G20 Finance ministers failed to reach agreement on the financing required for a global agreement to stave off catastrophic climate change, according to WWF Scotland. The Finance Ministers of the G20 countries were meeting in St Andrews, Scotland on 6-7 November.
Outside the G20 Finance Ministers meeting in St Andrews students and civil society gathered with an alternative summit on Saturday and Students Blockading the G20 meeting on the road to the Fairmont Hotel in an attempt to disrupt the G20 finance ministers as they arrived at their St Andrews hotel location. A rally occured in St Andrews to say 'Nae Tae G20.' on November 7. (Photos) The students were protesting against the G20's current policies regarding the economic recession.
Africa abandons Barcelona's pre COP15 climate talks - Anger in the streets at rich nations inaction. Copenhagen Climate Treaty appears doomed - delays likely. Delay is not an option, delay kills.
On 31st October 2009 in City Square, Leeds, the English Defence League held a rally. The EDL is a nationalist, islamophobic organisation formed earlier this year and is widely viewed as racist.
A counter-demonstration was organised by Unite Against Fascism (UAF). Participants described it variously as being dull, jubilant and tightly controlled. Meanwhile, other anti-EDL groups attempted to confront EDL directly. Reports suggest that at least two large groups attempted to reach EDL to confront them at City Square, but were turned back towards the UAF rally by police (see time-line for first-hand accounts).
Reports from the area around City Square were that most of the EDL supporters didn't go into their pen. Some were held between police lines and others regrouped on Boar Lane, before being brought back to the railway station by the police. Another group of EDL marched around the Albion Street area and responded violently when challenged about their inflammatory chanting.
This morning (28th october) around 9:00am dozens of costumed activists have blocked all access to the Charlemagne Building in Brussels, next to the Commission’s HQ, where Business Europe, the EU lobby of bosses and industrialists, is supposed to hold their conference on Copenhagen and climate change and hear Barroso self-congratulate himself on green capitalism. Belgian activists retort: Our Climate Ain’t None of Your Business!
For the last three years a ban on squatting has been in preparation in Dutch politics. A new act that is to ban squatting in the Netherlands has passed through parliament on October 15th. Squatting empty houses that have been empty for over a year is currently still legal in the Netherlands. The new act, an initiative by the Christian Democrats, the Christian Union and the conservative opposition party VVD, is to make squatting a felony punishable by at least one year and up to three years of prison when refusing to evict. Despite strong critique from the High Court, the union of city councils and even the Amsterdam police force, the christian/rightwing majority in The Hague is pushing this law through.
Struggle: Old man Antonio used to say that the struggle is like a circle. One can start anywhere. But it never ends. -Subcomandante Marcos
This past October 12 what we have been denouncing for a long time as the ethnocide and ethno-devouring strategy of the current State-government of Venezuela took place: Chavez’s ministerial team came to award so-called title deeds to three indigenous Yukpa communities in the Sierra of Perija, with the pretense to finish the process of land demarcation in the habitat belonging to these people. It is noteworthy the absence of President Chavez in an event long awaited in the Sierra since the year 2002, when, by constitutional mandate, the State was supposed to finalize the process of land demarcation in all the indigenous territories in the country. Instead, an enormous deployment of soldiers blanketed the event, supposedly for the security of the ministers (Interior and Justice, Indigenous People’s, among other functionaries present), and who, at the slightest sign of protest by those communities not favored by the event, went immediately into action to repress their demands. It was, in the end, an event by which the Yukpa had to forcefully accept the receipt of NOTHING.
Más de 150,000 personas marcharon el día del Paro Nacional contra las políticas neoliberales del gobierno de Luis Fortuño y los ricos. Hoy por hoy el país se prepara para organizar la Huelga General.
Como parte de las actividades programadas para el día del Paro Nacional del 15 de octubre, hubo dos grandes concentraciones: la de la coalición Todo Puerto Rico Por Puerto Rico comandada por el liderato de la Coalición Sindical compuesta de sucursales de uniones burocráticas estadounidenses, y la del Frente Amplio de Solidaridad y Lucha comandado por la UTIER. Pero en el Expreso Las Américas, en el área del elevado que pasa por encima de la Ave. Roosevelt, se dio una tercera concentración de manera improvisada.
On Tuesday, October 6th, two years after the Fraud that decided the approval of the Free Trade Agreement with the U.S., a Popular March for Dignity in the Southern Region of Costa Rica was held. More than 150 activists marched from the entrance of the Indigenous Territory of Térraba, towards the center of the county of Buenos Aires. One step after another, they covered 13 kilometers in total. Different communities from all over the South face struggles against the expansion of pineapple plantations, the building of Diquís Hydroelectric Project, an international airport that would be built on the land of “Finca 9”, the plans to develop marinas and industrial tuna farms in Golfo Dulce and in favor of the Indigenous Autonomy Bill.
DURBAN — On Saturday, September 26, about 40 heavily armed men ambushed a meeting of the Kennedy Road Development Committee of Abahlali baseMjondolo, South Africa's shack dwellers’ movement. The men were apparently shouting, “the AmaMpondo are taking over Kennedy. Kennedy is for the amaZulu!” The ensuing violence has resulted in between two and eight deaths, and hundreds of homes burned. As of Sunday night only leaders of Abahlali baseMjondolo have been jailed --- many of whom are members of the movement's security team and some of the youth who were not present at the time of the attack. Many have fled the settlement and people's homes are being destroyed, including the home of Abahlali President, S'bu Zikode.
