Two dead, four injured in roof collapse at job site north of Fort McMurray (Roof-Collapse)
FORT MCKAY, Alta. (CP) _ Two workers were killed and four others injured Tuesday when a roof collapsed at a Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. job site north of Fort McMurray.The company said in a news release that the 2:30 p.m. accident involved a roof support structure at the tank erection site of the Horizon Oil Sands Project.“All authorities have been notified of this incident,‘‘ the company said in a news release.“The site has been immediately secured and injured workers are receiving appropriate medical attention by the on-site medical staff.‘‘A worker told CTV Edmonton it was windy and the large tank just flew apart.“I heard this horrible noise, just crashing steel, smashing, crashing, and I looked over and I saw bunch of steel flying, these huge towers they use for holding up the tank roof,‘‘ the unidentified worker said.All workers were evacuated from the site, the worker said.
Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour, said he received a few phone calls from union members at the site.“They told us there‘d been an accident on the Horizon site involving temporary foreign workers from China brought in by CNR or one of their contractors to work on a big tank farm on the Horizon site,‘‘ McGowan said.“Our understanding is that one of the big tanks collapsed and in the process at least two workers were killed and as many as four were injured.‘‘McGowan said he did not know what caused the collapse.“That‘s all we got before our members‘ cell phones were confiscated by management.‘‘Barrie Harrison, communications officer for Occupational Health and Safety, also said it‘s not clear what happened.He could not confirm if the workers were from China and did not know their ages or gender.
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Monday, May 7, 2007
Role of Settlers in Indigenous Struggles
The Role of Settlers in Indigenous Struggles Zainab Amadahy. Questions arising from the Six Nations land reclamation
By mid-March, 2006, when activist communities discovered the land reclamation at Six Nations of the Grand River, carloads of non-Aboriginal supporters from Toronto, Montreal and beyond made almost daily trips to the site loaded with supplies and youthful activists eager to staff the cookhouse, help out in the first-aid tent, or do a security shift. At night gaggles of underdressed youth would huddle at the fire, soaking up community gossip directly from “the real grassroots” (as one white activist described members of the Grand River community).
In the three months following the April 28, 2006 OPP raid on the Six Nations land reclamation, it wasn’t unusual to find times when there were more white settlers camped out on the reclaimed territory than members of the Grand River community. Some activists were there for the early morning raid and have described the experience of nearly being arrested in everything from public events to on-line downloadable videos. It’s worth noting that all the people charged by the OPP that day or since were Native; no non-Natives are facing charges, even though many were on the site before, during and after the raid.
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Azmi Bishara: Why is Israel After Me
Why is Israel After Me? By AZMI BISHARA
Amman, Jordan. I am a Palestinian from Nazareth, a citizen of Israel and was, until last month, a member of the Israeli parliament. But now, in an ironic twist reminiscent of France's Dreyfus affair--in which a French Jew was accused of disloyalty to the state--the government of Israel is accusing me of aiding the enemy during Israel's failed war against Lebanon in July. Israeli police apparently suspect me of passing information to a foreign agent and of receiving money in return. Under Israeli law, anyone--a journalist or a personal friend--can be defined as a "foreign agent" by the Israeli security apparatus. Such charges can lead to life imprisonment or even the death penalty.
The allegations are ridiculous. Needless to say, Hezbollah--Israel's enemy in Lebanon--has independently gathered more security information about Israel than any Arab Knesset member could possibly provide. What's more, unlike those in Israel's parliament who have been involved in acts of violence, I have never used violence or participated in wars. My instruments of persuasion, in contrast, are simply words in books, articles and speeches. These trumped-up charges, which I firmly reject and deny, are only the latest in a series of attempts to silence me and others involved in the struggle of the Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel to live in a state of all its citizens, not one that grants rights and privileges to Jews that it denies to non-Jews.
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The Revolution Will not be Funded
Are the Cops in Our Heads and Hearts? by Paula X. Rojas
Like many other activists on the left, I have been struggling with the contradictions found in organizing work here in the United States. I have worked in community-based organizing, both within and outside. My experiences both in the United States and in Latin America have shaped my analysis of the non-profit system as well as alternatives to this system. In the US I am involved in grassroots organizing work with a multigenerational community of poor and working class women of color in Brooklyn (Sista II Sista and Pachamama).
