Sudan calls Israel its number one enemy

/

PressTv

Sudan's President Omar al-Bashir has called Israel the country’s number one enemy and repeated Khartoum’s assertion that Tel Aviv carried out an October airstrike on an arms factory in the Sudanese capital.

"Israel is our enemy, our number one enemy, and we will continue calling Israel our enemy," he said in Riyadh where he has received medical treatment, AFP reported on Thursday. 

On October 24, Sudan's Minister of Information Ahmed Bilal Osman said that four Israeli warplanes attacked the factory, killing at least two people.

Hundreds of Sudanese staged a demonstration in Khartoum on the same day to condemn the strike. 

Sudan has also asked the United Nations Security Council to condemn Israel for violating the country’s sovereignty and bombing the factory, but the 15-member council has so far failed to take any action. 

Read More

Obama reminded of pledge to close down Guantanamo prison

/

PressTv

Rights groups have called on recently-reelected President Barack Obama to close down the country’s dreaded Guantanamo prison in Cuba, a pledge the chief executive failed to fulfill in his first tenure, and put an end to the US drone attacks abroad.

On Thursday, the activists urged the president to live up to his long-overdue promise and shut down the prison camp where US authorities hold the so-called war on terror suspects. 

The rights groups also demanded the president to stop employing his predecessor George W. Bush’s strong-arm security tactics, including warrantless surveillance and extrajudicial killings using the unmanned aerial vehicles.

Anthony Romero, the executive director of American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said it was time “to once again be a nation where we can be both safe and free.” 

“We urge President Obama to dismantle a national security state where warrantless surveillance, extrajudicial killings of American citizens by drones and other attacks on our personal freedoms have been deemed acceptable,” he said. 

Amnesty International (AI) also released a strongly-worded statement, describing Obama’s human rights record as “disastrous.” 

Read More

American election a 'capitalist battleground' – Ahmadinejad

/

Rt.com

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has lashed out at the record-shattering cost of this year's US presidential election, deriding the self-declared “forerunners of democracy” of the Western world.

Ahmadinejad claimed that American elections have turned into “battlegrounds for capitalists” and “excuses for hefty spending,” referring to the estimated $6 billion campaign bill for US presidential and congressional elections in a Thursday speech at the Fifth Bali Democracy Forum.

During the American presidential race only, more than $2 billion were raised and spent, making it the most expensive election in the country's history.

With hundreds of millions dollars contributed by corporations and the wealthy, the exceptionally costly campaign has provoked concerns and criticism not just from Tehran but even from as close as Canada.

“Big money has bastardized democracy in the United States,” Canadian MP Pat Martin said, as quoted by The Canadian Press. Martin went as far as saying that the US democracy, where corporations are legally considered people and granted free speech rights, has become “a mere shadow,” “an illusion,” of democracy.

Read More

'Innocence of Muslims' creator goes to jail

/

Rt.com

The creator of the anti-Muslim movie that spurred violent protests across the Middle East was sentenced to a year in prison on Wednesday for unrelated prison violations after his attorneys agreed to a plea bargain.

Mark Bassely Youssef, a 55-year-old US citizen originally from Egypt, admitted to half of the eight alleged violations that landed him in police custody in late September, reports the Associated Press. After he was believed to be involved in the “Innocence of Muslims” film that prompted outrage earlier this year, Youssef went into hiding. He was eventually detained, however, and forced to face accusations that he had broken the conditions of a previous sentence dished out for allegedly using more than a dozen aliases to open multiple banks accounts to mastermind a check fraud scheme. On Wednesday, he admitted to four of those charges, including obtaining a fraudulent California driver's license, and was sentenced to serve one year behind bars.

Outside of a Los Angeles, California courtroom, defense attorney Steven Seiden delivered an ominous statement from his client, then said he could not elaborate further.

"The one thing he wanted me to tell all of you is President Obama may have gotten Osama bin Laden, but he didn't kill the ideology," Seiden told reporters.

When asked for a meaning behind the message, Seiden responded, “I didn’t ask him, and I don’t know.”

