(en) The world of environmental direct action has remained a secretive one, until now. Emily James spent over a year embedded in activist groups such as Climate Camp and Plane Stupid to document their clandestine activities. With unprecedented access, Just do It takes you on an astonishing journey behind the scenes of a community of people who refuse to sit back and allow the destruction of their world. Torpedoing the tired clichés of the environmental movement, Just Do It introduces you to a powerful cast of mischievous and inspiring characters who put their bodies in the way; they super-glue themselves to bank trading floors, blockade factories and attack coal power stations en-masse, despite the very real threat of arrest. Their adventures will entertain, illuminate and inspire.
Using its colossal market power, Monsanto craftily penetrated into the Indian markets.
Monsanto convinced the Indian government that its GM seeds would produce better crops. According to a report by Farm Wars, one former Managing Director of Monsanto claimed that Monsanto manipulated research data “to get commercial approvals for its products in India.”
Indian regulatory agencies, instead of verifying the data, simply remained compliant with the findings of what Monsanto presented. “They did not even have a test tube to validate the data and, at times, the data itself was faked,” the Farm Wars report says.
Government regulations worked in favor of Monsanto to monopolize the Indian seed market. For example, “Prime Minsiter’s Office” in India pressured various state governments to sign MOUs with Monsanto to privatize the seed market.
Through these “vested interests” with the Indian government, Monsanto eventually has monopolized the GM seed market for more than a decade……….
The failure of Monsanto’s GM seeds was palpable. The farmers held onto their hopes for better crops after they had planted the “magic” seeds. Their crops never came. Throughout the villages in India the harvest from the GM seeds failed. The parasites destroyed the so-called “pest-proof” GM seeds.
Monsanto uses methods of manipulation and misinformation to reap their own benefits and profits at the cost of the farmers who rely on organic methods to grow their crops and animals, a tradition that existed in India for centuries.
By a contractual clause, the farmers could not save Monsanto’s GM seeds for reuse after the first season……….
With no harvest, the farmers could not pay back the lenders. Burdened with debts and humiliation, the farmers simply took their own lives, some by swallowing poisonous pesticides in front of their families. To date, an estimated 200,000 farmers have committed suicide all over India.
To add to the misery, wives inherited the debts along with the fear of losing their homes and lands. With no money coming in, they also had to pull their kids from the schools. The mass suicide among the Indian farmers is known as the “GM genocide.”
In its company website Monsanto declares that its pledge is “our commitment to how we do business.” And then there are the business philosophies with virtuous words like “integrity” and “transparency.”
Read Long full article HERE Globalresearch.caGlobal Research Articles by Iqbal Ahmed
More bio tech type stories I’d like to re blog (from The Watchers with thanks)
Organic farmers sue Monsanto over GMO seeds A landmark lawsuit filed on March 29 in US federal court seeks to invalidate Monsanto’s patents on genetically modified seeds and to prohibit the company from suing those whose crops become genetically contaminated. The Public Patent Foundation filed suit on behalf of 270,000 people from sixty organic and sustainable businesses and trade associations, including thousands of certified-organic farmers. In Organic Seed Growers and Trade Association, et al. v. Monsanto, et al. (U.S. District Court, Southern……
Secret GM wheat experiments begin in Australia Australia’s first trial of genetically modified wheat and barley is under way near Narrabri, New South Wales in the south-eastern area of the country. The goal of the GM wheat is said to be more nutritious bread (http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/gm-wheat-…). How exactly the genes were altered to create this alleged more nutritious bread remains a secret. All that is known is that 14 different strains of wheat and barley will be grown. Some strains will allow researchers……
Plant disease raises questions on modified crops Sudden death syndrome (SDS) of soybean was first discovered in 1971 in Arkansas and since then has been confirmed throughout most soybean-growing areas of the U.S. SDS is a fungal disease that also occurs in a disease complex with the soybean cyst nematode (SCN, Heterodera glycines). SDS is among the most devastating soil-borne diseases of soybean in the USA. When this disease occurs in the presence of SCN disease symptoms occur earlier and are more……
