Mi'kmaq nation uprises against fracking

The First Nation of the Atlantic coasts arose against the damage to their lands caused by fracking (destroying the Earth's crust to scratch for gas and oil, disturbing the crust's stability and polluting the water).

Canadian police and army acted to repress the road blockades, using all kind of weapons from pepper spray to war dogs, from revolvers ready to fire to planting explosives in a ridiculous attempt to frame up the rebels as "terrorists", as their southern colleagues did with Leonard Peltier decades ago.

At least 40 have been arrested so far. 

The conflict can end up with deadly victims any moment because the Canadian state is clearly unwilling to allow the Natives rule on their own lands (how typical), which for them are just colonies to exploit.

Source: RT, Canada.com.

Quebec: thousands march pot-banging against anti-social policies and lies

Thousands marched through the streets of Quebec banging pots in protest for the lies and betrayals of the government of Pauline Marois (Partí Québécois) which is applying almost exactly the same policies as their Liberal predecessors in spite of running with a social-democratic program. 

According to polls 70% of Québécoises are unhappy with their government after just one year in charge. As it seems to be the rule in the so-called "democracies" these days, politicians make promises that they systematically fail to fulfill, blindly obeying to the bankster oligarchy in all. 

That way the Marois government has continued cutting in education, healthcare and social services, much to the dismay of the citizens, who now demand their resignation.

Source: Webguerrillero[es].

North America: two killed by police

In Canada, the Toronto Police shot dead Sammy Yatim, 18, who was apparently holding a knife. He was shot nine times: first three shots and then six others. The video do not show Yatim, whose sight is hidden by a bus, but the sound of the shots can be heard perfectly.

The cowardly and murderous excessive use of force has been strongly criticized by a citizenry that feels defenseless against the police forces. A march of protest was held yesterday. 

In the USA, John Warna, 95, was killed by police, using a taser and rubber bullets, at the elderly residence where he lived. The old man apparently threatened nurses with his walking stick and may have got his hands on a knife later.

It is simply unbelievable that police could not imagine other means to deal with the rebellious 95 years-old man, who could hardly pose any threat, even if armed. 

Source: Webguerrillero[es] (link 1, link 2).

Quebec: video highlights police brutality against Natives

Amateur footage of police agents beating a young man on the ground has brought to the forefront what seems to be a systematic policy of terror against the Native American Innu People, which inhabit the Eastern Labrador Peninsula, a land they call Nitassinan (our land).

While the authorities of the French-speaking province are treating it as an isolate incident subject to investigation, the opinion among the Innu is very different, feeling that it is just the tip of the iceberg of systematic racist colonial violence. Raymond Bellefleur, chief of the council of Unamen Shipu, declared:

Our elder have fear, our young and the women are terrified by police brutality. This has to stop now.

The victim, Norbert Mestenapeo, 24, ended with 12 suture points after being hospitalized. 

Source: Webguerrillero[es].

Quebec oil train catastrophe: five confirmed dead, "many" missing, town destroyed

Yesterday's oil train catastrophe in Lac-Megantin, Quebec, has left a whole town destroyed and burning, with an unknown but extremely high death toll.

Some news excerpts collected by Energy News:

NBC News, July 8, 2013: Fires were still burning more than 24 hours after a driverless train carrying petroleum products derailed and exploded in a Quebec town, setting off a massive blaze [...] Quebec provincial police Lt. Michel Brunet refused to say how high the death toll could eventually go, but said authorities have been told “many” people have been reported missing. [...] Burning crude spilled into the storm sewers and rose up through street manholes, setting buildings on fire, the head of the rail company that ran the train told Reuters. [...] Police officials said they believe at least 50 tanks caught fire [...] 

NPR, July 8, 2013: [...] According to the Montreal Gazette, “the city’s downtown core was almost completely destroyed by the blast. It housed a mix of commercial and residential units in historic buildings.”

Warning for housing bubbles in Britain, Canada and Australia

Dean Baker at Al Jazeera has a clever insight:

The average house price in the UK is now almost 60 per cent higher than in the US. It had been 20 per cent lower in the mid-90s. In Canada, the average house price is more than 70 per cent higher than in the United States. The price of the median house in Australia is more than 225 per cent of the median house price in the United States.

Given that wages in the United States are the same or higher than in all three countries, it is difficult to see how this huge gap in house prices can make sense. Furthermore, since rents have not notably outpaced inflation in any of these countries, it does not appear that the price increases are being driven by the fundamentals of the housing market. If there was a serious shortage of housing we should expect it to be showing up in rents as well.

In short, there is good reason to believe that house prices in these countries will not be sustained anywhere near current levels. All three are likely to see the same sort of house price collapse that has wreaked so much havoc on the US economy. It's impossible to know what the triggering event will be; a rise in interest rates could certainly deflate a bubble quickly.

