Finally, a legal travesty is over. It all started on May 11, 2010 with three activists handing out Fully Informed Jury Association literature in front of the federal courthouse in Allentown, PA. It ended on September 1, 2010 with George Donnelly being sentenced to time served and paying a $525.00 fine. All of his property was returned though the video he took of the incident was deleted from his camera.

Tags: trial | George Donnelly | FIJA | Allentown PA

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By Jacky Rowland

There has been a temporary construction freeze on the White House lawn in honour of the Middle East peace talks hosted by President Obama. The bulldozers and cranes that are carrying out a refurbishment of the White House grounds drowned out our broadcasts on Tuesday. But on Wednesday they fell silent, as if paying an unconscious tribute to the better known construction freeze in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

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By Teymoor Nabili

A number of mainstream news outlets have reported the verdict in the killing of 10 year-old Abir Aramin by Israeli soldiers:

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That ecologically India has been facing tough times has been known for some time. Things have not been happy and what is perhaps more forbidding is that they are going to become more difficult in the future, generally worsening the plight of the people. Many of those who are suffering perhaps do not even know what is really hitting them. Global warming may have been the reason for most of the misery, yet one cannot entirely rule out thoughtless human interventions with nature.

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The recent decision by the City of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania to require a Business Privilege License (cost $300) of blogs and that the blogs be taxed on any profits has generated a well deserved outcry from free marketers across the country. Many have invoked Chief Justice John Marshall’s famous words, "The power to tax involves the power to destroy." They are right, this will be the end of independent blogging in Philadelphia and around the world when this spreads across countries.

Tags: tax | Philadelphia | business priviledge license | blogs

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The head of Amnesty International's Finnish branch, Frank Johansson, wrote in Finland's third largest newspaper this week that he views Israel as a "scum state."

Tags: Israel

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By Teymoor Nabili

President Obama unexpectedly held a hush-hush briefing about Iran last week.

 According to the Washington Post:

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I ran oligarchic British rule from America. I replaced it with rule "of, by, and for" the people.

I am not a man. I am the soul of America.  I am the spirit of 'We the People'.

I want you, the good people of America, to recognize me. I am dying.

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By Clayton Swisher

Reflecting on my coverage of the latest UN report released on Tuesday showing a 31 per cent increase in overall Afghan civilians casualties, a couple of questions raised in my mind about the overall chances for success by the US-led coalition.

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1. Homosexuality is not natural -- much like eyeglasses, polyester, fellatio, indoor plumbing, and birth control.

2. Heterosexual marriages are valid because they produce children. (As we all know, infertile couples and old people cant legally get married, as they are utterly barren.)

Tags: marriage equality

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This time it started out differently. Adam Mueller and Pete Eyre from Liberty on Tour were there with Antonio Musumeci (otherwise known as "Bile" for his blog, Blog of Bile) and, of course, Julian Heicklen.

Tags: NY | Liberty on Tour | Heicklen | FIJA | Blog of Bile

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By Nicole Johnston

As you approach Gaza's main dump by road you see a massive wall of trash looming over the plain.

It's crawling with around one hundred scavenger dogs and dozens of poor children, combing through the trash for anything they can sell.

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Not many would have heard of the Nenets who inhabit the Yamal Peninsula in the Arctic Circle between the Kara Sea and the Gulf of Ob. I too hadn’t until I came across a feature on them in Geographical, the magazine of the Royal Geographical Society of UK.

Tags: indigenous people | climate change

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By Teymoor Nabili

John McCain was attempting comedy, but his little jingle may repeat itself as tragedy.

Republican hawks in the US House of Representatives have introduced a bill to support (encourage?) Israeli military action against Iran.

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By W.G. McDonald

First, seek the most direct path
leading to the pantry.
Focus on the jar itself.

Tags: Zen | Art | Peanut Butter

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By JOSEPH W. MCQUAID
New Hampshire Union Leader Publisher 

SARAH PALIN'S endorsement of Kelly Ayotte for U.S. Senate should neither surprise nor upset the other campaigns. The race will be won by the candidate who impresses New Hampshire voters, and New Hampshire voters are rarely impressed by what outsiders have to say.

Tags: Sarah Palin | Kelly Ayotte | New Hampshire

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The forecasts for India’s high economic growth have been coming thick and fast. Only late last year the Parisbased Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development predicted a 5.9% growth for India in 2009 and 7.2% 2010. In his budget speech earlier this year the Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherji, had promised to put the economy on a trajectory of high growth and there have been several occasions when he predicted that India’s GDP would grow at the rate of more than 8%.

Tags: GDP India

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By Gabriel Elizondo

Hollman Morris is a Colombian journalist who has received dozens of international awards for his work uncovering atrocities and human rights abuses in the decade’s-long armed conflict in his country.

But the United States apparently views him as a terrorist. (More on this terrorist thing later).

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Any natural or man-made disaster raises controversies. A disaster of the scale that Bhopal witnessed because of the leak of the lethal methyl isocynate (MIC) on one cold December morning in 1984 was sure to raise controversies of huge proportions. That is precisely what it did, and more so after the June7, 2010 ultra-mild verdict handed out to the accused officials of Union Carbide of India Ltd. (UCIL). In the process, facts and fiction got merged and one doesn’t really know what is true and what is not and what to believe and what not to. A few of these are subject of this article.

Tags: Bhopal gas leak

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By Imran Khan

Standing in the valley I look to the North East and Afghanistan.

The Tora Bora mountains seem to push toward the sky and even in July ominous clouds lurk overhead.

The Pakistani army have brought me to Khurram agency in the remote tribal belt in the North West of the country.

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