Keny Arkana - Cinquième Soleil (The Fifth Sun)

Keny Arkana - Cinquième Soleil

(The Fifth Sun)

My species has lost its way, the mind overheating
people hate each other, war of egos
Twenty-first century, cynicism and mistrust
Abuse of the Earth, guts full of madness
borders, barricades, riots and
screams, cries and blood baths, bombs exploding
politics of fear, immoral science
insurrection of a people, arms market
New World Order, fusion of terror
human the most predatory animal
the system stinks death, assassins of life
has killed memory to kill the future.
heads full of Floppies disks , our senses deceive us
3rd eye open because our brain lies to us
the human beings are lost, have forgotten their Force
forgotten the moon, the sun and the atom.
Inversions of poles heading towards hatred
Forgotten the reason for an excuse that divides
Egotism as a motto, miserable age
Collective hatred against visceral rage
A glimmer in the heart, a tear in the eye,
a prayer in the head, an old pain
Burning grave, there where forgiveness and faith dies
where even the voice is scared, come on…

Laws made for the people and kings tyrannize…
Brotherhoods and business at the top of the pyramid,
the sponsors blood between tanks and uzis.
Innocent, in a sky the color of plants, factories,
a mournful silence, a stray bullet
a whole family in tears, a child cut down
militia of the State, paramilitaries,
celebral folly, entire peoples laid low…

Shanty towns of poverty at the entrance of the palaces
Freedom stolen, synonym for bureaucratic paperwork
Humanity bartered for an illusory life

Between morning stress and evening anxieties
head full of neuroses, nerves severed
characterize modern man, often corrupt…
…And when the city falls asleep, so many times occurs
a silent death, a homeless in the cold…
Prison of cement, behind the blinkers
The fight is so long, for a little Light
Families are torn apart and fathers are rare
The children don’t laugh anymore, they build ramparts
Mothers just keep going, one youth in three in jail

All this fucking shit is real, so we will struggle on
It is "malatripa" that is eating our guts
a bottle of vodka, a few grams of weed
Some are not coming back, the constriction is brutal
subutex injected in a puddle of blood
Children are fighting, one knife cuts too many
it is no longer exist the house that the kids return early
they learn deception in a fit of rage
formatting by the street, formatting at school
Each one has his own disk, when the worlds meet
it is cultural shock, or hatred of shame
The barriers are here, in our heads, warm
and cosy…

The hardest crack quickly, it’s the law of the reed
No, nothing is rosy here, greyness remains
in bruised hearts that are dying away like small fires
Don’t cry my sister, because You carry the world
Noble is your heart, believe in yourself and rise up again
Don’t listen to those bastards who want to see you sad,
even Mother Earth is sick, but Mother Earth resists!
Man has built his world, apprentice creator
who has upset everything, bloodthirsty predator
Babylon is large but there is nothing to it but
a vulgar farce, a masquerade with the scent of illusion,
mistress of our credulous and naïve minds,
massive conditioning, there where nerves are raw
in the margins there’s rage, stronghold of galley slaves
Together we are the world and the system is nothing
Be aware, my brother, remain true to your heart
Don’t trust the system, that lies and assassinates
Keep away from the hate that jumps on our arm,
Humane Humanity, only Love will save us
Listen to the silence when your soul is at peace
the light is there, the light has entered
Truth is ourselves…Fruit of the creation
Don’t forget your History, don’t forget your Mission
Last generation with the power to change everything
Life is with us,… don’t be afraid of danger
so let’s raise our voices, so that we will not forget anymore
Scrap of stardust, what are you waiting for to shine?
All brothers and sisters, are remake the chain
because we are but one, divided in a flesh
Let’s find joy, and help one another once more, let’s rise up…

A glimmer is enough to melt the darkness and dissolve the shadows
This time is running out of breath, a smell of sulphur
the end can be felt, the Beast captivates the crowd
symbols are inversed, funerals merge
The Star that spins the wheel approaches our skies
The earth in her death throes, ill-being is honored in the spotlight
madness, defamation, little heart at the right time
ignorance of happiness, and of the magic of life
Shocked by the horror, trained to survive
The time, the age, the worst, a part of the consequences
good and evil, today choose your side
The human beings are lost, too focused on their properties
The stars come together to bring us back on the way,
Tied control, but the Light passes through
Have trust and confidence in Life, in the strength of your dreams
everyone has an angel at their shoulder, always there if you see

When the heart is one, the spirit and the action
The Great Day is being prepared, can’t you see the signs?
Death doesn’t exist, it's just the end of cycles
This end is appearing, humans decimate one another
The Pleiades point to indigo hope,
Raise your head and understand

Feel the Force in your being
Go beyond the Babylon, clear up the mystery
Nothing happens by chance, may heaven bless you
Child of the Quinto Sol (Fifth Sun), read between the lines.

