington Post: President Obama formally notified Congress on Thursday of his intent to raise the nation’s debt ceiling by $1.2 trillion, two weeks after he had postponed the request to give lawmakers more time to consider the action. Congress will have had 15 days to say no before the nation’s debt ceiling automatically is […]
Who Is Operating Unmanned Aircraft in the U.S.? EFF Files Suit to Try to Find Out
January 12th, 2012Via: Electronic Frontier Foundation: The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) filed suit today against the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT), demanding data on certifications and authorizations the agency has issued for the operation of unmanned aircraft, also known as drones. Drones are designed to carry surveillance equipment – including video cameras, infrared cameras and heat sensors, […]
Homeland Security Watches Twitter, Social Media, Blogs
January 12th, 2012Cryptogon readers yawn even more deeply than usual… Via: Reuters: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s command center routinely monitors dozens of popular websites, including Facebook, Twitter, Hulu, WikiLeaks and news and gossip sites including the Huffington Post and Drudge Report, according to a government document. A “privacy compliance review” issued by DHS last November […]
Mass Suicide Threats at Foxconn Xbox 360 Plant
January 11th, 2012Foxconn has a plan to deal with these pesky meatsacks, and I don’t mean suicide prevention nets. Foxconn Wants to Build “Intelligent Robotics Kingdom” to Replace Human Workers with Robots Foxconn: 1 Million Robots in 3 Years Via: Kotaku: On Jan. 2, over 300 employees at a Foxconn plant in Wuhan, China threatened to throw […]
U.S. Claims Immunity from Lawsuit Brought by Victims of Medical Atrocities in Guatemala
January 11th, 2012Via: CNN: The United States has rejected the grounds of a lawsuit stemming from experiments involving sexually transmitted diseases and human subjects in Guatemala between 1946 and 1948. At the same time, the government announced increased aid to Guatemala to fight STDs. In its first response to the class-action lawsuit filed last March by the […]
Public School as Kafkaesque Nightmare
January 10th, 2012Via: Guardian: More and more US schools have police patrolling the corridors. Pupils are being arrested for throwing paper planes and failing to pick up crumbs from the canteen floor. Why is the state criminalising normal childhood behaviour? The charge on the police docket was “disrupting class”. But that’s not how 12-year-old Sarah Bustamantes saw […]
West Readies Oil Plan in Case of Iran Crisis
January 9th, 2012Via: Reuters: Western powers this week readied a contingency plan to tap a record volume from emergency stockpiles to replace nearly all the Gulf oil that would be lost if Iran blocks the Strait of Hormuz, industry sources and diplomats told Reuters. They said senior executives of the International Energy Agency (IEA), which advises 28 […]
