Fight The System

[Buster's Uncle]

Oh, I'm not making a major project of it myself.  The best thing I can do for the world is to do no harm and take care of my own problems.

[JarlWolf]

I've done just exactly that BU, directly for a while, indirectly at present. I was on my local town administration for a small while and I advocated change, but when it comes to re-elections I had enough votes to be on one of the seats for the my nearby town council, and a good number, but for some reason the votes had to be "re-cast." I was in opposition of a particular group and guess what, with the "re-casted" votes, I found that the man who was my main opposition took my place directly and me shot to out to dust. And this man previously barely had any votes for the entirety of the election process. Mind you it's a mere municipal election but his political party also achieved seats in their respective districts as well, with similar situations, and they had some rather wealthy supporters. As an independent, I wasn't tied to any of the existing parties. After that I said screw it and I don't bother anymore.

What I do now is I provide my voice if im asked and I just mind my own business, I take care of people I care about and I try to stay active within my community and online so I still have social interaction.

[Buster's Uncle]

Putin suggests some flexibility on anti-dissent laws
By Denis Dyomkin | Reuters – 33 mins ago.. .


MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday he was ready to review or move more slowly on a clutch of recent laws that rights campaigners say are aimed at silencing his critics.
 
Since Putin's re-election in March, preceded by the largest protests in his 12 years in power, parliament has rushed through laws tightening controls on the Internet, increasing the penalties for defamation and expanding the definition of high treason, among others.
 
Rights activists and political opponents say Putin has orchestrated the clampdown, and the West has also expressed concern that civil liberties are being rolled back.
 
"Everything that is taking place here is done for a sole purpose - that of our country being stable. Effective and stable," Putin told a meeting of the Civil Society and Human Rights Council, his own advisory body.
 
"It cannot be more stable if it is only based on the power of law enforcement and repressive agencies. It will be more stable if society is more collective, effective, responsible, if a bond is established between society, the citizen and the state," he added, according to RIA news agency.
 
Putin was heading the first meeting of the council since 39 new members were elected in an online vote to replace prominent rights campaigners who resigned after his re-election in March.
 
He told the meeting he was ready to reconsider the law on high treason, which rights campaigners say could mean that any Russian citizen who had contacts with a foreigner could be accused of trying to undermine the state.
 
Putin also offered to rephrase wording in another bill that envisages stiffer punishments for defamation, and said parliament should not rush to adopt a law that would introduce jail sentences for offending religious feelings.
 
He also said he would "look again" at legislation signed in July that requires foreign-funded non-governmental organizations to register as "foreign agents", saying its main aim was to prevent foreign meddling in Russia's domestic affairs.
 
Council members said it was not clear what kind of concessions, if any, Putin might ultimately make.
 
"What was that? The way I see it, an attempt to get some sort of feedback on all the laws that have irritated society," said Irina Khakamada, a member of the Council. "Let's see what the result will be. I don't know."

http://news.yahoo.com/putin-suggests-flexibility-anti-dissent-laws-203826038.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Russia's Putin signs new treason law
By Nastassia Astrasheuskaya and Steve Gutterman | Reuters – 7 hrs ago.. .


MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia introduced a new law broadening the definition of treason on Wednesday, alarming opponents who say Vladimir Putin will use it to silence his critics and that almost anyone in contact with foreigners will be at risk.
 
The legislation allows Russians representing international organizations to be charged with treason, as well as those working for foreign states and bodies, and expands the range of actions that can be considered treasonous.
 
Putin signed the law on Tuesday and it took effect on Wednesday when it was published in the official gazette, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, despite a promise by the president on Monday that he would review it.
 
Political opponents and rights activists say the legislation is the latest in a series of laws intended to crack down on the opposition and reduce foreign influence since he returned to the Kremlin in May for a six-year third term.
 
"It's an attempt to return not just to Soviet times but to the Stalin era, when any conversation with a foreigner was seen as a potential threat to the state," said Lyudmila Alexeyeva, 85, a former Soviet dissident and veteran human rights activist.
 
She said it would probably be used selectively against Kremlin critics and others "who irritate the authorities".
 