Nikola Aleksic, Serbian ecology leader arrested for openly defying GMOs and chemtrails In October 2011, Nikola Aleksic, leader of Ecological Movement of Novi Sad in Serbia, was arrested and fined. Earlier on his way to a conference in Belgrade, an attempt was reportedly made on his life. And Monsanto has sued him with the threat of removing him and his family from their rented flat as “collateral.” Why all the fuss? Nikola made a spirited speech, recorded on video, challenging the Serbian president for allowing GMOs to……
Did the USDA deregulate all new genetically modified crops? In press release titled “ USDA Responds to Regulation Requests Regarding Kentucky Bluegrass,” agency officials announced their decision not to regulate a “Roundup Ready” strain of Kentucky bluegrass—that is, a strain genetically engineered to withstand glyphosate, Monsanto’s widely used herbicide, which we know as Roundup. The maker of the novel grass seed, Scotts Miracle Gro, is now free to sell it far and wide. So you’ll no doubt be seeing Roundup Ready bluegrass blanketing lawns……
BASF tries (again) to push ‘Frankenpotatoes’ on Europe Europeans have made it abundantly clear time and time again that they want nothing to do with genetically-modified organisms (GMOs). But chemical giant BASF refuses to take no for an answer, and is once again pushing for EU approval of a “Frankenpotato” known as Fortuna that, if approved, would represent the EU’s second new legalized GMO in more than a decade. Unlike most Americans, Europeans generally take a keen interest in the integrity of their……
Biotech’s dirty tricks exposed in new documentary: ‘Scientists Under Attack’ “One question means one career.” This was the harsh warning of UC Berkeley Professor Ignacio Chapela for those daring to conduct independent research on genetically engineered foods and crops. “You ask one question, you get the answer and you might or might not be able to publish it; but that is the end of your career.” Both he and biologist Arpad Pusztai dared to asked questions and do the research. And then all hell broke……
Chevron found guilty in Ecuador… again By Mike G A court of appeals in Ecuador has upheld the ruling of a lower court, confirming what 30,000 Ecuadorians suffering from Chevron’s oil pollution in the Amazon and activists the world over have known for decades: Chevron is guilty. There is no question of Chevron’s responsibility for dumping some 18 billion gallons of toxic oil waste in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The only question, at this point, is: What ludicrous talking point will Chevron roll out this time to explain away its refusal to pay to clean up its mess?
. Evidence recently surfaced of the company’s secret labs used to hide dirty soil samples from Ecuadorian courts. Earlier this year, an appeals court in the US threw out the injunction barring enforcement of the $18 billion judgment against the company. That same week, diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks revealed that Chevron had been lobbying Ecuadorian officials to make the lawsuit go away, and just a couple weeks ago an attempt to buy its way out of liability for its pollution in the Amazon by funding Ecuador’s Yasuni-ITT Initiative blew up in the company’s face.
The real reason Chevron won’t take responsibility for its mess in Ecuador, of course, is unbridled greed and a complete disregard for human life. More than 1,400 Ecuadorians have died from Chevron’s oil pollution in the Amazon, but it’s all about money for the Big Oil behemoth. It’s certainly not that the company can’t afford to pay. Late last year, Chevron announced third quarter profits of $7.8 billion, bringing its haul in just the first three quarters of 2011 to $21.7 billion.-………… Read full article HERE with than http://www.newint.org/blog/2012/01/05/chevron-guilty-
Desallotgen l’antiga seu de Caixa Terrassa a la Floresta
Àgata Guinó
Poble Els Mossos d’Esquadra han desallotjat a primeres hores d’aquest matí el local de la Caixa Terrassa a la Floresta, que estava ocupat des de mitjan novembre. L’espai s’utilitzava com Ateneu i com a seu d’una cooperativa ecològica
L’antiga seu de Caixa Terrassa a la Floresta, ubicada a la plaça Miquel Ros, ha estat desallotjada a primeres hores d’aquesta matí de dimecres pels Mossos d’Esquadra. En el moment de l’entrada dels cossos de seguretat, l’espai no estava ocupat per cap persona. Al matí, els ocupants del local han arribat i han trobat els antiavalots que els hi han permès treure els llibres, materials i altres objectes que tenien dins l’antiga seu bancària.