(spoken)
read between the lines
child quinto sol (child of the Fifth Sun)
the Sun is in you
the light is inside you,… shine!,…
to clarify the chaos of their world
we are not here by chance
we designate the Pleiades
Raise up your head, read between the lines
listen to your heart
Disobedience!
Because we are the Truth
Because the solution is within us
Because Life is in all of us
Because Life is in all of us

lyrics/music by Kenny Arkana
video with german subtitles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSAGuf16oZk&feature=related
spanish subtitles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dda3KKqojRw&feature=related

The Climate is Changing by Crimethic Ex-Workers Collective

The Climate is Changing...

Void Network:

As all of us were expecting

Copenhagen Cop15 Climate Change Summit

was a great fiasco.

Now everyone is sure about it:

Copenhagen Climate Change Summeit

was a total failure...

Is it possible to imagine that the

same economical and political system

destroying our planet, will be the same

one that will save it?

...Isn't it stupid expecting the ones that

killing our life to change somehow and

starting care for the people

and the planet?...

How is possible the most catastrophic,

mechanistic, inhuman, racistic, barbaric

system that ever appeared on this planet,

Capitalism,

after 200 years of total destruction of life,

culture, humanity and dignity of people,

unthoughtful hard exploitation of animals

and plants, crazy struggle for expanding

of market in all our needs, all our dreams,

merchandising of anything....How is possible

to expect Capitalism that destroyed anything

to save now Planet Earth?

Isn't it completely crazy?

It is just buisseness as usual for them...

WE WILL DESTROY CAPITALISM

BEFORE IT DESTROYS OUR PLANET!

The Climate is Changing

by Crimethic Ex-Workers Collective

If we really believed what scientists are telling us about global warming, the fire engines of every fire department would sound their sirens and race to the nearest factory to extinguish its furnaces. Every high school student would run to the thermostat of every classroom, turn it off, and tear it out of the wall, then hit the parking lot to slash tires. Every responsible suburban parent would don safety gloves and walk around the block pulling the electrical meters out of the utility boxes behind houses and condominiums. Every gas station attendant would press the emergency button to shut off the pumps, cut the hoses, and glue the locks on the doors; every coal and petroleum corporation would immediately set about burying their unused product where it came from—using only the muscles of their own arms, of course.
But we’re too out of touch to grasp what’s happening, let alone put a stop to it.
Those who learn about the destruction of the environment from books or the internet can’t hope to rescue anything. The decimation of the natural world has been going on around us for centuries now; it takes a particularly bourgeois brand of blindness to drive by felled trees, spewing smokestacks, and acres of asphalt every day without noticing that anything is happening until it shows up in the newspaper. People for whom reality is composed of news articles, rather than the world they see and hear and smell, are bound to destroy everything they touch. That alienation is the root of the problem; the devastation of the environment simply follows from it.
When profit margins are more real than living things, when weather patterns are more real than refugees fleeing hurricanes, when emissions cap agreements are more real than new developments in our own neighborhoods, the world has already been signed over for destruction. The climate crisis isn’t an event that might happen, looming into view ahead; it is the familiar setting of our daily lives. Deforestation isn’t just taking place in national forests or foreign jungles; it is as real at every strip mall in Ohio as it is in the heart of the Amazon. The buffalo used to roam right here. Our disconnection from the land is catastrophic whether or not the sea level is rising, whether or not the desertification and famine sweeping other continents have reached us yet.
As usual, the people who brought this crisis upon us are eager to explain that they are the best qualified to remedy it. But there’s no reason to believe that their motives or methods have changed. The results are in that smoking causes cancer, but they’re still trying to sell us low-tar cigarettes.
Forget about nuclear power, solar power, clean coal, and wind turbines. Forget about carbon trading, biofuels, recycling programs, organic superfoods. Forget about new legislation, along with every other inefficient, insufficient response involving ballots, petitions, or some other proxy. Our only hope is to fight with our own hands, to take a stand on the ground beneath our feet—rediscovering in the process what it means to be a part of the world, not separate from it. Every tree they try to cut down, we can stop them. Every poison they try to release into the atmosphere, we can block them. Every new “sustainable” technology they introduce, we can unmask them.
They aren’t going to stop destroying the planet until we make it too costly for them to continue. The sooner we do, the better.

