Archives – Page 43 – Upside Down World

Commentary – Lies and Deceit: One Neighbor’s Deportation Sheds Light on the Inhumanity of US Immigration Enforcement

April 21, 2014 Daniela Maria Ugaz 0

I remember jolting awake at 6 AM. Still dark. Someone was banging on my neighbors’ door. I could hear whispering, then screaming. When I opened my eyes, just like that, I made out two, three, four distinct voices. Months later, my neighbor, who I’ll call Beto, told me there must have been 10 to 12 police officers at his door that morning. They were definitely police and not Immigration.

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Peoples’ Encounter in Resistance Against the Extractive Mining Model in Mexico

April 21, 2014 James Rodríguez, MiMundo.org 0

The Mexican Network of Mining-Affected Peoples (REMA, for its initials in Spanish) and the Mesoamerican Movement against the Mining Extractive Model (M4) organized a three-day nationwide encounter in the Northern Sierra of Puebla where hundreds of mining-affected community members from numerous states participated in talks and workshops where experiences, strategies for the defense of the territory, and socio-environmental impacts were shared and exchanged.

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National Congress of Brazil’s Landless Movement: Reinvention in Motion

April 18, 2014 Raúl Zibechi 0

After three decades of struggle for agrarian reform, Brazil’s Landless Movement paused during its 6th Congress to evaluate its experience and reflect on the new reality. The goal: to change while changing themselves.

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Photo Essay: The Beehive Collective’s First Tour in Colombia of the New Graphic Campaign ‘Mesoamérica Resiste’

April 17, 2014 Polinizaciones 0

After nine years of research and illustration, the Beehive Design Collective launched their latest graphic campaign, Mesoamérica Resiste, in December of last year. Mesoamérica Resiste is the third installment in a trilogy about globalization in the Americas (following earlier graphics about the FTAA and Plan Colombia). This graphic campaign was directly researched with communities from Mexico, Central America, and Colombia who are impacted by the Mesoamerican Integration and Development Project, a neoliberal regional development plan formerly known as Plan Puebla Panama.

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Latin America – Economic Socialism in the 21st Century: Neoliberalism “Pure and Simple”

April 15, 2014 Pablo Dávalos, Translation by Danica Jorden 0

Maybe the real alternative is not financing development and redistributing income, but the very idea of development. What Latin Americans desire at this point in time is not development but escaping from it. The development model is more an ideological construct for the region’s elites and middle classes rather than for the peoples who are suffering it. It is a pretext to take control of natural resources at the commodities feast.

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Ecuador: ¡Lo Logramos! Despite All Odds, Activists Present Signatures Needed to Save Yasuní

April 14, 2014 Sofía Jarrín 0

In August 2013, President Rafael Correa announced that the world had “failed us” for not giving Ecuador enough money to save Yasuní-ITT. When the deal went sour social, indigenous, and environmental organizations responded by launching a campaign to gather 600,000 signatures in six months, as stipulated by Ecuador’s constitution, to push for a National Referendum and to let Ecuadorians decide the fate of Yasuní-ITT.

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Colombia Approaches a Point of No Return in Loss of Biodiversity

April 12, 2014 BLCC2014, Translation by Alexandra Quinn 0

Facing the reality of disappearing ecosystems, decreasing populations and the extinction of species that the country is dealing with, it is time for the Colombian State’s decision-makers to implement actions immediately in order to stop this devastation before it is too late, according to four environmental experts who have given recommendations from their fields in the program Su Madre Naturaleza [Your Mother Nature] by Canal Capital.

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Canadian Corporation Plans Tar Sands Strip Mining in Trinidad and Tobago

April 11, 2014 Macdonald Stainsby 0

‘Mining tar sand will destroy Govt’ read the headline in April of 2012. The statement was made to Trinidad and Tobago’s Express newspaper by well-known environmental campaigner Dr. Wayne Kublalsingh to the news that Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar had made statements about working with Canada’s Harper Government to start development of tar sands for oil in Trinidad’s southwest peninsula.

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Colombia: ‘That is How Dead Guerillas are Made’, Through False Positives

April 9, 2014 Ander Izaguirre-El País, Translation by Christina Hewitt 0

“So you are the mother of the narco-guerilla commander,” the Ocaña District Attorney told her. “No, sir. I am the mother of Fair Leonardo Porras Bernal,” said Luz Maria Bernal. She replied that her son Leonardo, 26, had been born with mental disabilities and that he had the mental capacity of an eight year old. He could not read or write and had been certified as having a mental capacity of 53%.The right side of his body was paralyzed, including the hand which was allegedly used to hold the gun.

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Defending the Earth in Argentina: From Direct Action to Autonomy

April 7, 2014 Marina Sitrin 0

Emilio Spataro, an organizer in Corrientes, has been active in various movements in Argentina since his teen years. He was a part of the popular rebellion in December of 2001 and the subsequent neighborhood assemblies, building occupations and horizontal self organized projects. Since 2009 he has been living in Corrientes, collaborating with territorially based movements.

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