Quierid@s hermanas y hermanos:
This week the Hispanic Business Association (along with various other entities) will be presenting awards to the ’10 most influential Latin Americans’ of 2010. This event has taken place for several years with little controversy or protest. It has been genuinely received as an attempt to recognize people in the community who have laudable achievements or are making contributions to Latin Americans. However, this year is different.
This year, the unfortunate decision has been made to include Barrick Gold as a key sponsor and selector of the award winners. Barrick Gold is the largest pure gold mining company currently undertaking mining and exploration projects in Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Dominican Republic and Peru. Barrick Gold has been the subject of much controversy around workers’ rights and environmental degradation, among other issues in Latin America. Read more…
by Nayani Thiyagarajah – BASICS Issue #24
I was looking for something more. For the stories of my people to be examined outside general conversation, to be talked about somewhere other than the television screen, and truthfully, to look at them from beyond the confines of my own mind.
With Not By Our Tears, I was able to finally find what I had sought for so long. I found our stories, the stories of the Sri Lankan Tamil community, shared in a seemingly new yet actually reclaimed space: the stage. Read more…
by S. da Silva – BASICS Issue #24
September and October 2010 saw the largest mobilizations in French society in 40 years. The union activity and independent actions of working people and the masses brought the economy to a near grinding halt. The immediate target of the people’s fury: President Nicolas Sarkozy and his anti-worker pension reforms, which sought to raise the minimum retirement age from 60 to 62, and delay the receipt of a full state pension from 65 to 67.
Some 3.5 million people, mostly public sector workers, took to the streets on October 19 alone.
Air transit strikes had 50 percent of flights cancelled at Paris Orly airport and an additional 30 percent at remaining metropolitan airports. Workers at the national railway company (SNCF) and the Paris railway system (RATP) also walked out at one point. According to company figures, four in ten regional trains did not run. Read more…
Despite student resistance, on Oct 18 the University of Toronto’s (U of T) Governing Council approved space use policy revisions that will further restrict student and community access to campus space.
The policy revisions include provisions to increase the cost of booking space on campus and restrict external groups and speakers from participating in on-campus events.
“These policy revisions are politically motivated,” says Danielle Sandhu, VP Equity for the U of T Students’ Union. “U of T administrators do not like it when students voice dissent on campus, whether regarding the G20 and police violence or Canadian militarism and the Israel/Palestine conflict.”
BASICS Issue #24 – by S. da Silva
To many, the unprecedented crackdown and detention of over 1000 activists, dissidents, even regular people, at the G20 Summit in Toronto seemed to express the emergence of a ‘police state’ in Canada. For others, it was unbelievable that this could happen ‘here,’ that things like this only happened elsewhere, in ‘other’ places, like in third world countries or under military dictatorships.
Some Canadians may recall the internment of over 9000 ‘enemy aliens’ during World War I – mostly the Ukrainians who were reduced to slave-like labour, working under the barrel of a gun, clearing, draining, and cultivating new lands for more worthy settlers. Many more will also remember the dispossession and internment of some 22,000 Japanese Canadians during World War II. However, ceremonial apologies have rendered these events regrettable things of the past and have nothing to do with today, right? Wrong. Read more…
By Marco Luciano
The Global Forum on Migration and Development (GFMD) once again met this year for the fourth time since it started in 2007. GFMD was held in Puerta Vallarta, Mexico on November 10-11, 2010. The first was held in Brussels in July 2007, the second in Manila on October 2008, and the third was in Athens, Greece on November 2009.
The GFMD was conceived by UN dialogue in 2005 on migration and development. It defines itself as an “informal multilateral and state-led multi-stakeholder process” that is meant to “identify practical and feasible ways to strengthen the mutually beneficial relationship between migration and development.” While not formally part of the UN process, it is aimed at providing a venue for labor-receiving and labor-sending countries to trade strategies around instituting temporary labor migration programs (TMLPs). Pegged as a ‘win-win-win’ for both sets of governments and migrants themselves, temporary labor migration programs are being celebrated as the best solution to labor-receiving governments’ demand for cheap foreign workers to whom they are unwilling to extend full citizenship rights, to labor-sending governments’ need to address domestic unemployment, and to bolster foreign exchange reserves, and migrants’ and their families’ needs for livable wages. Read more…
In this show, we talk to Anti-Racist Action member Jason Devine about the home invasion he suffered at the hands of neo-Nazis on the night of Nov 7-8, while his four children and wife were in the house. The Nazi thugs beat him and another friend with bats, hammers, and other blunt weapons. We discuss fascist and anti-fascist politics across Canada and throughout history.
In this show, on the eve of the trial that may send Mumia Abu Jamal back to death row, we review his case, listen to some of his most recent radio commentaries, and play some musical tributes to the brother we all know to be innocent. Read more…