Appendix: A Field Guide to False Solutions

The Corporate Solution

Where others see hardship and tragedy, entrepreneurs see an opportunity for financial gain. Putting the “green” in greenhouse gases and the “eco” in economy, they greet the apocalypse with outstretched wallets. Are natural disasters wrecking communities? That’s great—sell the survivors disaster relief and put up luxury condominiums where they used to live. Are food supplies contaminated with toxins? Slap “organic” on some of them and jack up the price—presto, what was once taken for granted in every vegetable is suddenly a selling point! Is consumer culture devouring the planet? Time for a line of environmentally friendly products, cashing in on guilt and good intentions to move more units.
So long as being “sustainable” is a privilege reserved for the rich, the crisis can only intensify. All the better for those banking on it.
The Conservative Solution
Many conservatives deny that our society is causing global warming; of course, some still don’t believe in evolution, either. But what they themselves believe is immaterial; they’re more concerned with the question of what it is profitable for others to believe. For example, when the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released its 2007 report, an ExxonMobil-funded think tank linked to the Bush administration offered $10,000+ to any scientist who would dispute its findings.
That is to say—some people consider it a better investment to bribe experts to deny that anything is happening than to take any steps to avert catastrophe. Better that the apocalypse snatches us unawares so long as they can maintain their profits one more year. Sooner the end of life on earth than the possibility of life beyond capitalism!
The Liberal Solution
Certain do-gooders would like to claim credit for bringing global warming to the attention of the public, even though radicals have been clamoring about it for decades. But politicians like Al Gore are not trying to save the environment so much as to rescue the causes of its destruction. They are pressing for government and corporate recognition of the crisis because ecological collapse could destabilize capitalism if it catches them off guard. Small wonder corporate initiatives and incentives figure so prominently in the solutions they propose.
Like their conservative colleagues, liberals would sooner risk extinction than consider abandoning industrial capitalism. They’re simply too invested in it to do otherwise—witness the Gore family’s long-running relationship with Occidental Petroleum. In this light, their bid to seize the reins of the environmentalist movement looks suspiciously like a calculated effort to prevent a more realistic response to the crisis.
The Malthusian Solution
Some people attribute the crisis to overpopulation—but how many shantytown dwellers and subsistence farmers do you have to add up to equal the ecological impact of a single high-powered executive?
The Socialist Solution
For centuries, socialists have promised to grant everyone access to middle class standards of living. Now it turns out that the biosphere can’t support even a small minority pursuing that lifestyle; one might expect socialists to adjust their notion of utopia accordingly. Instead they’ve simply updated it to match the latest in bourgeois fashions: today every worker deserves to eat organic produce and live in a “green” condominium. But these products only came to be as a marketing ploy to differentiate high-end merchandise from proletarian standard fare. If you’re going to think big enough to imagine a society without class differences, you might as well aim for a future in which we share the wealth of a vibrant natural world rather than chopping it up into inert commodities.
The Communist Solution
In practice, Marxism, Leninism, and Maoism served as a convenient means to swiftly jerk “underdeveloped” nations into the industrial age, utilizing state intervention to “modernize” peoples who still retained a connection to the land before eventually dropping them unceremoniously at the margin of the free market. Today, party communists have gotten no further than blithe assurances that new management would take care of everything. Sing along to the tune of “Solidarity Forever”:If the workers owned the factories, climate change would not existAll the smoke from all the smokestacks would be changed to harmless mist . . .
The Individual Solution
An individual or community can live a completely “sustainable” lifestyle without doing anything to hinder the corporations and governments responsible for the vast majority of environmental devastation. Keeping one’s hands clean—“setting an example” that no statesman or tycoon will emulate—is meaningless while others lay the planet to waste. To set a better example, stop them.
The Radical Solution
Too many radicals respond to the crisis with despair or even a kind of wrongheaded anticipation. There’s no reason to believe the exhaustion of the planets petroleum supply will put an end to patriarchy or white supremacy. Likewise, it’s all too likely that hierarchy can make it through ecological collapse intact, so long as there are people left to dominate and obey.
We’ll get out of the apocalypse what we put into it: we can’t expect it to produce a more liberated society unless we put the foundations in place now. Forget about individualistic survival schemes that cast you as the Last Person on Earth—Hurricane Katrina showed that when the storm hits, the most important thing is to be part of a community that can defend itself. The coming upheavals may indeed offer a chance for fundamental social change, but we have to come up with a compelling vision and the guts to implement it.
Another End of the World Is Possible!

article originaly appeared in:

http://crimethinc.com/texts/recentfeatures/climate.php

the photos from Copenhagen appeared in the interesting article

of Der Spiegel: "Climate Talks in Copenhagen
Riots Outside, Chaos Inside":

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,667141,00.html

Copenhagen Climate Change Cop15 Demonstrations / Is Mass Arrests Our European Future?/ Police Raid Christiania: More Mass Arrests

After a long day of demonstrations against the Canadian Tar Sands, and the issues of climate change and migration activists have been tear-gassed and arrested by police while attending an evening party. The police appear to be trying to wear down street-level opposition through constant offensive action against activists.

