August 9, 2008 - Some China Olympics News, Views, and Info

Protests Worldwide As Olympics Begin (AP) August 8, 2008

“This is the Olympics the West Wanted”–Dave Zirin on US Corporations Entering China, Athletes Speaking Out and the Games from ’68 to Today (Democracy Now!) August 8, 2008

The Olympics: Unveiling Police State 2.0 (NaomiKlein.org) August 7, 2008

Who's Grabbing the Olympic Gold?: Bob Quellos exposes the shady dealings, unsavory characters and immense greed at the heart of the Olympic Committee. (Socialist Worker) August 8, 2008

Tibet protest in Tiananmen Square as Olympics begin, Five detained following dramatic "Die-In": Five Tibet supporters held a dramatic protest in Tiananmen Square early this afternoon, calling for an end to the Chinese government’s occupation of Tibet. (Playul) August 9, 2008

August 4, 2008 - Some News, Views, and Info

Fighting For Union Rights and Clean Air: Truck drivers and community groups unite in Oakland, California to demand better working conditions and environmental protection (Socialist Worker) July 24, 2008

Sexual Assault In Military: A congresswoman said Thursday that her "jaw dropped" when military doctors told her that four in 10 women at a veterans hospital reported being sexually assaulted while in the military. A government report indicates that the numbers could be even higher. (CNN) July 31, 2008

Sexual Assault in the Military: A DoD Cover-Up? Sexual violence against both female and male military personnel must stop. (ZNet) August 4, 2008

River Diversion Plans For Whose Benefit in Thailand? Thai Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej’s plans to divert water from rivers in neighbouring Laos to help feed agricultural production faces stiff opposition from those who argue the projects could threaten the environment and local people’s lives. (Inter Press Service) August 4, 2008

Stinging Tentacles Offer Hint of Oceans' Decline: The explosion of jellyfish populations, scientists say, reflects a combination of severe overfishing of natural predators, like tuna, sharks and swordfish; rising sea temperatures caused in part by global warming; and pollution that has depleted oxygen levels in coastal shallows. (International Herald Tribune) August 2, 2008

Why For Profit Water Companies Are Behind A Bottled Water Backlash: In the UK, private water delivery companies see bottled water as a direct competitor for their product, tap water. The next time we hear of a new tap water campaign coming out of the UK, let's cheer for the profile the issue is getting, but we need to be wary that such a campaign is driven by a for profit water services company whose aim is to promote its brand of privatized water. (Alternet) July 31, 2008

The Fists Still Hold Power: The image lasted for only as long as it took to play the national anthem -- yet it still resonates four decades later. Black American sprinters Tommie Smith and John Carlos, winners of the gold and bronze medals, respectively, in the 200-meter race bow their heads and raise their black-gloved fists to protest racism during the medal ceremony at the 1968 Summer Olympics in Mexico City. (Los Angeles Times) August 3, 2008

Dave Zirin on Why Jonah Goldberg Fears the Fist: Jonah Goldberg’s regular column in the LA Times is usually an awkward grab bag of right wing talking points backed by knowledge of history that would shame a poodle, although a poodle would never be so pompous. Goldberg stepped on to Zirin's beat this past week with a column about the 1968 Olympic protesters, Tommie Smith and John Carlos. Goldberg's piece was such a cheap, dishonest scribble, Zirin feel compelled to respond. (Dissident Voice) August 2, 2008

Schwarzenegger Imposes Minimum Wage On California State Workers & Cuts 22,000 Jobs (Workers Independent News) August 1, 2008

June 14, 2008 - Some News, Views, and Info

Kucinich Vows New Round of Impeachment Articles Against Bush if Measure Dies (Online Journal) June 13, 2008

The Myth of the Market: The increasing injustice and environmental destruction of recent years has been justified by the alleged 'efficiency' of the market. But both theory and evidence show that markets are economically inefficient, wasteful of human and natural resources. (21st Century Socialism) June 11, 2008

