4 more ‘Food not Bombs’ activists arrested.

Feeding: The anti-poverty group Orlando Food Not Bombs has been passing out free food in city parks for years.

cross-posted from the Miami Herald

ORLANDO, Fla. — Four more activists have been arrested for feeding pancakes and donuts to the homeless in downtown Orlando.

Police officers handcuffed the activists and loaded them into a police van Monday just after they had distributed food to about 30 homeless people in defiance of a city ordinance.

The Orlando ordinance requires groups to get a permit to feed 25 or more people in parks in a downtown district. The rules also restrict the groups to two permits per year for each park.

The law was passed in 2006, but Orlando Food Not Bombs challenged it in court. In April, a federal appeals court in Atlanta ruled that the Orlando law was legal.

Last week, four other activists were arrested for violating the law.

Fracking the world. New Int.

Issue 442

Big oil is on the move. there’s a rush to exploit new sources of ‘unconventional’ natural gas via hydraulic fracturing – or ‘fracking’. The environmental price tag, as Joyce Nelson reports, is steep.

Warning: drink at your peril! Tap water drawn from aquifers that have been contaminated by fracking is so full of toxic chemicals that it can be set alight.

Caution: flammable water

I was getting horrible burns and rashes from taking a shower and then my dogs refused to drink the w $pg-8-fracking_611568s$ ater…

In North America, shale gas has become increasingly controversial because of fracking. Huge volumes of water are mixed with sand and dozens of toxic chemicals like benzene, toluene and xylene, and then injected under extreme pressure to shatter the underground rock reservoir and release gas trapped in the rock pores. Each ‘slick-water frack’ uses nearly 20 million litres of freshwater. The toxic chemicals mixed in the water endanger groundwater aquifers and threaten to pollute nearby water-wells. With horizontal drilling, a well can be fracked more than a dozen times, making the fractures extend several kilometres………..

Filmmaker Josh Fox found the same thing happening across the US in many of the 34 states where fracking is taking place. His feature-length documentary, Gasland, won a Special Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award this year.

Gasland shows a man setting his water alight and people in 10 different states talking about how their communities were ruined by hydraulic fracturing. One gas company recently bought out the town of Dimock, Pennsylvania, for $4.1 million because fracking made the water completely undrinkable. Fox calls his documentar

y ‘a public health story’ because ‘health problems throughout these regions are really rampant’……..

In Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas and West Virginia over the past two years, almost 1,000 small-to-medium-sized earthquakes are being investigated as ‘induced earthquakes’ caused by nearby fracking and wastewater disposal wells.

Meanwhile, the reputation of shale gas – as a clean fossil fuel that could last for a century – is rapidly deteriorating. In January, new research by the EPA found that greenhouse gas emissions from fracking are almost 9,000 times higher than previously calculated, because of methane emissions. And some petroleum geologists are now saying that because the wells deplete so quickly shale gas represents only about seven years’ supply in North America.

Given the consequences it’s no wonder the industry is fretting about its public image. As Kevin Anderson, Professor of Energy and Climate Change at the University of Manchester’s Tyndall Centre, puts it: ‘The only safe place for shale gas is in the ground.’…

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE

On the fracking radar

Some countries targeted for shale gas development.

Countries	Companies interested
France	Elixir Petroleum Ltd, Vermillion Energy, Toreador Resources
Poland	ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil, Talisman Energy, Chevron
Indonesia	BP
China	Royal Dutch Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips
Australia	ConocoPhillips, Origin Energy Ltd, BP, Statoil, Chesapeake, Sasol
Nigeria	ExxonMobil
Hungary	ExxonMobil
Germany	ExxonMobil
Austria	OMV
Ukraine	Royal Dutch Shell
Sweden	Royal Dutch Shell
South Africa	Statoil, Chesapeake, Sasol
Algeria	BP
India	Statoil, Chesapeake, Sasol
New Zealand	Statoil, Chesapeake, Sasol, Energy Corp of America

Joyce Nelson is a freelance writer and researcher based in Toronto.