In the early evening Naomi Klein addressed a Reclaim Power party in Christiania. Later in the evening, in unclear circumstances, the police arrived with a water cannon whilst a barricade had been built and fired tear gas [reports 1 | 2]. The situation spiralled, street fights broke out and the police entered Christiania, making numerous (200+) arrests1 | 2 | 3] [Video 1 | 2 | 3]. [Photo

Despite the successful protests of 14th December, where activists were able to march through the streets without mass arrests, it seems it is effectively illegal to publicly voice opposition to emissions trading, carbon markets, and other "solutions" to the problem of climate change in Copenhagen. Over 1500 people have now been detained, arrested, beaten, tear-gassed, pepper-sprayed, and purposefully held in sub-zero temperatures for voicing their opposition. Despite this people remain committed to showing solidarity with the global south and taking direct action.
for more info about Copenhagen Climate Change Cop15 Demonstrations:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4HaYTLR0QpA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eI28-N0prc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIjRHCy3FN8

Running in the Shadows / Children on Their Own By IAN URBINA

Clinton Anchors, 18, in Medford, Ore.,
has been on his own, living in the streets and camping in the woods
since he was 12.



Running in the Shadows
Children on Their Own
This is the first of two articles originaly published in New York Times on the growing number of young runaways in the United States, exploring how they survive.

Running in the Shadows
Children on Their Own
By IAN URBINA
Published in N.Y. Times: October 25, 2009 MEDFORD, Ore. — Dressed in soaked green pajamas, Betty Snyder, 14, huddled under a cold drizzle at the city park as several older boys decided what to do with her.

Betty said she had run away from home a week earlier after a violent argument with her mother. Shivering and sullen-faced, she vowed that she was not going to sleep by herself again behind the hedges downtown, where older homeless men and methamphetamine addicts might find her.

The boys were also runaways. But unlike them, Betty said, she had been reported missing to the police. That meant that if the boys let her stay overnight in their hidden tent encampment by the freeway, they risked being arrested for harboring a fugitive.

“We keep running into this,” said one of the boys, Clinton Anchors, 18. Over the past year, he said, he and five other teenagers living together on the streets had taken under their wings no fewer than 20 children — some as young as 12 — and taught them how to avoid predators and the police, survive the cold and find food.

“We always first try to send them home,” said Clinton, who himself ran away from home at 12. “But a lot of times they won’t go, because things are really bad there. We basically become their new family.”

Over the past two years, government officials and experts have seen an increasing number of children leave home for life on the streets, including many under 13. Foreclosures, layoffs, rising food and fuel prices and inadequate supplies of low-cost housing have stretched families to the extreme, and those pressures have trickled down to teenagers and preteens.

Federal studies and experts in the field have estimated that at least 1.6 million juveniles run away or are thrown out of their homes annually. But most of those return home within a week, and the government does not conduct a comprehensive or current count.

The best measure of the problem may be the number of contacts with runaways that federally-financed outreach programs make, which rose to 761,000 in 2008 from 550,000 in 2002, when current methods of counting began. (The number fell in 2007, but rose sharply again last year, and the number of federal outreach programs has been fairly steady throughout the period.)

Too young to get a hotel room, sign a lease or in many cases hold a job, young runaways are increasingly surviving by selling drugs, panhandling or engaging in prostitution, according to the National Runaway Switchboard, the federally-financed national hot line created in 1974. Legitimate employment was hard to find in the summer of 2009; the Labor Department said fewer than 30 percent of teenagers had jobs.

In more than 50 interviews over 11 months, teenagers living on their own in eight states told of a harrowing existence that in many cases involved sleeping in abandoned buildings, couch-surfing among friends and relatives or camping on riverbanks and in parks after fleeing or being kicked out by families in financial crisis.

The runaways spend much of their time avoiding the authorities because they assume the officials are trying to send them home. But most often the police are not looking for them as missing-person cases at all, just responding to complaints about loitering or menacing. In fact, federal data indicate that usually no one is looking for the runaways, either because parents have not reported them missing or the police have mishandled the reports.

In Adrian, Mich., near Detroit, a 16-year-old boy was secretly living alone in his mother’s apartment, though all the utilities had been turned off after she was arrested and jailed for violating her parole by bouncing a check at a grocery store.

In Huntington, W.Va., Steven White, 15, said that after casing a 24-hour Wal-Mart to see what time each night the cleaning crew finished its rounds, he began sleeping in a store restroom.

“You’re basically on the lam,” said Steven, who said he had left home because of physical abuse that increased after his father lost his job this year. “But you’re a kid, so it’s pretty hard to hide.”

Between Legal and Illegal

Survival on the streets of Medford, a city of 76,000 in southwest Oregon, requires runaways to walk a fine line between legal and illegal activity, as a few days with a group of them showed. Even as they sought help from social service organizations, they guarded their freedom jealously.

Petulant and street savvy, they were children nonetheless. One girl said she used a butter knife and a library card to break into vacant houses. But after she began living in one of them, she ate dry cereal for dinner for weeks because she did not realize that she could use the microwave to boil water for Ramen noodles. Another girl was childlike enough to suck her thumb, but dangerous enough to carry a switchblade.