Dmitry Oreshkin, a political analyst sympathetic with anti-Putin protests this year, said the motivation behind the law was that "the state is more important than its citizens, so there must be as much control over citizens as possible".
 
The law was backed by the Federal Security Service (FSB), the main successor of the Soviet KGB, and landed on the desk of longtime KGB officer Putin after being approved by both houses of parliament in the space of nine days last month.
 
The FSB, in a rare public comment, was quoted by state-run news agency Itar-Tass as saying the law had been updated after being unchanged since the 1960s because "foreign intelligence agencies' methods and tactics for gathering information have changed".
 
Putin whipped up anti-U.S. sentiment during his campaign for the March presidential election, and Russian officials have said the law is needed to help prevent foreign governments using organizations in Russia to gather state secrets.
 
"Citizens recruited by international organizations acting against the country's interests will also be considered traitors", Rossiyskaya Gazeta said in a commentary on its website.
 
ANTI WESTERN SENTIMENT
 
Putin has frequently accused Western nations of seeking to undermine Russia's security and weaken the nuclear-armed nation, and has suggested they use non-governmental organizations to do so.
 
Moscow ordered the U.S. Agency for International Development to cease its Russian operations in October, accusing it of seeking to influence elections.
 
In July, Putin signed a law requiring foreign-funded NGOs deemed to be engaging in political activity to register as "foreign agents", and critics say other legislation is also aimed at silencing opponents.
 
The United States and the European Union have criticized the laws, and expressed concern about criminal charges laid against several opposition leaders in the last few months.
 
During his election campaign, Putin faced protests which at times drew tens of thousands of people into Moscow's streets, and he accused the United States of whipping up demonstrations against his rule.
 
The maximum sentence for high treason remains 20 years, but the legislation signed by Putin also introduced prison terms of up to eight years for Russians acquiring state secrets in certain ways even if they are not passed on to foreigners.
 
It broadened the spectrum of actions that can attract treason charges to include giving "financial, material, technical, consultative or other aid" to a government or organization deemed to be seeking to undermine Russian security.
 
Those changes, as well as the removal of the stipulation that actions must be aimed against Russia's "external" security to be considered treasonous, have raised concerns the law could be applied broadly to punish government opponents.
 
At a meeting of his human rights council on Monday, Putin listened to a retired Constitutional Court judge's concerns about the legislation, which she said did not require authorities to prove a suspect damaged state security.
 
But although Putin said he would look again at the law, his spokesman said he had signed it a day later.
 
"It's not the first time Putin has said the right words while slowly tightening the screws," Alexeyeva said.

http://news.yahoo.com/russia-expands-definition-treason-under-law-110613866.html

Well.  This just doesn't sound good at all.

[Buster's Uncle]

Ron Paul: 'Our Constitution Has Failed'
By Chris Good | ABC OTUS News – 3 hrs ago.. .


 Rep. Ron Paul, the iconic libertarian congressman from Texas, has delivered what will most likely be his final address to Congress.
 
In a sprawling, 52-minute speech to the House chamber, Paul lambasted U.S. government, politicians and special interests, declaring that the U.S. people must return to virtue before the government allows them to be free, and that the Constitution has failed to limit the scope of an authoritarian bureaucracy.
 




"Our Constitution, which was intended to limit government power and abuse, has failed," Paul said. "The Founders warned that a free society depends on a virtuous and moral people. The current crisis reflects that their concerns were justified."
 
For the retiring Republican, 77, the "current crisis" isn't quite what it is for other members of Congress, who routinely use that word to describe the economic recession that followed the 2008 financial crash. To the Texas Republican, that's part of it, but the causes are deeper, and it's also a crisis of governmental authoritarianism and the vanishing of personal liberty.
 
"If it's not accepted that big government, fiat money, ignoring liberty, central economic planning, welfarism, and warfarism caused our crisis, we can expect a continuous and dangerous march toward corporatism and even fascism with even more loss of our liberties," said Paul, an obstetrician-gynecologist by training.
 
The problem isn't just government's size, but its use of force, both in starting preemptive wars and as it coerces U.S. citizens with police power. To Paul, this is the fault of Americans who no longer prioritize liberty, and it will lead to the unraveling of orderly society unless people change.
 
