June 2008 - Toward Freedom

“The World According to Monsanto”

The Real News Network June 30, 2008 The Real News Network

Monsanto is a world leader in industrial agriculture, providing the seeds for 90 percent of the world’s genetically modified crops. Once a chemical company based in the US, Monsanto has transformed into an international life sciences company, aiming to solve world hunger and protect the environment. Filmmaker Marie-Monique Robin, however, exposes the company’s troubling past, in her recent film, The World According to Monsanto. In an interview with The Real News Network, she discusses Monsanto’s controversial practices from a producer of PCBs and Agent Orange to genetically modified seeds and related herbicides. read more

This Brave Nation: Two Generations of Hope

Brave Nation June 30, 2008 Brave Nation

Source: The Nation

In a Lower Manhattan apartment, one of the greatest living musicians and activists sat down with one of the country’s most effective young grassroots leaders. Pete Seeger, with a list of awards and honors longer than the neck on his famed banjo, still works tirelessly at 88 years of age. He spoke with Majora Carter, the young and indefatigable founder of Sustainable South Bronx, an organization that is re-shaping the neighborhood of her youth through pioneering green-collar economic development projects, about the environmental work he has worked at for more than forty years. And while he’s at it, he also finds time to sing a couple songs, demanding the film crew sing along, because it’s not nearly as much fun singing to someone as it is singing with someone. read more

Interview: Speaking with Hugo! author Bart Jones

Daniel Denvir June 26, 2008 Daniel Denvir

Bart Jones is the author of Hugo! The Hugo Chavez Story from Mud Hut to Perpetual Revolution (Steerforth, New Hampshire 2007). Jones lived in Venezuela from 1992 to 2000, working initially as a Maryknoll lay missioner and then as a foreign correspondent for The Associated Press. He now lives in Long Island, New York with his wife and two children. The book has also just been released in the UK and will soon be published in Brazil in Portuguese.

Bush Administration Accused of Withholding “Lifesaving” Aid to Haiti

Cyril Mychalejko June 25, 2008 Cyril Mychalejko

Collecting Water in Haiti

Human rights groups released a report on June 23rd accusing the Bush Administration of blocking "potentially lifesaving" aid to Haiti in order to meddle in the impoverished nation's political affairs. The report, "Wòch nan Soley: The Denial of the Right to Water in Haiti," also takes aim at the international community for its role in politicizing aid while standing idly by as people suffer and die.

Book Review: Colombia Jail Journal

Bob Feldman June 23, 2008 Bob Feldman

The Colombia Three

For nearly three years, Sinn Fein activist James Monaghan was held inside various Colombia jails, along with two other Sinn Fein supporters, and falsely charged by the Colombian army, the U.S. State Department and the British government with having spent his time in Colombia giving military training to FARC guerrillas. In Colombia Jail Journal Monaghan both tells what life was like for "The Colombia Three" inside Colombia's prisons and exposes how the Colombian government, the U.S. Embassy and the UK government fabricated their case against the three Irish Republicans, who were ultimately found innocent by a Colombia court judge of "training FARC guerrillas in Colombia."

Alternatives to Free Trade: Fair Trade and Beyond

Shamus Cooke June 23, 2008 Shamus Cooke

The global debate around free-trade and its consequences has evolved tremendously in recent years, from tiny circles of leftist critics into a broad international protest movement. Although the movement began to bloom in response to the policies of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the biggest demonstrations have been in response to the now-popular "bi-lateral" free-trade agreements that economically powerful countries sign with poorer nations. Once one has become conscious of the problems created by free-trade agreements, whether they are international or regional, an immediate task presents itself: finding a feasible alternative.