They camped in restricted areas, occasionally shoplifted and regularly smoked marijuana. But they stayed away from harder drugs or drug dealing, and the older teenagers fiercely protected the younger runaways from sexual or other physical threats.

In waking hours, members of the group split their time among a park, a pool hall and a video-game arcade, sharing cigarettes. When in need, they sometimes barter: a sleeveless jacket for a blanket, peanut butter for extra lighter fluid to start campfires on soggy nights.

Betty Snyder, the newcomer in the park, said she had bitten her mother in a recent fight. She said she often refused to do household chores, which prompted heated arguments.

“I’m just tired of it all, and I don’t want to be in my house anymore,” she said, explaining why she had run away. “One month there is money, and the next month there is none. One day, she is taking it out on me and hitting me, and the next day she is ignoring me. It’s more stable out here.”

Members of the group said they sometimes made money by picking parking meters or sitting in front of parking lots, pretending to be the attendant after the real one leaves. When things get really desperate, they said, they climb into public fountains to fish out coins late at night. On cold nights, they hide in public libraries or schools after closing time to sleep.

Many of the runaways said they had fled family conflicts or the strain of their parents’ alcohol or drug abuse. Others said they left simply because they did not want to go to school or live by their parents’ rules.

“I can survive fine out here,” Betty said as she brandished a switchblade she pulled from her dirty sweatshirt pocket. At a nearby picnic table was part of the world she and the others were trying to avoid: a man with swastikas tattooed on his neck and an older homeless woman with rotted teeth, holding a pit bull named Diablo.

But Betty and another 14-year-old, seeming not to notice, went off to play on a park swing.

Around the country, outreach workers and city officials say they have been overwhelmed with requests for help from young people in desperate straits.

In Berks County, Pa., the shortage of beds for runaways has led county officials to consider paying stipends to families willing to offer their couches. At drop-in centers across the country, social workers describe how runaways regularly line up when they know the food pantry is being restocked.

In Chicago, city transit workers will soon be trained to help the runaways and other young people they have been finding in increasing numbers, trying to escape the cold or heat by riding endlessly on buses and trains.

“Several times a month we’re seeing kids being left by parents who say they can’t afford them anymore,” said Mary Ferrell, director of the Maslow Project, a resource center for homeless children and families in Medford. With fewer jobs available, teenagers are less able to help their families financially. Relatives and family friends are less likely to take them in.

While federal officials say homelessness over all is expected to rise 10 percent to 20 percent this year, a federal survey of schools showed a 40 percent increase in the number of juveniles living on their own last year, more than double the number in 2003.

At the same time, however, many financially troubled states began sharply cutting social services last year. Though President Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus package includes $1.5 billion to address the problem of homelessness, state officials and youth advocates say that almost all of that money will go toward homeless families, not unaccompanied youths.

“As a society, we can pay a dollar to deal with these kids when they first run away, or 20 times that in a matter of years when they become the adult homeless or incarcerated population,” said Barbara Duffield, policy director for the National Association for the Education of Homeless Children and Youth.

‘You Traveling Alone?’

Maureen Blaha, executive director of the National Runaway Switchboard, said that while most runaways, like those in Medford, opt to stay in their hometowns, some venture farther away and face greater dangers. The farther they get from home and the longer they stay out, the less money they have and the more likely they are to take risks with people they have just met, Ms. Blaha said.

“A lot of small-town kids figure they can go to Chicago, San Francisco or New York because they can disappear there,” she said.

Martin Jaycard, a Port Authority police officer in New York, sees himself as a last line of defense in preventing that from happening.

Dressed in scraggly blue jeans and an untucked open-collar shirt, Officer Jaycard, a seven-year police veteran, is part of the Port Authority’s Youth Services Unit. His job is to catch runaways as they pass through the Port Authority Bus Terminal, the nation’s busiest.

“You’re the last person these kids want to see,” he said, estimating that his three-officer unit stops at least one runaway a day at the terminal.

Pausing to look at a girl waiting for a bus to Salt Lake City, Officer Jaycard noticed a nervous look on her face and the overstuffed suitcases that hinted more at a life change than a brief stay.

“Hey, how’s it going?” he said to the girl, gently, as he pulled a badge hanging around his neck from under his shirt. “You traveling alone?”

“Yes,” she replied, without a glimmer of nervousness. “I’m 18,” she quickly added before being asked.

But the girl carried no identification. The only phone number she could produce for someone who could verify her age was disconnected. And after noticing that the last name she gave was different from the one on her bags, the officer took her upstairs to the police station.

When she arrived, she burst into tears.

“Please, I’m begging you not to send me home,” she pleaded as she sobbed into her hands. While listening, Officer Jaycard and the social worker on duty began contacting city officials to investigate her situation, and found her a place at a city shelter. “You have no idea what my father will do to me for having tried to run away,” she said, describing severe beatings at home and threats to kill her if she ever tried to leave.