And not just in the US economy, let's not forget that the Spanish nightmare sits on one of the worst housing bubbles ever.

Imagination versus power in Quebec

From Kasama:

We don’t know if the following story is true. But if it isn’t, it should be:

Quebec police asked the striking students there to submit a march route. Here is what the cops received:

“We didn’t know it was impossible, so we did it!” The Quebec Student Strike celebrates its 100th day (Tidal)

From Tidal:

“We didn’t know it was impossible, so we did it!” The Quebec Student Strike celebrates its 100th day

Malav Kanuga

Origins of an unlimited general strike (“grève générale illimitée”)

Students in Quebec are marking their 100th day of an unlimited general strike on Tuesday, May 22nd, the culmination of the most stunning mass protest movements of recent months and North America’s largest student movement in years. In fact, the mobilizations in Quebec might just be Canada’s Arab Spring.

Students have been organizing against tuition hikes for nearly one and a half years, when the Quebec government first proposed to raise tuition fees by 75% over five years (amended to 82% over seven years by the government at the end of April). Before the general strike began in February, protests, demos, trainings, letter writing campaigns and attempts to negotiate in good faith with the government were consistently met with obstinate silence from the Charest administration. For the students there has been a growing sense of urgency and a shared recognition that increased tuition means a heavier student debt burden, hundreds of more hours a year spent working instead of studying, less access for working class and lower class students, and a shift in university culture toward the market, the commodification of education, the financialization of student life, and the privatization of the university.

Even if fees increase, Quebec students would be paying less than other provinces in Canada, a gap the provincial government has been aiming to close. But so far every time the administration has proposed to do so, students have gone on strike. Deep in the Quebec struggle is a culture of solidarity and security, a social fabric, a sense of community that endures and mobilizes a powerful defense of their commonwealth. Call it what you will, it is precisely this that Margaret Thatcher declared war upon on May 1st 1981 when she said that the project of neoliberalism is to change the heart and soul of a ‘collectivist’ spirit, and its means is economics. Indeed, the Finance Minister of the Quebec Liberal government recently called its austerity policies “a cultural revolution” and they are not shy about their plan to reorganize Quebecois life through fiscal discipline. The Modèle québécois of social collectivism (in its traditional social democratic sensibility, but also, and more importantly, its directly democratic ethic that has emerged in the course of the last 14 weeks of strike) is the target of these policies, specifically through education and health. This is what explains the Charest government’s attempts to break the strike and destroy the student unions.

... continue reading at Tidal.

Quebec approves fascist law against 14-week-long student strike

The Parliament of Quebec, dominated by the Liberal Party (conservative and unionist) approved this past week (May 18th) a law that:

• Forbids any crowd near a university
• Forbids any demonstration if the organizers do not notify police with at least 8 hours advise
• Brutal fines against organizers of demonstrations that obstruct the normal working of universities

The student strike is fighting against an attempt to more than double the fees from c. $1780 to $4000.

Source: Disidente del Capitalismo[es], who cites other sources also in Spanish.

Update: also at Al Jazeera.

Some 200,000 marched against this fascist law and in demand for the resignation of Charest, who is decried as a tyrant.

'Poor Little Haiti to be Fleeced of its Riches' (Dady Chery at BAR)

Haiti’s mineral wealth is marked for super-exploitation by a Canadian corporation that has already wreaked havoc in the neighboring Dominican Republic. Mining companies claim the gold and silver reserves were only recently discovered, but “the story could just as well be that the mining executives were biding their time and waiting for a non-nationalistic government to take effect before initiating their projects.” The operation requires construction of a deep-water port in Haiti’s northeast, threatening the country’s marine ecosystems.

Poor Little Haiti to be Fleeced of its Riches

 by Dady Chery

“This mining plan will permanently strip the country of much of its mineral, cultural, and ecological wealth.”

Show me a corporate boss who calls Haiti the “poorest country in the western hemisphere,” and I’ll show you a con artist preparing to fleece Haiti. Likewise, show me a western technocrat who bemoans Haiti’s “dramatic deforestation due to charcoal production” and I’ll show a bio-pirate or vandal preparing to wreck Haiti’s remaining cloud-forest and mangrove-forest ecosystems. 

It turns out that the real plan for Haiti’s northeastern region — especially the Caracol Bay area — is one that was hatched by Canadian mining corporations, with the U.S and South Korean sweatshop zone being a side project and distraction. If this mining plan is given a green light while Haiti is under foreign occupation, it will permanently strip the country of much of its mineral, cultural, and ecological wealth. 