"Restraining aggressive behavior is one thing, but legalizing a government monopoly for initiating aggression can only lead to exhausting liberty associated with chaos, anger and the breakdown of civil society," Paul said. "We now have a standing army of armed bureaucrats in the TSA, CIA, FBI, Fish and Wildlife, FEMA, IRS, Corp of Engineers, etc., numbering over 100,000 civil society."
 
More than coercive, to Paul the government is also corrupt: "All branches of our government today are controlled by individuals who use their power to undermine liberty and enhance the welfare/warfare state-and frequently their own wealth and power," he said.
 
Throughout his speech, Paul questioned not only the fundamental health of America's social compact, but specifics like fiat money, the power of the Federal Reserve, the PATRIOT Act, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act modifications, undeclared war, the illegalization of medical marijuana, mandatory sentencing requirements for drug crimes, the illegalization of hemp, TSA searches, federal debt and borrowing, the White House's authority to assassinate those it declares terrorists, the legalization of detaining U.S. citizens for national-security purposes, the political power of AIPAC, and the regulation of light bulbs and toilets in people's homes.
 
For Paul, the list of grievances is long, and he might not have accomplished much in Congress: "In many ways, according to conventional wisdom, my off-and-on career in Congress, from 1976 to 2012, accomplished very little," he said. "No named legislation, no named federal buildings or highways, thank goodness. In spite of my efforts, the government has grown exponentially, taxes remain excessive, and the prolific increase of incomprehensible regulations continues. Wars are constant and pursued without congressional declaration."
 
In thinking about the champions of liberty, his lesson is a bitter one: "History has shown that the masses have been quite receptive to the promises of authoritarians which are rarely if ever fulfilled," but his prescription is hopeful.
 
Paul left the podium, for the last time, offering an "answer" to all of these problems: that people should choose liberty and limit government, and seek change within themselves.
 
"The number one responsibility for each of us is to change ourselves with hope that others will follow," Paul said, urging an end to two motives that have hindered U.S. society: envy and intolerance.
 
"I have come to one firm conviction after these many years of trying to figure out the plain truth of things. The best chance for achieving peace and prosperity, for the maximum number of people worldwide, is to pursue the cause of liberty. If you find this to be a worthwhile message, spread it throughout the land."

http://news.yahoo.com/ron-paul-departs-constitution-failed-230217615--abc-news-politics.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Crisis over president's powers exposes Egypt divisions
By Tom Perry | Reuters – 3 hrs ago.. .


CAIRO (Reuters) - Youths clashed with police in Cairo on Saturday as protests at new powers assumed by President Mohamed Mursi stretched into a second day, confronting Egypt with a crisis that has exposed the split between newly empowered Islamists and their opponents.
 
A handful of hardcore activists hurling rocks battled riot police in the streets near Tahrir Square, where several thousand protesters massed on Friday to demonstrate against a decree that has rallied opposition ranks against Mursi.
 
Following a day of violence in Cairo, Alexandria, Port Said and Suez, the smell of teargas hung over the square, the heart of the uprising that swept Hosni Mubarak from power in February 2011.
 
More than 300 people were injured on Friday. Offices of the Muslim Brotherhood, which propelled Mursi to power, were attacked in at least three cities.
 
Egypt's highest judicial authority said the decree marked an "unprecedented attack" on the independence of the judiciary, the state news agency reported.
 
Leftist, liberal and socialist parties have called for an open-ended sit-in with the aim of "toppling" the decree which has also drawn statements of concern from the United States and the European Union. A few dozen activists manning makeshift barricades kept traffic out of the square on Saturday.
 
Calling the decree "fascist and despotic", Mursi's critics called for a big protest on Tuesday against a move they say has revealed the autocratic impulses of a man jailed by Mubarak, who outlawed Mursi's Muslim Brotherhood.
 
"We are facing a historic moment in which we either complete our revolution or we abandon it to become prey for a group that has put its narrow party interests above the national interest," the liberal Dustour Party said in a statement.
 
Issued late on Thursday, the decree marks an effort by the Mursi administration to consolidate its influence after it successfully sidelined Mubarak-era generals in August.
 
The decree reflects the Muslim Brotherhood's suspicion towards sections of a judiciary unreformed from Mubarak's days: it guards from judicial review decisions taken by Mursi until a new parliament is elected in a vote expected early next year.
 
