Feb 2012 – The Free

Up to 100 million strike in India

The workers are demanding a national minimum wage, permanent jobs for contract labourers, social security for informal labourers, pensions for all workers, intervention by the government to stop the rising costs of living, and to end the sell off of publicly owned companies amongst other demands.

http://libcom.org/blog/world%E2%80%99s-biggest-ever-strike-

Transport, postal services and banking have all been hit by the strike which involves around a dozen unions, with a ‘complete shutdown’ of banking in Mumbai being reported. Police have been deployed to try to prevent ‘unlawful’ picketing, with 100 arrests made this morning for obstructing traffic.

A day-long nation-wide strike staged by 11 trade unions may have been followed by up to 100 million workers. Key sectors like banking and transport took a hit in various parts of the country.

Rajinder Khurana, a 36-year-old bank clerk working in the government-owned State Bank of India in the capital was up early on Tuesday. The previous night he and his colleagues had prepared elaborate placards demanding an amendment to the Minimum Wages Act and an increase in gratuity payout.

Job Security

Khurana was among the hundreds of employees who picketed the bank’s entrance dissuading employees from coming into office even as a tight police cordon ringed the bank premises. All clerical staff and non-supervisory staff were on strike, while officers reported for duty.

A driver rests on his yellow ambassador taxi during a country-wide strike in Kolkata

Many taxi drivers suspended their services to participate in the protests

“We have come together to voice our protest against price rise, breach of labour rights and the government’s free market policies like disinvestment in public sector companies,” Khurana told Deutsche Welle.

Millions of others like Khurana joined the call for tighter labor laws and a minimum wage in a strike that crippled banking services across the country and affected different modes of public transport.
A large number of rickshaw and taxi drivers kept their vehicles off the roads in many parts of the country to take part in the protest.
“I had to pay double the fare to take a rickshaw as most of the rickshaw drivers were on strike. They charged exorbitant rates,” exclaimed Swati Chandan, a daily commuter.
Read more here.. with thanks Author: Murali Krishnan
 http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,15774001,00.html?maca=en-aa-news-862-rdf

Occupy London evicted..next Global Spring !

BRITISH authorities moved in to evict the Occupy London tent city outside St Paul’s Cathedral over Monday night.

Occupylsx itself declared on Tuesday morning: “Globalspring is coming this may.

There were reports of people being arrested and dragged off by riot police, shouting: “Long live #occupy !”

Christian protesters praying on the steps of the cathedral were apparently violently pulled away and thrown to the ground – at the request of the church authorities.

Police blocked off the area to stop supporters getting to the scene to express their solidarity.

The move was expected by activists, following the end of legal attempts to gain extra time on the site.

Corporate media are, inevitably, keen to represent the physical removal of the camp as a defeat for the movement against neoliberalism.

But, as one Twitter comment remarked: “I wish the BBC would stop saying that the protest is now over. It’s clearly far from over…”

And Occupylsx itself declared on Tuesday morning: “Globalspring is coming this may. Still united for #globalchange and #globaldemocracy. This is just the beginning.”

Help Greeks under heavy attacks

Financed by capitalist slush funds the rightwing press has fanned a wave of race hate against southern Europeans, blaming our lazy love of fiesta for their economic woes.
BUT OECD FIGURES PROVE THAT SPANISH, PORTUGUESE, ITALIAN AND GREEK WORKERS DO LONGER HOURS FOR LESS PAY, WORK IS MORE PRECARIOUS, HARDER WITH LESS MECANIZATION  AND UNEMPLOYMENT IS  HIGHER.

The eurozone crisis has sown divisions in the European family, and Greece in particular has often been singled out for criticism. Has Greece been living beyond its means? Are Greeks lazy? On this second point, the statistics tell a surprising story.

This week Greece is facing more spending cuts after agreeing to a deal of 130bn euros (£110bn, $175bn) to help it avoid bankruptcy.

But the statistics suggest the country has not lost its way due to laziness. If you look at the average annual hours worked by each worker, the Greeks seem very hard-working.

Figures from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) show that the average Greek worker toils away for 2,017 hours per year which is more than any other European country.

Out of the 34 members of the OECD, that is just two places behind the board leaders, South Korea.

On the other hand, the average German worker – normally thought of as the very epitome of industriousness – only manages 1,408 hours a year. source: BBC NEWS

Next solidarity protest on Saturday 25 February at the Greek Embassy

Φεβρουαρίου 19, 2012

After the success of the day of action on 18/2 in London and around Europe, we decided to continue our actions of solidarity! 13:00 at the Greek embassy, at 1A Holland Park W11 3TP. Facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/events/396894816993798/ Με επισήμανση:25 february greek embassy, 25 february protest london greek embassy, greek demostration london, greek demostration london 25/02, solidarity protest greek embassy Posted in: Δράσεις

GREEK anarchists have called for international solidarity efforts, as they endure a new brutal wave of repression from the state and its neo-fascists guard-dogs.

