Socialist Project - In The News

Land grabbing in Latin America

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:49:24 -0500

The history of Latin America is one of agrarian conflicts, and of indigenous peoples struggling to defend their ancestral territories. A new chapter of this history is opening. Another wave of land grabbing is hitting the Americas, and this time it operates from a distance and wears a halo of 'neutrality'. Today's land grabbers (as thoroughly explained in governmental web brochures) say that they are merely responding to food insecurity and a world crisis 'that forces us to grow food wherever we can, even if we outsource production, because we will bring home this food for the benefit of our citizens'. But when we dig a little, the financial monster shows its tail. The land grabbers are in fact big corporations and joint ventures investing enormous amounts of money in land, food production, the export and import of commodities, and food-market speculation.

Greeks Strike Over Budget Cuts, Bonds, Stocks Decline

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 11:09:00 -0500

March 11 (Bloomberg) -- Greek hospitals, airports and schools were shut and police scuffled with protesters as unions staged the second general strike this year against government budget cuts to curb the European Union's biggest deficit. ....... 'The main risk is not that adjustment in Greece is not feasible, but that Greek society will refuse to shoulder the inevitable near-term economic pain,' Deutsche Bank analysts including Thomas Mayer wrote in a research note.

Halalt First Nation holding blockade for the water

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 10:39:00 -0500

For more than two weeks now, members of the Halalt First Nation, near the southeastern coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, have held onto their own 'protective blockade' in defense of the Chemainus River. The blockade officially went up on February 25, just two days after the Okanagan Band launched their blockade to defend the same prescious resource: their water. More than half the First Nation is taking part in the effort, which is centered at a portion of Chemainus Road that runs through their territory.

Vale Inco workers in Sudbury, Ont., reject offer to end 8-month strike

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:40:58 -0500

SUDBURY, Ont. - Vale Inco workers in Sudbury, Ont., have voted 88.7 per cent to reject the company's latest contract offer. Their colleagues at the nickel miner's operation in Port Colborne, Ont., cast their votes today. The offer was presented to the union bargaining committee on Sunday during exploratory talks with a mediator in Toronto

45 Colombian union leaders assassinated in 2009

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:30:00 -0500

Amid new reports of human rights abuses in Colombia involving the assassination of union leaders, Canada's largest labour organization says it is appalled the Harper government will try to fast-track approval of a free trade deal with that country.

European Trade Unions stand shoulder to shoulder with Greek workers

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 09:00:00 -0500

Not workers but financial markets caused the crisis. Workers are losing their jobs in the hundreds of thousands because of the greed and the speculation of the 'Lords of Finance'. This is the reason why the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) expresses its whole solidarity with Greece. The ETUC is concerned to observe that Greece seems to be alone to face a renewed wave of financial market speculation, orchestrated by the 'Goldman Sachses' of this world. The European Council, the European Central Bank and the European Commission are giving an entirely wrong message: Speculators are not to be touched while workers and governments are pressed to cut wages, social benefits and public services.

The Travails of a Client State

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:30:00 -0500

For a country in which ultra-nationalism was for so long a problem, the weakness of nationalism in contemporary Japan is puzzling. Six and a half decades after the war ended, Japan still clings to the apron of its former conqueror. Government and opinion leaders want Japan to remain occupied, and are determined at all costs to avoid offence to the occupiers. US forces still occupy lands they then took by force, especially in Okinawa, while the Government of Japan insists they stay and pays them generously to do so

Billionaires and Mega-Corporations Behind Immense Land Grab in Africa

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:11:17 -0500

20+ African countries are selling or leasing land for intensive agriculture on a shocking scale in what may be the greatest change of ownership since the colonial era.

Sean Penn: Journalists who call Hugo Ch�vez a dictator should be jailed

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:06:34 -0500

Penn, who has visited Ch�vez in Caracas, said Venezuela's poor majority had willingly embraced his leftist revolution, but that this view was concealed from Americans. 'We are hypnotised by the media. Who do you know here who's gone through 14 of the most transparent elections on the globe, and has been elected democratically, as Hugo Ch�vez?'

The Canadian Princes of Bel Air

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:00:09 -0500

Andrew Chung's lengthy article about the impoverished Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Bel Air ('Princes of Bel Air', Toronto Star March 7, 2010) makes three key claims about Haiti: 1) Deposed Haitian president Jean Bertrand Aristide was a corrupt and thuggish leader. Chung describes Bel Air as a 'slum with the reputation for gang violence, pro-Aristide thuggery, and, like Cit� Soleil, danger, especially after dark' and describes Aristide as 'populist but corrupt '. Chung claims that

Sweeping victory for SEIU reformers

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 14:45:00 -0500

IN A stunning upset, union reformers in Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1021 swept to victory in their local's first-ever elections--an outcome that will rattle the top leaders of the 2 million-member union. The reformers in Local 1021 were expected to do well given the Northern California local's poor performance in defending jobs and public services, and local officials' seeming inability to resist concessions.