Yodet Gherez interviews Dr. Vandana Shiva who is an Indian scholar, scientist, anti-globalization and environmental activist who has author over 20 books.
She has worked to promote biodiversity in agriculture to increase productivity, nutrition, farmer’s incomes and climate resilience. It is for this work she was recognised as an ‘Environmental Hero’ by Time magazine in 2003 and has received numerous acknowledgment for her work.
We talk about her Ph.D. In ‘the foundations of Quantum Theory’ and her shift to inter-disciplinary research in science, technology and environmental policy, the green revolution, democracy, Monsanto and more!
byJulius Gavroche en español abajo) In Spain, the “La Esperanza” okupation on the island of the Gran Canaria is an amazing example. In early 2013, at the initiative of the Federación de Anarquistas de Gran Canaria (FAGC), some twenty apartments were occupied, providing housing for dozens of people unable to meet their most basic of needs; today they are some 71 families, made up of 250 persons, the majority of which are minors, occupying a residential complex baptised “La Esperanza”/”Hope”, the largest residential okupation in spain and the largest experiment in libertarian self-management in the country, carried out by people who are not for the most part anarchists.
On March 14 twenty residents of the 250 in the Community “La Esperanza” (the state’slargest occupied and self-managed community) received an administrative notice in which they were informed of the decree of the mayor of Guide Pedro Rodriguez: This decree gave them one month to leave their homes and threatened them to cut off water and light.
The community has always demanded the comples become public housing with a social rental scheme to compensate the dozen buyers who have invested in the building. We have also claimed that the electric supply be regularized, so that we can put a counter and pay for the electricity, and running water be connected so as to stop paying expensive barrels daily. Since mid-2014 we have put on the table these claims the mayor Pedro Rodriguez has always turned a deaf ear…
They can not evict 77 families, 202 people, with more than 100 children without guaranteeing us decent and affordable housing as a low-income alternative. Their policies, which have left us for years unemployed, have made it impossible to access to housing….
We will not allow them to take our homes with impunity. We demand that we be given a housing alternative and or let us stray where we are. Until either thing happens ..the Streets will keep on Shouting!
Let no eviction go unanswered.
In early 2013, unemployment on the Canary Islands stood at 35%, with house evictions during that same year reaching 4,000. Today, more than 30% of the population of the archipelago lives below the poverty line, with some 16% of the Islands’ families having all of their active members unemployed. This poverty then manifests itself at various levels, among which housing; on the Islands, there are 130,000 unoccupied houses and some 21,000 families in need of homes. The role of the FAGC has nevertheless been central throughout this whole process and this in a context of extreme economic hardship…. La Columna.Cat 27/12/2015)
Statement about the Aggression against the Otomí Community of Xochicuautla
To national and international society
To the independent media
The undersigned organizations and collectives strongly protest about the acts of aggression against the Otomí community of San Francisco Xochicuautla in the State of Mexico, carried out by the narco-state, represented by the Higa consortium.
After ten years of political and legal struggle, the Otomí community achieved the definitive suspension of the construction of the highway Toluca-Naucalpan; this suspension opposed the decree of expropriation arbitrarily imposed by the presidency of Enrique Peña Nieto in 2015, with the intention of expropriating 37 hectares of the community.
The highway project is one of many business affairs that benefit the company in charge of the construction of the road, Autopistas de Vanguardia S.A. de C.V. belonging to the Grupo Higa, linked to the White House (Casa Blanca) of the wife of the current…
A group of Palestinians affected by Israel’s activities have filed a $34.5 billion lawsuit against US and Israeli entities supporting West Bank settlements. The lawsuit was filed in the Federal District Court of Columbia in the United States.
Ayman Nejm, media spokesman for Martin McMahon and Associates, the law firm that filed the law suit, told Safa news agency on Monday that the case is the first of its kind where Palestinian and Palestinian-American plaintiffs have filed a lawsuit against wealthy US citizens and tax-exempt entities that have provided massive financial assistance to settlements across the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
According to the statement, the lawsuit has been filed against construction companies, security firms, real estate agencies and private banks involved in supporting the growth of Israeli settlements.
The case will also include Palestinians subjected to…
The return of the wolf in Catalonia, excellent news that the government should strengthen
en catalá sota The appearance of wolves in the counties of Cerdanya and Ripollès is good news for biodiversity in Catalonia. The wolf, like all predators, is a ey element in the operation and restoration o biodiversity.
The wolf is back, and has even been spotted in Valles Oriental County, just 50 kms from Barcelona!( see map)
Until the nineteenth century, the wolf was distribute in most of the Catalan region, the last one was reortedly killed in 1929. Last year remote cameras were installed in the Ripolles County with 6 sightings and 3 in Cerdanya. It is hoped that stable breeding packs will become established and pass the threshold of no return to boost Catalan biodiversity. Continue reading “Wolves returning to Catalonia after 80 years”
The Nuit Debout movement in France takes on no single form, even behind the ritual of the general assemblies in Paris and now other cities. It is plural, chaotic, fed by the multiple protests against the country’s new proposed labour law and a diversity of organisations and collectives coming from other social movements. Yet it is precisely in this absence of order that the square occupations become spaces of convergence and of proliferation (rather than of enforced collective decision making), susceptible of generating lines of resistance/creation beyond State-Capital.
The events multiply and the voices speaking also become many. We share below two texts that contribute to further understanding, the first from The Acorn (number 23 – 08/04/2016) and the second from open Democracy (08/04/2016), by Geoffrey Pleyers …
1. March 39 and counting… Nuit Debout and the new French uprising
Protesters amidst the teargas in Nantes on April 5 – otherwise known as March 36
The spirit of resistance has captured the imagination of a new generation in France, as youth-led opposition to neoliberal labour “reforms” has spiralled into full-on rejection of the whole capitalist system on the street and squares.
The situation took on a new dimension after the general strike and day of action on Thursday March 31. There was a call for people not to go home afterwards but to stay on the streets, beginning a wave of overnight “Nuit Debout” occupations that has spread from Paris across France and into the Iberian peninsular, Belgium and Germany.
The Free 
from Autonomies and Red Latinas, with thanks