In a recent interview with Canada’s Financial Post, Majescor Resources CEO Dan Hachey was effusive about Michel Martelly’s installment as president because he expects Martelly’s policy of mimicking the Dominican Republic (DR) to be a boon to the mining sector. 

... full story at Black Agenda Report.

 

Quebec student unions claim success based on being 'inherently political' and directly democratic

Students in Quebec have been striking and mobilizing huge numbers for two months now (even if the mainstream media has been censoring them).

The Real News interviews some Quebecois student leaders:

 Found via Naked Capitalism.

Quebec: protests against the "Plan Nord"

Protesters fought their way into the heavily guarded Palais de Congrais  and police responded with heavy shooting of rubber bullets, tear gas and flash bang grenades.

However there were moments when demonstrators were actually driving police back and not the other way around. Of this substance is what revolutions are made. 

Protesters chanted:

Capitalism makes war on us, let us make war to Capitalism!

The protests were directed against the developist (extractivist) Plan Nord to expropriate the natural wealth of northern Quebec, a mostly Native American and Inuit area, in order to extend the lifeline of agonizing Capitalism a bit more into the future.

Videos:

Source: Contra Info.

Polar bears may suffer radiation poisoning in Beaufort Sea (American Arctic)

Some 27% (9/33) of polar bears captured by researchers in Beaufort Sea suffer symptoms of a mysterious illness that fits perfectly with radiation poisoning such as hair loss.

These same symptoms have been found in seals and walruses since months ago further south in the Pacific coasts of Alaska. 

A virus has been discarded as cause. It's probable that the bears have been poisoned from eating walruses and seals who were contaminated by Fukushima radiation near Alaska or Chukotka.

Sources: Energy News, quoting Alaska Public, ABC and USGS.

From the Net: 'Japan's nuclear evacuees denied Canadian refuge' (Calgary Sun)

A Japanese woman who claimed exposure to radiation from damaged nuclear reactors has been denied refugee status in Canada almost one year after that nation was rocked by an earthquake and tsunami that left more than 100,000 people homeless.

The woman’s identity has not been released by an Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) since she’s seeking asylum in this country. She is among several dozen Japanese nationals who filed refugee claims to stay in Canada following the disaster and is one of the first decisions to be reached by the IRB.

“The claimant feared risks of exposure to radiation,” an IRB member said in a ruling. “She was not convinced by the Japanese government’s assurances of safety from radiation.”

The woman was one of hundreds of Japanese citizens who sought refuge in other countries following the March 11, 2011 catastrophe caused by a magnitude 9.0 quake and tsunami that left more than 15,000 dead and nearly 3300 missing.

... full story at Calgary Sun (found via EneNews). 

Political persecution in Canada: on trial for 'conspiracy' against the G20 meeting (Toronto 2010)

We all remember (I hope) how the Toronto police was caught red-handed burning their own cars and pretending to be "black block" rioters in order to sabotage the, essentially peaceful, protest against the G20 meeting in the Canadian city.

But never mind, the police agents implicated and their bosses are still at large and no prosecution against them exists at all. Instead unrelated people who did take part in the organization of the peaceful resistance were jailed and accused of 'conspiracy'. Many had no met each other before their arrest however.

Under the fascist charge of 'conspiracy to resist', they are being asked sentences  have been put to trial and the state attorney asks for sentences of 10 to 16 months of jail, plus many others that imply astronomic fines for 'obstruction to police' and nonsense like that. In spite of their innocence of any sort of violence and not knowing each other in many cases before they were arrested, maybe by the same cops who sparked and fed the riots, the victims of the Canadian authoritarian regime do not expect to be acquitted at all.

The 'conspiring' anarchists

These are their first joint declarations (they were not allowed to talk to each other on risk of losing bail).

A video:

An open letter:

November 22, 2011 — As people across Turtle Island look towards the global wave of protests against the austerity agenda, the memory of the 2010 G20 protests in Toronto looms large as both inspiration and caution. We are seventeen people accused by the state of planning to disrupt the leaders summit – the prosecutors call us the G20 Main Conspiracy Group.

This alleged conspiracy is absurd. We were never all part of any one group, we didn’t all organize together, and our political backgrounds are all different. Some of us met for the first time in jail. What we do have in common is that we, like many others, are passionate about creating communities of resistance.

Separately and together, we work with movements against colonialism, capitalism, borders, patriarchy, white supremacy, ableism, hetero/cis-normativity, and environmental destruction. These are movements for radical change, and they represent real alternatives to existing power structures. It is for this reason that we were targeted by the state.

