Justice for the Undocumented Challenges for the New Sanctuary Movement By ERIC JOHNSON-DEBAUFRE
On Wednesday, May 9th religious organizations in five U.S. cities announced the launch of the New Sanctuary Movement and pledged their determination to protect undocumented people against federal efforts to deport them. Modeled in part on the original Sanctuary Movement of the 1980s, this new movement distinguishes itself in part by being both significantly more religiously diverse-at the New York launch, representatives included Rabbi Michael Feinberg and founder and amir of the House of Peace, Shaykh T. A. Bashir-and directed towards a larger and more diverse population of immigrants.
As a participant in the original Sanctuary Movement and someone who has in the past written about the need for revitalizing and expanding it (see "Building a New Sanctuary Movement," CounterPunch 5/19/06), I greeted the announcement with both surprise and enthusiasm. Undocumented people and their allies ought to be encouraged by the emergence of this New Sanctuary Movement and wish it all possible success. Nevertheless, as the founders of the New Sanctuary Movement no doubt know, this new movement faces serious challenges. The most significant source would appear to come from the larger culture in which the New Sanctuary Movement and, more importantly, undocumented immigrants find themselves. As several recent articles in CounterPunch make clear, these challenges include the proliferation of both discourses that aim to disguise racism and nativism under the veneer of legalism and even, as in the May 1st attacks on migrants by the LAPD, physical violence.
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Thursday, May 17, 2007
Monday, May 14, 2007
Canada to launch no-fly list in June
May 12, 2007. Tonda MacCharles, Ottawa Bureau
OTTAWA – A Canadian "no-fly" list of people to be barred from boarding domestic and international airline flights is set to take effect June 18, just as the busy summer flying season gets underway.
The move, nearly six years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States, amounts to a flight blacklist of people "reasonably suspected" by federal officials as immediate threats to the safety of commercial aircraft, passengers or crew. Under the rules, as passengers check in for flights, whether at kiosks or counters, their names will be automatically screened against the government's list, known as the "Passenger Protect" program.
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OTTAWA – A Canadian "no-fly" list of people to be barred from boarding domestic and international airline flights is set to take effect June 18, just as the busy summer flying season gets underway.
The move, nearly six years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks on the United States, amounts to a flight blacklist of people "reasonably suspected" by federal officials as immediate threats to the safety of commercial aircraft, passengers or crew. Under the rules, as passengers check in for flights, whether at kiosks or counters, their names will be automatically screened against the government's list, known as the "Passenger Protect" program.
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Public Terror: Escalating the War on Migrants
By Juan Santos and Leslie Radford. May 12, 2007
(LOS ANGELES) Immigration activist Roberto Lovato was there when the Los Angeles Police Department launched its brutal assault on a park full of migrant families with children last week in LA, and this is what he saw and understood. “I saw the LAPD,” he wrote “dragging the immigrants and the entire country into dangerous terrain, a new threshold in the . . . immigration war raging around the country.”
What he saw was more than an Iraq-style surge; this was an all out escalation, a new strategic plateau in the US government’s War on Migrants. Javier Rodriguez, an immigration activist with L.A’s March 25th Coalition, called it a “political decision” to “dismantle this [immigrant rights] movement.”
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(LOS ANGELES) Immigration activist Roberto Lovato was there when the Los Angeles Police Department launched its brutal assault on a park full of migrant families with children last week in LA, and this is what he saw and understood. “I saw the LAPD,” he wrote “dragging the immigrants and the entire country into dangerous terrain, a new threshold in the . . . immigration war raging around the country.”
What he saw was more than an Iraq-style surge; this was an all out escalation, a new strategic plateau in the US government’s War on Migrants. Javier Rodriguez, an immigration activist with L.A’s March 25th Coalition, called it a “political decision” to “dismantle this [immigrant rights] movement.”
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Haitian Refugees: Capsized Boat Deliberately Overturned
Haitian migrants 'angry and revolted' at alleged boat ramming off Turks and Caicos. The Associated Press. May 8, 2007
PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti: Survivors of the worst sea disaster to hit Haitian migrants in years were "angry and revolted" Wednesday as they accused a Turks and Caicos vessel of ramming their crowded sailboat twice before it capsized, killing 61 in shark-filled waters, a senior Haitian official said.
Reports about the alleged involvement of the Turks and Caicos boat has taken days to come out because the 78 survivors are locked in a jail-like detention center and barred from speaking to the media. Officials say about 160 migrants were jammed in the rickety sailboat when it capsized before dawn Friday, flinging most of them into the Atlantic Ocean less than a kilometer (a half-mile) off the Turks and Caicos Islands, 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of Haiti.
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PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti: Survivors of the worst sea disaster to hit Haitian migrants in years were "angry and revolted" Wednesday as they accused a Turks and Caicos vessel of ramming their crowded sailboat twice before it capsized, killing 61 in shark-filled waters, a senior Haitian official said.
Reports about the alleged involvement of the Turks and Caicos boat has taken days to come out because the 78 survivors are locked in a jail-like detention center and barred from speaking to the media. Officials say about 160 migrants were jammed in the rickety sailboat when it capsized before dawn Friday, flinging most of them into the Atlantic Ocean less than a kilometer (a half-mile) off the Turks and Caicos Islands, 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of Haiti.
(Click here to read more)
Tigris River becoming a graveyard of bodies
10 May 2007 BAGHDAD (IRIN) -
The River Tigris has long been a symbol of prosperity in Iraq but since the US-led invasion in 2003, this amazing watercourse has turned into a graveyard of bodies.