Three Cheers For The Irish "No" Voters!: Irish voters torpedoed the Lisbon Treaty Friday. In the face of an almost united political establishment, a majority of voters decided to vote in favour of Irish independence and neutrality and against the nefarious plans of the European Business elite and their paid political agents. (Greenman's Occasional Organ) June 13, 2008

Only Nuclear Dreams Mushrooming: The proposal by the Paris-based International Energy Agency for more than 1,400 nuclear power plants to be built over the next 40 years is unfeasible, environmental activists say. (Inter Press Service) June 13, 2008

Hunger Strike by Bhopal Victims in India: The three organisations of Bhopal survivors leading the 111 day-long campaign in Delhi, along with participants from more than 18 countries announced the launching of a global hunger strike from June 10. (Business Standard, India) June 9, 2008

Activists Launch Protests Against Corporations in 8 Brazil States: Thousands of landless rural workers invaded dams, railways, plantations and corporate headquarters in a wave of protests across eight Brazilian states on Tuesday. (International Herald Tribune) June 10, 2008

How Europe Underdevelops Africa And How Some Fight Back (Counterpunch) June 13-15, 2008

Racism in the Tar Sands: Exploiting Foreign Workers and Poisoning Indigenous People in Canada (Oil Sands Truth) June 12, 2008

May 19, 2008 - Some News, Views, and Info

Plans For New Coal Plants Under Fire In UK: Protesters are to launch one of the hardest-hitting environmental campaigns for more than a decade over plans to build a new generation of coal-fired power stations in the UK. (London Observer) May 18, 2008

I Give Up, Says Brazilian Minister Who Fought To Save The Rainforest: In a letter to President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Ms Silva said that her efforts to protect the rainforest acknowledged as the "lungs of the planet" were being thwarted by powerful business lobbies. (The Independent UK) May 15, 2008

The Emergence of Real Trade Unionism in Wal-Mart Stores in China (China Labor News Translations) May 4, 2008

Comments on the Strike Movement in Egypt (International Socialist Review) May-June 2008

Women - The Guardians of Potato Biodiversity in Peru (Inter Press Service) May 16, 2008

Iraq Veterans Describe Atrocities to US Lawmakers (OneWorld.net) May 17, 2008

Santa Ana, California Labor Rally: HEY, ARNOLD! NO BUDGET CUTS! (Los Angeles Indymedia) May 15, 2008

May 16, 2008 - News, Views, and Info

US Naval Fleet To Be Positioned Off the Coast of South America (Upside Down World) May 13, 2008

John Cusack’s War: The Actor Battles to Un-Embed Hollywood With His New Film, ‘War, Inc.’ (Common Dreams) May 16, 2008

The Horrors of ICE: Dangerous Forced Psychotropic Drugging, Frightening Lack of Medical Care (American Leftist) May 14, 2008

California Supreme Court Strikes Down Same Sex Marriage Ban (365Gay.com) May 15, 2008

China's All-Seeing Eye: With the help of U.S. defense contractors, China is building the prototype for a high-tech police state. It is ready for export. (Rolling Stone) May 29, 2008

Species are dying out at a rate not seen since the demise of the dinosaurs, according to a report published today – and human behaviour is to blame. (The Independent UK) May 16, 2008

May 11, 2008 - Some News, Views, and Info

Hollywood Could Soon See Another Strike (Workers Independent News) May 8, 2008

A Nuclear Problem: Oglala Sioux Fight Expansion of Uranium Mine (Indian Country Today) May 9, 2008

Regime in Burma Worsens Suffering from Cyclone (Green Left Weekly) May 10, 2008

World's Native Peoples Take on Climate Change (Living on Earth) May 9, 2008

Journalist Kevin Pina on the Neoliberal Roots of Haiti's Food Crisis (Socialist Worker) May 5, 2008

Tibet Protesters Scale Golden Gate Bridge Before Torch Run

AFP, April 7, 2008

Three pro-Tibet demonstrators climbed cables on the Golden Gate Bridge Monday to condemn China's government in advance of the Olympic torch's run through San Francisco.
The demonstrators unfurled a giant banner reading "One World, One Dream" and "Free Tibet 08," while at least one of the daredevil protesters could be seen carrying a Tibetan flag, television images showed.
Local media reported that four people had been arrested by California Highway Patrol, while the three protesters remained suspended from the bridge.
One of the climbers told a local radio station in a telephone interview conducted from his perch that he was part of group Students for a Free Tibet.