Although these conspiracy charges have been a big part of our daily reality for the past year and a half, we have been slow in speaking out collectively. This is partly because of the restrictive bail conditions that were placed on us, including non-association with our co-accused and many of our close allies. In addition, those of us who did speak out have been subjected to a campaign of intimidation and harassment by the police and prosecutors. We are writing now because we have decided to resolve our charges to bring this spectacle to an end.

The state’s strategy after the G20 has been to cast a wide net over those who mobilized against the summit (over 1, 000 detained and over 300 charged) and then to single out those they perceived to be leaders. Being accused of conspiracy is a surreal, bureaucratic nightmare that few political organizers have experienced in this country, but unfortunately it is becoming more common. We can’t say with any certainty if what we did was in fact an illegal conspiracy. Ultimately though, whether or not our organizing fits into the hypocritical and oppressive confines of the law isn’t what’s important. This is a political prosecution. The government made a political decision to spend millions of dollars to surveil and infiltrate anarchist, Indigenous solidarity, and migrant justice organizing over several years. After that kind of investment, what sort of justice are we to expect?

We have not been powerless in this process; however any leverage we’ve had has not come from the legal system, but from making decisions collectively. This has been a priority throughout, particularly in the last several months, as the preliminary inquiry gradually took a back seat to negotiations for a deal to end it. The consensus process has been at times a heart-wrenching, thoughtful, gruelling, disappointing, and inspiring experience, and in the end, we got through it together.

Of the seventeen of us, six will be pleading and the eleven others will have their charges withdrawn. Alex Hundert, and Mandy Hiscocks are each pleading to one count of counselling mischief over $5,000 and one count of counselling to obstruct police, and Leah Henderson, Peter Hopperton, Erik Lankin, and Adam Lewis are each pleading to a single count of counselling mischief over $5,000. We are expecting sentences to range between 6 and 24 months, and all will get some credit for time already served in jail and on house arrest.

Three defendants in this case had their charges withdrawn earlier and one has already taken a plea to counselling mischief over $5,000 that involved no further jail time. This means that out of twenty-one people in the supposed G20 Main Conspiracy Group, only seven were convicted of anything, and none were convicted of conspiracy. The total of fourteen withdrawals demonstrates the tenuous nature of the charges.

This system targets many groups of people including racialized, impoverished and Indigenous communities, those with precarious immigration status, and those dealing with mental health and addiction. The kinds of violence that we have experienced, such as the pre-dawn raids, the strip-searches, the surveillance, and pre-sentence incarceration happen all the time. The seventeen of us have moved through the legal system with a lot of privilege and support. This includes greater access to “acceptable” sureties, and the financial means to support ourselves and our case. While the use of conspiracy charges against such a large group of political organizers is noteworthy, these tactics of repression are used against other targeted communities every day.

There is no victory in the courts. The legal system is and always has been a political tool used against groups deemed undesirable or who refuse to co-operate with the state. It exists to protect Canada’s colonial and capitalist social structure. It is also deeply individualistic and expensive. This system is designed to break up communities and turn friends against each other.

Within this winless situation, we decided that the best course of action was to clearly identify our goals and needs and then to explore our options. Within our group, we faced different levels of risk if convicted, and so we began with the agreement that our top priority was to avoid any deportations. Other key goals we reached were to minimize the number of convictions, to honour people’s individual needs, and to be mindful of how our decisions affect our broader movements. Although we are giving up some important things by not going to trial, this deal achieves specific goals that we weren’t willing to gamble.

Our conversations have always been advised by concern for the broader political impacts of our choices. One noteworthy outcome is that there are no conspiracy convictions emerging from this case, thus avoiding the creation of a dangerous legal precedent that would in effect criminalize routine tasks like facilitation. Taking this deal also frees up community resources that have been embroiled in this legal process.

We emerge from this united and in solidarity.

To those who took us in while on house arrest, to those who raised money for our legal and living expenses, to those who cooked food, wrote letters, offered rides and supported us politically and emotionally throughout, thank you.

To those in jail or still on charges from the anti-G20 protests, to political prisoners and prisoners in struggle, we are still with you.

To communities and neighbourhoods fighting back from Cairo to London, from Greece to Chile, in Occupied Turtle Island and beyond, see you in the streets.

Sources: conspire to resist, guelph anarchist black cross, Sare Antifaxista[es]

Fukushima seven months on: an untold horror story

Will the physical demise of the Imperial family wake up the country and the world? Even if it happens it will be quite too late.

Japan Emperor Akihito (pictured) has been recently hospitalized because of bronchitis, so they say, and a lowered immune resistance. This may well be natural for a man of his age (78) but his granddaughter Aiko (9) has almost simultaneously been affected by mycoplasmal pneumonia and also hospitalized.

A coincidence? Sure, why not?

