Month: February 2013

Source: 350.org

Today was the day. Finally, powerfully, decisively — the movement to stop climate change has come together.

This was the biggest climate change rally in US history. By our count, 50,000 people gathered by the Washington Monument and then marched past the White House, demanding that President Obama block the Keystone XL pipeline and move forward toward climate action.

There were many high points: Van Jones declaring that Keystone is the only presidential decision anyone will care about in 20 years; billionaire investor Tom Steyer laying out why it’s a bad investment; Chief Jackie Thomas explaining the toll that the tar sands are taking on her neighbors, and promising that they would never allow a tar sands pipeline west to the Pacific. read more

Source: Al Jazeera

Ten years ago people around the world rose up. In almost 800 cities across the globe, protesters filled the streets of capital cities and tiny villages, following the sun from Australia and New Zealand and the small Pacific islands, through the snowy steppes of North Asia and down across the South Asian peninsula, across Europe and down to the southern edge of Africa, then jumping the pond first to Latin America and then finally, last of all, to the United States.

And across the globe, the call came in scores of languages, “the world says no to war!” The cry “Not in Our Name” echoed from millions of voices. The Guiness Book of World Records said between 12 and 14 million people came out that day, the largest protest in the history of the world. It was, as the great British labour and peace activist and former MP Tony Benn described it to the million Londoners in the streets that day, “the first global demonstration, and its first cause is to prevent a war against Iraq”. What a concept – a global protest against a war that had not yet begun – the goal, to try to stop it. read more

Source: New Internationalist

February 14 2013. No this is not about Valentine’s Day. I was in Ahmedabad for the One Billion Rising (OBR) event. As I entered the Gujarat Vidyapith Sports Ground , there was a feeling of historicity. An international video stream was showing on large screens to throbbing music. I climbed up the steep steps to get a better view of the audience. The music, the visuals, the emotion, was phenomenal.

It touched an inner core. Brought tears to my eyes. I wished desperately that my family were here. Most of all I missed my daughter. With all my heart, I desperately wanted her to be there with me. read more

Source: Tom Dispatch

Presidential decisions often turn out to be far less significant than imagined, but every now and then what a president decides actually determines how the world turns. Such is the case with the Keystone XL pipeline, which, if built, is slated to bring some of the “dirtiest,” carbon-rich oil on the planet from Alberta, Canada, to refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast.  In the near future, President Obama is expected to give its construction a definitive thumbs up or thumbs down, and the decision he makes could prove far more important than anyone imagines.  It could determine the fate of the Canadian tar-sands industry and, with it, the future well-being of the planet.  If that sounds overly dramatic, let me explain. read more

Source: The Guardian Unlimited

Spring announced itself in Delhi on Saturday. The sun was out, and the law took its course. Just before breakfast, the government of India secretly hanged Afzal Guru, prime accused in the attack on parliament in December 2001, and interred his body in Delhi’s Tihar jail where he had been in solitary confinement for 12 years. Guru’s wife and son were not informed. “The authorities intimated the family through speed post and registered post,” the home secretary told the press, “the director general of the Jammu and Kashmir [J&K] police has been told to check whether they got it or not”. No big deal, they’re only the family of yet another Kashmiri terrorist. read more