Activism

 The U.S. Justice Department unveiled proposed new rules on Friday for FBI investigations, changes a civil liberties group criticized for giving agents powers to investigate Americans without proper suspicion.

In its first major change in years, the Justice Department proposed a consolidated set of guidelines for domestic FBI operations, seeking to apply the same rules for criminal and terrorism cases, and for collecting foreign intelligence.

The guidelines were first adopted in the 1970s following disclosures that the FBI under J. Edgar Hoover had run a widespread domestic surveillance program that spied on civil rights activists and political opponents.

Officials said the new guidelines, which total 45 pages, were still being revised after consultations with Congress and civil liberties groups. The new rules are expected to take effect on October 1.

Justice Department and FBI officials told a news briefing the changes would allow agents in some terrorism cases to use informants, do physical surveillance and conduct interviews without identifying themselves or their true purpose.

They said such techniques currently could be used in ordinary criminal cases, but not for those involving national security, before an investigation has begun.

The American Civil Liberties Union expressed concern the rewritten rules had been drafted in a way to allow the FBI to begin surveillance without factual evidence to back it up. … [Read more]

 It is obvious to just about everyone – with the apparent exception of the government of Robert Mugabe, the president – that Zimbabwe's economy has passed "tipping point". 

Inflation escalated from 7,500 percent a year ago to 100,000 percent in January and 11.2 million per cent in June. Current estimates put the annual rate at around 30 million per cent for September.

But because no one is able to measure prices accurately, the precise figure is not known.

In the past two weeks alone the Zimbabwe dollar has collapsed from 300 to the US dollar to 15,000, on some occasions, losing half its value in a day. Last week, the rate collapsed from 7,500 to 15,000 to the dollar.

Production in agriculture, mining and manufacturing has more than halved since the political crisis started in 2000, and a recent industrial survey shows that manufacturing industry is operating at less than 20 per cent of capacity. 

The shops are empty. More and more people are resorting either to crude barter – a cabbage for an egg, or a few tomatoes for a loaf of bread – or to under-the-counter deals in foreign currency.

Foreign currency … [Read more]

For many years, Margaret Wheatley has written eloquently about how to create resilient and adaptive organizations where people are seen as the blessing, not the problem. She has led the way in demonstrating how perspectives about chaos, networks, and relationships that come from the new sciences can be applied to human organizations. Such organizations become creative, self-organizing living systems, rather than the more common highly controlled mechanistic systems that only create robotic behaviors.

In short, Margaret Wheatley is one of the most innovative and influential organizational thinkers of our time who has tested her ideas and perceptions in many different settings and cultures. Finding Our Way is a collection of her practice-focused articles, where she applies themes she has addressed throughout her career to detail the organizational practices and behaviors that bring them to life. "The pieces presented here," she writes, "represent more than ten years of work, of how I took the ideas in my books and applied them in practice in many different situations. However, this is more than a collection of articles. I updated, revised or substantially added to the original content of each one. In this way, everything written here represents my most current views on these subjects."
… [Read more]

Sign up at http://slackeruprising.com for free download of Michael Moore's coming movie, Slacker Uprising, on September 23rd, 2008.  Register by October 4th, 5th, and 6th to be able to vote.

BANGKOK, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Thousands of royalist protesters stormed the compound of Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej, a TV station and several ministries on Tuesday in a coordinated bid to unseat his elected seven-month-old coalition government.

Samak urged the People's Alliance for Democracy (PAD) to pack up and go home, accusing them of breaking the law after three months of hitherto peaceful demonstrations in central Bangkok.

"They want bloodshed in the country. They want the military to come out and stage a coup again," he told foreign journalists at army headquarters, where he held a weekly cabinet meeting after protesters blockaded his Government House offices.

"We don't count by days. We count by hours. We think by tomorrow it will be finished," he said.

He made no mention of any need to impose emergency rule, but national police spokesman Surapol Thuanthong said police would seek court approval on Wednesday to arrest the PAD leaders after they ignored an order to leave by 6 p.m. (1100 GMT). … [Read more]

Welcome to my first post here at oneworldwiki.com. … [Read more]

 Video trailer for "Invisible Children" A documentary on the crisis in the war in Uganda. It is a documentary which I believe should be seen by everyone in order to really understand the depths in which wars affect underdeveloped countries.

Feel free to visit www.invisiblechildren.com in order to order the documentary, help, contribute, and discover frequent updates on the status of the crisis. The documentary is also available in youtube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qds5MQCqWnk&feature=related

Excerpt from "Invisiblechildren.com": … [Read more]

The organization Students for a Free Tibet, which has been staging actions throughout the Beijing Olympics to bring the spotlight on the Tibetan freedom movement has given the latest update: … [Read more]

A practical and personal guide to creating groups that can solve community and workplace problems. Using lessons learned, exercises and stories from the experience of the author and others, this book brings alive the process of community organizing and community building. It is for anyone who wants to start or strengthen a commuity group, a congregation, a neighborhood association, a civic group, or any other group that deals with the many problems and concerns we all face in our everyday lives.

About the Author
Michael Jacoby Brown has over 30 years' experience building communitiy organizations. He has trained hundreds of people in religious, health, labor, government, political, housing and other organizations who have gone on to build groupos that have improved the world.

Millions of working Americans talk, act, and vote as if their economic interests match those of the megawealthy, global corporations, and the politicians who do their bidding. How did this happen? According to Air America radio host Thom Hartmann, the apologists of the Right have become masters of the subtle and largely subconscious aspects of political communication. It's not an escalation in Iraq, it's a surge; it's not the inheritance tax, it's the death tax; it's not drilling for oil, it's exploring for energy. Conservatives didn't intuit the path to persuasive messaging; they learned these techniques. There is no reason … [Read more]

James Miles describes his experience as the only Western journalist reporting from Tibet during the eruption of the violent riots and unrest that began on March 14 in the city of Lhasa.

The World Bank and its partners need to do a far better job of considering the environmental effects of projects they finance in poor countries, its internal review group concludes in a new report. … [Read more]