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	Journalist Assistance helps record number in 2012 by RSF, Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)   Feb 25, 2013 (RSF)   Mazen Darwish, the head of the Damascus-based Syrian Centre for Media and Freedom of Expression (SCM), and 15 of his colleagues were arrested by Air Force Intelligence officers during a raid on the centre on 16 February.   According to our sources, he has been badly tortured in detention. We have good reason to think his life is in danger because he suffers from serious ailments and his condition could worsen rapidly if he is not getting the treatment he needs.   The Syrian authorities refuse to say where he is being held. He is not being allowed access to his family or lawyers, in complete violation of international law. So far, no charges have been brought against him.   Darwish is in grave danger. The authorities arrested him in order to silence him, because he was telling the outside world about acts of violence by a regime that persists in its deadly folly.   A staunch defender of human rights and freedom of expression, Darwish played a key role in providing daily information about the situation in Syria, at a time when almost all foreign journalists are banned from visiting the country.   Feb 2013   Reporters without Borders - Press Freedom Index 2013.   After the “Arab springs” and other protest movements that prompted many rises and falls in last year’s index, the 2013 Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index marks a return to a more usual configuration. The ranking of most countries is no longer attributable to dramatic political developments. This year’s index is a better reflection of the attitudes and intentions of governments towards media freedom in the medium or long term.   The same three European countries that headed the index last year hold the top three positions again this year. For the third year running, Finland has distinguished itself as the country that most respects media freedom. It is followed by the Netherlands and Norway. Although many criteria are considered, ranging from legislation to violence against journalists, democratic countries occupy the top of the index while dictatorial countries occupy the last three positions. Again it is the same three as last year – Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea.   “The Press Freedom Index published by Reporters Without Borders does not take direct account of the kind of political system but it is clear that democracies provide better protection for the freedom to produce and circulate accurate news and information than countries where human rights are flouted,” Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Christophe Deloire said.   “In dictatorships, news providers and their families are exposed to ruthless reprisals, while in democracies news providers have to cope with the media’s economic crises and conflicts of interest. While their situation is not always comparable, we should pay tribute to all those who resist pressure whether it is aggressively focused or diffuse.”   Coinciding with the release of its 2013 Press Freedom Index, Reporters Without Borders is for the first time publishing an annual global “indicator” of worldwide media freedom. This new analytic tool measures the overall level of freedom of information in the world and the performance of the world’s governments in their entirety as regards this key freedom In view of the emergence of new technologies and the interdependence of governments and peoples, the freedom to produce and circulate news and information needs to be evaluated at the planetary as well as national level. Today, in 2013, the media freedom “indicator” stands at 3395, a point of reference for the years to come.   The indicator can also be broken down by region and, by means of weighting based on the population of each region, can be used to produce a score from zero to 100 in which zero represents total respect for media freedom. This produces a score of 17.5 for Europe, 30.0 for the Americas, 34.3 for Africa, 42.2 for Asia-Pacific and 45.3 for the former Soviet republics. Despite the Arab springs, the Middle East and North Africa region comes last with 48.5.   The high number of journalists and netizens killed in the course of their work in 2012 (the deadliest year ever registered by Reporters Without Borders in its annual roundup), naturally had a significant impact on the ranking of the countries where these murders took place, above all Somalia (175th, -11), Syria (176th, 0), Mexico (153rd, -4) and Pakistan (159th, -8).   From top to bottom   The Nordic countries have again demonstrated their ability to maintain an optimal environment for news providers. Finland (1er, 0), Netherlands (2nd, +1) and Norway (3rd, -2) have held on to the first three places. Canada (20th, -10) only just avoided dropping out of the top 20. Andorra (5th) and Liechtenstein (7th) have entered the index for the first time just behind the three leaders.   