Says a statement posted on From the Greek Streets: “Greece is at a critical turning point, and many critical changes are taking place in a societal as well as a political and economic level.

“The disintegration and dissolution of the dominant – until recently – model of power and exploitation is more than evident, so it defines what is commonly called ‘crisis.’

“What we are experiencing now is the total failure of a system that is unable to secure any longer the social consensus, thereby is engaged in a frontal attack that is unconditional and with no pretext.

http://vastminority.blogspot.com/

Billionaire Climate Criminals finance Lies Campaigns

The world has lost 10 crucial years in the race to stop a cataclysm of runaway climate change, due to the massive secret funding of US 'climate skeptics', really obscene criminals cashing in on the trashing of our planet....

Now it’s a straight fight with the billionaires and corporations.

By George Monbiot Shocking, fascinating, entirely unsurprising: the leaked documents, if authentic, confirm what we suspected but could not prove. The Heartland Institute, which has helped lead the war against climate science in the United States, is funded among others by tobacco firms, fossil fuel companies and one of the billionaire Koch brothers(1).

It appears to have followed the script written by a consultant to the Republican party, Frank Luntz, in 2002. “Should the public come to believe that the scientific issues are settled, their views about global warming will change accordingly. Therefore, you need to continue to make the lack of scientific certainty a primary issue in the debate.”(2)

Luntz’s technique was pioneered by the tobacco companies and the creationists: teach the controversy. In other words, insist that the question of whether cigarettes cause lung cancer, natural selection drives evolution or burning fossil fuels causes climate change is still wide open, and that both sides of the “controversy” should be taught in schools and thrashed out in the media.

The leaked documents appear to show that, courtesy of its multi-millionaire donors, the institute has commissioned a global warming curriculum for schools, which teaches that “whether humans are changing the climate is a major scientific controversy” and “whether CO2 is a pollutant is controversial.”(3).

read much more HERE (with thanks) http://www.monbiot.com/2012/02/20/plutocracy-pure-and-simple/

Heartland Institute's Denialgate includes funding from Microsoft to undermine the IPCC: Breaking Heartless-news for Valentine’s Day: “Dissuading teachers from teaching science …”

The most important debate on Earth – Never mind the bollocks (panokroko.wordpress.com)

Gulf Spill still Destroying

note. posts on NH3 the CO2-Free fuel now have their own blog HERE.. http://co2freefuelexistsnow.wordpress.com/

We’re coming up on the second anniversary of the BP spill, and the specter of that flaming rig, oiled pelicans, and a sullied Gulf seems to be dimming by the day. Unless, of course, you happened to have your life ruined by the disaster; in that case, it’s not as easy to watch the BP-sponsored TV ads that paint the region as back to its happy, sunny self and assume the hardship is over.

Bloomberg News has a great roundup of the myriad ways that the fallout from the catastropher is still deeply impacting the Gulf economy. Businesses, especially those in the seafood industry, have been ruined. The oyster market has been “destroyed”. Fishermen and distributors must trawl further than ever for shrimp, populations of which have been wiped out. Continue reading “Gulf Spill still Destroying”

Welcome to Green Warrior Permaculture

Ethiopia, not Utopia!

Green Warrior Permaculture is a collective of sustainability specialists dedicated to solving the problems of our world through action.

We have developed effective strategies for sustainability in aid work, community development, disaster mitigation and permanent food security. We train trainers for field work, design projects for NGOs as well as monitor and assess current programs. Green Warrior permaculture can implement projects in disaster zones, conflict zones, remote communities and poverty prone areas as well as urban and high end developments.We are sustainability specialists with the skills to impliment real solutions for the current challenges facing humanity and the planet earth at present. We are kick-ass green warriors!

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Field Trainer Internship The Field trainer Internship prepares students to be permaculture trainers for sustainability aid work in impoverished communities and disaster zones. Their aim will be to provide food security and sustainable development assistance in the field. Field trainers learn all aspects of project design and implementation in difficult situations. Students develop the skills … Read more

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So you want to be an aid worker, huh?

Frontline aid work is hard work and takes a special type of person to deliver effective aid, let alone survive in the field. After a disaster, a war, a famine or drought, villages and communities are harsh places to live. Food and clean water are scarce as well as sometimes there are serious security issues.

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anarchism in Occupied Social Centers.. anarkismo el los CSO

We’ve counted some 140 ”Occupied Social Centers” the Spanish state. (en castellano abajo)

”In every neighborhood an occupied social center… The movement is no longer so defensive, enclosed in a comfortable (and sometimes thankless) ghetto, and has begun to expand. It’s a good time to welcome without fear new people from other political traditions, and above all, people never politicized.”

In ‘A las Barricadas’ magazine we published a map some months ago of social centers (squats or not), cultural associations, think tanks, foundations, social libraries, bookstores and other places of anti-authoritarian character.The very variety of the Iberian anarchism today, makes it difficult to categorize or locate many spaces.