TV host Norikazu Otsuka, who made a guinea pig of himself by eating Fukushima produce on air, has just died of acute leukemia. A coincidence no doubt, right? Sure, acute leukemia is the kind of disease most directly related to radiation exposure... never mind, just a coincidence.

Sadly enough my links' folder is full of way too many coincidences and even much worse horror stories. Rather than reading about modern Japan I feel as if I'm reading a dystopic science-fiction fantasy inspired on plague and tyranny ridden Medieval Europe. But reality always surpasses fiction, it seems - for the worse.

Rescuers who die of (unrecognized) internal exposure to radiation, children who grow a lot less than normal in Fukushima, Tokyo City burning nuclear residue and telling citizens to shut up, right wing thugs and cops terrorizing Fukushima and Tokyo mothers protesting in the open. 

Fukushima workers abused till death and beyond

The conditions of workers, who should be treated like heroes, are despicable: persistent rumors of Fukushima workers dead by dozens, workers keeling and being sent to hospital, not always returning...

Workers wading through contaminated water complain that their boots have holes in them — Some are not instructed in when to change the filters on their safety masks.

An ambulance comes and goes to the plant at least 10 times per day, hospital is beyond capacity...

But worst is the terrifying information of 'unlisted' workers being held captive until they die, then buried in secret place and reported missing. 'Unlisted' workers are those that do the most dangerous works.

In this video released by TEPCO, for example, we can see a robot cleaning an area from where at some moments radiation sparks are visible (radiation may also burn electronic devices leaving marks in the film). The camera is obviously held by a human being who, at the end of the video lets his (or her) finger appear in the movie.

Police agents guarding the area, who are standing at 4.4 mSv/hr, are also dying by the dozens but their deaths are kept decret - for how long?

Arriving to North America, scaring the hell out of the rest of the World

The horror stories are of course not restricted to Japan: we all live in the same planet after all. Japan may begin again to release radioactive water to the ocean in January.  

While radioactive residues carried by air have been arriving to North America since March or April, the bulk of the Tsunami's solid residues brought by the ocean currents is just about to fall on British Columbia in a matter of days. They can well be radioactive. 

The threat is real enough for US senators to be demanding an action plan from the government.

In Europe also, even if at alleged low levels, traces of iodine 137 have been detected, most likely arrived from Japan.

Naturally the fear of disaster has pushed many countries to abandon or at least limit their nuclear power plans.  A Taiwanese writer living in Japan has just urged his government to do the same, as he witness how his host country collapses under the burden of a single major accident. Taiwan is located on the same continental fault as Japan, being also exposed to frequent earthquakes, tsunamis and typhoons. 

Instead in India, the Atomic Energy Commission chairman, Srikumar Banerjee, has dismissed the destruction caused by Chernobyl and Fukushima, which, according to him are not even nuclear accidents (there was never one, it seems). This is obviously because he is in charge of promoting nuclear energy and nuclear weapons in the Union.

Western nuclear experts are horrified

For example, Professor Edmund Lengfelder, who warns of the risk of further nuclear explosions in Fukushima Dai Ichi, shares my opinion on how terrible is the treatment of the Japanese mafia-state to its shockingly submissive citizens:

For me, it is also inhumane, that in such a wealthy country like Japan, people still live in gyms. (...) The evacuation after Chernobyl have worked much better.

Two other experts are mentioned today at Fukushima Diary:

On one side, the amiable nuclear engineer Arnie Gunderssen goes into details on why he is nearly certain that the explosion of reactor number 3 was a full fledged nuclear explosion:

Gundersen Postulates Unit 3 Explosion May Have Been Prompt Criticality in Fuel Pool from Fairewinds Associates on Vimeo.

On the other, British nuclear expert Christopher Busby explains to Russia Today how Fukushima cannot be sealed like Chernobyl (as I though back in the day), being a much more difficult to deal with nuclear catastrophe:

Echoes from the Class War (Oct 23)

From the Greek strike (source)

Along the week I have already mentioned some most relevant news:

• Occupy Hong-Kong
• Global protest camps and Greek General Strike
• Greek General Strike (second day)
• ETA declares the "definite cessation" of armed activity (plus politicians' reactions, plus opinions from prisoners' relatives)

Here comes all the rest, what found no niche or what is newer:

Occupy the World and related class struggles

It is really getting global. No wonder.