In addition, the water level is decreasing as pollution increases, say environmentalists. Pollution in the river is caused by oil derivatives and industrial waste as well as Iraqi and US military waste, they say. The river was one of the main sources of water, food, transport and recreation for the local population but after four years of war and pollution, it has been transformed into a stagnant sewer, according to environmentalists.
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The River Tigris has long been a symbol of prosperity in Iraq but since the US-led invasion in 2003, this amazing watercourse has turned into a graveyard of bodies.
In addition, the water level is decreasing as pollution increases, say environmentalists. Pollution in the river is caused by oil derivatives and industrial waste as well as Iraqi and US military waste, they say. The river was one of the main sources of water, food, transport and recreation for the local population but after four years of war and pollution, it has been transformed into a stagnant sewer, according to environmentalists.
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Friday, May 11, 2007
Barrick Boss Gets Served
CANADA: BARRICK BOSS GETS SERVED by Amy Chung
Protest Barrick, a network of aboriginal communities from Australia, the U.S., Latin America and Asia, converged on Barrick Gold Corporation's shareholder meeting at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre May 2 to serve the company an eviction notice from First Nation land. As shareholders entered the meeting, representatives of Nevada's Shoshone Nation and Australia's Wiradjuri handed them leaflets alleging water depletion and contamination from cyanide, a chemical used to extract gold from crushed ore.
Some demonstrators held proxy ballots and were able to enter the AGM to personally tell shareholders and chair Peter Munk what their communities are facing. "I approached Munk after the meeting to tell him how Barrick is desecrating our sacred site, our dreaming place [Lake Cowal],'' says Neville "Chappy" Williams, an elder of the Wiradjuri from New South Wales. The answer from Munk, he says, was "I'm so sorry.''
(Click here to read more)
Thursday, May 10, 2007
Protests in Germany over raids
Protests in Germany over raids By MELISSA EDDY, Associated Press Writer Thu May 10, 3:15 AM ET
BERLIN - Thousands of people staged spontaneous demonstrations overnight in major German cities, police said Thursday, after nationwide raids against anti-globalization activists suspected of plotting to disrupt next month's Group of Eight summit.Hamburg police detained eight demonstrators who threw stones and bottles at officers securing the protests, staged outside the offices of a main activist group that had been raided. Another four demonstrators were arrested in Berlin, although protests there remained peaceful. Supporters of Germany's anti-globalization activists called the demonstrations hours after hundreds of officers, acting on a warrant from federal prosecutors, searched 40 offices and apartments used by left-wing protesters in Berlin, Hamburg and elsewhere.Prosecutors said they were investigating more than 18 people suspected of organizing what they called a terrorist group that planned to carry out firebombings and other violent attacks aimed at hindering or stopping the world leaders from holding the June 6-8 summit in the northern resort town of Heiligendamm.
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Trademarking Coffee: Starbucks cuts Ethiopia deal
Trademarking Coffee: Starbucks cuts Ethiopia deal by Anton Foek, Special to CorpWatch May 8th, 2007
Starbucks, the world's largest coffee shop chain, and the Ethiopian government are on the verge of unveiling a deal that the company hopes will end attacks on the company's carefully constructed ethical image. Starbucks spokesperson Bridget Baker told CorpWatch that "a licensing, distribution and marketing" agreement for three of Ethiopia's specialty coffees would be announced later this month. If the company recognizes Ethiopia's decision to trademark the three coffees, it would represent a significant climb-down for the multinational corporation that claims to sell "Coffee that Cares."
Starbucks change of mind would also represent success for an international campaign by Oxfam, a British-based not-for-profit organization. More than 93,000 people signed on to its call for Starbucks to complete an agreement with Ethiopia. An academic at the University of Oxford's Saïd Business School joined the attack with a stinging criticism of the company's stand, accusing it of hypocrisy and questioning its much-proclaimed social responsibility policies. Starbucks executives - running an ambitious global expansion plan that aims to increase the number of the company's coffee houses from 13,700 in 39 countries to 40,000 globally - were also aware that other companies, such as Green Mountain Coffee Roasters ("Fair Trade and Organic"), were cooperating with the Ethiopian initiative and winning praise for "exemplary" behavior.
(Click here to read more)
Starbucks, the world's largest coffee shop chain, and the Ethiopian government are on the verge of unveiling a deal that the company hopes will end attacks on the company's carefully constructed ethical image. Starbucks spokesperson Bridget Baker told CorpWatch that "a licensing, distribution and marketing" agreement for three of Ethiopia's specialty coffees would be announced later this month. If the company recognizes Ethiopia's decision to trademark the three coffees, it would represent a significant climb-down for the multinational corporation that claims to sell "Coffee that Cares."
Starbucks change of mind would also represent success for an international campaign by Oxfam, a British-based not-for-profit organization. More than 93,000 people signed on to its call for Starbucks to complete an agreement with Ethiopia. An academic at the University of Oxford's Saïd Business School joined the attack with a stinging criticism of the company's stand, accusing it of hypocrisy and questioning its much-proclaimed social responsibility policies. Starbucks executives - running an ambitious global expansion plan that aims to increase the number of the company's coffee houses from 13,700 in 39 countries to 40,000 globally - were also aware that other companies, such as Green Mountain Coffee Roasters ("Fair Trade and Organic"), were cooperating with the Ethiopian initiative and winning praise for "exemplary" behavior.
(Click here to read more)
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