Artic: resource grabbing sparks war fears

Scramble for Arctic oil and gas puts pristine ecosystem at risk

Mark Jansen

6th June, 2011

The Arctic is becoming a battleground as Russia, Norway, Canada and the US vie for access to oil, gas and minerals – campaigners fear safety and the environment will be the losers

one cannot exclude that in the future there will be…armed intervention

The Arctic covers 30 million square km, has 24 time zones and is home to just four million people. It also has vast reserves of oil and gas, not to mention diamonds, platinum, nickel and iron.

Those reserves have been known about for centuries, yet a combination of new extraction technology and rising demand means that the human race is ready to start ripping them out – raising the threat of devastating pollution to a uniquely clean environment and worsening the problem of global warming, even as the ice caps are melting.

Greenpeace claims they could even cause a war in the region, with releases this month by Wikileaks, the whistle-blowing website, showing how the scramble for oil and gas in the Arctic is sparking military tension. Norway’s foreign minister is quoted as saying regular military flights by the Russians up and down Norway’s coast had helped to justify the purchase of four new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter combat aircraft to the Norwegian public. Meanwhile, the head of the Russian navy is quoted as saying ‘one cannot exclude that in the future there will be a redistribution of power [in the region], up to armed intervention.’

Instead of seeing the melting of the Arctic ice cap as a spur to action on climate change, point out campaigners, Arctic nations are preferring to invest in military hardware to fight for the oil beneath it.

Help us protect the Arctic | Greenpeace International

Help us protect the Arctic | Greenpeace International.

Help us protect the Arctic

Stand off between the drill ship Leiv Eiriksson and the Greenpeace ship Esperanza

Drilling in the Arctic is reckless, dangerous – and unnecessary at a time when an energy revolution has been proved possible. The British foreign office believes any oil spill in Arctic waters would be impossible to deal with.

Yet Cairn Energy is going to drill off the coast of Greenland – without making its oil spill response plan public. Experience has shown that we cannot trust oil companies on their word when they say they have it all covered. Cairn is saying that they managed to create a plan that most experts in the world say is impossible to pull off.

Cairn is gambling with the pristine wilderness of the Arctic. We demand that they show their hand.

Write to Cairn Energy’s CEO today to demand to see their Greenland oil spill response plan.

continue here

Help Us ..Press HERE

take the streets.Athens. General Strike

#611 | Athens sees its biggest gathering in years, more than 150,000 at Syntagma square as the build-up for the General Strike of June 15th begins

A crowd whose size is difficult to even estimate gathered in central Athens to protest against the crisis and the Memorandum tonight. The call to a pan-european call of action saw more than 100,000 (some estimates give much higher numbers) flooding Syntagma square and many central nearby avenues. In contrast to previous gatherings, police presence was much higher, with fencing erected around the parliament building and double, or triple rows of riot police around it.

The city is now building up for the General Strike of June 15th, which is also the next date of action announced at Syntagma square.

Both mobilisations are aimed against the new agreement between the government and the troika (IMF/EU/ECB) which is planned to be voted at parliament on the morning of the 15th.

The general assembly of Syntagma square has already called for a blocking of the parliament from the night of the 14th. In addition to the fencing installed around the parliament (see below), a police water canon has also appeared nearby.

Similar demonstrations took place in Thessaloniki, Patras, Heraklion, Larisa, Volos and many other Greek cities. In the Cretan city of Chania, fascists bearing arms appeared in the gathering, in a failed attempt to provoke the gathered crowd.

http://barcelona.indymedia.org/newswire/display/423422/index.php

Brazil: LAST STAND FOR THE XINGU

Amazon Watch has organized a “Cause” at Facebook:

“This has been a time of tragedy in the Amazon. This week the Brazilian government green-lighted construction on the monstrous Belo Monte Dam despite searing local, national and international opposition.

