From the blog of Arianna Huffington in the USA:
Davos Notes: HuffPost Brings You Your All-Access Pass (16 comments )
I’m heading to Europe on Saturday to take part in two international conferences.
The first, DLD07 (aka the Munich Digital Conference, hosted by Burda Media), is a New Media baby — born two years ago to bring together those leading the charge into the increasingly digitalized world of the 21st Century.
It depends how one defines New Media.
Burda Media is based on a big German fashion magazine, that has been around for decades before most people knew anything about computers.
Among those speaking at DLD07 will be Skype’s Niklas Zennström, Google’s Marissa Mayer, filmmaker Luc Besson, and Craigslist founder Craig Newmark.
The other conference — the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland — was created in the Paleolithic era of media communications. 1971.
As such, the conference has traditionally been a closed-door gathering of the world’s business, political, media, and cultural leaders.
The elite meeting on the mountain top — literally — to network and hash out the problems of the world.
But the elite has clearly gotten the message that we’re living in a Google/YouTube world and — even before Time magazine put “You” on its cover — decided to open the doors of Davos to bloggers and blogging.
Time magazine had a poll on its website on about who should become Person of the Year for 2006.
“You” (the Time website visitors) chose President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela.
But Time neglected “You”.
The World Economic Forum “open to bloggers and blogging”?
Only to some of them. Like to Arianna Huffington, a millionairess even though sometimes sharply critical of George W Bush or other politicians.
Not to radical opponents of the World Economic Forum participants and their system.
Year after year, Swiss police takes massive repressive measures to prevent WEF critics from demonstrating in Davos. Whether those critics are bloggers or not.
Also this year, there will be many anti WEF actions.
Will Arianna Huffington blog on them?
World Social Forum in Kenya: here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
PRESS RELEASE
25 January 2007
What’s a war criminal doing in Switzerland?
Filipinos in Europe ask
“What’s a human rights violator and war criminal doing in Davos, Switzerland hobnobbing with businessmen?”
This was the question asked by MIGRANTE Europe, a network of patriotic Filipino organizations across Europe, on the scheduled visit of President Gloria Arroyo to Switzerland to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos beginning Jan. 26.
“The victims of human rights violations and the families of the victims of political killings point to Gloria Arroyo and her military clique as the masterminds of the gangland-style execution of their loved ones,” declared Grace Punongbayan, coordinator of MIGRANTE Europe. Gloria Arroyo, according to Punongbayan, has also been accused of ordering the abductions and disappearances of countless others and of imposing a de facto martial law in many regions in the Philippines.
Punongbayan said an Armed Forces of the Philippines’ (AFP) internal document that was leaked recently to the media revealed a plan to intensify the assassination of leaders of people’s organizations and other non-combatants. This plan, says Punongbayan, is meant to terrorize the people, prevent progressive political parties and the political opposition from winning more seats in the coming congressional and local elections, and ensure that Gloria Arroyo stays in power. Arroyo, she said, is deliberately targeting civilians violating international human rights laws and the Geneva Convention(s).
Punongbayan explained that in her desperation to cling to power, Arroyo wants to make sure that the opposition would not win enough congressional seats to revive the impeachment complaint against her. It takes only 79 votes in the House of Representatives for an impeachment complaint against the President to prosper.
“Top officials of the Arroyo government and the AFP have stepped up their black propaganda against political parties and individuals, accusing them of having links with the armed revolutionary movement, ostensibly to set them up for the kill,” stressed Punongbayan.
Local and international human rights organizations have reported that 820 unarmed civilians have become victims of political killings since Arroyo came to power in 2001.
“The Swiss government, the European Union and the peoples of Europe should deliver a stronger message to Arroyo and her criminal regime who have maliciously ignored the calls of the international community, business leaders and international human rights organizations, including several Swiss-based entities, to stop the killings in the Philippines,” Punongbayan said.