From Allen West to Mia Love — a bad night for black Pet Negro Republicans

/

theGrio 

While President Barack Obama and supporters celebrated his victorious win last night, black politicians in the Republican Party were experiencing less luck in their race for Congress.

This election season has turned out to be a stark contrast from a party that touted African-American politicians like Michael Steele and Herman Cain in the last couple of years. Of the three black candidates the GOP favored this year, two did not secure a victory.

There were high expectations for Mia Love’s candidacy for a U.S. House seat, but the mayor of Saratoga Spring, Utah lost in a close race against incumbent Democrat Jim Matheson for the state’s 4th district. Had she won, Love would have become the first black Republican congresswoman in history.

Love, a Mormon and the daughter of Haitian immigrants, kicked off her race for Congress in January, gaining steam as a rising star and cinching the Republican nomination. Her brief speech at the Republican National Convention in Tampa garnered even more attention and put her in the nation’s spotlight.

She quickly became her party’s face of diversity and most polls leading up to Election Night showed her in the lead. But when results came in last night, Love had lost by a slim 3,000 votes.

Controversial Tea Party favorite Allen West lost his campaign for re-election this morning against Democrat Patrick Murphy, though West has still refused to concede.

Read More

Coal miners strike deal in South Africa

/

Aljazeera

Coal companies in South Africa have signed a surprise wage deal with unions in an effort to avoid a wave of deadly illegal strikes that have rocked the country's gold and platinum sectors.

The Chamber of Mines said on Wednesday that the companies, which include Anglo American, had agreed to raise certain entry-level wages by up to 5 per cent and offered one-off payments to higher categories of workers.

The main wage agreements in the coal sector do not expire until the middle of next year, but restless unions have ignored existing contracts in platinum and gold, leading to rolling wildcat action that has led to the killing of over 50 people so far this year, most of them shot dead by police.

Phillemon Motlhamme, deputy head for industrial relations at the chamber, said the body that represents the industry was approached by unions in September to ensure that illegal strikes would not spread to coal.

"The National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) and the other two unions asked how we can strengthen our collective bargaining framework and ensure continuous stability in the coal sector," he said.

NUM, South Africa's dominant mining union, also wants to shore up its own base, given that the unrest that has gripped the platinum sector has its roots in a turf war between it and the Association of Mineworkers and Construction Union (AMCU).
Read More

Monsanto Crams GMOs Down California’s Throat - Prop. 37 Food-Labeling Law Fails

/

Farmwars and NBC and Rt

President Obama wasn’t the only big winner on Tuesday: the Monsanto Co. and the billion-dollar business behind genetically modified foods were victorious in California, where a measure that would've required the labeling of GMOs lost at the polls.

Proposition 37, a state-wide initiative that aimed to increase consumer awareness about the food industry’s growing use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), was defeated by a margin of 53 to 47 percent, with nearly all of the polls accounted for Wednesday morning.

Had Prop 37 been approved, foods containing GMOs would have been mandated to make the fact clear on the product’s label. If passed, the law would’ve meant most processed foods would be forced to include notes to consumers that they were "partially produced with genetic engineering" or "may be partially produced with genetic engineering" by 2014. Additionally, the words "genetically engineered" would be required to appear on packaging as well.

The Missouri-based Monsanto Company, an international leader in agricultural biotechnology and a proponent of GMO use, dumped millions of dollars into a campaign that opposed the ballot measure — a maneuver that many are saying was singlehandedly responsible for swinging the vote.

Read More

Geraldo Rivera - GOP Doomed by Latino Vote

/

Latinofoxnews

And during this election cycle Mr. Nice Guy Mitt Romney led the anti-immigrant mob. During the primary campaign, he crippled the candidacies of Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry by portraying them as weak on the undocumented. All Speaker Gingrich wanted to do was to allow for a statute of limitations after which a long-term undocumented immigrant could find a path to legitimacy. All Governor Perry wanted to do was provide in-state tuition for young students brought here innocently by their parents.

