Both government and rebel representatives are condemning a ‘gruesome massacre of civilians’ on the Philippine island of Mindandao. At least 30 people were killed after their convoy was hijacked by armed gunmen.

The group included political activists and journalists. The LA Times has a quote from Philippine President Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo: “Civilized society has no place for this kind of violence,” she said. “No effort will be spared to bring justice to the victims and hold the perpetrators accountable to the full limit of the law.”

However, Reporters Without Borders, noting that 12 of those killed were journalists points suspicion at a local mayor with ties to Arroyo.

The massacre took place a few hours after around 50 gunmen led by Andal Ampatuan Jr., the mayor of Shariff Aguak (a municipality in Maguindanao province), and a police inspector identified solely by the name of Dicay kidnapped members of a large convoy of supporters of Esmael Mangudadatu, an Ampatuan clan opponent who wants to run for governor. The convoy of Mangudadatu supporters, accompanied by journalists, had been on its way to an electoral bureau to file documents related to his candidacy, which the gunmen wanted to prevent.

The Moro Islamic Liberation Front, a rebel group based on the island, also condemned the killings: “What we learned is that at least 41 people were seized in Ampatuan town,” he said, “and many of these were reported killed, including women.” (The Moro and the government have been locked in a battle for years, covered by Vanguard in The Art of War.)

Recently on the Current News Blog:
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In October, 29 states saw their unemployment rates rise according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In September it was only 22. Leading the pack were Michigan (15.1 %), Nevada (13 %) and Rhode Island (12.9 %).

I’m sure as we go into the fourth quarter and layoff season begins anew, that those rates will only continue to worsen. The question is will job creation begin en masse at the beginning of next year? What do we do if it doesn’t?

Well some have called for more stimulus spending, but there’s a new scary number in town: the federal debt.

With the national debt now topping $12 trillion, the White House estimates that the government’s tab for servicing the debt will exceed $700 billion a year in 2019, up from $202 billion this year, even if annual budget deficits shrink drastically. Other forecasters say the figure could be much higher.

In concrete terms, an additional $500 billion a year in interest expense would total more than the combined federal budgets this year for education, energy, homeland security and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Economist’s cover this week has a giant America-sized hole and is full of frightful admonitions against raising spending.

So how do we create some new jobs around here? Open for ideas.

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Plenty of things can cause a diplomatic ruckus. Saying you’re preparing for war against a neighboring country, for example (lookin’ at you Hugo Chavez). It’s fun for everybody: headlines, street protests, recalling ambassadors. And it seems North African nations Egypt and Algeria are well down that road this week.

One of the Egyptian protesters, holding a sign calling for the expulsion of the Algerian ambassador, told Agence France-Presse: “We should treat Algeria like any country that has declared war on us.”

Wait, so what happened? An errant Egyptian drone strike in a suburb of Algiers? Why no, Algeria beat Egypt in a World Cup qualifying match 1-0 and there were reports that Egyptian fans were assaulted by Algerians leaving the game. And, bam, the streets of Cairo have exploded with violence! 35 people injured!

And that was at least a clean game! Poor Ireland is protesting it’s World Cup loss to France after a French player scored a game-winning goal – using his hands. French President Nicolas Sarkozy has apologized for the incident but has not agreed with the Irish PM’s call for a replay. To see the very evident handball, check out this Irish-produced video from YouTube showing it over and over again and set to dance music. (It’s entrancing.)

(Big thanks to The Lede Blog for finding that one.)

I know what you’re thinking, American reading audience: “Who cares about soccer?” Well, first off they call it “football” and second, worry you not – I’ve got an American football/international relations story for you too: Even Iraqi prisoners hate Packers fans (FP Passport)

Iraqi prisoners at a detainment camp run by the Wisconsin National Guard have learned some English, unfortunately for the soldiers, it is mainly about the former pride of Green Bay.

“They know Favre by name,” said First Lieutenant Tim Boehnen, who is from New Richmond, Wis.

“One of the big words they know now is shenanigan. They’ll constantly talk about ‘Favre shenanigans,’ ‘He’s so good for the Vikings,’ and ‘The Packers have got to really feel bad about that one.’ “

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Talking Points Memo is pointing to a Public Policy Polling survey showing that a majority of GOP voters think Obama stole the 2008 election with ACORN’s help. 52% of them.

From PPP:

Belief in the ACORN conspiracy theory is even higher among GOP partisans than the birther one, which only 42% of Republicans expressed agreement with on our national survey in September.

Overall 62% of Americans think Obama legitimately won the election to only 26% who think ACORN stole it for him, as few Democrats or independents buy into that line of thinking.