Continue reading 'Tibet Protesters Scale Golden Gate Bridge Before Torch Run'. . .

Indian Social Science Congress Resolution on Global Warming

Delhi Platform, March 29, 2008

(Note: This resolution was presented as a draft at the Indian Social Science Congress in Mumbai on 30 December 2007, and finalized after discussion among and feedback from the audience there. Being a broad political resolution, it does not contain specifics, even though these are important – Delhi Platform)
1. We agree with the overwhelming body of evidence and the broad consensus arrived at within the global scientific community that large-scale human activities since the Industrial Revolution – industry, transport, power generation, deforestation, etc – are the primary causes of global warming and the resultant unpredictable climate change, through increasing emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, beyond the Earth’s natural capacity to absorb these gases.
2. There is an extremely urgent need to make sharp cuts in the emissions of greenhouse gases worldwide, starting immediately, since the world is potentially close to dangerous levels of global warming.

Continue reading 'Indian Social Science Congress Resolution on Global Warming'. . .

China Still a Small Player in Africa

Firoze Manji argues that in comparison to Europe and the US, China in Africa is still a small player.
By Firose Manji, Pambazuka, March 27, 2008

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Open any newspaper and you would get the impression that the African continent, and much of the rest of the world, is in the process of being ‘devoured’ by China. Phrases such as the ‘new scramble for Africa’, ‘voracious’, ‘ravenous’ or ‘insatiable’ ‘appetite for natural resources’ are typical descriptors used to characterise China’s engagement with Africa. In contrast, the operations of western capital for the same activities are described with anodyne phrases such as ‘development’, ‘investment’, ‘employment generation’(Mawdsely, 2008). Is China indeed the voracious tiger it is so often portrayed as?
China’s involvement in Africa has three main dimensions: foreign direct investment, aid and trade. In each of these dimensions China’s engagement is dwarfed by those of US and European countries, and often smaller than those of other Asian economies.
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The evidence available suggests that the drive to increasing the rate of profit is exhibited as much by Chinese as by western capital. The west has the advantage in having already established its dominant position that is potentially being threatened by the ‘new boy on the block’.
But China has the advantage of never having enslaved or colonized the continent. China has also not made any false promises coated with neo-liberalism. While the West, the IMF and the World Bank put conditions that only aid in their fleecing of Africa, China has so far been willing to provide unconditional aid and invest in infrastructure. At the same time, however, it freely takes full advantage of the opening up of markets that neo-liberal economic policies over the last 25 years have offered, unencumbered.
And so far, unlike the US, China has not sought to establish military bases in Africa to protect its economic interests, which the US has sought to establish through AFRICOM

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Carrying a Torch for Tibet

By Dave Zirin, The Nation, March 19, 2008

The brutal crackdown by Chinese authorities against Tibetan independence protesters ahead of the opening of the Summer Olympics in Beijing August 8 carries with it a terrible echo from the past. Scores of protesters are reported dead in the capital city of Lhasa and more repression has been promised.
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As monks and young Tibetans took their grievances to the streets over the weekend, the government made clear it would brook no protest and tolerate no dissent.
But it's helpful to remember that in many countries, including our own, pre-Olympic repression is as much of a tradition as lighting the torch.
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Officials may try to smother dissent on the streets of Lhasa and elsewhere in China, but in the games themselves--from the path of the Olympic torch up Mount Everest to the opulent venues constructed in Beijing--the risk for protest, and the opportunity, is real.