At the other end of the index, the same three countries as ever – Turkmenistan, North Korea and Eritrea – occupy the last three places in the index. Kim Jong-un’s arrival at the head of the Hermit Kingdom has not in any way changed the regime’s absolute control of news and information. Eritrea (179th, 0), which was recently shaken by a brief mutiny by soldiers at the information ministry, continues to be a vast open prison for its people and lets journalists die in detention. Despite its reformist discourse, the Turkmen regime has not yielded an inch of its totalitarian control of the media.   For the second year running, the bottom three countries are immediately preceded by Syria (176th, 0), where a deadly information war is being waged, and Somalia (175th, -11), which has had a deadly year for journalists. Iran (174th, +1), China (173rd, +1), Vietnam (unchanged at 172nd), Cuba (171st, -4), Sudan (170th, 0) and Yemen (169th, +2) complete the list of the ten countries that respect media freedom least. Not content with imprisoning journalists and netizens, Iran also harasses the relatives of journalists, including the relatives of those who are abroad.   Big rises...   Malawi (75th, +71) registered the biggest leap in the index, almost returning to the position it held before the excesses at the end of the Mutharika administration. Côte d’Ivoire (96th, +63), which is emerging from the post-electoral crisis between the supporters of Laurent Gbagbo and Alassane Ouattara, has also soared, attaining its best position since 2003. Burma (151st, +18) continued the ascent begun in last year’s index. Previously, it had been in the bottom 15 every year since 2002 but now, thanks to the Burmese spring’s unprecedented reforms, it has reached its best-ever position. Afghanistan (128th, +22) also registered a significant rise thanks to the fact that no journalists are in prison. It is nonetheless facing many challenges, especially with the withdrawal of foreign troops..   * Visit the link below to access the report.   http://en.rsf.org/press-freedom-index-2013,1054.html   Feb 2013   Journalist Assistance helps record number in 2012, by Nicole Schilit. Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ)   An increase in press freedom violations last year created a surge of need among journalists, driving a record number of assistance cases for CPJ"s Journalist Assistance Program in 2012. More than three-quarters of the 195 journalists who received support during the year came from East Africa and the Middle East and North Africa, reflecting the challenges--including threats of violence and imprisonment--of working in these repressive regions. Here are some of the highlights of our work over the last year:   The majority of journalists who sought CPJ"s help faced a continuous threat of violence--particularly in Somalia. Journalists there were threatened both by the Islamist Al-Shabaab militia and local officials. The latter also systematically failed to investigate attacks on the press, placing Somalia second on CPJ"s 2012 Impunity Index, a list of countries where journalists are routinely slain and their killers go free. Terrified by harassment and violence as well as lack of justice, more than 78 journalists have fled the country in the last five years. In 2012, the bulk travelled to Nairobi, where they settled into extremely difficult lives as refugees--struggling to find work and often unable to support themselves, all while under threat from the Al-Shabaab presence in Kenya.   Exiled Somali journalist Mohamed Garane told CPJ East Africa Consultant Tom Rhodes, "Somali journalists are facing the toughest time ever. These journalists have fled from their home country seeking refuge and protection [but] they are still facing insecurity in Kenya." Garane added, "Some of them are threatened by elements claiming to belong to Al-Shabaab on a daily basis while others are beaten, extorted, or detained illegally by the police."   CPJ responded to the needs of these journalists by providing them with small grants to help with initial living expenses and in some cases to bring family members left behind. CPJ also provides grants for medical support. In April 2012, JA provided assistance to several of the journalists who were injured when a bomb exploded in Mogadishu, the Somali capital. On occasion JA will provide non-financial assistance such as letters of support.   Threat of imprisonment was the primary reason given by journalists for fleeing Eritrea and Ethiopia; the latter is Africa"s leading jailers of journalists. Martin Schibbye, a Swedish freelance journalist who was jailed along with colleague Johan Persson for more than 14 months in Ethiopia, described the effects of a 2009 anti-terror law passed in the country after his release, saying, "In our profession, you need to talk to both sides to get the story. They have criminalized talking to one side of the conflict. Just meeting with a member of an organization or communicating with an e-mail is conflated with terrorism."   