Obama moves to normalize relations with Cuba as American is released by Havana

"The United States and Cuba ended more than a half-century of enmity Wednesday, announcing that they would reestablish diplomatic relations and begin dismantling the last pillar of the Cold War. The historic move, following 18 months of secret negotiations and finally made possible by Cuba’s release of detained U.S. aid contractor Alan Gross, fulfilled one of President Obama’s key second-term goals."

Obama is looking into normalizing relations with Cuba after the release of detained U.S. aid contractor Alan Gross, yet nothing is being done about Guantanamo Bay. 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/report-cuba-frees-american-alan-gross-after-5-years-detention-on-spy-charges/2014/12/17/a2840518-85f5-11e4-a702-fa31ff4ae98e_story.html

Dear Chelsea Manning: birthday messages from Edward Snowden, Terry Gilliam and more

27 years old, served 4.75 of 35 years in jail for outing murder and abuse by the government. Black liberation fighters are dying in jail. Palestinians are dying in prison for supporting orphanages. Torturers are free, paid millions and protected by Obama explicitly. How do you suppose the world judges our society? Happy Birthday Chelsea Manning.


Edward Snowden sums up the mood of collective gratitude: “I thank you now and forever for your extraordinary act of service and I am sorry that it has come with such an unbelievable personal cost. As a result of your courageous act, the American people are more informed about the workings of our government as it positions itself for endless war ... For this we all thank you. Happy birthday, Chelsea.”


http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/dec/16/-sp-dear-chelsea-manning-birthday-messages-from-edward-snowden-terry-gilliam-and-more

Why America Is to Blame for Mexico’s Carnage and Corruption

"The crisis over 43 massacred students shows how dysfunctional and corrupt Peña Nieto's government is. And yet Obama keeps patting him on the back.Whether they will admit it or not, President Barack Obama and the United States Congress are directly responsible for the tragedy of the 43 missing, and likely massacred, student activists in the Mexican state of Guerrero — and for the political crisis that has followed. And the Wall Street Journal has just revealed that U.S. agents dress up in Mexican military uniforms to participate directly in special missions.

Washington and Mexico City justify such profound U.S. involvement in Mexico’s internal crime-fighting by saying that Peña Nieto’s government needs all the support it can get in order to put down powerful drug cartels and reform the local police. But the Iguala case changes the narrative entirely.

According to the official account, the students were murdered in order to prevent them from interrupting a speech by María de los Ángeles Pineda, the wife of Iguala’s mayor, José Luis Abarca. First, local police detained the students. Then they passed them off to members of a local drug cartel, who apparently burned them for 12 hours in an enormous bonfire in order to cover up evidence of the murder. The students were peaceful, unarmed, and have no relation to any drug cartels."

America's involvement in Mexico has a lot to do with the corruption that's going on, and are very much responsible for the 43 murdered students because of Obama's support for Nieto's government. Another reason is America’s insatiable consumer demand for illicit drugs and the constant flow of our guns, which arm the cartels. 

http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/11/26/why-america-is-to-blame-for-mexicos-carnage-and-corruption/

CIA cites Israeli court to "justify" torture program

"This latest disclosure comes just months after revelations that the Obama administration relied on an Israeli high court ruling to justify targeted killings of American citizens without trial. The CIA’s torture techniques — which included water-boarding, sleep and sensory deprivation, sexual torture, threats to kill and rape loved ones, mock executions, electrocution and medically unnecessary 'rectal feeding' — were far more gruesome and pervasive than the agency let on."

The torture of innocent civilians is currently becoming legalized. The disturbing part is the strategies of what was (is) being done to innocent victims has become mainstream and out in the open, yet not many Americans seems to bat an eyelash, it's as if U.S. citizens have become numb/conditioned to "terrorist" blood. "Innocent till proven guilty" was never relevant or put into practice since these victims were never even given a fair trail to begin with. The worst part is, both the U.S. and Israel use the same arguments to justify the on-going human rights abuses. 

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/cia-cites-israeli-court-ruling-justify-torture-program

Dispatches: What the Ferguson Commission Needs to Tackle

It's extremely urgent and necessary that Jay Nixon, Governor of Missouri, sheds light on the systematic police aggression and law enforcement against the peaceful demonstrations led by Ferguson residents, following a recent incident with the shooting of unarmed black civilian Michael Brown. Nixon also adds that there's mistrust between the law enforcement and the community, due to the police strategically targeting unarmed, poor, black residents of Ferguson. And the poverty conditions of the people in Ferguson only makes their situation even more difficult. Having no money, and being subjugated by a dominant power in a very unequal society makes committing a crime the destiny for the blacks in Ferguson out of desperation. The police need to focus their energy and time elsewhere, where crimes are actually being committed, rather than occupy and oppress harmless Ferguson residents who are paying a heavy price for responding and reacting against an unjust incident. The situation in Ferguson can be compared to an apartheid-like system since the community is divided, and the Ferguson residents are being victimized by a superior power, and aren't being treated fairly. It's as if there's an invisible separation wall, since the living and social conditions seem to be similar to apartheid, where there are two sets of laws/rules for two people, and that's the current situation in Ferguson.


http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/10/29/dispatches-what-ferguson-commission-needs-tackle

The Crisis With Civilian Deaths in Syria

Just recently, the United States bombed the town of Idlib in Syria, killing 7 civilians, including 5 children. Human rights researchers are calling for the investigation of the bombing because the missile only targeted and killed civilians, not military targets. If the U.S. continues to bomb Syria in oblivion without differentiating between civilians and terrorists, then the statistics of civilian deaths will only increase. This is extremely problematic, because the civilians are supposed to be protected from these bombs, but it seems as though the innocent defenseless Syrian civilians are more in danger, and more likely to be effected by U.S. air strikes than the ISIS targets.

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/26520-after-civilian-deaths-human-rights-watch-says-us-strikes-on-syria-may-violate-laws-of-war

The United Nations and Global Issues: Water

11 per cent of the global population, remain without access to an improved source of drinking water. The United Nations has long been addressing the global crisis caused by insufficient water supply to satisfy basic human needs and growing demands on the world’s water resources to meet human, commercial and agricultural needs. The United Nations Water Conference (1977), the International Drinking Water Supply and Sanitation Decade (1981-1990), the International Conference on Water and the Environment (1992) and the Earth Summit (1992) — all focused on this vital resource. The Decade, in particular, helped some 1.3 billion people in developing countries gain access to safe drinking water. But the fact that there's still 11 percent of the global population that do not have access to safe drinking water is a major problem. Although the UN has increased access to drinking water in developing countries, but there's still a lot of social and health issues that need to be dealt with, like poverty, HIV, AIDS, malaria and other diseases, and as long as there's no upward mobility and these issues remain, things will only get worse. 

http://www.un.org/en/globalissues/water/