Els ocupes han lamentat l’actuació policial ja que han explicat que el local donava servei d’Ateneu al barri i que ara cap espai cobrirà aquestes necessitats. També han exposat que abans del desallotjament no havien rebut cap avís judicial. D’altra banda, han afirmat que hi havia una quinzena d’agents antiavalots de la policia catalana, però que no hi ha hagut cap incident i han assegurat que els Mossos s’han portat correctament. Segons fonts dels usuaris del local, els cossos de seguretat han esbotzat la porta principal de l’edifici per entrar. A les nou del matí tres paletes tapiaven la porta d’entrada al local amb rajoles.
Fonts policials han explicat que una dotació d’antiavalots, més tres patrulles de la comissaria dels Mossos d’Esquadra de Sant Cugat s’han desplaçat fins a la plaça Miquel Ros per desallotjar el local ocupat a les set del matí. A més han destacat l’ordre pacífic en què s’ha portat a terme l’actuació.
Ateneu i cooperativa ecològica
El local ocupat donava el servei d’Ateneu del barri. Cada dia es programaven diferents activitats i tallers en els quals podien participar els infants. Per aquest dimecres a la tarda hi havia programat un taller de fang per a la mainada. A més, l’espai s’utilitzava com a seu de la cooperativa ecològica el senglar. Els membres d’aquesta utilitzaven el local per intercanviar productes d’horts ecològics de la zona.
Campaña para la retirada de la subvención a Repsol de los fondos de cooperación española
Contra que con fondos de cooperación al desarrollo se financien actividades que refuerzan la presencia de Repsol en la Amazonía Ecuatoriana
Campaña ciudadana para evitar la subvención, con dinero público, de actividades destinadas a la filantropía e imagen corporativa en el área afectada por el Bloque 16, en Ecuador. Los importantes pasivos ambientales e impactos sociales de la actividad hidrocarburífera obliga a esta compañía a realizar campañas en miras de apaciguar los reclamos y el descontento de la población.
La Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional para el Desarrollo, AECID, ha concedido recientemente una subvención a la Fundación Repsol YPF del Ecuador por un monto total de 149.932 euros, para la ejecución de un proyecto en zona de influencia de la operación de Repsol YPF en la Amazonía ecuatoriana. (Resolución de 25 de noviembre, CAP 2º procedimiento, línea II.7) Las actividades de Repsol en América Latina y, específicamente, en Ecuador, han sido ampliamente denunciadas por la sociedad civil a ambos lados del Atlántico por daños ambientales, sociales y violaciones de los derechos humanos de las comunidades y pueblos afectados.
En Ecuador, Repsol opera el Bloque 16, ubicado sobre el territorio ancestral del pueblo waorani, afectando también a población kitchwa, gran parte del Parque Nacional Yasuní y el territorio intangible de los pueblos no contactados Tagaeri y Tagomenani. Repsol ejerce soberanía territorial sobre el Bloque 16, controlando la entrada y salida de personas, en clara violación de los derechos territoriales de los publos afectados. A pesar de la falta de información sobre la situación en el interior del Bloque, Repsol se ha visto obligada a reconocer el vertido de 14.000 barriles de crudo en 2008. Existen denuncias recurrentes sobre el aumento de enfermedades relacionadas con la actividad petrolera y daños hídricos y ambientales en la zona.
Se puede firmar la petición a través del formulario del siguiente enlace:
también se puede copiar y enviar el siguiene texto a : centro.informacion@aecid.es
DESTINATARIO: DIRECTOR DE LA AGENCIA ESPAÑOLA DE COOPERACIÓN INTERNACIONAL repsolmemata
scribo para mostrar mi preocupación por la reciente concesión de una subvención a la Fundación Repsol YPF en Ecuador. Repsol incurre en prácticas contrarias a los derechos humanos internacionalmente reconocidos, así como los principios recogidos en la política de la cooperación española, el Plan Director y estrategias sectoriales tales como la Estrategia de la Cooperación Española con los Pueblos Indígenas. Solicitamos que no se utilice el dinero público computado como Ayuda Oficial para el Desarrollo para financiar proyectos de empresas trasnacionales que, además de tener cuantiosos beneficios (más de 4.000 millones de euros en 2010), muestran poco respeto por las normas socio-ambientales y los derechos humanos internacionalmente reconocidos. Confío en que AECID cumplirá con los compromisos asumidos por España internacionalmente. Atentamente,
An Occupy movement for 2012 could gain strength and staying-power with strategies suggested by an emerging feminist critique.