Mr. Romney excoriated both rivals as weak; appeasers who would grant amnesty to law-breakers. Conveniently ignoring facts like the dramatic decline in illegal immigration, and the federal statistics showing the relative lawfulness of the undocumented, he thundered about the need to create conditions so draconian that 12 million of them would self-deport.

In the process, the governor helped cast a pall over the entire Latino population, legal and illegal alike. It wasn’t enough that he had Florida senator Marco Rubio at his side, or that his son Craig had learned Spanish while a missionary in Chile. Those gestures were seen as window dressing by a community more interested in deeds.

Voters Affirm Maryland DREAM Act

/

ACLU

Voters in Maryland today approved Question 4, a ballot measure that allows Maryland students regardless of immigration status to pay in-state tuition at Maryland universities if they've graduated from a Maryland high school and fulfilled other requirements. Election results from 60.7% of precincts reporting indicate that Question 4 passed by a wide margin of 57.5% to 42.5%.

"The passage of the DREAM Act is a remarkable victory for Maryland and its immigrant community, especially aspiring citizens," said Sirine Shebaya, Liman Fellow at the ACLU of Maryland. "By approving Question 4 by a wide margin, Marylanders have shown that they stand for fundamental fairness and equality for all of Maryland's students. This achievement places Maryland at the forefront of efforts to secure rights for immigrants who are an integral part of communities throughout Maryland."

Earlier this year, the Obama Administration announced that it will stop deporting and begin giving work permits to young adults who came to the U.S. as children (often referred to as "DREAMers"). Though this policy, known as "deferred action," provides a critical stopgap measure, it does not provide a permanent solution to the problem.

Read More

Jackie Lacey Becomes Los Angeles' First Black District Attorney

/

ColorLines

This year's race for Los Angeles District attorney is in the history books in more ways than one. On Tuesday night, Jackie Lacey became first woman and African American to ever hold the office.

"When you look at my resume and what I've accomplished and the experience I had that was relevant to running that office, I had those things. And what the voters of L.A. County said was that the fact that I am a woman, the fact that I'm African American has no bearing on it."

Lacey, a registered Democrat, had endorsements from California Atty. Gen. Kamala Harris, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa as well as the current Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley, who is retiring after three terms

Lacey won 55 percent of the votes. Running against her was veteran prosecutor Alan Jackson.

Redistricting Protects the 2010 Republican Surge in State Legislatures

/

Colorlines 

Republicans are no doubt feeling sour today after Romney's defeat and a failed attempt to take control of the Senate. And while last night's elections were a victory for Democrats, a deeper examination of the post-election playing field suggests Republicans remain well positioned to pursue a conservative agenda just as aggressively as they have for the last two years.

This is especially true in the states where for the last two years tea party candidates used Republican majorities to push a radical policy agenda. In the wake of yesterday's elections, Republican control of state politics appears largely unchanged.

The 2010 election was a wave for Republicans, launching conservatives into control of a 29 governor's mansions and 59 of the country's 98 partisan state legislative chambers. This put Republicans in position to dominate the shape of state policy, passing dozens of bills restricting abortion access and voting rights, maligning the safety-net and attacking immigrants.

After last night, the numbers look nearly the same.

Republicans gained an additional governor's mansion in North Carolina and now control 57 legislative chambers (including Virginia's Senate, which is tied but for the Republican lieutenant governor's tie-breaking vote), according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

Read More

Tulsi Gabbard, First Hindu-American Elected to Congress, Crushed GOP

/

Colorlines

On Tuesday night Tulsi Gabbard became the first Hindu-American to have entered the U.S. House of Representatives, winning her Hawaii seat by crushing her Republican rival.

Gabbard, 31, is an Iraq War veteran who born in American Samoa to a Catholic father and a Hindu mother. She has served on the Honolulu City Council and in the state Legislature.

Gabbard is a rising star earlier, earlier this year she spoke at the Democratic National Convention, appearing with U.S. Rep. Nancy Pelosi. I should note that her extreme margin of victory is largely due to the fact that her opponent Republican Kawika Crowley is homeless, lives in a van, and didn't receive the backing of the Hawaii GOP party.

