Story Archives - Page 586 of 662

Gaza water supplies dangerous low

Super User September 28, 2005 Super User

GAZA STRIP – Dangerously low drinking water reserves, dilapidated decontamination facilities, and a nearly dry water table are the warning signs of a looming crisis in Gaza, according to Shaddad al-Atili, water and ecological affairs advisor to the Palestinian Authority. "We are heading toward an ecological catastrophe," he told Agence France Presse last week, citing as one reason Gaza’s rapidly growing population of 1.3 million people, 900,000 of them refugees.

Rain alone isn’t enough to sustain the Palestinian territory, which receives between 1.5 billion to 1.9 billion cubic feet of rainwater annually but consumes about three times that amount, Atili says. "Besides, Israel has not authorized us to import water from regions outside Gaza." Israel has offered to sell them desalinated water for $1 per cubic meter, which the Palestinians find too costly. read more

El Alto, Bolivia: A New World Out Of Differences

Raúl Zibechi September 28, 2005 Raúl Zibechi

Protests in El Alto Against Privatization of Gas

El Alto, Bolivia, at 13,300 feet above sea level, is in shambles viewed from the outside, if one cultivates someone else's Western, colonial way of looking. Another perspective, though, reveals the history of an amazing place where social mobilization has called the powers that be into question and done it without centralized or unified organizations. Here are facts and insights for understanding the Aymaras' capital city that reinvented the word insurrection.

Blocking the Net

Ron Chepesiuk September 27, 2005 Ron Chepesiuk

Vietnam's communist government knows that it is impossible to monitor the country's 5,000 cyber cafes, so it's forcing the cafe owners to be its eyes and ears. Last July, a government directive informed cafe owners that they will have to take a six-month course so that they can better monitor their cyber customers. The Vietnamese government is justifying its move for reasons of "national security and defense" - that is, to protect itself against online journalists who, it says, "provide sensationalist news and articles while others even publish reactionary and libelous reports and a depraved culture."

Diverse Anti-war Protests Largest in DC Since Vietnam

Benjamin Dangl and Brendan Coyne, NewStandard September 26, 2005 Benjamin Dangl and Brendan Coyne, NewStandard

Kicking off three days of actions aimed ultimately at pressuring the US government to pull troops out of Iraq, scores of protesters converged on Washington, DC on Saturday, September 24 for an all-day protest that included an array of speakers, a march past the White House and a concert that lasted well into the early morning hours. Estimates of the demonstration's size ranged from 100,000 to 300,000 protesters. Participants from across the country spent long hours riding overnight on buses and in caravans to take part in the largest anti-war event the nation's capitol has seen since the Vietnam War era. Groups began assembling on the Ellipse in front of the White House early yesterday. In preparation for the event, police blanketed the Ellipse, Federal Triangle and the grounds of the Washington Monument with a confusing maze of orange-plastic and wooden fences, closing many roads to both automobile and pedestrian traffic.

Venezuela here we come!

Super User September 22, 2005 Super User

Have you wondered what is happening in Venezuela, where the revolutionary president Hugo Chavez is using millions of dollars in oil money to fund social programs?

Have you heard about the World Social Forums that have taken place in Brazil and around the world, whose slogan is "Another World is Possible"?

How about the two together? That is what is going to happen January 24-29 2006 in Caracas, Venezuela, when the World Social Forum gathers there.

I attended the third WSF in Porto Alegre Brazil in 2003, and was thrilled and energized at meeting individuals and groups forging ahead with the creation of a better world. read more

A People’s History of Iraq: 1963 to 2005

Bob Feldman September 22, 2005 Bob Feldman

The history of Iraq is still being influenced by 138,000 U.S. occupation troops. Yet the mainstream "educational television" stations of the Public Broadcasting Service often appear more eager to broadcast programs about the history of rock music since 1960 than programs about the history of Iraq. But as Rashid Khalidi observed in the introduction to the 2005 edition of his Resurrecting Empire, "the hubris that allowed Pentagon planners to think that they were somehow immune to the lessons of history produced a grossly mismanaged occupation that has become hated by most Iraqis and has engendered fierce resistance." U.S. anti-war activists, however, may find some knowledge of post-December 1963 Iraqi people's history of use in debating with U.S. opponents of an immediate U.S. military withdrawal from Iraq.