Baltimore PostExaminer

On Thursday afternoon, April 24, 2014, members of the American Postal Workers Union staged a spirited protest at a Staples store located in Baltimore, MD. This was just one of more than 50 such rallies held today by union members, taking place at 80 Staples stores in 27 states across the country. A few local social justice activists also joined in support of the union.

The purpose of the demonstrations, according to the union’s press release, is to draw attention to a supposed “sweetheart deal” between the U.S. Postal Service and Staples, Inc., [an office supply company]. The union fears this deal will end up “privatizing USPS retail services and replacing good, living-wage postal jobs with low-wage, high-turnover jobs.”

The USPS insists the agreement is only a “pilot program,” under which it plans to operate 82 “postal counters” in Staples stores, staffed by their own employees. It’s no secret that Staples has been struggling lately. It has announced plans to close 225 of its stores by the year 2015.

A publicly owned and operated postal service pre-dates the founding of the American Republic. Today’s union activism was all part of a “National Day of Action.”

Ever since the presidency of Ronald Reagan, the idea of taking public assets, like schools and prisons, and turning them over to private corporations to run, has taken hold. Recently, the City of Chicago leased its parking meters to a private company for 75 years. Parking under the old system cost .25 cents an hour, now it costs a whopping $5.75 an hour!

Speaking on camera about this controversy are: Tom Dodge of the “Community and Postal Workers United” and Courtney Jenkins, a postal worker.

In the eastern Ukraine, which is an industrial hub and key sector of the country's economy, people are on edge, staging rallies and going on strikes. The Donetsk and Lugansk regions are also currently hotspots for anti-Kiev unrest. RT's Paula Slier went there to find out what's driving people to the edge.

On April 17, Putin held his annual televised Q & A session. He did it with ordinary Russians nationwide. He did it for the 12th time. Doing so connects with them.

He responded to questions forthrightly. Most concerned Ukraine and Crimea. He covered lots of ground.

Trust lost is hard to regain, he said. It's been "undermined to a great degree, but why is this happening?

http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/TPV3/Voices.php/2014/04/20/putin-speaks

Baltimore PostExaminer

Back in early September, 2013, Matthew Green, a computer science professor in cryptography at JHU, tweeted on his blog that the NSA was engaged in efforts “to break encryption” on private servers and was doing so on a big scale. His post was flagged and Green was told by the school to remove the post. Later, the school’s decision to impose its heavy-handed censorship measure was reversed.

On Tuesday evening, April 15, 2014, on the campus of Johns Hopkins U., a public forum featuring three panel members was held to discuss the above matter and the issue of “collaboration” between the NSA & JHU, and other universities. The event was sponsored by the students’ “Human Rights Working Group” and the “New Political Society.” The first speaker was Christopher Soghoain, a representative of the ACLU. Mr. Soghoain, a graduate of JHU, who is experienced in the field of surveillance cases, claimed: “We have an intelligence agency [NSA] that is out of control! This is an agency that is collecting information about law-abiding Americans who’ve done nothing wrong...”

Professor Green recounted his JHU-related blog/censorship experience from last year. He also underscored his concern that the “NSA has been inside ‘Google’s Data Centers‘ collecting data.” An attorney and expert on Constitutional Law, Shahid Buttar, was the third panel member. He is the Exec. Dir. of the “Bill of Rights Defense Committee.” Buttar traced the history of government-sanctioned spying and warned that the NSA’s egregious conduct has currently reached Orwellian proportions and is a serious threat to “Freedom of Thought!”

To learn more, go to: https://www.facebook.com/events/452572404886978/, “The Guardian,” Jay Rosen, Sept. 10, 2013, and the “Pro Publica” article at: http://www.propublica.org/article/johns-hopkins-and-the-case-of-the-missing-nsa-blog-post#update

RT

US confirms CIA chief paid a covert visit to Kiev. This sparked speculation US is helping coordinate activists in eastern Ukraine. For more on this we are joined by former MI5 agent Annie Machon

RT

Ukrainian armoured vehicle crews have switched sides, joining the anti-government protesters in the East. Activists place a Russian flag on one of them.

Sir Daniel Nonfaultson

TED

Appearing by telepresence robot, Edward Snowden speaks at TED2014 about surveillance and Internet freedom. The right to data privacy, he suggests, is not a partisan issue, but requires a fundamental rethink of the role of the internet in our lives — and the laws that protect it. "Your rights matter," he say, "because you never know when you're going to need them." Chris Anderson interviews, with special guest Tim Berners-Lee.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes (or less). Look for talks on Technology, Entertainment and Design -- plus science, business, global issues, the arts and much more.
Find closed captions and translated subtitles in many languages at http://www.ted.com/translate

NextNewsNetwork

Gerald Celente: Banker Suicides Prequel to Global Collapse - The onset of the great depression of the 1930's brought a spike in banker suicides, Will Rogers noted of the time, "When Wall Street took that tail spin, you had to stand in line to get a window to jump out of, and speculators were selling space for bodies in the East River."

Sundrumify

“Where are the so-called academics and intellectuals ?…Where are the professors of Northeastern ?… Where are the professors of journalism?…Where are the Middle Eastern Studies professors that can talk about the dispossession of Palestinians since 1948?…”

“There are professors beholden to trustee boards…half of them should be in prison.”

“…. Let me call them, not by their honorific titles in positions of power, but by the names they have earned for themselves by draining the blood of the innocent into the sands of Gaza. Let me name them, for who they are: Terrorists.” - Chris Hedges