Glencore: Profiteering from hunger.

The rapid rise in prices for food, fuel and commodities has been disastrous for the world’s poor, including Indonesian market vendor Lia Romi. But it’s a bonanza for multinational trading firms such as Glencore.

While Romi has trouble feeding her family, Glencore – the world’s largest diversified commodities trader – is planning a US$11billion share sale, likely the largest market debut ever seen on the London Stock Exchange.

“The price for our daily food has at least doubled in the past two years,” Lia Romi told Al Jazeera through a translator. “Food costs 100 per cent of my family’s daily income [of about $3]. I have nothing saved and I owe [money] from my [market stall] business.”

While Romi, and millions like her, worry about feeding their families, the initial public offering from the commodity speculating giant will create at least four billionaires, dozens worth more than $100million and several hundred old fashioned millionaires. Chief Executive Ivan Glasenberg is set to make more than $9bn from the share sale. And speculating on food prices is an important part of his wealth.

via Glencore: Profiteering from hunger and chaos – Features – Al Jazeera English.

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13-Year-Old Gay victim of ‘Corrective’ Rape

A 13-year-old South African girl who openly self-identifies as a lesbian has become the latest victim of “corrective” rape, that is to say where a woman is sexually violated in a supposed attempt to turn her straight……..

…….This is not a unique incident. Just last month Noxolo Nogwaza, 24, was raped and then stoned to death by a gang of men who were heard to shout anti-gay epithets. Nogwaza was open about her sexuality and was a member of a local LGBT rights organization. Advocates noted that Nogwaza’s murder was terribly reminiscent of lesbian soccer player Eudy Simelane’s murder three years ago.

While South Africa’s post-apartheid constitution explicitly protects gay people from discrimination and violence, human rights advocates warn of an “epidemic” of violence against gay and gender nonconforming people in South Africa……. Cont..

via 13-Year-Old Lesbian Latest Victim of ‘Corrective’ Rape in South Africa.

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Landless occupy eucalyptus forests..Brazil

RIO DE JANEIRO, May 10, 2011 (Tierramérica) – Brazilian and international environmental organisations and peasant farmer movements are taking aim at the forestry industry once again, this time accusing transnational corporation Stora Enso of illegally profiting from the production of wood pulp in the state of Bahia….

The accusations specifically target Veracel Celulosa, a joint venture between “two international leaders in the pulp and paper market” according to the company website – namely Brazil’s Fibria and the Swedish-Finnish forestry giant Stora Enso…….

…..Women members of the Movimento Sem  Terra.. (Landless Movement), have staged frequent emonstrations and forest occupations.

The agency of federal public prosecutors, and the national environmental authority IBAMA have imposed fines on Veracel for the pollution of rivers and streams, stemming from the use of toxic agrochemicals, particularly herbicides, said Fernandes.

The MST leader blamed the intensive planting of eucalyptus trees for the depletion of water sources, erosion, and the rapid deforestation of the Mata Atlântica or Atlantic Forest, the vast forest biome that once stretched along the entire Atlantic coast and has now been reduced to seven percent of its original size after centuries of agriculture and livestock activities and urbanisation…….

The pulp produced and 60 percent of the profits are sent abroad, and “we are left with the environmental liabilities of industrial monoculture plantations and the impoverishment of southern Bahia,” national MST leader João Pedro Stédile commented to Tierramérica……..

via BRAZIL: Accusations Mount against Pulp and Paper Giant – IPS ipsnews.net.

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Mulheres invadem fazenda da Veracel

Um grupo de mulheres militantes do MST (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra) invadiu uma fazenda em Eunápolis (671 Km de Salvador) na madrugada desta segunda-feira.

A fazenda, destinada à plantação de eucaliptos, pertence à empresa Veracel.

Segundo o MST, 1.500 pessoas –a maioria mulheres– participaram da invasão, que tem como objetivo “denunciar o uso de agrotóxicos e a monocultura em terras devolutas”. Não houve confrontos.

A ação, de acordo com o MST, faz parte da jornada de mulheres do MST e da Via Campesina que, neste ano, denuncia a violência contra a mulher.

Vit�ria fica no 2 a 2 contra o Bahia de Feira e est� a um empate do penta

via Mulheres do MST invadem fazenda da Veracel na Bahia – 28/02/2011.

Feminist men live longer…

….Macho men Die Young

That’s the logical corollary of this shock study

Obviously more urgent research is needed, but this is excellent news. In just a few generations we can expect a die off of  fascist idiots, imbecile Republican climate deniers, rabid would-be rapists, anal retentive religious fanatics, and testerical macho morons. We must encourage these guys, gift them steroids testosterone tablets– Real Men don’t see sissy Doctors!!   Muscles NOT Medicines!

Springer and Mouzen report data from the Wisconsin Longitudinal Health Study, which has been compiling data on a group of about 1,000 men who graduated from high school in Wisconsin in 1957. Their study divides men into four groups (“quartiles”) based on their self-perceptions of the masculine ideal.