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Tibet Rises Up Against Decades of Oppression

By Charlie Hore, Socialist Worker UK, March 18, 2008

Tibet was rocked by its biggest uprising for almost 20 years this week as protesters fought running battles against police. China’s rulers responded by sealing off the province from the media and instituting a brutal crackdown.
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The last time there were mass protests on this scale was March 1989, when Buddhist monks led protests that were violently attacked. Protesters managed to hold the centre of Lhasa for three days before a vicious crackdown killed hundreds of people.

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Indonesian Environmental Refugees Protest

Green Left Weekly, March 19, 2008

A massive environmental disaster in Sidoarjo, Indonesia, has forced 15,000 people to leave their homes in the past two years. An enormous eruption of hot mud that began in May 2006 continues to flow at a rate of 148,000 cubic metres a day. Activists hold Indonesian oil and gas company PT Lapindo Brantas responsible. They charge that the eruption was caused by a gas drilling operation on unstable volcanic land.
On February 19, thousands of environmental refugees protested against a parliamentary report that labelled the eruption a natural disaster. “We will ease the blockade if [parliament] calls it a human error, but we will stay here if parliament calls the mudflow a natural disaster”, a local villager, Orasi Djoko, told Reuters on February 19.

LINK

Right to Water National Conference at Mehdiganj, India

My News India, March 3, 2008

The conference on the right to water will be held on March 28 and 29, which will be followed by a march and demonstration against the Coca-Cola bottling plant on March 30.
Access to water is a fundamental human right. Water is sacred, and without water, life is not sustainable. Over one billion people around the world still lack access to clean drinking water. Communities across the world, particularly the poor and the vulnerable, are finding it increasingly difficult to access water to meet their basic needs.
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Companies in India and around the world have also denied people access to water by negatively impacting the quality of water. The Coca-Cola Company has regularly polluted the scarce remaining water resources around its bottling plants in India, further denying people their fundamental human right. Communities in India and globally are fighting back against the wave of privatization and asserting the primary rights of communities over water.
In a resounding victory for grassroots campaigns around the world, the people of Plachimada in Kerala have shut down Coca-Cola''s bottling plant since March 2004. The communities of Kala Dera in Rajasthan and Mehdiganj in Uttar Pradesh are getting close to shutting down the bottling plants in their communities.
And the survivors of the Bhopal gas disaster of 1984 are currently marching over 800 kms to Delhi to demand justice and safe drinking water.

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Climate 'Could Devastate Crops' in Africa and Asia

BBC News, January 31, 2008

Climate change could cause severe crop losses in South Asia and southern Africa over the next 20 years, a study in the journal Science says.
The findings suggest southern Africa could lose more than 30% of its main crop, maize, by 2030.
In South Asia losses of many regional staples, such as rice, millet and maize could top 10%, the report says.
The effects in these two regions could be catastrophic without effective measures to adapt to climate change.

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Dark Side of Biofuel

Sacramento Bee, January 20, 2008

Every morning, the cage doors swing open and 34 orangutan orphans climb into the outstretched arms of their human mothers.
Grabbing at wrists, tugging at elbows, these baby apes cling to the young women like Velcro, happy to be free of their cages, to play in the dappled sun of the nearby forest for a few hours.
It's primate day care, a scene that seems choreographed for the Animal Planet channel. But this spectacle of one hominid helping another is more than entertainment. It is a genuine reflection of environmental collapse.
These rust-red fluff balls were born in the wild, in the steamy, lime-green rain forest of tropical Indonesia. Today this jungle is being leveled and its great apes captured, killed and orphaned to grow palm oil, a plantation crop refined into biofuel for environmentally conscious consumers in Europe and the United States.
We live in a world of wanna-be-green commerce, of guilt-ridden citizens eager to protect nature, shrink their carbon footprints and free themselves from Middle East oil. But not every new fuel and eco-friendly product soothes the planet. Some are saddled with environmental baggage of their own, with not-so-obvious links to pollution, climate change and deforestation.