It is clear that the attacks have been on political and ethnic grounds, and there is growing concern regarding the involvement of local authorities including the police, ANC, and ward council. The violence appears to be a planned attempt to break this peaceful and democratic movement. Please read and sign a petition demanding an end to the violence.
The mainstream Western media have with very few exceptions failed to report the participation of the Battalion 3-16 death squad in the Micheletti de facto government, they have not reported on "disappearances", they have severely underreported the number of extrajudicial executions, and they have almost entirely hidden the unresolved context of the 1980's death squads. The Zelaya government also contained death squad members (es), which CODEH and other Honduran local human rights organisations objected to. The Obama-Clinton-Lula so-called "Arias" plan has glaringly omitted any mention of whether or not it proposes to exclude death squad members from any "negotiated" coalition government.
From July 6th L’aquila is hosting the most cynical G8 summit in the history.
Even if works at Maddalena (the first site) were already started, Berlusconi Government cleverly decided to exploit the “Earthquake emergency” situation, moving the whole G8 organization to an area close to L’Aquila, a town which was hurt by a strong earthquake on 6 April 2009. “Opportunities and advantages” of G8 are still unclear. Even the G8 organization has been highly criticized. But Berlusconi government does not care. And on the last day of the summit still release optimistic declaration, while all over the world there is an harsh critic. The government is trying to avoid any possible protest, putting forward the emergency state to keep the population quiet and stop any kind of demonstration. The only “Emergency state” in a town where the population still live in campsites, is due to the protest, and spending 500 millions euro stolen from L’Aquila reconstruction to rearrange the buildings of “Guardia di Finanza” (Finance Police) station which will host the meeting, is not a problem.
In spite of cynicism and government manipulations, this G8 has been marked by protests and initiative both in Aquila, where people is still protesting against the help given for the earthquake, and in the whole Italian territory.
In the morning of this Sunday, Honduran president Mel Zelaya was kidnapped by the military and transferred by force to Costa Rica.
According to Honduran newspapers, the president of the congress, Roberto Micheletti, will be assuming the presidency.
Previously and soon after the coup d'etat in Honduras, Radio Liberada is transmitting an alive chronicle than it is happening in Honduras, of the opposition and the mobilizations of the popular and indigenous organizations against the coup d'etat, by the accomplishment of a new constituent assembly, and writing a new page of the independent means movement in Central America.
Information and transmission by the Association of Radios and Participating Programs of El Salvador (HARPS): http://www.arpas.org.sv/
We know that there are been closing free media in Honduras. This morning the Radio Progreso, one of the older communitarian radios of the continent has been closed by the military. Other communitarian radios have decided to protect their equipment.
The electrical energy, the telephone and the Internet have being interrupted by the coup participants trying to block the communications and make the informative censure.
And the situation worries to us in that the networks of communitarian radios of the Lenca town and the Garífuna town stay, as well as the free media: COMUN, Revistazo, the COFADEH and the rest of groups of the independent and communitarian media movement in Honduras.
Thousands of people around Australia rallied for emergency action on Climate Change on June 13, calling for 100% renewable energy by 2020 and demanding that Australia must make the shift from fossil fuels to wind, solar and other available renewable technologies. The National Climate Emergency Rally was held in capital cities around Australia, with people siting down outside Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's city office in Sydney and a sitdown protest in front of the Melbourne Town Hall where the ruling Australian Labor Party were holding their State conference.
This comes as progress on climate negotiations in Bonn, Germany, were blocked by the US Administration, with the US still talking about zero per cent reductions by 2020 on 1990 levels. "Industrialised countries need to assume their historical responsibility and pay back their climate debt. Developing countries must stay strong in calling for climate justice. By ignoring calls to repay their climate debt and hindering progress in these talks, rich countries are jeopardising the lives and livelihoods of millions of people." said Meena Raman, Honorary Secretary of Friends of the Earth Malaysia in a media release.
The June 2009 Indymedia Newsreal is complete and on its way to airing on Free Speech TV. This month's episode features dispatches from the anti-war movement in Colorado, the immigrant rights movement in Arizona, a performance by the Raging Grannies, and more. The program is downloadable HERE and DVDs are available to subscribers who sign up by emailing newsrealsubs at gmail.com
Newsreal is a longstanding IMC project, the show has been produced for over eight years. The newsreal team would like to take this opportunity to open up the project to the broader network, most of the material is currently produced in North America but we actively welcome contributions from other parts of the world. All producers, and future producers, should sign up to the imc-satellite at indymedia.org list. This is the main way we all communicate about this project. Get those videos seen!
08 Jun. Peru (CMI Sucre) .- On June 7 the ambassador of Peru in Bolivia, Fernando Rojas, called Sunday for intervention in internal affairs of his country condemning the statements of some Bolivian authorities on the bloody slaughter of peasants and police department in the Peruvian Amazon. While the government refused boliviano possible interference and requested the Government of Alan García to assume their responsibilities on that fact.