Men with the most “macho” opinions of the masculine ideal (“Women like men with big muscles,” “Men go to work; women look after the home”) were found to be 46 percent less likely than men with less “macho” perceptions to have done three things in the prior year: get a physical exam, get a flu shot, and get a PSA test.

However, the most interesting thing about this study is that the educational achievement level of the men in question had absolutely no impact on the results…

continued…

http://prostatecancerinfolink.net/2011/04/27/do-macho-men-risk-dying-young/

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Israel to evict Bedouin village

By Jillian Kestler-D’Amours    UMM AL-HIERAN, Israel, May 9, 2011 (IPS) – As plans to demolish a Palestinian Bedouin village to make way for a new, Jewish-only town move forward in Israel’s Negev desert, the Bedouin residents have submitted a motion for the right to appeal to the Israeli Supreme Court.

Located about 30 minutes from the major town of Beer Sheva, Umm al-Hieran is one of many so-called “unrecognised” Bedouin villages peppering the Negev area that don’t receive basic services or infrastructure from the Israeli state.

via MIDEAST: The Indigenous Become Squatters – IPS ipsnews.net.

Russian art anarchists …amazing actions

Voina (Russian: Война = War) is a Russian performance group known for their provocative and politically charged works of performance art. Voina was founded in 2007 by philosophy students at Lomonosov Moscow State University Oleg Vorotnikov and Natalia Sokol, In late February 2011 the activists Oleg Vorotnikov and Leonid Nikolayev were released on bail after four months in Moscow police custody, in connection with an anti-corruption protest. They face up to seven years of prison. In response to the detention, graffiti artist Banksy decided to raise money for the artists. They have also been denounced by right-wing groups like the People’s Synod. Voina came to widespread public attention…  WIKIPEDIA


  Russian art anarchists …amazing actions

Written by Marlon Dolcy / 20 Dec 2010 /

Voina (or “War” to give them their English name) are a radical art group concerned with challenging the Russian establishment on important political issues such as attitudes towards homophobia, race, and the totalitarian actions of the state, through creating outrageous and provocative art performances in Russia. Two of their members; Oleg Vorotnikov and Leonid Nikolayev have been detained for more than a month at St Petersburg Prison on false allegations. Don’t Panic spoke to the group.

Could you outline the ideas behind a few of your conceptions?
L .N.: The main thing for the artists is to be honest and not to make compromises. In Russia they put people to torture and execution – the prisons are again full of dissenters. Xenophobia and homophobia reigns. A new slave society is build. Cops beat and kill people. And here we are – holding the action Palace revolution, turning the police cars over. That was our artistic reform of the Ministry of Home Affairs
Palace Revolution, after which Oleg and Leonid were arrested

O.V.: Or, for example, on the Moscow City Day, as a protest, the Voina group came to the city’s biggest supermarket Auchan, where in the department of Light organized an execution by hanging of 3 illegal Central Asian migrant workers, 1 Jew and 1 homosexual. The lynching came as a present to the corrupted Moscow Mayor Luzhkov who pursued a policy of misanthropy and violation of human rights. We made this action as a commemoration of 5 Russian revolutionists, who were hanged in 1826. That’s why the action is called “Decembrists commemoration”. We wanted to make the Russians remember the libertarian ideals of the country’s first revolutionists.

In Memory of the Decemberists – A Present to Yuri Luzhkov, which presented the hanging of two gay men and three immigrant  workers, as a direct attack against Moscow Mayor Luzhkov, whose policies have been denounced as racist and homophobic
A.P-S: When the prominent curator Andrei Yerofeyev was accused of fomenting ethnic and religious hatred and “insulting human dignity” for organizing an exhibition and was brought to the court, the Voina art collective interrupted the case hearing by performing a new song All Cops are Bastards from the album Fuck the Police Those Motherfucking Bosses right into the courtroom. The idea was simple, the implementation – honest and uncompromising

Russian art anarchists explain themselves | Banksy's new favourites Voina speak from prison | Don't Panic online Magazine

A.P-S: Anarch-art-activism is the only lively activity in Russia. Nowadays, when even hope for democracy in Russia is ruined, painting flowers and pussy cats or making any other “pure” art, lacking a socio-political content, is to support the right-wing authorities.  The symbol of anarchy – a skull-and-bones – has to be painted right at the Russia’s parliament building.  That’s what we did Our Jolly Roger laser projection was almost 50 meters high, covering almost the whole front of the White House in Moscow.

Banksy´s  solidarity

BANKSY declared that all profits from his current print sale would be gifted to Russian art anarchist group Voina. Known for drawing an enormous cock on a bridge opposite the ex-KGB offices, and instigating a sex party in a museum (see above)

He also came to their rescue by raising bail bonds  and getting them released.

LATEST
All members are out on bail  but facing sentences up to 7 years.

CONTINUED:::

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