In an interview with Religion News Service earlier this month, Gabbard said she hopes to be a bridge between cultures and nations. "Hopefully the presence in Congress of an American who happens to be Hindu will increase America's understanding of India as well as India's understanding of America," she said.

Read More

Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich's Home Was Broken into and Ransacked

/

Citizens for Legit Gov

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who represents the 10th Congressional District, arrived home on Monday to find that his home had been broken into and ransacked. According to the Cleveland Division of Police, someone entered the home by using a rear window in the kitchen area. The incident is said to have occurred around 10pm on Sunday, and it was reported by someone other than Kucinich, although it is not clear what the person's relationship is to the lawmaker.

Latino Advocacy Group Challenges White Supremacist Sheriff Arpaio’s projected reelection victory

/

Raw Story

While Republican Sheriff Joe Arpaio was projected to win his sixth term in Arizona’s Maricopa County, a Latino advocacy group challenged the results Tuesday night.

“The fight is still not over,” Promise Action in Arizona deputy field director Tomas Robles told VOXXI.com. “There are almost half a million people whose votes haven’t been counted.”

The group said there are actually 400,000 provisional ballots left to be counted, even though Arpaio’s closest opponent, Democrat Paul Penzone, conceded the race just before 10 pm local time, according to The Arizona Republic, saying he faced a 75,000-vote deficit with 40 percent of state precincts reporting, a gap too wide to overcome.

However, Penzone also issued a word of warning toward Arpaio, who has made national headlines — and attracted legal scrutiny — while billing himself as “America’s Toughest Sheriff” for his stark anti-immigrant policies.

“There’s a bigger percentage of the population that in the past looked at things through a political lens and now realizes public safety can’t be about politics,” Penzone said. “They’re going to hold the sheriff accountable.”

 

Washington state votes to legalize marijuana

/

Raw Story

Washington voters overwhelmingly approved Initiative 502, a ballot initiative to legalize marijuana.

As of 10:00 p.m. PST, the ballot initiative was up 55.45 percent to 44.55 percent.

Initiative 502 legalized the production and sale of marijuana in Washington state through state-licensed stores. Under the law, the Washington State Liquor Control Board will regulate marijuana-shops, and possessing up to an ounce of marijuana will be legal.

The Washington State Democratic Central Committee, the state-wide umbrella organization for the Democratic Party, had endorsed Initiative 502. In a resolution passed last year, the Democrats stated that “marijuana is Washington’s second biggest cash crop and could generate hundreds of millions of dollars in new tax revenues” and that outlawing the drug was “wasting millions of dollars.” The initiative was also supported by the NAACP, ACLU and a number of other organizations.

Initiative 502 also amends Washington’s DUI laws by making driving under the influence of 5 nanograms per milliliter of blood of THC, the main psychoactive chemical in marijuana, illegal. The 5 nanogram limit would not apply to the non-psychoactive marijuana metabolite carboxy-THC, which can appear in blood or urine tests for weeks.

Colorado voters also approved a ballot initiative legalizing recreational marijuana use Tuesday night.

California Proposition 34: Death penalty repeal trailing in early returns

/

SanJoseMercTimes

Proposition 34, which would abolish the death penalty in California, was trailing in early voting Tuesday, but many results were not yet available from key battlegrounds such as Los Angeles, San Francisco and Alameda County.

The measure was down by about a 56 percent to 44 percent margin as the first votes were counted. Proposition 34 marks the first opportunity in more than three decades for California voters to decide whether to retain the death penalty, which has been scrapped by a number of other states in recent years.

"I'm not surprised we're down in early voting," said Natasha Minsker, Proposition 34's campaign manager. "They will get higher as the night goes on."

The measure would replace the death penalty with life in prison without the possibility of parole and convert the death sentences of California's 727 death row inmates to life. If approved, it would reverberate through the national debate over the death penalty while immediately removing nearly a quarter of the more than 3,100 death row inmates now awaiting execution across the country.

Read More