• Occupy Karachi
• Occupy Stockholm
• Occupy Dame Street, Dublin
• Occupy Toronto
• The ol' good Occupy Wall Street (NYC) grows bigger
• Arrest of nonviolent protesters
• Verizon striking workers
• Occupy London, which is becoming one of the references
• At The Guardian
• Occupy Berlin 
• Yesterday's demo  
• Clashes between antifascists and police on anti-bank action[es]
• North California
• Teachers' demo at Madrid
• Athens clashes' video
• Eviction of Traveler camp in London[es]
• Police against attacks students in Chile[es]
•  Chilean students take Senate (10 arrested)
• Protests in Palestine (Beit Ummar, Bil'in, Kafr Kadum, Nabi Saleh, Ni'ilin, Bituniya, Sheikh Jarrah, Tel Aviv, Walaje)
• Sana'a: women protest against the regime
• Occupy Jakarta
• Violent repression of peaceful protests in Malaysia
• Violent repression of peaceful 'Occupy' protest at Melbourne, Australia
• Indonesian troops storm independence march at West Papua city
• West Papua: it's a gold mine (by C. Pottins)
• Violent repression in West Sahara
• Opinion articles:
• A. Ford at The Commune: 15th october 2011: birth of a global anti-capitalist movement? 
• P. Escobar at ATOL: Occupy World Street

Basque Country: huge demo for 'solution':

Yet another demo numbering thousands occupied the streets of Bilbao yesterday (Gara[es], SA[es])

The Basque People (= Nation, Country) wants a solution

Video at Branka[eu]


Nuclear Japan

• Large anti-nuclear demo at Shibuya, Tokyo
• Third Fukushima worker dies (septic shock caused by cancer)
• Former IAEA expert: Fukushima as serious as Chernobyl
• Radioactive ash piles up
• Councilor of Minamisoma campaigns for co-citizens to evacuate
• $13,000 for decontaminating your home: no guarantees it won't be recontaminated right after we leave
• Neutron ray measured in Tokyo (not detectable by Geiger counters)
• Japan allows triple radioactive cesium in food than USSR did after Chernobyl. More than 50% of seafood radioactive
• 'Nothing left to eat' (that is not radioactive)
• German comedians make fun of Japanese nuclear criminal irresponsibility (huge success in Japan, where nothing like that is shown in TV)
• Radioactive steam continuously leaking from destroyed reactor #3
• Gundersen: this should not happen if reactors in 'cold shutdown'
• Massive amounts of groundwater flowing into reactors 1-4
• Destroyed reactor #3: video of upper floors
• Storing radioactive debris at  river heads

Other news

• German security agency plants spyware in computers while appealing for 'less democracy'
• Spanish cops ask to use sky masks so they can't be identified in videos when they beat protesters[es]
• Hungarian Nazis visit Auschwitz in uniform and performing their hate rituals[es]
• Central America suffers heavy floods[es]
• Honduras: missing farmer Segundo Mendoza was murdered[es]
• Canada: protest against George Bush Jr.
• Canada: radiation in country much worse than admitted
• Canada: mothers demonstrate for decriminalization of raw milk
• USA: alfalfa contaminated by Monsanto artificial genes
• USA: FDA allowed dangerous levels of pollutants in seafood after BP oil spill
• Hawaii: Japanese radioactive debris arriving faster than thought
• Bolivia: road through reserve not to be built
• Pakistan: 7-hours emergency declared after heavy water leak at nuclear reactor near Karachi
• Pakistan: protest against Clinton visit
• Kurdistan: PKK ambushes Turkish Army, kills three Turkish soldiers and injuries 6 more[es]
• Sea levels to keep rising for 500 years if we do not act now radically

Echoes of the Class War (Oct 16) - Occupy Earth!

[Note: from now on my news review will have a weekly instead of just irregular format. To compensate, I will probably write more single-topic entries - but don't count on it too much anyhow. My idea is to write this compilation every friday, saturday or sunday - we'll see how it works].

As you can imagine the theme of the day is the World Revolution Day protests. I'll surely write more in the upcoming days in a more reflexive manner but these are the many many news of protests that have been spurting yesterday and the days before:

America:

Times Square - NYC

People arrested when trying to close their accounts at Citybank (NYC) ··> Naked Capitalism (with videos), PO (video). Also at Santa Cruz' Bank of America ··> Corrente (with video).

Police storms also protest in Denver ··> video at PO.

Protests spread to Canada: Toronto, Vancouver.

Large numbers in Times Square, New York (video at PO), at least 70 arrested (video at PO). Earlier in the week, police renounced to evict Zuccotti Park as resistance gathered stronger (WSNS),

Elsewhere in the USA: Reno, Delaware Co., Bellingham, San Francisco, Tallahassee, New York City (at night), Miami (Kaos[es] says they have camped at the Government Center)

Mexico: protests in Mexico City (some 5000 people),  Guadalajara, Tijuana, Querétaro, Puebla, Monterrey and even the much troubled Ciudad Juárez ··> Kaos[es].

Chile:

Some 30,000 people demonstrated in the capital ··> Kaos[es].