But what has most pushed my analysis has come from my work and experiences outside of the US, specifically in Latin America. As an adult I have spent a few years in Chile, my country of origin, supporting organizing efforts against the military dictatorship headed by Augusto Pinochet and the neoliberal “democracies” of the Christian Democratic Party that followed. From Chile, I had the opportunity to travel to La Paz and El Alto, Bolivia, in 1994 and meet with local activists. In Mexico, I have worked with women’s groups around political and physical self defense in rural and urban areas. I also had various opportunities to visit the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico, first spending 3 weeks in the Autonomous territories in 1999. In 2003 I had a few days visiting an encampment and a settlement of the MST (Landless Rural Unemployed Workers Movement) in Brazil and attended a continental gathering of Autonomous Movements in Argentina held at an occupied factory in 2005.
Through these experiences and many (mostly informal) conversations, over cheap wine and good music, with other compañer@s, organizers, friends and family in both Latin America and the United States, I have gathered these reflections that I want to share.
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Mining Company Barrick's Dirty Secrets Worldwide
Barrick's Dirty Secrets: Communities Respond to Gold Mining's Impacts Worldwide May 1st, 2007
Canadian-owned Barrick Gold, the world's largest gold producer, is exploring, building and operating huge, open-pit gold mines on nearly every continent on the planet. On average, gold mining today produces 70 tons of waste for every ounce of gold, while also consuming and polluting massive amounts of water. An estimated 50 percent of these mining operations occur on native lands.For many Indigenous peoples, who often rely on their environment for food and necessities, mining threatens not only their livelihood, but also their spirituality and traditional way of life. These new "modern mining" projects leave thousand-year legacies of acid mine drainage, destruction of ecosystems, disease, and regional climate change. Riches in the form of gold, silver and copper are exported to first world shareholders, leaving behind poverty, dependency and pollution. A new CorpWatch report details the operations of Barrick gold in nine different countries, focusing on the efforts on the part of the communities to seek justice from this powerful multinational.
(Click here to read more)
Canadian-owned Barrick Gold, the world's largest gold producer, is exploring, building and operating huge, open-pit gold mines on nearly every continent on the planet. On average, gold mining today produces 70 tons of waste for every ounce of gold, while also consuming and polluting massive amounts of water. An estimated 50 percent of these mining operations occur on native lands.For many Indigenous peoples, who often rely on their environment for food and necessities, mining threatens not only their livelihood, but also their spirituality and traditional way of life. These new "modern mining" projects leave thousand-year legacies of acid mine drainage, destruction of ecosystems, disease, and regional climate change. Riches in the form of gold, silver and copper are exported to first world shareholders, leaving behind poverty, dependency and pollution. A new CorpWatch report details the operations of Barrick gold in nine different countries, focusing on the efforts on the part of the communities to seek justice from this powerful multinational.
(Click here to read more)
Barack Obama, Corporate Candidate
Barack Obama, Just Another Corporate Candidate By Joshua Frank
One cannot scale the ranks of the Democratic establishment without selling out to Washington insiders, and presidential aspirant Barack Obama is quite adept at playing the game. Since announcing his candidacy in early February, Obama has raised millions of dollars from corporate fat-cats and multinational corporations. While the young candidate has leaned heavily on law firms to which he has professional connections -- he’s also not been afraid to dip in to the trough of Big Business. And it’s a sure sign Obama is a real contender for his party’s nomination. When Howard Dean’s campaign began to gain momentum during the 2004 elections, the former Vermont governor had not flipped through his party’s corporate black book, and instead relied heavily on the grassroots to provide fuel for his presidential bid. The party’s elite, nervous and unsure that Dean could be one of them, taught the naïve doctor a harsh lesson: the establishment quietly sacked Dean for America because he had not accepted the way business is done in Washington.