The girl turned out to be 14 years old, from Queens. Shaking her head in frustration, she added, “I should have just waited outside the terminal and no one would have known I was missing.”

In all likelihood, she was right.

Invisible Names

Lacking the training or the expertise to spot runaways, most police officers would not have stopped the girl waiting for the bus. Even if they had, her name probably would not have been listed in the federal database called the National Crime Information Center, or N.C.I.C., which among other things tracks missing people.

Federal statistics indicate that in more than three-quarters of runaway cases, parents or caretakers have not reported the child missing, often because they are angry about a fight or would simply prefer to see a problem child leave the house. Experts say some parents fear that involving the police will get them or their children into trouble or put their custody at risk.

And in 16 percent of cases, the local police failed to enter the information into the federal database, as required under federal law, according to a review of federal data by The New York Times.

Among the 61,452 names that were reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children from January 2004 to January 2009, there were about 9,625 instances involving children whose missing-persons reports were not entered into the N.C.I.C., according to the review by The Times. If the names are not in the national database, then only local police agencies know whom to look for.

Police officials give various reasons for not entering the data. The software is old and cumbersome, they say, or they have limited resources and need to prioritize their time. In many cases, the police said, they do not take runaway reports as seriously as abductions, in part because runaways are often fleeing family problems. The police also say that entering every report into the federal database could make a city’s situation appear to be more of a problem than it is.

But in 267 of the cases around the nation for which the police did not enter a report into the database, the children remain missing. In 58, they were found dead.

“If no one knows they’re gone, who is going to look for them?” said Tray Williams, a spokesman for the Louisiana Office of Child Services, whose job it was to take care of 17-year-old Cleveland Randall.

On Feb. 6, Cleveland ran away from his foster care center in New Orleans and took a bus to Mississippi. His social workers reported him missing, but the New Orleans police failed to enter the report into the N.C.I.C. Ten days later, Cleveland was found shot to death in Avondale, La.

“These kids might as well be invisible if they aren’t in N.C.I.C.,” said Ernie Allen, the director of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Paradise by Interstate 5

Invisibility, many of the runaways in Medford say, is just what they want.

By midnight, the group decided it was late enough for them to leave the pool hall and to move around the city discreetly. So they went their separate ways.

Alex Molnar, 18, took the back alleys to a 24-hour laundry to sleep under the folding tables. If people were still using the machines, he planned on locking himself in the restroom, placing a sign on the front saying “Out of Service.”

On the other side of the city, Alex Hughes, 16, took side streets to a secret clearing along Interstate 5.

On colder nights, he and Clinton Anchors have built a fire in a long shallow trench, eventually covering it with dirt to create a heated mound where they could put their blankets.

Building a lean-to with a tarp and sticks, Clinton lifted his voice above the roar of the tractor-trailers barreling by just feet away. He said they called the spot “paradise” because the police rarely checked for them there.

“Even if they do, Betty is not with us, so that’s good,” he added, explaining that she had found a friend willing to lend her couch for the night. “One less thing to worry about.”

the article appeared originaly in N.Y. Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/us/26runaway.html?pagewanted=all

You can read the second part of the articles about Homeless children and sex trade in U.S.A. here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/27/us/27runaways.html?_r=1

Iran Student Day 2009

Iranian youth, in 6 and 7 December, appeared again in the streets expressing a powerfull negation to Iranian regime. The totalitarian government of Iran refusing left's, anarchist's, homosexual's and freak's existance in Iran and fighting to eliminate any difference and dissent in the Iranian society. Void Mirror international blog and Void Network share here interesting information from Iran Student Day struggle, a day of memory and struggle for the youth of Iran from 1953 until our days. Iran Student Day is the anniversary of the murder of three students of University of Tehran on December 7, 1953 (16. Azar 1332 in the Iranian calendar) by Iranian police in Pahlavi era. Every year there are local demonstrations at many universities organised by students. Government also organises a national demonstration which sometimes clashes with student organised protests.It is celebrated both by religious and secular student movements.

