Police Crackdown on G20 Protests: Democracy Now! Reports from the Streets

DemocracyNow!
September 25, 2009

World leaders are gathering in Pittsburgh for the G20 summit under the shadow of a police crackdown on protesters in the streets. Heavily-armed riot police are out in force all over the city, using tear gas, stun grenades, smoke canisters, and sound cannons, which direct extremely loud shrill sounds. This is believed to be the first time sound cannons have been publicly used in the United States. Democracy Now! producer Steve Martinez reports from the streets of Pittsburgh...

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Ralph Nader on the G-20, Healthcare Reform, Mideast Talks and His First Work of Fiction, “Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!”

DemocracyNow!
September 21, 2009

As the United States prepares to host the Group of Twenty nations summit in Pittsburgh later this week, we speak with longtime consumer advocate, corporate critic, author and presidential candidate Ralph Nader. Nader discusses Congress’s failure to pass any meaningful financial reform on Wall Street over the past year and critiques Obama’s healthcare reform proposal. Ralph Nader also talks about his first work of fiction, “Only the Super-Rich Can Save Us!” Nader describes the book in terms of a practical utopia, a fictional vision that could become a new reality...

Afghan Detainees Allowed To Question Detention

AP via NPR
September 13, 2009

The Pentagon has begun putting into place a new program under which hundreds of prisoners being held by the military in Afghanistan will be given the right to challenge their detentions, a defense official said Sunday.

Prisoners at Bagram military base are all to be given a U.S. military official to serve as their personal representative and a chance to go before new so-called Detainee Review Boards, to have their cases considered, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to be able to discuss a program that has not been formally announced.

The initiative amounts to the first time prisoners will be able to call witnesses and submit evidence in their defense. There are some 600 detainees at the facility, some who have been held for up to six years...

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The Real Lessons of 9/11

by Robert Parry
Consortium News
September 11, 2009

On this eighth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, it’s worth reflecting on how even a mildly competent U.S. President might have prevented the terror attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people and drove the United States into a spasm of revenge that has wasted untold blood and treasure...

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Eight Years After 9/11, Ground Zero Volunteer Dying of Lung Disease is One of Many Still Fighting For Justice

DemocracyNow!
September 11, 2009

Today marks the eighth anniversary of 9/11 with vigils being held to remember the nearly 3,000 people killed in the attacks. We look at a group of victims that are often forgotten in the Sept. 11 narrative–the thousands of rescue workers who became sick after being exposed to contaminants at Ground Zero. Hundreds have died. We speak to Joe Picurro, a New Jersey ironworker who worked as a volunteer on the Pile for 28 days. He is now dying of lung disease. We also speak with Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D–NY), she is co-sponsoring the 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, and we talk to Dr. Jacqueline Moline, director of the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring and Treatment Program at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine...

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“The Slave Next Door: Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today”

Democracy Now!
September 9, 2009

We speak with Kevin Bales, a leader in the abolition movement to end modern-day slavery and co-author of The Slave Next Door: Human Trafficking and Slavery in America Today. Bales estimates some 27 million people labor as slaves today—more than at anytime in history. Bales has also helped expose modern-day slavery in the United States, where he estimates between 14,000 and 17,500 people are trafficked into the country each year. He writes, “There has never been a single day in our America, from its discovery and birth right up to the moment you are reading this sentence, without slavery.”...

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Oliver Stone: 'The truth about Hugo Chávez'

posted by Oliver Stone to
The Guardian Film Blog
September 3, 2009

South of the Border is Oscar-winning director Oliver Stone's record of a trip to Venezuela to meet the president, Hugo Chávez. Ahead of the film's premiere at the Venice film festival on Monday, Stone writes about his hopes for the film, and the future of US foreign policy in the region...