For those Eritreans CPJ helped in 2012, the harsh uncertainty of exile seemed a better option than the possibility of arrest and indefinite imprisonment. Eritrea is the most censored country in the world and the leading abuser of due process, according to CPJ research. JA provided Eritrean journalists in exile with financial and non-financial assistance similar to what those from Somalia received.   In 2011, CPJ responded to the continuous need for help in the area by creating an East Africa partnership with regional and international groups, with the aim of increasing awareness of journalists needs and allowing for more case referrals and faster response times. The project played a role in JA being able to support nearly twice the number of East African journalists assisted in 2011.   Forty-three of CPJ"s assistance cases last year came from journalists working in the Middle East and North Africa. While Western journalists flocked to the region to cover the conflicts and aftermaths of the Arab Spring, local journalists continued to bear the brunt of deadly tactics for silencing the media.   Iran, for the fourth consecutive year, was responsible for one of the highest number of requests for exile support. Since the country"s 2009 contested presidential election, authorities have continued to aggressively quash dissent, maintaining a revolving prison door for critical journalists. The increase in prosecutions prompted 21 journalists to flee into neighboring countries last year. "Our country is not in a position to allow the media to publish (any) news or analysis which is not compatible with the regime"s and national interests," Mohammad Hossieni, the minister of culture and Islamic guidance, said in a statement posted on a government website in July. Many Iranian journalists remain in migratory limbo in Turkey and Iraq, burdened with financial worries and continuous fear of retaliation. Visit the related web page
	Social equity under ever increasing strain by Mungo MacCallum, Kim Gleeson   Social equity is not a measure of interest to the Economist, by Kim Gleeson.   The capital city of Victoria, Melbourne was recently nominated as purportedly the world"s most liveable city, by The Economist "Intelligience?" Unit. Social equity is not a measure of concern to The Economist, representing elite economic interests as it does.   In Melbourne, like in every major city in Australia, monied interests have captured every mechanism of democracy to serve their interests. This is certainly not a unique Australian experience, as it seemingly has become the global model of governance.   Tony Fitzgerald, QC, a highly respected former judge, states of Australian Democracy, "the well-connected and wealthy, are given access to and influence over the political process. Decisions favouring special interests are common".   Former Australian Reserve Bank governor and Treasury secretary Bernie Fraser has accused both sides of politics, of failing to maintain a compassionate and fair society.   He states "the last 20 years we"ve had conservative governments and Labor governments and in terms of my benchmark - competence, fairness, and compassion - they both failed and they"re both failing," he says.   "The distressing thing is I don"t see a way out from either side. For a long time I"ve thought Australia could become something of special country, a demonstration of a country that was fair, and compassionate, and I"m afraid those hopes have been dashed. "We"ve had 20 years of uninterrupted growth - and yet we"ve got more homelessness, the distribution of income and wealth is more unequal now than it was 20 years ago."   From 1980, inequality began to markedly rise - the income share of the richest 1 per cent doubled, while the share of the top 0.1 per cent tripled.   Mungo MacCallum, political journalist and commentator writes: "It has long been accepted that executive pay packets have become quite simply unconscionable; the gap between the top and the bottom, or even the middle, is now quite obscenely wide. And as the rich have grown richer, they have also become more arrogant and selfish; they now give proportionately less to charity than the poor and spend far more time and effort in rorting the system.   Last week alone, the assistant treasurer drew attention to devices such as the one he termed the "double Irish Dutch sandwich", by which multinationals like Google avoid paying tax in Australia. It was revealed that the big coal power generators had not only passed all or more of the carbon tax on to consumers, but were trousering billions in compensation for their trouble.   And of course, those earning 90 per cent more than their fellow Australians continued to insist that they were not rich - well, not really. And if they were, well fair enough. As a letter writer to the Sydney Morning Herald once put it, the reason the rich need more money than the poor is obvious: the rich have greater expenses.   