TPM points out that ACORN has gained in popularity as a bogeyman for the right:

This number goes a long way towards explaining the anger of the Tea Party crowd. They not only think Obama’s agenda is against America, but they don’t think he was actually the choice of the American people at all! Interestingly, NY-23 Conservative candidate Doug Hoffman is now accusing ACORN of stealing his race, and Fox News personalities have often speculated about ACORN stealing the 2008 Minnesota Senate race for Al Franken.

For the record, Obama’s margin of victory was 9.5 million votes.

I present the following video without further comment.

Supernews: The Stupid Virus (Video)

(I take that back. I have one further comment. Last night’s Supernews is hilarious – and up online. Watch it while your boss takes his long Friday lunch.)

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Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez has developed quite a following in the US for her blog Generacion Y. Apparently now she can count President Obama among her fans. Sanchez managed to submit seven question to the President, which he answered this week and she posted on her blog. Obama congratulated her on her work:

Your blog provides the world a unique window into the realities of daily life in Cuba. It is telling that the Internet has provided you and other courageous Cuban bloggers with an outlet to express yourself so freely, and I applaud your collective efforts to empower fellow Cubans to express themselves through the use of technology. The government and people of the United States join all of you in looking forward to the day all Cubans can freely express themselves in public without fear and without reprisals.

The questions focused on US-Cuba relations and the possibility of future dialogue. Obama kept the door open to dialogue with Cuba’s government but said it would have to come with the chance to “create opportunities to advance the interests of the United States and the cause of freedom for the Cuban people.” Sanchez also asked him specifically about the role of the internet in Cuban lives.

QUESTION 6: YOU STRONGLY SUPPORT THE DEVELOPMENT OF NEW COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES. BUT, CUBANS CONTINUE TO HAVE LIMITED ACCESS TO THE INTERNET. HOW MUCH OF THIS IS DUE TO THE U.S. EMBARGO AND HOW MUCH OF IT IS THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE CUBAN GOVERNMENT?

My administration has taken important steps to promote the free flow of information to and from the Cuban people particularly through new technologies. We have made possible greater telecommunications links to advance interaction between Cuban citizens and the outside world. This will increase the means through which Cubans on the island can communicate with each other and with persons outside of Cuba, for example, by expanding opportunities for fiber optic and satellite transmissions to and from Cuba. This will not happen overnight. Nor will it have its full effect without positive actions by the Cuban government. I understand the Cuban government has announced a plan to provide Cubans greater access to the Internet at post offices. I am following this development with interest and urge the government to allow its people to enjoy unrestricted access to the internet and to information. In addition, we welcome suggestions regarding areas in which we can further support the free flow of information within, from, and to Cuba.

Vanguard’s Adrian Baschuk was in Cuba earlier this year and though he was unable to meet with Yoani Sanchez, found that internet access for her, possibly Cuba’s best-known blogger, was achieved by sneaking into hotels and uploading her posts.

Vanguard: Cuba Waiting For A Revolution (Video)

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John Henion is a freelance video producer in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was laid off from a staff position in 2008 (full disclosure: at Current) and entered into the freelance world. He blogs about unemployment at Unemploymentality.com. We spoke yesterday for The Real Recovery.

John Henion and Dog

Life for a freelancer can be tough – especially at the beginning. John Henion moved out to California from Michigan where he’d already established himself with freelance work. In California he had none. He said the move made him “take a step back and do things I didn’t want to do.” For example, John was about 30 when he moved here, had already produced his own independent documentary, but found himself taking a production assistant role on “Wife Swap” just to be working. “I was beyond the point where I wanted to pick up trash on the set and being told to go get lunches,” he said. “After that experience I realized I didn’t need to lower the bar that much.”

The goal as a freelancer is to have steady work. There are some great benefits – like being your own boss and scheduling your own time off – but there are somethings that are definitely not benefits – like not having benefits. John was lucky to have insurance through a domestic partnership with his girlfriend, but he said for many freelancers the decision about whether or not to get insurance is just whether or not you want to take your chances.

After being laid off, John said it took him about 6-8 months before he was getting steady work again. These days, he has about 5-6 return customers and pulls in a lot of one-off projects. He’s been able to work himself back up to an income level comparable to having a full-time staff position. But that comes with a lot more work than just the actual time spent working. “The worst part is…I have to deal with chasing down money. Some people wait until the last minute to pay you or wait until you raise a stink. You know, they want to keep that money on their books as long as they can.”

The most important thing John has found to remember freelancing is that no matter how much time he spends at an office, no matter how many new friends he makes in a workplace, being a freelancers puts him in a different position. “As a freelancer they can just stop calling. First time that happened I thought I did something wrong….When they stop calling it’s not personal….They’re not supposed to roll over and kiss you in the morning, just leave some money on the bedstand.”

