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Source: In These Times

Last year, the soccer team FC Barcelona achieved one of the greatest seasons in the history of sports by winning both the Spanish League title, the European Champions League and four other trophies, becoming the first team ever to win the sextuple.

But Barca (as it is popularly known) is more than just a formidable soccer team. By fighting humanitarian battles off the field, it is a rare example of a successful franchise that manages to keep sports in proper perspective.

For more than 100 years, Barca has conducted itself as a “defender of freedom and democratic rights,” as team president Joan Laporta puts it, “facing up to others in a time of governments without tolerance.” The team’s immense stadium is adorned with paintings by Joan Miro and Salvador Dali, and the club is owned by its fans-more than 150,000 of them. read more

WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video depicting the indiscriminate slaying [in April 2010] of over a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad — including two Reuters news staff. Reuters has been trying to obtain the video through the Freedom of Information Act, without success since the time of the attack. The video, shot from an Apache helicopter gun-site, clearly shows the unprovoked slaying of a wounded Reuters employee and his rescuers. Two young children involved in the rescue were also seriously wounded. For further information please visit the special project website www.collateralmurder.com. read more

– Flickr/Chris Keegan (Creative Commons).

Throwing open vast swaths of the outer continental shelf to offshore drilling is the latest effort by the Obama administration to grease the way forward on comprehensive energy and climate reform. But the administration’s conciliatory approach-which has largely entailed the administration giving and its congressional opponents taking-is looking increasingly like a gamble that’s going to backfire. Meanwhile, as the president extends olive branches to his critics, he’s alienating allies in the environmental community, who say his policies are reminding them more and more of those of his predecessor, George W. Bush. Some enviros are even likening Obama to Alaska’s oil-loving ex-governor, Sarah Palin. read more