It also shields the assembly writing Egypt's new constitution from a raft of legal challenges that have threatened the Islamist-dominated assembly with dissolution.
 
The Mursi administration has defended the decree on the grounds that it aims to speed up a protracted transition from Mubarak's rule to a new system of democratic government.
 
"It aims to sideline Mursi's enemies in the judiciary and ultimately to impose and head off any legal challenges to the constitution," said Elijah Zarwan, a fellow with The European Council on Foreign Relations.
 
"We are in a situation now where both sides are escalating and its getting harder and harder to see how either side can gracefully climb down," Zarwan said.
 
"INTIFADA"
 
A central element of Egypt's transition, the drafting of the constitution has been plagued by divisions between Islamists and their more secular-minded opponents, nearly all of whom have withdrawn from the body writing the document.
 
Mursi's new powers allowed him to replace the prosecutor general - a Mubarak holdover who the new president had tried to replace in October only to kick up a storm of protest from the judiciary, which said he had exceeded his authorities.
 
At an emergency meeting called to discuss the decree, the Supreme Judicial Council, Egypt's highest judicial authority, urged "the president of the republic to distance this decree from everything that violates the judicial authority".
 
Al-Masry Al-Youm, one of Egypt's most widely read dailies, hailed Friday's protest as "The November 23 Intifada", invoking the Arabic word for uprising. "The people support the president's decisions," declared Freedom and Justice, the newspaper run by the Brotherhood's political party.
 
The ultraorthodox Salafi Islamist groups that have been pushing for tighter application of Islamic law in the new constitution have rallied behind the decree.
 
The Nour Party, one such group, stated its support for the Mursi decree. Al-Gama'a al-Islamiya, which carried arms against the state in the 1990s, said it would save the revolution from what it described as remnants of the Mubarak regime.
 
Facing the biggest storm of criticism since he won the presidential election in June, Mursi addressed his supporters outside the presidential palace on Friday. He said opposition did not worry him, but it had to be "real and strong".
 
Candidates defeated by Mursi in the presidential vote joined the protests against his decision on Friday. Former Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa was photographed linking arms with leftist Hamdeen Sabahi, liberal Mohamed ElBaradei and others.
 
Mursi is now confronted with a domestic crisis just as his administration won international praise for mediating an end to the eight-day war between Israel and Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.
 
"The decisions and declarations announced on November 22 raise concerns for many Egyptians and for the international community," State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in a statement.
 
The European Union urged Mursi to respect the democratic process, while the United Nations expressed fears about human rights.

http://news.yahoo.com/clashes-cairo-mursi-seizes-powers-063444506.html

[Weird Tolkienish Figure]

Oh, I'm not making a major project of it myself.  The best thing I can do for the world is to do no harm and take care of my own problems.

I like this idea. 

[Buster's Uncle]

[shrugs] I'm not a kid; it was a hard thing to learn, but I'm not fit to save the world without first being competent at managing my own problems.  Gotta have my priorities straight.

[Buster's Uncle]

Bitter struggle over Internet regulation to dominate global summit
By Joseph Menn | Reuters – 5 hrs ago


SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - An unprecedented debate over how the global Internet is governed is set to dominate a meeting of officials in Dubai next week, with many countries pushing to give a United Nations body broad regulatory powers even as the United States and others contend such a move could mean the end of the open Internet.

The 12-day conference of the International Telecommunications Union, a 157-year-old organization that's now an arm of the United Nations, largely pits revenue-seeking developing countries and authoritarian regimes that want more control over Internet content against U.S. policymakers and private Net companies that prefer the status quo.

Many of the proposals have drawn fury from free-speech and human-rights advocates and have prompted resolutions from the U.S. Congress and the European Parliament, calling for the current decentralized system of governance to remain in place.

While specifics of some of the most contentious proposals remain secret, leaked drafts show that Russia is seeking rules giving individual countries broad permission to shape the content and structure of the Internet within their borders, while a group of Arab countries is advocating universal identification of Internet users. Some developing countries and telecom providers, meanwhile, want to make content providers pay for Internet transmission.