“The Arroyo regime must not be allowed to wash its bloody hands by hobnobbing with foreign and business leaders, sell a rosy picture of the Philippine economy that is actually kept afloat by the hard-earned remittances of migrant Filipinos, and whitewash its war crimes and gross disregard for human rights, particularly the Geneva Conventions, by killing civilians and non-combatants,” she further stressed.
For more information:
Grace Punongbayan
MIGRANTE Europe
Postbus 15687, 1001 ND Amsterdam
Email: mig_europe@yahoo.com
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Posted by: “Corey” cpmondello@yahoo.com cpmondello
Tue Apr 3, 2007 9:27 am (PST)
Seattle to pay WTO protesters $1 million
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003647761_webwto02m.html
April 2, 2007
By Bob Young
Seattle Times staff reporter
The city of Seattle will pay $1 million to WTO protesters who were arrested in Westlake Park seven years ago and will clear their records, in a settlement announced today.
The money will cover the plaintiffs’ legal fees, with the rest divided among 160 protesters, who will get roughly $3,000 to $10,000 per person, said Mike Withey, their attorney.
“We think the cash settlement does send a message that what Seattle did was wrong and we shouldn’t have been denied our constitutional rights,” said Ken Hankin, a Boeing engineer and one of the arrested protesters.
The $1 million will come from the city’s insurer, not taxpayers, Withey said. The city has already paid $800,000 to settle multiple claims involving police misconduct during the WTO protests.
Withey said today’s announcement “closes a chapter in Seattle history” because it marks the last of the legal cases stemming from protests and arrests involving 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle.
Seattle police officers will also receive training on why the department lacked probable cause for mass arrests, Withey added.
“Nothing is going to replace the time spent in jail and the lost right to protest WTO,” Hankin added. “But I feel good about the settlement because it shows the city and the police are willing to accept some changes in their training, and we hope the police follow through and won’t do this again.”
A federal jury ruled in January that the city was liable for unlawful arrests of the protesters. The jury also determined that the arrests did not violate the protesters’ free-speech rights because they were not made as a result of a city policy.
City Attorney Tom Carr could not be reached for comment on the settlement.
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Released by the New York City law firm of Kuby & Perez:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, April 12, 2007
CITY OF NEW YORK TO PAY PROTESTERS $240,000 TO SETTLE FEDERAL CIVIL RIGHTS LAWSUIT
Largest Payment by City in Mass Arrest Case in Recent Memory
The City of New York has agreed to pay sixteen demonstrators a total of $240,000 to settle a federal civil rights case stemming from mass arrests during the World Economic Forum in 2002, civil rights attorney Daniel M. Perez announced today. “This settlement represents the largest payment by the City of New York in a mass arrest case in years – perhaps ever,” Mr. Perez said. Each of the plaintiffs will receive $15,000.
On February 3, 2002, while the World Economic Forum was being held in New York City, a group of animal rights activists participated in a sidewalk march on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Over 200 riot gear-clad members of the NYPD policed the march. After the march had proceeded for approximately 20 blocks, the police stopped the march and surrounded the demonstrators. Without issuing dispersal order or giving the protesters an opportunity to leave, the officers arrested all of the roughly 60 to 70 marchers and charged them with disorderly conduct and parading without a permit. The arrestees were handcuffed and taken to “the Brig,’’ a decommissioned Brooklyn Navy Yard jail facility that the NYPD recommissioned for the WEF.
Most of the plaintiffs spent at least 40 hours in jail before being brought before a judge. All were released on their own recognizance (without bail), and all of their criminal cases were dismissed. The plaintiffs subsequently filed suit in the United States District Court in Manhattan against the City and a number of high-ranking police officials, charging the defendants with various civil rights violations including false arrest, excessive detention, and violations of their First Amendment rights.
The City is presently defending over 100 other demonstration-related lawsuits, most of which involve mass arrests during the Republican National Convention in 2004. Another lawsuit from the WEF is pending, as well.
The plaintiffs were represented by attorneys Daniel M. Perez and Ronald L. Kuby of Kuby & Perez, and Scott A. Korenbaum, Esq. Mr. Perez and some of the plaintiffs are available for comment. For further information, please call (212) 529-0223.
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