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From War to Stone Quarries: Displaced Ugandans Face Challenges as Urban Refugees

Siena Anstis October 16, 2008 Siena Anstis

Families at Work in Stone Quarry
On the slopes overlooking Kireka, the suburbs of Kampala, hundreds of women and children spend their day working at stone quarries. Whether sick, crippled, young or old, they spend long hours hauling yellow jerry cans of stone from a dusty pit and smashing the large rocks into gravel with crude hammers. One full jerry can fetches 10 cents. At the end of the day, the women have made just enough to buy their children a small portion of dry and starchy cassava for dinner. On slow days, they eat only a bowl of diluted porridge, or nothing.

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Chile: Yet Another Dam Planned For Biobío River

Benjamin Witte October 15, 2008 Benjamin Witte

Biobío River
Chile's Biobío River, already home to two huge hydroelectric power stations, may soon be dammed yet again - this time by Chilean energy giant Colbún. And just like the massive Pangue and Ralco dams that preceded it, Colbún's "Angostura Project" is attracting serious criticism among area residents, many of whom may be displaced by the dam's reservoir. Incredibly, some of the people likely to be flooded out of house and home were already forced to relocate during construction of the Pangue facility.

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Beyond Elections: Redefining Democracy in the Americas

Sílvia Leindecker and Michael Fox October 13, 2008 Sílvia Leindecker and Michael Fox

Beyond Elections is a documentary that takes us across the Americas to attempt to answer one of the most important questions of our time: What is Democracy? Freedom, equality, participation? Everyone has his or her own definition. Across the world, 120 countries now have at least the minimum trappings of democracy-the freedom to vote for all citizens. But for many, this is just the beginning not the end.  Watch and discuss this timely and inspiring film on Thursday, October 16 at 7PM at Burlington College in Burlington, Vermont.

Simone Lovera (center) Photo: Langelle

Life as Commerce: Criticizing Market-Based Conservation

Simone Lovera & Orin Langelle October 9, 2008 Simone Lovera & Orin Langelle

Simone Lovera (Center) Photo: Langelle
Barcelona, Spain - As the international financial and food crisis worsens, Global Forest Coalition critiques the unreliability of market-based conservation mechanisms like ecotourism, forest certification, biodiversity offsets and carbon trade on Indigenous Peoples, local communities and women. Market-based mechanisms are often seen as solutions to the lack of funding for public conservation, but they are false solutions. 

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Martial Law on the Horizon? US Troops Hit the US Streets

Toward Freedom, Various Media October 9, 2008 Toward Freedom, Various Media

On October 26, 2006, in an article for Toward Freedom, journalist Frank Morales broke the story about George W. Bush’s move toward implementing martial law in the US. According to Morales, Bush was doing so "by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the President’s ability to deploy troops within the United States." The law "allows the President to declare a ‘public emergency’ and station troops anywhere in America and take control of state-based National Guard units without the consent of the governor or local authorities, in order to ‘suppress public disorder.’" This article went on to win a #2 Project Censored Award in 2007. read more