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Category: Journalism

Airbnb Is Renting ‘Illegal’ And ‘Criminal’ Homes In Apartheid Israel’s Settlements
In this July 18, 2009 photograph, chalk writing underneath a bridge in Oxford, England reads "Free Palestine." (Flicka / Aza Raskin)
January 27, 2016
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Airbnb Is Renting ‘Illegal’ And ‘Criminal’ Homes In Apartheid Israel’s Settlements

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Though the sharing economy may offer new avenues for income, it’s also contributing to an old problem: Israel’s ever-expanding, illegal occupation of Palestine.

Human rights experts widely agree that apartheid Israel’s settlements in Occupied Palestinian Territoriesviolate international law. This, it seems, is not a problem for Airbnb: The website and smartphone app which lets users rent a room in someone’s house or unused apartment, lists dozens of properties in illegal Israeli settlements.

Kate Shuttleworth and Julia Carrie Wong, writing on Jan. 13 for The Guardian, reported that the listings are “raising questions about the technology platform’s legal position in profiting from rentals on the land.”

Read moreAirbnb Is Renting ‘Illegal’ And ‘Criminal’ Homes In Apartheid Israel’s Settlements
Tax Revenue Expected To Reach $125 Million As 2015 Colorado Cannabis Sales Near $1B
This November 25, 2009 photograph shows a close-up of a lush bud of cannabis in a legal medical marijuana grow house in Denver, Colorado. (Flickr / Coleen Elliott)
January 26, 2016
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Tax Revenue Expected To Reach $125 Million As 2015 Colorado Cannabis Sales Near $1B

Posted in Journalism, and MintPress News

Colorado’s legal marijuana business boomed last year, with total sales in the state nearing the $1 billion mark, according to current estimates.

Official figures for marijuana sales in December won’t be available until next month, but Ricardo Baca, a staff writer for The Denver Post’s The Cannabist, reported on Jan. 13 that total marijuana sales, including for both recreational and medicinal purposes, had reached $895 million by November.

With cannabis taxed in three ways by the state, including two different kinds of sales tax, Colorado had earned $121 million through that month. That figure represents an especially important windfall for education, Baca noted:

Read moreTax Revenue Expected To Reach $125 Million As 2015 Colorado Cannabis Sales Near $1B
Anti-Corruption Gyrocopter Pilot Seeks Return To Congress, This Time By Election
Ted Hughes speaks at TedXTampaRiverwalk on August 29, 2015. (Flickr / TedXTampaRiverwalk)
January 21, 2016
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Anti-Corruption Gyrocopter Pilot Seeks Return To Congress, This Time By Election

Posted in Archive, Journalism, and MintPress News

After illegally landing a miniature helicopter on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol last year, Doug Hughes is determined to return to the Hill as a member of the House of Representatives.

“I’m coming back to Congress by ground. And this time I’m not going to be outside the building — I’m going to be inside the building!” the former U.S. Postal Service employee from Florida told MintPress News on Monday.

Hughes garnered international attention in April, when he landed a gyrocopter directly on the front lawn of Congress. The personal aerial vehicle contained letters for members of Congress, demanding that they fight the influence of money in politics.

Read moreAnti-Corruption Gyrocopter Pilot Seeks Return To Congress, This Time By Election
Despite Setbacks, The Fight To Stop TPP Spills Into 2016
A surfboard standing by the beach reads "No TPP: Stop Secret Trade Deals." A swimsuit lies crumpled nearby in the sand. (Flickr / SumOfUs)
January 19, 2016
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Despite Setbacks, The Fight To Stop TPP Spills Into 2016

Posted in Archive, Journalism, and MintPress News

A new year brings new challenges and new opportunities for the international movement opposed to the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a controversial trade deal that activists say threatens to allow corporate power to overrule democracy.

Despite widespread opposition and controversy, President Barack Obama and other world leaders are expected to sign the agreement in Auckland, New Zealand, in early February, according to a Jan. 12 report from the New Zealand Herald.

Opposition to the TPP comes from many fronts. There are concerns about how the deal undermines food safety, the local food movement and consumer rights, as well as its potentially devastating effects on intellectual property laws and the price of prescription drugs.

Read moreDespite Setbacks, The Fight To Stop TPP Spills Into 2016
Saudi Arabia Takes Proxy War With Iran To Nigeria As Shias Are Brutalized
Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky speaks into a microphone in this 2013 photograph. (Wikimedia Commons / Tajo Malli)
January 15, 2016
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Saudi Arabia Takes Proxy War With Iran To Nigeria As Shias Are Brutalized

Posted in Archive, Journalism, and MintPress News

On Dec. 12, Nigerian government forces carried out a brutal massacre against the country’s minority Muslim Shia population, with some media reporting over 1,000 killed, after the military imprisoned and tortured the group’s important dissident leader Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky.

The news of the slaughter of a minority religious group emerges as Nigeria announced it is considering joining Saudi Arabia in the fight against Daesh (the Arabic acronym for the group commonly known in the West as ISIS), linking two nations known for repression and repeated, disturbing human rights violations. Saudi Arabia, in turn, has a history of promoting the extremist religious ideology of Wahhabism that inspires terrorist groups like Nigeria’s own Boko Haram, the terrorist group that the country is still struggling to control, and even al-Qaida and Daesh.

And Zakzaky isn’t the only activist to face imprisonment in recent months — Nigeria has a reputation for quashing political dissent no matter where it’s source. However, the arrest and crackdown came just months after Muhammadu Buhari, a retired army general, successfully won election on a promise to restore order to the country.

Read moreSaudi Arabia Takes Proxy War With Iran To Nigeria As Shias Are Brutalized
‘Bring Your Cat To Stratfor Day’ Spreads Awareness Of Anonymous Hacktivist Jeremy Hammond’s Birthday
Jeremy Hammond, hacktivist and political prisoner, was behind the now famous Stratfor email hacks.
January 13, 2016
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‘Bring Your Cat To Stratfor Day’ Spreads Awareness Of Anonymous Hacktivist Jeremy Hammond’s Birthday

Posted in Austin, Journalism, MintPress News, and Occupy Wall Street

In what’s become an annual tradition, activists gathered in downtown Austin on Friday to celebrate the birthday of a political prisoner and hacktivist nearly forgotten and ignored by the mainstream media: Jeremy Hammond.

In 2012, Hammond, along with other members of the Anonymous-associated group Lulzsec, hacked millions of emails from the servers of the Strategic Forecasting, also known as Stratfor, a private intelligence corporation located in the city, and leaked them to WikiLeaks, where they became known as the “Global Intelligence Files.” Among other revelations contained in the emails, the files showed that Stratfor had been spying on activists on behalf of corporations like Dow Chemical and working with the Texas State Troopers to infiltrate Occupy Austin.

For Leah Burris, an organizer from Prison Abolition and Prison Support (PAPS), an Austin-based group which organized the protest on Hammond’s birthday, the worst thing about Stratfor is that they are supported by our tax dollars in addition to their corporate clients. “What I wish people know most about them is that basically our government is giving Stratfor money that we give them to spy on us.”

Read more‘Bring Your Cat To Stratfor Day’ Spreads Awareness Of Anonymous Hacktivist Jeremy Hammond’s Birthday