Tag Archive for 'business'Page 18 of 52

10
Feb

Urge India to abandon steel megaproject

On January 31, the government of India gave South Korean multinational Pohong Steel Corporation (POSCO) permission to go ahead with a huge iron mining, manufacturing and export project in Orissa state. As a result, villagers in the region along with anyone opposed to the project are now at high risk of being violently suppressed.

Friends of the Earth International explains that, “already, on 29 November, 2007, fifty villagers were injured as 100 armed men bombed, beat and sexually molested protesters (mostly women). The police watched the attack, then proceeded to occupy the checkpoint.”

Now the police appear ready to launch an armed attack against the villagers, in an attempt to occupy part of the 6,000 acres the government promised to POSCO.

Friends of the Earth International is asking everyone to send a latter of objection to the Prime Minister of India, urging him …

Published on
February 10, 2008
  2 Comments 1,221 views

05
Feb

Alaska Natives, ecologists oppose oil drilling in Chukchi Sea

chuckchi-sea.jpg

Last week, a coalition of indigenous people and environmental groups filed a lawsuit aimed at halting the massive oil drilling project in the Chukchi Sea.

Consisting of the Native Village of Point Hope, the City of Point Hope, the Inupiat Community of the Arctic Slope (ICAS), Resisting Environmental Destruction on Indigenous Lands (REDOIL), as well as The Wilderness Society and the Center for Biological Diversity, among several others - the coalition argues that the U.S. Interior Department’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) should not have gone ahead with it’s recent decision to open up bidding to oil and gas companies because they failed to address a number of key issues.

It is a failure that seems to have been deliberate. A recent news release by part of the coalition explains that the Interior department,

[...] has apparently ignored warnings by …

Published on
February 5, 2008
  0 Comments 1,707 views

03
Feb

Profit and Power at the expense of the Lubicon

According to a recent communique from Friends of the Lubicon, TransCanada officials have decided to proceed with their application to build a new jumbo gas pipeline across unceded Lubicon Territory.

Not too long ago they were asked to alter their ‘project timelines’ until they adequately respond to the social, environmental, and cultural concerns held by the Lubicon Cree Nation. However, it would seem Transcanada is not the least bit interested in doing so. The same can also be said about Shell, Suncor, Imperial Oil, Exxon Mobile, Cargill and Nexen — all of whom leaped forward over the last four days to support the pipeline. And let’s not forget the Provincial and Federal Government, who’ve systematically denied the Lubicon their rights for years.

Weighing all this in, we find the Lubicon facing the prospect of irreparable social, …

Published on
February 3, 2008
  3 Comments 1,124 views

03
Feb

Ascendant Copper Loses Mining Concessions in Ecuador

On Friday, Ecuador’s government announced that it was revoking Ascendant Copper’s mining concessions for the controversial Junin Project, an open pit copper mine located in one of the world’s most ecologically diverse regions.

Publicly, the government says it decided to revoke a total of 587 mining concessions for economic reasons; for instance, because of the companies’ failure to pay proper fees on the concessions. However it seems more likely that it’s because of the social and environmental consequences of the project. The government of President Rafael Correa just doesn’t want to say that.

If the project went ahead as Ascendant planned, it would have caused massive deforestation, contamination of the local water supply, threaten rare and endangered species, and forcibly relocate hundreds of families.

On top of that, it would seem Ascendant’s original purchase of the concessions wasn’t even …

Published on
February 3, 2008
  4 Comments 1,157 views

02
Feb

Possible Disappearance of Peasant Leader in Colombia

Teresa Martínez recently posted an urgent notice on her blog, explaining that on January 16, four armed men dressed in civilian clothes arrived at the farm of Armando Montañez in the small village called Monterralo. After being spotted by Armando and two neighbors, the men opened fire repeatedly.

Armando and his two companions fled as soon as the shooting started. They have not been seen since and their forced disappearance is feared.

Here is the Urgent notice in English, followed by some email address you can write to. If you’d like a Spanish version, please see here.

URGENT ACTION: POSSIBLE FORCED DISAPPEARANCE OF PEASANT LEADER IN EASTERN FOOTHILLS (CASANARE)
Corporación Social Para la Asesoría y Capacitación Comunitaria COS-PACC (Social Corporation for Community Advice and Capacity Building), Fundación Comité de Solidaridad con los Presos Políticos FCSPP (Political Prisoners Solidarity Committee) and the Red …

Published on
February 2, 2008
  0 Comments 818 views

30
Jan

Kenya’s Ogiek tribe caught up in violence

Today, Survival International released an alert explaining that Kenya’s honey-hunting Ogiek are being targeted in the escalating post-election violence in Kenya.

“An Ogiek leader said today, ‘We the Ogiek people have suffered police shooting, intimidations and threats…. Currently five of our youth have been shot and injured as hundreds of families fled their homes…. We cannot access food, shelter or medicines.’

There have been allegations of rape of Ogiek women by police, and Ogiek houses have been burned down.”

One article posted on the Ogiek website explains that they are allegedly blamed for the recent death of a police officer who was shot with an arrow. There is no actual evidence linking the Ogiek to the shooting, however. That is, the Ogiek do carry bows and arrows “to maintain their marginalized life while collecting mainly honey and wild …

Published on
January 30, 2008
  0 Comments 1,055 views

23
Jan

Risk of Violence Against Opposition to Phulbari Mine

With the Asian Development Bank preparing to give a $100 million loan and $200 million political risk insurance package to GCM Resources’ open pit coal mine in Phulbari, Bangladesh - the future of the entire local population becomes evermore uncertain.

On the land they’ve live on for generations, many continue asking themselves questions that no one should have to ask: “What will happen to us if we are forced to move from here? What will happen to our livelihoods? I don’t want us to live like this. Our mosques and holy places and the places we were born will be destroyed. What will happen to the graveyards of our ancestors?”

If the mine goes ahead as planned, upwards of 50,000 will be displaced from their land, with 500,000 more effected. 50 educational institutions, as well as 171 mosques, 13 …

Published on
January 23, 2008
  0 Comments 961 views

Video activism and the Chiapas Media Project

In the following presentation, Claudia Magallanes-Blanco from the University of Western Sydney talks about the role of video activism as a world-wide tool for empowerment and the Chiapas Media Project, a collaborative effort based in Mexico that provides indigenous Zapatistas in Chiapas and peasants in Guerrero with training and equipment to produce their own videos.

Since forming in 1998, CMP has distributed over 6000 videos, including: Zapata’s Garden, a film that looks at the society the Zapatista’s are building; …


I Am A Defender of the Rainforest

Known as ‘Soy defensor de la selva’ in Spanish, I am a Defender of the Rainforest is an award-winning documentary that was filmed, edited, and directed by members of the Sarayaku community in southern Ecuador.

The film shows how the …


Underreported Struggles #19, October 2008

In this month’s Underreported Struggles: 400,000 Guatemalans Reject Development Model, Philippines Indigenous People Unite for the Land, Riot Police Target Algonquin Blockade, Chagos Islanders Denied the Right of Return, and 17 other stories …


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