Fundamentally, most of the 193 countries in the ITU seem eager to enshrine the idea that the U.N. agency, rather than today's hodgepodge of private companies and nonprofit groups, should govern the Internet. The ITU meeting, which aims to update a longstanding treaty on how telecom companies interact across borders, will also tackle other topics such as extending wireless coverage into rural areas.

If a majority of the ITU countries approve U.N. dominion over the Internet along with onerous rules, a backlash could lead to battles in Western countries over whether to ratify the treaty, with tech companies rallying ordinary Internet users against it and some telecom carriers supporting it.

In fact, dozens of countries including China, Russia and some Arab states, already restrict Internet access within their own borders, but those governments would have greater leverage over Internet content and service providers if the changes were backed up by international agreement.

Amid the escalating rhetoric, search king Google last week asked users to "pledge your support for the free and open Internet" on social media, raising the specter of a grassroots outpouring of the sort that blocked American copyright legislation and a global anti-piracy treaty earlier this year.

Google's Vint Cerf, the ordinarily diplomatic co-author of the basic protocol for Internet data, denounced the proposed new rules as hopeless efforts by some governments and state-controlled telecom authorities to assert their power.

"These persistent attempts are just evidence that this breed of dinosaurs, with their pea-sized brains, hasn't figured out that they are dead yet, because the signal hasn't traveled up their long necks," Cerf told Reuters.

The ITU's top official, Secretary-General Hamadoun Touré, sought to downplay the concerns in a separate interview, stressing to Reuters that even though updates to the treaty could be approved by a simple majority, in practice nothing will be adopted without near-unanimity.

"Voting means winners and losers. We can't afford that in the ITU," said Touré, a former satellite engineer from Mali who was educated in Russia.

Touré predicted that only "light-touch" regulation on cyber-security will emerge by "consensus," using a deliberately vague term that implies something between a majority and unanimity.

He rejected criticism that the ITU's historic role in coordinating phone carriers leaves it unfit to corral the unruly Internet, comparing the Web to a transportation system.

"Because you own the roads, you don't own the cars and especially not the goods they are transporting. But when you buy a car you don't buy the road," Touré said. "You need to know the number of cars and their size and weight so you can build the bridges and set the right number of lanes. You need light-touch regulation to set down a few traffic lights."

Because the proposals from Russia, China and others are more extreme, Touré has been able to cast mild regulation as a compromise accommodating nearly everyone.

Two leaked Russian proposals say nations should have the sovereign right "to regulate the national Internet segment." An August draft proposal from a group of 17 Arab countries called for transmission recipients to receive "identity information" about the senders, potentially endangering the anonymity of political dissidents, among others.

A U.S. State Department envoy to the gathering and Cerf agreed with Touré that there is unlikely to be any drastic change emerging from Dubai.

"The decisions are going to be by consensus," said U.S. delegation chief Terry Kramer. He said anti-anonymity measures such as mandatory Internet address tracing won't be adopted because of opposition by the United States and others.

"We're a strong voice, given a lot of the heritage," Kramer said, referring to the U.S. invention and rapid development of the Internet. "A lot of European markets are very similar, and a lot of Asian counties are supportive, except China."

Despite the reassuring words, a fresh leak over the weekend showed that the ITU's top managers viewed a badly split conference as a realistic prospect less than three months ago.

The leaked program for a "senior management retreat" for the ITU in early September included a summary discussion of the most probable outcomes from Dubai, concluding that the two likeliest scenarios involved major reworkings of the treaty that the United States would then refuse to sign. The only difference between the scenarios lay in how many other developed countries sided with the Americans.

ITU officials didn't dispute the authenticity of the document, which was published by Jerry Brito, a researcher at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University as part of a continuing series of ITU-related leaks.

Touré said that because the disagreements are so vast, the conference probably will end up with something resembling the ITU's earlier formula for trying to protect children online — an agreement to cooperate more and share laws and best practices, perhaps with hotlines to head off misunderstandings.

"From Dubai, what I personally expect is to see some kind of principles saying cyberspace is a global phenomenon and it can only have global responses," Touré said. "I just intend to put down some key principles there that will lay the seeds for something in the future."

Even vague terms could be used as a pretext for more oppressive policies in various countries, though, and activists and industry leaders fear those countries might also band together by region to offer very different Internet experiences.