There's no question that industry loves Barack. As of March 31, UBS, the second largest bank in Europe, has given over $165,000 to his campaign. The Exelon corporation, which is the nation’s largest nuclear plant operator, has donated almost $160,000. The investment Goliath, Goldman Sachs, has also fattened the pockets of Barack Inc. with over $143,000. Citigroup has given well over $50,000 with Morgan Stanley close behind at $40,000. Wall Street has Obama’s back.
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The Migrant Trap
The Migrant Trap By LESLIE RADFORD
The pre-dawn pounding at the door startles the family out of its sleep. "Police!" a voice bellows from the other side. Maybe a family member or neighbor is in trouble, maybe there's an emergency in the neighborhood. The door's unlatched and opened, and federal agents burst through. They grab the mother, handcuff her, and disappear her into the night. Agents in riot gear seal off the factory, locking doors and windows, and, pointing military rifles at the employees, sort them into two groups. One group is dragged out and dispersed to prisons a thousand miles away. Older sisters lead their younger siblings through local jails looking for a parent. A nun roams detention facilities clutching a nursing baby, trying to find the child's mother. It takes weeks and a lawsuit before lawyers and family members learn where all the workers have been taken.
The imprisoned have only two choices: struggle through a legal process they barely understand with official assurances they won't succeed and might endanger the rest of their family, or go into self-imposed exile abroad, away from their wife, husband, sons, and daughters, from their home and their community. This is not the extraordinary rendition of fingered terrorist suspects in some faraway land. This is the increasingly ordinary rendition of migrants from within the United States.
(Click here to read more)
Multiculturalism Kills Me
Multiculturalism Kills Me By Vijay Prashad
Not as much as straight-up racism. That's made a comeback these days. This year, the number of incidents of "black face" and other assorted throwbacks to Jim Crow racism is astounding. My own campus suffered this, as did Texas A&M (where the scandal broke just as President George W. Bush nominated its president, Robert Gates, to be his Secretary of Defense). Such Klan-variety racism is generally couched as juvenile thoughtlessness, lubricated with drink and drugs, although it doesn't feel like a prank for African American students. For them, this is terrorism of a domestic sort.
Colleges respond to such racism with a call for tolerance and diversity.
More diversity, less racism. That's the received wisdom. Diversity and tolerance are part of an ensemble of concepts that form the heart of liberal multiculturalism. College administrators rightly cast out cruel racism. Against intolerance of difference, they champion a diverse cultural life world and ask that we respect that which is unfamiliar. With experience comes comfort. On the surface, there is nothing wrong with such an attitude. Indeed, it is far better to have differences championed than denigrated. Liberal multiculturalism, whose main concepts are tolerance and diversity, provides a raft for students who otherwise would be on the frontline of juvenile cruelty. But, liberal multiculturalism does as much long-term harm as it does short-term good. Here are some of its problems.
(Click here to read more)
Not as much as straight-up racism. That's made a comeback these days. This year, the number of incidents of "black face" and other assorted throwbacks to Jim Crow racism is astounding. My own campus suffered this, as did Texas A&M (where the scandal broke just as President George W. Bush nominated its president, Robert Gates, to be his Secretary of Defense). Such Klan-variety racism is generally couched as juvenile thoughtlessness, lubricated with drink and drugs, although it doesn't feel like a prank for African American students. For them, this is terrorism of a domestic sort.
Colleges respond to such racism with a call for tolerance and diversity.
More diversity, less racism. That's the received wisdom. Diversity and tolerance are part of an ensemble of concepts that form the heart of liberal multiculturalism. College administrators rightly cast out cruel racism. Against intolerance of difference, they champion a diverse cultural life world and ask that we respect that which is unfamiliar. With experience comes comfort. On the surface, there is nothing wrong with such an attitude. Indeed, it is far better to have differences championed than denigrated. Liberal multiculturalism, whose main concepts are tolerance and diversity, provides a raft for students who otherwise would be on the frontline of juvenile cruelty. But, liberal multiculturalism does as much long-term harm as it does short-term good. Here are some of its problems.
(Click here to read more)
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