Michael Spafferty’s Video Resume from Unemploymentality on Vimeo.

Are you a freelancer? Have a recession story to tell? Post it to The Real Recovery.

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No, it’s not what you think: a swash-buckling extra-legal pirate hunter with a musket, a clipper ship and letters of mark stalking the coasts of Somalia. It’s about copyright piracy. And it’s kind of sinister.

The British Secretary of State is proposing legislation that would give his position the ability to create anti-piracy legislation without Parliamentary debate. The goal is to crack down on copyright infringement in a big way.

Cory Doctorow at Boing-Boing broke the story:

This is as bad as I’ve ever seen, folks. It’s a declaration of war by the entertainment industry and their captured regulators against the principles of free speech, privacy, freedom of assembly, the presumption of innocence, and competition.

This proposal creates the office of Pirate-Finder General, with unlimited power to appoint militias who are above the law, who can pry into every corner of your life, who can disconnect you from your family, job, education and government, who can fine you or put you in jail.

This comes as some see the music industry starting to recover from a hard decade of battling piracy. The Economist wrote last week that though sales across the industry are down a third, the music business is adapting successfully. And moving beyond suing the pants of off random downloaders. Viacom’s chief counsel told a group of Yale law students that suing P2P users “felt like terrorism”.

Well it certainly seems like the Brits are gearing up for the sort of extralegal powers we’re used to over here with our War on Terror. …But…wait…that’s backward…the terrorists are….the lawyers? Ah, somebody’ll figure it out.

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Here’s a math problem for you: The national unemployment rate hits its highest point since the 80s in October: 10.2 percent. According to a report released this week last year 14.6% of Americans couldn’t afford to buy enough food. How does that add up?

Well outside of the various nitpicks that can be done to both of those numbers, one big culprit is “underemployment”. We’ve been talking about underemployment a lot in The Real Recovery because I think it’s a more accurate measure of how many Americans have been affected by the recession. If you “get discouraged” and stop looking for a job, you no longer count as “unemployed”. Or, as we’re talking about this week: if you go freelance part time.

The official measure of underemployment is called the U-6 and the Bureau of Labor Statistics describes it in breathtaking terms:

Total unemployed, plus all marginally attached workers, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all marginally attached workers

In October, when we saw that big 10.2% unemployment number, the U6 number was at 17.5% Nearly a fifth of the population!

You know what that does not include though? All the Americans who’ve taken pay cuts or reduced hours in the recession. (More digging through numbers to come).

Want to get involved with The Real Recovery? Here’s two easy things you can do:
- Post your story to the group. How have you been affected? Are you underemployed? Have you taken a pay cut?
- Help me find some other numbers to look at. How many Americans have taken pay cuts?

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Newsweek reports that Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei will be the last Supreme Leader of the country, ever. Khamenei is only the second Supreme Leader the country has ever had, the first being Khomeini. His successor has proven to be less successful at being the most powerful voice in the country according to the clerical leadership.

From Newsweek:

Khamenei’s response to the massive election demonstrations this past summer reaffirmed a longstanding but secretive belief among a majority of Iran’s religious teachers and scholars: supreme clerical rule, no matter who is at the helm, can lead only to despotism and should be abolished. There can be no absolute power because, as Khamenei showed, men are fallible. It’s well enough understood outside Iran that those clerics have found common cause with the street demonstrators; what the rest of the world hasn’t realized yet is that they also want Khamenei gone.

The Supreme Leader will hold the position until he dies at which point the decision to eliminate the title could be made. Whether or not the standing theocratic order will be around that long is an entirely different question. The street protests continue sporadically and Neda Agha Soltan continues to be a powerful global symbol of the Iranian regime’s brutality (as we saw on the blog recently: Neda’s boyfriend speaks after escaping Iran).

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California prisons have plenty of problems but one that you may not often hear about is contraband. That’s the subject of tonight’s Vanguard episode: Prison Contraband.

This Week on Vanguard: Prison Contraband (Video)

What people are sneaking into the clink has changed a bit from old prison movies. Sure, there’s plenty of homemade knives and drugs, but one of the biggest problems facing California prison officials these days is actually cell phones. A report released early last month showed over 4000 cell phones confiscated across the state this year.

“Investigations conducted within California prisons have supported allegations [that] cellphones have been used by incarcerated felons to participate in criminal activity,” wrote Cate, secretary of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

Crimes committed by inmates using cellphones have included the planning of escapes, restraining order violations, use of stolen credit cards to purchase inmate quarterly packages and the coordination of smuggling contraband into prisons, Cate said.

Authorities have even begun training cell phone sniffing dogs.

Tune in tonight to Vanguard for an in-depth look at the fight against contraband in California prisons.

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