In some ways, the U.N. involvement reflects a reversal that has already begun.

The United States has steadily diminished its official role in Internet governance, and many nations have stepped up their filtering and surveillance. More than 40 countries now filter the Net that their citizens see, said Ronald Deibert, a University of Toronto political science professor and authority on international conflicts in cyberspace.

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt said this month that the Net is already on the road to Balkanization, with people in different countries getting very different experiences from the services provided by Google, Skype and others.

This month, a new law in Russia took effect that allows the federal government to order a Website offline without a court hearing. Iran recently rolled out a version of the Internet that replaced the real thing within its borders. A growing number of countries, including China and India, order sites to censor themselves for political, religious and other content.

China, which has the world's largest number of Internet users, also blocks access to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter among other sites within its borders.

The loose governance of the Net currently depends on the non-profit ICANN, which oversees the Web's address system, along with voluntary standard-setting bodies and a patchwork of national laws and regional agreements. Many countries see it as a U.S.-dominated system.

The U.S. isolation within the ITU is exacerbated by it being home to many of the biggest technology companies - and by the fact that it could have military reasons for wanting to preserve online anonymity. The Internet emerged as a critical military domain with the 2010 discovery of Stuxnet, a computer worm developed at least in part by the United States that attacked Iran's nuclear program.

Whatever the outcome in Dubai, the conference stands a good chance of becoming a historic turning point for the Internet.

"I see this as a constitutional moment for global cyberspace, where we can stand back and say, `Who should be in charge?' said Deibert. "What are the rules of the road?"

http://news.yahoo.com/bitter-struggle-over-internet-regulation-dominate-global-summit-040702595--sector.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Tajikistan blocks Facebook access to silence critics
By Roman Kozhevnikov | Reuters – 4 hrs ago.. .


DUSHANBE (Reuters) - Tajikistan has blocked access to Facebook in response to a slew of comments spreading "mud and slander" about veteran President Imomali Rakhmon and officials in the Central Asian republic.
 
The ban on the popular social networking site is the latest crackdown on dissent in Tajikistan a year before an election that could extend Rakhmon's two-decade rule.
 
Beg Zukhurov, head of the state-run communications service that is enforcing the ban - the second time Tajikistan has blocked Facebook this year - accused unnamed donors of paying users to post negative comments about "respected figures".
 
"The best representatives of the public - among them academics, doctors and important cultural figures - are tired of the stream of mud and slander that flows from the website called Facebook," Zukhurov told Reuters by telephone on Tuesday.
 
"With this public support, a decision was taken to block this site, where some people are receiving $5,000 to $10,000 for every critical comment that they post."
 
He did not offer any evidence for this allegation or say who might be funding these posts.
 
Rakhmon has ruled since 1992 in Tajikistan, an impoverished ex-Soviet republic of 7.5 million people lying on a major transit route for Afghan drugs to Europe and Russia.
 
Victory in a November 2013 election would give the 60-year-old former cotton farm boss a further seven years in charge of a country still finding its way after a civil war in the 1990s that killed tens of thousands.
 
In recent months, the government has turned its attention to damping down dissent by creating a volunteer-run body to monitor Internet use and reprimand those who openly criticize the government.
 
WARY OF SOCIAL MEDIA
 
Tighter Internet controls echo measures taken by other former Soviet republics in Central Asia, where authoritarian rulers are wary of the role social media played in revolutions in the Arab world and mass protests in Russia.
 
Tajikistan authorities have also launched a crackdown on religious groups and imprisoned more than 150 people in the last three years on charges of extremism and attempting to subvert the constitution.
 
Officials have blocked access to Facebook before, for the same reason. The site was shut for 10 days in March, prompting criticism from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
 
Facebook's popularity has soared in Tajikistan. Membership has trebled to more than 40,000 over the last 18 months.
 
"Does Facebook have an owner? I'd like to speak to him," Zukhurov said. "Let him come here and meet me in my office."
 
Zafar Abdullayev, a political analyst in the capital Dushanbe, said he believed the ban reflected concerns about rising public criticism ahead of the presidential election.
 
