Indigenous Resistance in Mexico

November 11, 2022

The Xonacatlan Indigenous Council (Juanacatlán, Jalisco State) issued a declaration establishing their territory “free of industry, free of megaprojects, free of mining and material banks.”

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Ecuador’s Indigenous movement wins concessions

July 2, 2022

On June 30, after 18 days of protests, the government of Ecuador sat at the negotiating table with the leaders of the Indigenous movement. A representative of the Catholic Church asked reluctant Indigenous leaders to sign the agreement prepared by the government.

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World in View: Australia’s castaways

February 2, 2018

Since 2012 Australia has held around 2,000 refugees and asylum seekers in brutal detention camps. Afghans, Iranians, Iraqis, Uighurs, Rohingya and Kurds, thrown together, have been subjected to stress, violence, and rape.

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Murderous King Coal on trial

January 29, 2015

Don Blankenship—owner of the Upper Big Branch Massey mine in West Virginia in 2010 when the mine exploded, killing 29 coal miners—was indicted. Nevertheless, the coal lobby still exerts considerable power in the state, and uses that power to support mountaintop mining and to thwart environmentally progressive programs that try to minimize the many dangerous aspects of coal mining.

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Women WorldWide November-December 2014

November 22, 2014

From the November-December 2014 issue of News & Letters

by Artemis

In Guatemala, the Mayan Women’s Movement (MWM), a part of the Council of K’itche People, works with trade unions and farmers to stop mining, hydroelectric dams, monoculture crops, mega-tourism, and infrastructure-building by corporations that destroy natural resources and push them [=>]

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Help us! Paramilitaries in Colombia Threaten Black and Indigenous Communities to Protect Illegal Mining

October 19, 2014

An appeal for help from the Afro-Colombian Solidarity Network (ACSN):
Hello. We need the media to help us get this information out. These paramilitaries are going to kill us.

Help us please.
We need many people to write letters to the council of state and to the government of Colombia demanding the protection of the communities of La Toma and the north of Cauca.

On the evening [=>]

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Put miners in charge

August 29, 2014

From the September-October 2014 issue of News & Letters

Detroit—A mid-May fire killed 301 miners by carbon monoxide poisoning due to mine owners’ negligence in the worst coal mine disaster in Turkey’s history (see “Turkish miners killed,” July-August N&L). First reports indicated that the fire started when a transformer blew up. A subsequent investigation revealed that [=>]

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Chile re-inters miners

October 1, 2013

Despite overwhelming evidence against the mine owners, a judge ruled that no one was responsible for the mine collapse in Chile that trapped 33 miners three years ago.

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Fake Burmese reforms

March 6, 2013

When highly lauded Burmese human rights activist Aung San Suu Kyi doubted whether the Rohingya Muslims really belong in Burma, the incipient racism and ethnic chauvinism echoed personally. I consider myself, my family and many other ethnic minorities to be exiles, having fled persecution in Burma during the post-colonial era of national independence movements. In [=>]

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Black lung disease increasing in youth

September 16, 2012

Detroit, Mich.–An alarming increase in black lung disease (pneumoconiosis) among coal miners is raising serious questions about the effectiveness of coal dust suppression in the nation’s mines. Since the 1980s, cases of the disease have quadrupled in West Virginia, Kentucky and Virginia. Whereas before it had primarily affected older miners, studies by the Center for Public Integrity, the [=>]

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