Earlier in the week, police charged against student protesters again ··> video at PO.

Elsewhere in Latin America: Buenos Aires ··> Kaos[es], Quito, ··> Kaos[es].

Europe:

Protests all across the continent ··> general videos via PO: Rome, Berlin, London, Brussels, London, Madrid, Rome.

Brussels

Massive protests in Rome turned violent (video at PO, video at BBC), dozens injured. The situation in Italy has been heating up along the week, with more and more protests against social cuts and discredited PM Berlusconi (video at PO) and was already quite violent, with students at Milan earlier in the week assaulting the office of Goldman Sachs (video at PO).

Madrid - Puerta del Sol

 

Uni occupation at Barcelona

Massive protests also in the State of Spain (Kaos[es], includes video of Madrid):

• Puerta del Sol (Madrid) occupied again by 500,000 people
• 250,000 marched through Barcelona, where they camp again as well, and have occupied faculties and hospitals ··> Kaos[es].
• 50,000 protested in Seville
• 35,000 in Valencia
• 20,000 in Vigo
• 20,000 in Málaga
• 15,000 in Mieres (Asturias)
• 15,000 in Santander
• 11,000 in Bilbao
• 10,000 in Granada
• 10,000 in Palma de Majorca
• c. 4000 in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Valladolid, Almería, Huelva, Zaragoza, Salamanca
• 'thousands' in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Murcia, Logroño
• less important numbers in Cádiz, Jaén

In Barcelona as well, a building was squatted to give housing to evicted families ··> Kaos[es].

A home is not any luxury but a right

Update: in Pamplona a large demo also took to the streets ··> Ateak Ireki[es] (includes video of the many with very nice percussion show).

Update: photo gallery of the Bilbao protest ··> Fickr (via Branka[eu]).

They say shit, we say amen (80s punk song) before the Pirate-Basque banner

Thousands took Lisbon as well (Kaos[es]). The Army announces that they will not repress any popular revolt (Kaos[es]).

Police attacks students in Dublin, who had occupied the Finance Ministry (video at PO), Irish Central Bank besieged by demonstrators (Kaos[es]).

Thousands of protesters in London (left) before St. Paul Cathedral ··> video at PO, The Guardian.

London

In Greece also (Kaos[es]) but the whole week has been one of struggles, with a general strike earlier, etc. Municipal workers (severely affected by budget cuts) are on strike since  yesterday 15th to the 20th in protest, the last two days are also general (national) strike ··> Contra Info, Occupy London, WSWS.

Elsewhere in Europe (partly from Kaos[es]): Iceland, Brussels, Warsaw, Cologne, Munich, Amsterdam, Zürich, Geneva, Frankfurt, Paris...

Asia, Africa, Oceania:

Morocco: Police charged against thousands of demonstrators in Rabat (Kaos[es]).

Palestine: demos reported in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem and Kiryat Shmona (Kaos[es]).

Philippines: Protests in Manila against inequality ··> video at PO.

Indonesia (just a mention: Kaos[es]).

Singapore: demos forbidden by the fascist regime (Kaos[es]).

China: Hong-Kong: 200 people (Kaos[es]).

Taiwan: Taipei: 100 people (Kaos[es]).

Seoul: 50 people (Kaos[es]).

Tokyo: several thousands (Kaos[es], includes video). 

Australia: 300 people demonstrate in Sydney (Kaos[es]).

New Zealand: some 500 people gathered in Wellington and Auckland, plus some others at Dunedin and New Plymouth (Kaos[es]).

See also: Al Jazeera 15-Oct blog,  The Guardian live blog, Gara[es], editorial opinion at WSWS.

________________ . ________________

In other developments:

Basque Country:

Tens of thousands demonstrated for independence at Bilbao on Wednesday ··> Branka[eu],

132 people denounced tortures in the Southern Basque Country in 2010, half of them in Navarre ··> Gara[es]: news article, report (PDF).

Police attack against Herriko Taberna (People's Tavern) in the Old Quarter of Bilbao. Dead activists' photos decomissed, a worker threatened, and two workers set to appear before the Spanish Inquisition (Audiencia Nacional, political tribunal of fascist heritage) next Wednesday ··> Branka[es].

'Zombies' take Caja Navarra (CAN, regional savings bank) ··> Ateak Ireki[es].

Catalonia:

Antifascists attack Nazi club at Poble Nou (Barcelona). Two arrested ··> Sare Antifaxista[es].

Farce trial against communists ··> SA[es].

France: Lille: thousands of antifascists respond to Nazi rally ··> La Haine (photos and video).

NATO:

Protest in Brussels against NATO's war crimes in Libya ··> video at PO.