But any attempt to introduce a modicum of restraint into this manifestly inequitable system is immediately greeted with loud cries of "Class warfare! The politics of envy!" by those with the money and the power. It is taken as a given that there is no class in Australia, and therefore any attempt at closing the gaps in society is a sinister and wrong-headed attempt to promote not equality, but division. Robert Menzies set the myth in stone back in 1944. "We believe," pontificated the great man, "that the class war is a false war."   In fact our longest serving prime minister was an unashamed worshipper of England, an assiduous gatherer of imperial honours. No one joined with more gusto in the now forgotten third verse of the hymn "All things bright and beautiful": The rich man in his castle.. The poor man at his gate; God made them high and lowly.. And ordered their estate".   Over the last 20 years inequality in Australia has ever widened, whilst Government and corporate media agencies loudly proclaim the benefits of globalization, and endlessly spruik Australian sporting nationalism and cite the now hollow dictum of "A Fair Go for all Australians".   Mar 2013   The social contract is broken, by Dave Johnson. (Campaign for America"s Future)   The Speaker of the House last week said that taxing people to pay for government is theft. Let’s look at just where actual theft is occurring.   Michael McAuliff and Sabrina Siddiqui covered the story at the Huffington Post, in John Boehner Compares Tax Proposals Of White House To Stealing,   "We don’t have a revenue problem. We have a spending problem,” Boehner added. “How much more money do we want to steal from the American people to fund more government? I’m for no more.”   Yes, the old “taxes are theft” argument again. This is the line of reasoning that says government is bad, that decision-making by We, the People is bad, that people are “takers” and the wealthy are “producers” and “job creators,” and that the people are lazy and “don’t want to work” and if you let them assemble together and vote they become a mob that will steal everything from the rich who are rich by Devine Right, etc…   Keep in mind that in a democracy We, the People make decisions and government spending by definition is We, the People deciding to do things that make our lives better. Conservatives like to say that taxes are theft. In fact it is tax cuts that are theft because they break a long-standing contract.   The American Social Contract: We, the People built our democracy and the empowerment and protections it bestows. We built the infrastructure, schools and all of the public structures, laws, courts, monetary system, etc. that enable enterprise to prosper. That prosperity is the bounty of our democracy and by contract it is supposed to be shared and reinvested. That is the contract.   Our system enables some people to become wealthy but all of us are supposed to benefit from this system. Why else would We, the People have set up this system, if not for the benefit of We, the People?   The American Social Contract is supposed to work like this:   A beneficial cycle: We invest in infrastructure and public structures that create the conditions for enterprise to form and prosper. We prepare the ground for business to thrive. When enterprise prospers we share the bounty, with good wages and benefits for the people who work in the businesses and taxes that provide for the general welfare and for reinvestment in the infrastructure and public structures that keep the system going.   We fought hard to develop this system and it worked for us. We, the People fought and built our government to empower and protect us providing social services for the general welfare.   We, through our government built up infrastructure and public structures like courts, laws, schools, roads, bridges. That investment creates the conditions that enable commerce to prosper – the bounty of democracy. In return we ask those who benefit most from the enterprise we enabled to share the return on our investment with all of us – through good wages, benefits and taxes.   But the “Reagan Revolution” broke the contract. Since the Reagan Revolution with its tax cuts for the rich, its anti-government policies, and its deregulation of the big corporations our democracy is increasingly defunded (and that was the plan), infrastructure is crumbling, our schools are falling behind, factories and supply chains are being dismantled, those still at work are working longer hours for fewer benefits and falling wages, our pensions are gone, wealth and income are increasing concentrating at the very top, our country is declining.   This is the Reagan Revolution home to roost: the social contract is broken. Instead of providing good wages and benefits and paying taxes to provide for the general welfare and reinvestment in infrastructure and public structures, the bounty of our democracy is being diverted to a wealthy few.   http://blog.ourfuture.org/20130304/boehner-says-taxes-are-theft-here-is-an-answer   http://billmoyers.com/segment/bill-moyers-essay-the-united-states-of-inequality/ Visit the related web page
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