"We can expect to see more steps to restrict freedom of speech on the Internet, as the authorities have made no secret of the fact they see a real threat in social networking sites," he said.
 
The website of Russian news agency RIA Novosti and state-run television channel Rossiya-24 were also blocked along with Facebook in March, and access has not been restored.
 
Some Internet users in Tajikistan, however, have installed software that allows them to circumvent the blockage.

http://news.yahoo.com/tajikistan-blocks-facebook-access-silence-critics-121104317.html

[Buster's Uncle]

Egypt army gets temporary power to arrest civilians
By Marwa Awad | Reuters – 17 mins ago


CAIRO (Reuters) - Egypt's government has temporarily given the military the authority to arrest civilians to help safeguard a constitutional referendum planned for Saturday, the official gazette said.

The order, gazetted late on Sunday, said the military would support police and liaise with them to protect "vital institutions" until the referendum result is declared.

The decree gave army officers the right to make arrests and transfer detainees to prosecutors.

Despite its limited nature, the edict will revive memories of Hosni Mubarak's emergency law, also introduced as a temporary expedient, under which military or state security courts tried thousands of political dissidents and Islamist militants.

But a military source stressed that the measure, introduced by a civilian government, would have a short shelf-life.

"The latest law giving the armed forces the right to arrest anyone involved in illegal actions such as burning buildings or damaging public sites is to ensure security during the referendum only," the military source said.

"The armed forces secured polling stations during previous elections when it was in charge of the country," the source said, referring to 16 months of army rule after Mubarak fell.

"Now the president is in charge. In order for the armed forces to be involved in securing the referendum, a law had to be issued saying so," the source added.

Presidential spokesman Yasser Ali said the committee overseeing the vote had requested the army's assistance.

"The armed forces will work within a legal framework to secure the referendum and will return (to barracks) as soon as the referendum is over," Ali said.

On Saturday, the military urged rival political forces to solve their disputes via dialogue and said the opposite would drag the country into a "dark tunnel", which it would not allow.

A statement issued by the military spokesman and read on state radio and television made no mention of President Mohamed Mursi, but said a solution to the political crisis should not contradict "legitimacy and the rules of democracy".

A military source close to top officers said the statement "does not indicate any future intervention in politics".

A military council took over after a popular revolt ended Mubarak's 30 years of army-backed rule last year. It then handed power to Mursi, who became Egypt's first freely elected leader in June. The military has not intervened in the latest crisis.

The army statement said the military's duty was to protect national interests and secure vital state institutions.

"The armed forces affirm that dialogue is the best and only way to reach consensus," it added. "The opposite of that will bring us to a dark tunnel that will result in catastrophe and that is something we will not allow."

Hassan Abu Taleb of the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies said Saturday's army statement suggested the military wanted both sides to talk out their differences, but discounted the chance of direct military intervention.

"They realize that interfering again in a situation of civil combat will squeeze them between two rocks," he said.

http://news.yahoo.com/egypt-army-given-arrests-over-referendum-113849380.html

[JarlWolf]

The Arab Spring is more of the Arab cycle in my eyes. Its just a collection of full circle conflicts and changes.

[Dio]

I first start and decide to open this topic.
I start .
Next I am .
Then I feel as I digest all of the information.
After a while, I realize that many things that I believe are not so different.
Finally this is a very interesting topic to read.

[Buster's Uncle]

Rules against necro-threading are stupid.  (You weren't minding you own business, though; you were in Who's Online and saw me or brand new member Jolly Roger looking.  I reckon he was looking for politics, and while this ain't focused, political it mostly is.)

Anything you'd care to mention agreeing or disagreeing with?

[Dio]

1. So here are the things that I wanted to say:
1a. You called me on my about minding my own business (I admit that I might have been wrong on that one. So I apologize and will edit it out of my previous post).
1b. I was uncertain if this forum had rules against necro-posting.
1i. I hope that I have not gotten on anyone's bad side.
1c. Here are some of the facts I agree with:
1d. Politics is never a honest business or profession.
1e. That the people in power are those who have the most powerful/wealthy supporters for that particular office or area.
1f. That businesses are often in cahoots with government.
1g. I believe all political models have some pitfalls.
1h. That a lot people are unwise with their personal finances.