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Arvind Kejriwal on The Delhi Water Privatisation Plan

from the youtube description:

When the Delhi government decided to privatize the water infrastructure in the Indian capital in 2000, a strong resistance movement emerged. These activists, which include Arvind Kejriwal, have played a critical role of maintaining access to water for Delhiites and have shown the power of collective action.
Due to the successful campaign which exposed the corruption of this potential World Bank project, the project was halted. This process of privatizing the management of municipal water has happened across many cities and its important for people to understand how this happens, why and under what conditions. Arvind Kejriwal explains the influence of the World Bank Group in the bidding procedure to predetermine which corporation (Price Waterhouse Coopers) would profit from the management of such an important public resource in the city of Delhi.
"Do we need the World Bank in India?", asks Kejriwal.

Part 1

Part 2

On The People’s Protocol on Climate Change

Climate and Capitalism, January 5, 2008

The idea of a People’s Protocol originated from the Asia Pacific Research Network’s Conference on People’s Sovereignty on Natural Resources (with the theme People and Planet over Profits) held on October 23-25, 2007 in Bangkok, Thailand. The more than 170 participants from the Asia Pacific region adopted the idea of a People’s Protocol on Climate Change in recognition of the Kyoto Protocol’s failure to offer a sustainable solution to climate change.

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Borneo Tribesman Who Fought Logging Found Dead in Malaysia, Family Says

International Herald Tribune, January 3, 2008

Malaysian tribespeople demanded an investigation Thursday into the apparent death of a village chieftain who opposed logging in Borneo's jungles.

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Chinese Employers Accused of Goon Hiring

By William Foreman, Associated Press, January 6, 2007

Huang Qingnan lifts his hospital sheets and shows a long scar below his left hip. His right thigh needed stitches and surgeons fought to mend muscle and tendon gashed in his calf.
The 34-year-old labor activist was stabbed repeatedly by knife-wielding thugs, one in a series of attacks that experts and workers' rights advocates fear may signal a worrying new trend — privatized intimidation.
Once it would have been the communist government going after activists such as Huang. Today, he's less worried about the government and more about gangsters he believes are being hired by China's rough new capitalists to cow troublesome workers.

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My Heart Bleeds for Pakistan. It Deserves Better Than This Grotesque Feudal Charade

By Tariq Ali, Independent UK, December 31, 2007

Six hours before she was executed, Mary, Queen of Scots wrote to her brother-in-law, Henry III of France: "...As for my son, I commend him to you in so far as he deserves, for I cannot answer for him." The year was 1587.
On 30 December 2007, a conclave of feudal potentates gathered in the home of the slain Benazir Bhutto to hear her last will and testament being read out and its contents subsequently announced to the world media. Where Mary was tentative, her modern-day equivalent left no room for doubt. She could certainly answer for her son.
A triumvirate consisting of her husband, Asif Zardari (one of the most venal and discredited politicians in the country and still facing corruption charges in three European courts) and two ciphers will run the party till Benazir's 19-year-old son, Bilawal, comes of age. He will then become chairperson-for-life and, no doubt, pass it on to his children. The fact that this is now official does not make it any less grotesque. The Pakistan People's Party is being treated as a family heirloom, a property to be disposed of at the will of its leader.
Nothing more, nothing less. Poor Pakistan. Poor People's Party supporters. Both deserve better than this disgusting, medieval charade.
Benazir's last decision was in the same autocratic mode as its predecessors, an approach that would cost her – tragically – her own life. Had she heeded the advice of some party leaders and not agreed to the Washington-brokered deal with Pervez Musharraf or, even later, decided to boycott his parliamentary election she might still have been alive. Her last gift to the country does not augur well for its future.

Continue reading 'My Heart Bleeds for Pakistan. It Deserves Better Than This Grotesque Feudal Charade'. . .