Month: October 2012

Source: Council of Canadians

Today, I will be in Victoria to join the many others who, like me, envision a different future than that which the Harper government has set out. We see a world with clean rivers and streams for fishing and drinking, clean air we can breathe, and land protected from industrial clearcuts in the name of pipelines and fossil fuels. We envision a world with lively, sustainable, and healthy communities that we can protect, free from corporate influence.

First Nations communities along the pipeline routes, along BC’s coast, and in the tar sands have been taking action and showing leadership to protect their communities and coastlines. But no matter how loudly they say “no” their message is falling on deaf ears. That’s how we know it’s time to act. read more

Source: Inter Press Service

(IPS) – As gender-based violence across India becomes more frequent, and more savage, increasing numbers of women are speaking out against the cruelty.

On Oct. 6, a 14-year-old girl from the Sacha Khera village in the Jind district of northern India’s Haryana state set herself on fire after a brutal gang rape.

In her statement to the police, the girl claimed that two male youngsters dragged her into a house, while the sister-in-law of one of the culprits stood guard on the terrace. read more

Source: In These Times

As the Mexican Senate tried to convene last week, unionists, youth protesters from the #YoSoy132 movement and social activists of every stripe blocked the chamber’s doors, trying to prevent legislators from meeting to consider the reforma laboral. On October 2, tens of thousands marched from the Tlatelolco (Plaza of Three Cultures), where hundreds of students were shot down by Mexican Army troops on the same date in 1968, to the Zocalo at the city center. Reverberating chants signaled an equally massive rejection of this deeply unpopular proposal. read more