As women of the Arab Spring are rediscovering, being participants, even leaders, of the uprisings hasn’t led to women’s equality—a depressingly familiar scenario, notoriously reminiscent of the 1960s aftermath of the Algerian revolution. In fact, the phenomenon is historically omnipresent (including the American revolution).
Here in the Global North, for example, women were active early in the Occupy movement. Yet that movement has presented an optic of being predominantly male (and in the United States, white and young)—as well as indifferent to the fact that capitalism simply cannot be transformed without confronting its foundation: patriarchy, itself reliant on controlling and exploiting women. And women, by the way, comprise 51 percent of the 99 percent (and virtually zero of the 1 percent).
Who then is the real constituency in need of economic justice?
The United Nations acknowledges that the world’s poor are 70 percent female. Women’s unpaid labor is worth $11 trillion globally, accounting for 41 percent of the GDP in, for instance, North America. It could well be argued that, given women’s massive amount of unpaid labor—and since women are the means of reproduction who produce the labor force itself—most women exist more under feudalism than under capitalism.
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Equal pay, reproductive rights, maternity leave, childcare—all are economic as well as human-rights issues. So are sweatshop labor/maquilliadores, sex trafficking/slavery/tourism, and war’s impact on women, who with their children comprise some 80 percent of refugees and displaced peoples. Women are the primary caregivers for the ill, the young, the aged, and the dying—so health costs are “women’s issues.”The pornography and prostitution industries each run into the hundreds of billions of dollars annually; China spends $27 billion just on Internet pornography. We only have statistics for a few “developed” countries on the staggering cost of domestic violence. We do know that domestic violence costs $5.8 billion a year in the United States alone.
One would think that such “women’s issues” would make unarguable the centrality to economics of female human beings. Wrong. Too often, the Occupy movement has betrayed its own vision by revealing itself as a sexist microcosm of the society it opposes. Harassment and assaults required women to define safe sleeping areas—immediate necessities yet questionable strategically, since these can become “ghettos,” while the problem, a male sense of entitlement, goes unchallenged.
Nor does this happen only in the United States, although North American sites got more press attention. Incidents of sexual assault and rape have been reported not only in New York, Cleveland, Dallas, and Baltimore, but in Glasgow, Montreal, London, and more. In some locations, male site monitors were reluctant to call police for fear that negative attention would be deleterious
by Christy C. Road
to the Occupy “message.”
Brooklyn, Occupy Imnop, from Occuprint.org
Now, however, women are protesting that kind of protest. In Bristol, England, feminists called for “Carrying Our Safe Space With Us,” aiming to empower women to speak at Occupy general assemblies. On November 25, International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, Feminists Occupy London took to the streets denouncing rape; that same day, Italian women marched in Rome, defining economic austerity measures as a form of violence against women, and citing policies that in effect force women to work multiple jobs, paid and unpaid. In Manila, Occupy was taken over by women, becoming Occupy RH (reproductive health), Filipina-led. Women in Slovenia, New Zealand, and Australia publicly decried the lack of safety for women at Occupy sites.
Such international groups as Code Pink, WomenOccupy, RadFem, the Filipina network Af3IRM/GabNet, and others raised women’s profile, thus challenging men’s hegemony. The Feminist Peace Network established the Occupy Patriarchy website, to provide a supportive, global space for feminist analysis, response, organizing, and networking within the global Occupy movement.
Having caught the world’s imagination with an admirable energy, seemingly spontaneous and seemingly grassroots, the Occupy movement is now poised at a crossroads. It has enormous potential—but lasting change will require consciousness that doesn’t ignore the majority of humanity. It needs to break free of being “a guy thing” or risk drowning in its own rhetorical generalities.It’s not as if certain models aren’t there. The women of England’s Greenham Common “occupied” turf decades before OWS—they endured, and won. Irish women barred doors to keep men from storming out of Northern Ireland peace talks. Women in Liberia sat singing for months in a soccer field to birth a revolution. Market women in Ghana brought down a government. Gandhi acknowledged copying the concept of Satyagraha— nonviolent resistance—from India’s 19th century women’s suffrage movement.
