Beware surfers: cyberspace is filling up/OSI Forum: Why Russia Says No to Methadone/

OSI Forum: Why Russia Says No to Methadone
Experts Discuss Barriers to HIV Prevention and Treatment in Russia

Location: OSI-New York
Event Date(s): April 27, 2009
Event Time: 5:30 - 7:30 p.m.
Speakers: Vladimir Mendelevich, Robert Newman, Daniel Wolfe


Methadone, a widely prescribed medicine for treating opiate addiction in many countries, is currently banned in Russia. Professor Vladimir Mendelevich will discuss the ban and why controversy still surrounds the use of methadone. He will assess the opportunities and challenges facing advocates who support the use of medicines to reduce cravings for illicit drugs, as well as the public health implications of not legalizing methadone in Russia.
Robert Newman, MD, MPH, who has played a major role in planning and directing some of the largest addiction treatment programs in the world, will offer his perspective on the methadone ban in Russia.

Daniel Wolfe, director of the Open Society Institute International Harm Reduction Development program, will moderate the discussion.
Refreshments will be served.
At What Cost? HIV and Human Rights Consequences of the Global "War on Drugs"
March 2009
OSI
A decade after governments worldwide pledged to achieve a "drug-free world," there is little evidence that the supply or demand of illicit drugs has been reduced. Instead, aggressive drug control policies have led to increased incarceration for minor offenses, human rights violations, and disease.
This book examines the descent of the global war on drugs into a war on people who use drugs. From Puerto Rico to Phnom Penh, Manipur to Moscow, the scars of this war are carried on the bodies and minds of drug users, their families, and the health and service providers who work with them.
The following topics are included in this volume:
• Police Abuse of Injection Drug Users in Indonesia
• Arbitrary Detention and Police Abuse of Drug Users in Cambodia
• Forced Drug Testing in China
• Drug Control Policies and HIV Prevention and Care Among Injection Drug Users in Imphal, India
• Effects of UN and Russian Influence on Drug Policy in Central Asia
• The Impacts of the Drug War in Latin America and the Caribbean
• Civil Society Reflections on 10 Years of Drug Control in Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam
• Twin Epidemics–Drug Use and HIV/AIDS in Pakistan

OSI Forum: Organizing in the Obama Era
The Perils and Promise of Civic Mobilization
Location: OSI-New York
Event Date(s): May 7, 2009
Event Time: 6:00 to 8:00 p.m.
Speakers: Zephyr Teachout, Ai-Jen Poo, Zack Exley

The Obama campaign vividly demonstrated the power of mass civic participation. But many organizers still struggle with questions of efficacy and legitimacy. Panelists will address the following questions:
• Can we mobilize large groups of people while also fostering a sense of engagement by individual participants?
• How can an organization's members hold their leaders accountable?
• What distinct challenges arise when working with communities that face social, economic, or political marginalization?
• How can we apply lessons from electoral campaigns, which are date-specific and focused on candidates, to community- and issue-based organizing?
Veteran organizers Zack Exley, Ai-jen Poo and Zephyr Teachout will discuss these and other questions as they draw lessons from past mobilizations—including the Dean and Kerry campaigns, Domestic Workers United, MoveOn.org and others—and offer ideas for building grassroots power today.
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Media News - Monday, April 27, 2009
Beware surfers: cyberspace is filling up
Internet users face regular 'brownouts' that will freeze their computers as capacity runs out in cyberspace, according to research to be published later this year. Experts predict that consumer demand, already growing at 60 per cent a year, will start to exceed supply from as early as next year because of more people working online and the soaring popularity of bandwidth-hungry websites such as YouTube and services such as the BBC's iPlayer. It will initially lead to computers being disrupted and going offline for several minutes at a time. From 2012, however, PCs and laptops are likely to operate at a much reduced speed, rendering the internet an 'unreliable toy'. A report being compiled by Nemertes Research, a respected American think-tank, will warn that the web has reached a critical point and that even the recession has failed to stave off impending problems. Engineers are already preparing for the worst. While some are planning a lightning-fast parallel network called 'the grid', others are building 'caches', private computer stations where popular entertainments are stored on local PCs rather than sent through the global backbone. Telephone companies want to recoup escalating costs by increasing prices for 'net hogs' who use more than their share of capacity…

(Re- Edited by MUKTI MAJID as complementary)