We publish here the characteristic announcement of left student publication Bazr:
16th Azar (Dec 7th): Always Red! Bazr Student Periodical:
On the Occasion of 16 Azar/December 7, 2009 16th of Azar is on the way once again. Any ceremonies planned for this year will be different from those of previous years. This school year started with a different beginning. 13th of Aban (Nov. 4th), which had always been a boring event, this time around was a starting point for this day. 16th of Azar, however, has always been a climax for all the events. From the people's point of view, the university and university students have been symbols of consciousness, knowledge and struggle. After the recent surge forward [by the people], which saw astonishing days and moments, the Student Day can become a turning point. However, a review of this day in history shows us some important points. The starting point of 16th Azar was in the university student struggles in 1953, in opposition to the Shah's policies and, specifically, to Nixon's trip [as Eisenhower's vice president] to Iran. The demonstrations held for this occasion led to the deaths of three university students [in Tehran] by the names of: Qhandchi, Shari'at Razavi, and Bozorgnia. Since then, 16th Azar of every year has been celebrated as the Student Day, albeit with different degrees of intensity. The point that is evident and clear, however, is that the Islamic Republic has always attempted to confiscate this day in the name of Islam. But, the students' struggle of 1953 was a fight against the ruling oppression and imperialism. The three murdered students belonged to the communist Tudeh Party and to the National Front. The oppression of that day and today are not different; only its form and appearance have changed, but its class nature is the same as it was. The Islamic Republic, by creating student organizations that were attached to the regime, such as the Daftar Tahkim Vahdat (Office of Consolidation of Unity) and various Islamic associations, has to this day tried to fully expropriate this day and to use it for its own policies. In recent years, with the presence and regeneration of leftist students in universities, the 16th Azar ceremonies have been held with a different quality. In particular, we can point to the ceremonies held in 2006. Although it was a joint ceremony in conjunction with Daftar Tahkim, with the presence of the radical students the day turned into a radical and oppositional program against the regime. The day after, although an account in the E'temad Meli newspaper (belonging to the reformist faction then, and today's opposition) contained a picture of the ceremonies displaying red placards, the report itself claimed the ceremony to have been organized [only] by Daftar Tahkim Vahdat and reportedly filled with enthusiasm. In 2007, when the regime could no longer stand the strengthening of the left, in the lead-up to the 16th Azar, it organized a widespread campaign of arrests against leftist activists, and detained nearly 40 individuals and sent them to Evin. Despite that, the Student Day was celebrated, albeit in small crowds, and several of the students were also arrested after the ceremonies. In that year, Daftar Tahkim Vahdat, at ease of mind in the absence of the left, organized the ceremonies. The interesting part was the confiscation of the leftist slogans; something that was repeated in different ceremonies held later by Tahkim Vahdat students. They confiscated both the day and the slogans! But how will the 16th Azar be this year? This year, everything has changed considerably. In the recent leap made by the people, the presence of the students was very widespread and influential. The Iranian regime, knowing that the universities and their students constitute a major segment in the struggle, attacked the university campus [in Tehran] with vengeful violence, killing many and injuring, arresting and disappearing many more. The final exams were canceled so that the students would return to their hometowns. But, none of these stopped the rage of the people and the university students. The start of the school year, which was accompanied with many 'if's' and 'but's' regarding opening the universities or not, turned out to be a hot beginning. This time, though, the student protests and the struggles spread nationwide. The students have organized/assembled under many different pretexts. None of the regime's representatives have been able to give speeches in any of the universities in Tehran or in other cities, and most such speeches have turned into arenas of radical struggles. Although green symbols and slogans have more or less been present at these protests, the organization of these protests, according to students who attend them, have not been under the leadership of the Daftar Tahkim Vahdat students, and have been mostly spontaneous. In all this, the presence of the first-year and newly arrived students, who had started university having just arrived from a street fight, has been very manifestly positive. After the 13 Aban/November 4th ceremonies, the Iranian regime, terrified of the 16th Azar, began its attack in many different forms. The execution of Ehsan Fattahian, a Kurdish political activist and 16 others in the same week, the widespread arrests of university students in different universities, suspension of students and banning them from entering universities, and ordering vast numbers to report to disciplinary committees are among such attacks. It is certain that these arrests will not stop the 16th Azar ceremonies from being held. This year, however, an important change has been created. Until now, the Islamic Republic has been trying to confiscate this day, but today the reformist faction of the regime, which sees itself as the opposition, is trying to do the same. But, the reality is that the green faction, today, is part of the ruling system. Not only are their demands not radical, they even try to control people's radical slogans and moves. The greens, who never thought people's protests would materialize like this, have tried to claim ownership over these struggles and have done their utmost to tame and control them. They are riding the wave of people's struggle. But the reality is that they cannot be real leaders of people's fight, since they too seek to consolidate the 30-year long positions and policies of the Islamic Republic, but in a different form. They talk of the return to the constitution; of the real revival of religion, and they talk of the Islamic Republic, not a word more, nor a word less! Haven't such categories been noticed and examined for the last thirty years? The reformist faction which has been a part of the ruling system has been complicit in all matters. But, the fissure that has appeared today among the rulers is over how best to continue and prolong the life of the Islamic Republic. Their class nature and their goals are not different. Their clash is not over the people's interests. It is therefore necessary that the university students -- as a part of the people with a concentrated presence at the nerve centers of knowledge and consciousness -- must consciously address this issue and prevent the Student Day from being confiscated, this time by the greens. Although the [organization of] Tahkim Vahdat does not enjoy its previous strength, we must remember that the greens, as a part of the regime, still have their own forces, media and platforms. Daftar Tahkim is not only not the representative of 16th Azar, it is even an obstacle to celebrating the Student Day in its true meaning. This organization has annually used this day to push forth the policies of the Islamic Republic, and this year will undoubtedly push forth the policies of the greens. The Student Day is a day to fight against ruling oppression and imperialism, and this year the message of the 16th Azar, delivered by university students, must be heard by all, all the more gloriously. In the last months, the street has been the scene of people's struggles, and today, on the eve of the 16th Azar, the regime has taken special measures in preparation to limit the events of the day to the university campus. At the same time, we must note that even the green faction is not too enthusiastic about the events spilling beyond the university campus walls. They are well aware of the explosive potentials of the university students, and know that if the students join up with the people and other youth in the streets, the 16th Azar ceremonies will turn untamable. This could lead to big losses for the greens. This year's 16the Azar can become a determining turning point and springboard for the people's movement. It was for good reason then that, from the very first days [of the movement], in order to tame the people's movement, this regime attacked the university, since it knew that students carry a big weight in the movement. The events of the past months have unfolded in such manner that despite the differences between the two factions, their discourse is increasingly similar. Moussavi has been content with issuing conciliatory and pacifying statements, and Karroubi, who they claim is a radical, on the eve of the Student Day has stepped back and remained silent. The students must use this atmosphere, which contains all the right elements for a radical fight, and must insist on the radical nature of this day as a revolutionary day, a day of anti-oppression and anti-imperialism, and revive the true meaning of this day. The true horizon of the student's struggles must be based on the interests of the majority of the society and against the totality of the regime. We must not allow the greens to confiscate this day in their own name and to put a green stamp on it. We must fight against and expose the crimes committed on the university campus [in Tehran University], we must fight against the arrests, the suspensions and expulsions and putting stars on students and against the recent executions, especially the execution of Ehsan Fattahian. The ruling faction orders the replacement of humanities courses with classes in Islamic studies and the green faction speaks of the correct revival of religion in the society. On this day, we must raise our voices against all such cases and against the dissemination of superstitions - instead of science - in the most essential places of science and knowledge. As opposed to the policies pursued by the greens, who are opposed to slogans targeting the whole political structure [of the regime], on this day we must use radical and revolutionary slogans against religious rule, against compulsory hejab [cover for women], in support of dominated ethnic minorities and against the entirety of the system; and we must avoid raising religious and nationalistic slogans. By creating independent organizations consisting of a radical student body, we must prevent the confiscation of the student protests by regime organizations, such as Tahkim [Vahdat] and Anjoman Eslami (Islamic Association). Do not allow them, after confiscating the slogans of the day, to then also confiscate this day that belongs to the university students. We must take the fight from inside the university campus to the streets. In the recent leap, women and girls have had a noticeable and magnificent presence, and nowadays a major part of the student body consists of women. We must be the voice of the girls and women of the society, and reflect their demands. The voice of those who proved that they have an important role in leading the recent fights. Let us not allow 16th Azar to turn green! Let us celebrate this day in red, not only in appearance but in form and essence! article appeared in the site for information from middele east Uruknet: http://www.uruknet.info/index.php?p=m60817&hd=&size=1&l=e