Yet despite the initiation of this criminal operation, I can assure you that the battle to defend the Xingu River and its people is far from over. “I have just returned from the Brazilian Amazon, where Chief Raoni gathered with hundreds of Kayapo warriors, indigenous leaders from 18 ethnicities, and leaders from the Xingu Alive Forever Movement (MXVPS).

“This is the last chance we have to paralyze Belo Monte’s construction,” Renata Pinheiro told the indigenous assembly. “The future of the Xingu is in your hands, indigenous peoples and social movements. You succeeded in stopping Belo Monte for 30 years – now more than ever we need to strengthen our resolve, joining forces to stop the beginning of construction.”

“It’s now more important than ever that we take this campaign to the next level. “Take a stand, stop this monstrous project by joining the Cause on Facebook “Stop the Monster Dam: Protect the Xingu River and its People”.

Your donation today will support the travel of indigenous leaders to Brasilia and Altamira to make their voices heard.” Xingu Alive Forever! Xingu Vivo Para Sempre! Please join the cause. Also, please note that the avaaz.org petition is still active. If you have not signed it you can do it now here. Posted by Lou Gold at 4:22 PM

Bitcoin: P2P currency to Smash Banks?!

Technology To Upend All Banks

Bitcoin is catching on at internet speed. If they can’t control it then States , corporations and money markets will lose their monopoly or riches, poor countries will benefit most.. Crime cartels may benefit, already there is a big drug trade in Bitcoins, but the main winners will be ordinary people. Right now the banks control the world.. Bitcoin could change that. The only way to stop Bitcoin is to destroy the Internet.

Can this decentralized barter currency free humanity from the grip of the slave masters and provide for a truly free-market economy?

There are no transfer fees or centralized clearing house needed for peers to trade Bits. Bitcoins are held in a wallet that carries an anonymous address in the system. Watch the brief video below for a concise description:

Once you download and run the Bitcoin client software, it connects over the Internet to the decentralized network of all Bitcoin users and also generates a pair of unique, mathematically linked keys, which you’ll need to exchange bitcoins with any other client. One key is private and kept hidden on your computer. The other is public and a version of it dubbed a Bitcoin address is given to other people so they can send you bitcoins. Crucially, it is practically impossible—even with the most powerful supercomputer—to work out someone’s private key from their public key. This prevents anyone from impersonating you. Your public and private keys are stored in a file that can be transferred to another computer, for example if you upgrade.

It’s called a cryptocurrency. Since the invention of Bitcoin… Money will never be the same

In the Bitcoin economy, there is no central bank… no privately owned “federal reserve” bank coprporation. The value of Bitcoins does not go down when “The Fed” decides to “print more money”. In fact, it might even go up in value… as it triggers more people to seek out alternatives to storing their money in the world’s “fiat currencies” (paper money that different nations’ central banks just continue to “print more of”)… and buy more Bitcoin instead. In the news, the corporate-owned media call it, “Quantitative Easing”…. We think it would be more appropriate to call it, “The Titanic”.

Ya know how email… changed old-fashioned mail… forever…? Well, Bitcoin is changing money… forever.

It’s as anonymous as you want it to be. Just like with cash, transactions can be totally anonymous. Transactions are only identified by your Bitcoin address, and you can have as many Bitcoin addresses as you want. You create another new Bitcoin address with one click any time you want to. Most people create a new Bitcoin Address for every person sending them a payment. That way, they know for sure who the payment came from.
Destroying Sate and Bank control of money is a vital 1st step towards a Money Free World
There’s no big brother. Third parties can’t prevent or control your transactions. Transfer money easily through the internet, without having to trust middlemen; no central bank, nor central authority.
It’s not a bank. It’s not paypal. What may be the best feature of all?
“Bye bye, PayPal.” “Bye bye, Bank.”