These are different—and long-lasting—techniques of protest, by which at first it seemed the Occupy movement was influenced. (At the risk of offending anarchists, I’ll paraphrase two of the Women’s Media Center slogans: “You have to name it to change it,” and “You have to see it to be it.” As a woman who once agreed “Level everything, then we’ll talk politics,” I recommend examples and clearly articulated demands as pretty good stuff.
It’s not too late. As the Occupy movement in many areas moves away from the tactic of claiming physical space, a change of protest style is in order: more hit-and-run, engage-disengage, morning-long, afternoon-long, or day-long (not open-ended) demonstrations—plus focused, doable demands.
Most women have far too many other responsibilities—including children—to spend months in tents playing drums, even if the tents were safe spaces. The Occupy movement needs women—the numbers, the economic analysis, the different strategic approach—to survive, let alone succeed. Yet women’s engagement with it might well require turning up in numbers massive enough to effect a de facto transformation of leadership and focus;:occupying Occupy in a “women’s style” could make all the difference.At the minimum, it should be possible to demand that men become the change they claim they want to see. (I mean,really, guys.) If Occupy men can dare be unafraid of that different kind of leadership—can even seek it out and welcome it—everyone wins and the paradigm is transformed.
If not, they will at least have radicalized a whole new generation of feminists.
climate chaos..five hundred million dead trees in Texas
We can’t say just one weather disaster is Climate change. But when there are dozens of disasters, way over the norm, with 5 of the hottest years ever in the last decade… that’s runaway uncontrolled climate chaos.
So it’s tempting to say it serves Texas right, when they suffer the worst droughts in their history. Greedy predator Texas politicians and corporations have led the campaign that’s put back Climate Change control by decades, till it’s almost too late to save 1000’s of species, including even the human race.
Over 1200 people died in last week’s typhoon in Mindanao, and we can’t say that’s just climate change, but Christmas isn’t even in the typhoon season, only that the sea is hotter than ever before.
So it must be tempting for the Philipinos, who hardly produce CO2, to blame the Texans in their tank like 4X4’s for their dead relatives, and rejoice that Texas is becoming a desert.
But this would be a mistake, only a tiny minority, the 1%, of the Texans are
1250 dead: climate criminals blamed for xmas typhoon
responsible for maintaining the suicidal capitalist system, the rest have little choice and of course the decimated natural world is entirely blameless.
Every week we hear about a new climate disaster, and it will get worse. Excess CO2 takes decades to work through the system, and this year was yet another record high in emissions.
Very soon it will be time to put the 1% of Climate Criminals on trial for their atrocities against the planet.
. Drought and wildfires: Welcome to climate change in Texas
By Bruce Melton / The Rag Blog / December 29, 2011
AUSTIN — If this is not climate change, then this is exactly what climate change will be in as little as a decade. What has been happening in Texas, with these unprecedented (in time frames that matter) droughts and wildfires, is exactly what the climate scientists have been warning us about for over 20 years. We have been building up to this point since about the turn of the century, and now ecosystems have tipped over the edge. Climate feedbacks have kicked in hard.
The Texas Forest Services tells us that a half billion trees have died. Many more will die in the next five to 10 years from disease and insect infestation allowed by the damage that has already been done. These are the trees that have died in the drought, not the fires.
The first of this series of drought in 2005/6 was just classified as extreme. The last two have been one category worse than extreme — the exceptional category. The last 12 months were drier than the worst 12 months of the great drought of the 1950s. This has been a $10 billion drought, with another $1 billion in damages from the fires.
Worse, it’s hotter now. This summer was 4.9 degrees warmer than average. This may not seem like a lot, but think how sick you have been in the past if you have ever had a 102.9 degree temperature. The reason that increased heat makes such a big difference is that extra heat greatly increases evaporation intensifying the effects of drought. In other words, the same drought is much worse if it is only a little hotter…….
The Free 