for many different videos about what happend in Iran Student Day 2009
navigate in the Thought Provoking magazine Frontline:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/tehranbureau/2009/12/videos-16-azar.html?utm_campaign=homepage&utm_medium=feeds&utm_source=feeds

Student Day Turns Violent in Iran:

http://www.rferl.org/content/heard_in_iran/1898768.html

December 7 -- National Student Day protests occurred throughout the country amid heavy security and numerous clashes. Among the slogans chanted were, "This government is Fascist; it must be stopped," and, "What happened to the oil money? It was spent on the Basij!"

One student tells Radio Farda that police and the Basij attacked student protesters at Tehran's Amir Kabir University by firing tear gas, but the students threw stones to prevent them from entering the university. Another witness said that students broke the gates of Amir Kabir University so that other people could join them.

"I can hear shots in the air from inside Tehran University, while they are beating people with batons, metal rods and sticks outside," said a witness. There was heavy traffic on Enghelab [Revolution] Avenue, said an observer: "People and cars just keep going up and down the street, as they cannot chant slogans because of the huge number of security forces." Even the traffic police are armed with batons, another witness from Tehran said.

A student at Ferdowsi University in Mashad in northeastern Iran said that plainclothes agents filmed students participating in rallies: "They might suppress or kill us, but what can they do with our children? We'll raise them with the story of Neda."

From Bu-Ali Sina University in Hamedan in west-central Iran, a rally participant said: "Police arrested one of the students who was severely injured during clashes and did not let him to be taken to hospital."

A witness at Esfahan University in central Iran said students held a peaceful assembly on university grounds, while surrounded by a large number of police and security forces.

A Kurdistan University student said an "unprecedented" number of students participated in the Student Day rally this year.

for more detailed information about what happened in Iran Student Day 2009 navigate to the page of Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/2009/nov/04/iran-student-day-protests