Bomb attacks (not exploded) in Germany against railroads in protest of Afghan War. A group named 'Hekla, Reception Committee' claimed the placing of several home-made petrol bombs in several railroads in the Central European country ··> SA[es].

Ireland: nurses march in Dublin against emergency services overcrowding ··> video at PO.

Germany: the Nazi past of BMW owner clan comes to light. Other infamous pro-Nazi companies and personalities were Hugo Boss, Bertelsmann, Standard Oil (now Exxon and Chevron), Henry Ford, IBM, Rockefeller Foundation, Joe Kennedy, Prescott Bush, Thyssen, Deutsche Bank, IG-Farben (now Bayer, Basf and Hoest), Krupp, Siemens, Varta, Bosch, Daimler Benz, Volkswagen, all major Swiss banks, Coca-Cola, Unilever, Westinghouse, General Electric, ITT... ··> SA[es], El País[es].

Greece: opinion: Michael Hudson denies that the Greek people ever gave consent the debt or the cuts ··> The Real News video at Naked Capitalism.

Ukraine, Russia: Nazi terrorist killed by his own grenade. Aleksey Korshunov, a well known Russian Nazi murderer, died in yesterday at Zaporozhe (Ukraine) when an explosive device he carried exploded. He is accused of the murders of Stanislav Markelov, Ivan Khutorskoy and judge Eduard Chuvashov ··> Sare Antifaxista[es].

Syria:  

Death toll hits 3000 since protests began ··> BBC. 

Army murders mourners at Damasucs ··> Al Jazeera.

Exiles in Jordan protest against Assad

Yemen: Army attacks demonstrators at Sanaa, murdering at least 16. NATO and UN accused of double standards ··> Al Jazeera (incl. video).

USA, Iran: opinion: Operation Fast and Furious or how to marry Al Qaeda and Teheran ··> Pepe Escobar at Al Jazeera.

USA: BP accused of terrorizing activist citizens:

Steven Aguinaga (left), who filed a lawsuit against BP and Washington's handling of the oil disaster, saw himself charged with drunk driving without any test performed. After paying the fines, he saw that his iPhone had been replaced by a brand new one. 

Cherry Frotlin, who marched on foot to Washington D.C. to bring the plea of Gulf Residents to Obama, saw her car damaged and her husband, who works for the oil corporation, transferred to another rig.

In the recent past, pipeline inspectors used to suffer death threats and even broken arms, that's how things work in the Gulf of Mexico, USA.

··> Al Jazeera.

Haiti: earthquake victims forcibly evicted from camps after Christian NGO Oxfam left the country (not profitable?) ··>  AlterNet.

Honduras: Canal 10 journalists form union and are fired ··> LINYM[es].

Nepal: struggle within the Maoist Party ··> MyRepublica, Revolution in South Asia.

Japan nuclear crisis:

Japan's Nuclear Agency calculated 'China Syndrome' two weeks after the accident... and kept it secret ··> Fukushima Diary.

Infrared photos of Fukushima Dai Ichi reactors ··> Ex-SKF.

Reactor 1

Leak of actual contamination official report in Fukushima at Fukushima Diary:

Soil from Hayasaka,Namie machi 7/2/2011> 564,215Bq/Kg
Mushroom from Teshichiro Namie machi 9/23/2011> 404,814Bq/kg (5,000Bq per mushroom)
Soil in a rice field from Tsushima Namie machi 8/22/2011> 254,110Bq/kg

Fukushima rice, radioactive or not, cleared for consumption by the government ··> Ex-SKF.

Japanese consumer: We rely now on Moroccan octopus and Chilean salmon ··> The Globe and Mail.

Strontium-90, posing huge health danger and with a half-life of 29 years, widespread in parts of Japan, including Tokyo ··> CNN, The Australian, EneNews.

Citizen who broke the news on Strontium-90 in Tokyo suffers death threats and closes down his blog. He said:

The whole purpose of my studying the radiation and radiation contamination and sharing information has been to protect my family, especially our young daughter. There is no point in doing so if my family's safety is threatened because of it. Please understand.

··> Ex-SKF.

Japan tolerates radiation levels in tap water 20 times greater than around Chernobyl ··> The Mainichi Daily News, EneNews.

Tokyo amusement park and other locations with greater radioactivity than Fukushima ··> PhilStar, AFP, EneNews. But in at least one case it was caused by radium residues (of medical origin) dumped under a house near a kindergarten ··> The Guardian.

Song of the day: Meltdown! by Kiyoshiro Imawano (via Ex-SKF):

This Japanese musician (unknown to me until yesterday) saw some of his songs unpublished by Toshiba in 1988 because of the anti-nuclear and anti-war content. He died of cancer in 2009.