Focus 99

CHANGING LANDSCAPES

DODGY TRADE DEALS.

CULTURE

Still shrouded in secrecy and spin, the proposed TTIP agreement is meeting growing public resistance

Myanmar is still in flux, yet amid sectarian tensions and exploitation there is a growing hopefulness.

“Capitalism: The Musical”, explores - in pretty unique ways - the experiences of working class life.

> TTIP PAGE 3

> POLITICS PAGE 4

> THEATRE PAGE 7

FOCUS

ACTION FOR GLOBAL JUSTICE. June 2016 | Published By Comhlámh | ISSUE 99

www.comhlamh.org

A mural montage in Cataonlia tagged “Berta Cáceres Lives.” and “land, bread, work, life”| Photo Credits: Wikimedia

Berta Cáceres’ Legacy

Early in the morning of March 3, Berta Cáceres was assassinated as she slept.

SIAN COWMAN Democracy Center Bolivia

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he Honduran activist’s assassination shines a light on the risk of death for environmental defenders in Latin America.

Berta cofounded the National Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras, or COPINH, in order to defend the territorial rights of indigenous and campesino people against logging and other extractive projects. For over 20 years, COPINH has been a major player in resisting the Agua Zarca megadam complex being built in Rio Blanco on Lenca

indigenous territory, and in 2015 Berta was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for her role in that effort.

The Agua Zarca struggle is decades old. To give one example of the powerful forces acting against the Rio Blanco community, in 2013, defying a military lockdown of the area, local activists and COPINH maintained a road blockade that prevented machinery from reaching the dam site for over a year.

In clashes between the community and security forces, community leader Tómas Garcia was shot and killed.

His death prompted increased local resistance that ultimately

persuaded Chinese Sinohydro, the largest dam builder in the world, to pull out of the project.

Threats against the defenders failed to abate however, and Berta said the accomplishment “cost us in blood”.

In an interview with El Universo newspaper in 2015, she said: “I never doubted I would continue the struggle despite the threats; they even gave me more resolve.”

of repression and death is playing out in communities across Latin America, a continent with a high level of economic dependence on “extractivism” - a term used to refer to the extraction of unprocessed natural resources. Latin America consistently tops the global list for mining exploration and fossil fuel extraction shows a similar picture.

To generate cheap energy for these industries, many hydroelectric

“They need our support in this, and our solidarity. There is no middle ground in the debate.”

Berta was not the first or the last defender to die in the struggle against Agua Zarca and other mega-dams. This story

continued on pg2

MARK MALONE Comhlámh Staff Fracking is undoubtedly the most controversial of extractive practices.

This process of extracting oil is both massively energy intensive and, much research shows, deeply damaging to water supplies and local immediate environment. The Republic of Ireland has a ban on fracking testing.

In mid May, testing in Northern Ireland by oil exploration company InfraStrata at Co Antrim was meet with immediate local and national resistance.

The test drilling in Woodburn forest started without any advance public consulations or an environmental assessment of the impacts. Mirroring the experiences in Rossport West Mayo against Royal Dutch Shell, InfraStrata refused to engage with public concerns.

Instead the state owned NI Water came out to defend the drilling in a site close to three large water supplies that provide drinking water to much of Nothern Ireland’s population.

The public response was immediate and well organised. The local community set up a “Stop The Drill” camp (picutred above) at the edge of the fenced off test drill, which was widely supported by political parties and grassroots anti fracking networks across the island.

The “Stop The Drill” camp called a discussion and protest gathering weekend for 18th June. InfraStrata annouced a halt to drilling just 48hrs before the gathering began. A victory of sorts, though local and global lessons about the extraction industry tell us that fracking plans will keep coming back until local communities and regional campaigns acheive a total and absolute ban.

Meanwhile the local community are aiming to bring Woodburn forest under community control. A smart move indeed should they achieve it.

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FOCUS ACTION FOR GLOBAL JUSTICE

NEWS

Graffitti in Dublin challenging state racism behind Direct Provision and abysmal EU response to refugees | Photo credit: Caroline Reid

FOCUS

ACTION FOR GLOBAL JUSTICE

EST. 1978

Focus Magazine is Ireland’s leading magazine on global development issues.

Since 1978, Focus has been making links between the situation in Ireland and in the South. Challenging assumptions, and promoting understanding and action on development issues among a broad public. It aims to provide alternative views to those expressed in mainstream media.

Focus is produced by a members’ editorial group. Thanks to Jill McArdle, Miren Maialen and Sive Besnihan for this issue.

To receive copies to distribute please contact info@comhlamh.org Comhlamh is a signatory to the Dochas Code On Images and Messages. Feedback welcome to info@comhlamh.org

BERTA CÁCERES CON’T dams are being planned and built across Latin America, leading to a steady rise in socioenvironmental conflict across the continent. The ferocity with which activists are specifically targetted is deliberate. More land and environmental defenders died in 2014 in Latin America than anywhere else in the world, with 88 out of 114 total recorded deaths.

Honduras tops the list.

It is when defenders go so far as to speak out about the root causes of these projects — corporate greed, unfettered capitalism, political impunity — that they, like Berta, may be targeted and killed. Her supporters have no doubt that daring to challenge the corrupt and powerful forces behind this project is what led to her death.

“We know very well who murdered her,” COPINH said in a statement on March 3. Speaking of the Honduran government, corporations, and financial institutions backing the Agua Zarca dam, COPINH wrote, “their hands are stained with indigenous blood and with the blood of the Lenca people.” In a statement, her family concurred: “Her assassination is an attempt to end the struggle of the Lenca people against exploitation and dispossession of their territories.”

As activists in the Global North, we must use our position of privilege to shine a light on these assassinations and the death threats continuously received by environmental defenders in Latin America, and put unrelenting pressure on the corporations behind these projects to pull out.

As those celebrating Berta’s life cried just days after her murder, “Berta lives, and the fight continues!”

FURTHER READS

WHAT DOES MIGRANT SOLIDARITY LOOK LIKE?

Militant Care & Hope In struggles for justice, how we think, learn and act shapes real solidarity SIVE BRESNIHAN Comhlámh Member.

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n May 4th, Comhlamh hosted a first Wednesday debate under the theme ‘What does migrant solidarity look like?’

The panel was composed of migrant justice activists Neltah Chadamoyo, Lucky Khambule, Razieh Nikoomanesh and Caoimhe Butterly, and chaired by Gavan Titley.

“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.” Lucky Khambule kick-started the evening with these words of indigenous Australian activist Lilla Watson, underscoring that solidarity is not about charity or pity but finding common cause in struggle.

Solidarity, echoed a fellow panellist, is not something that you ‘do’ for others but rather it emerges out of the social relations you have with them. These relations don’t have to be ‘intimate’; they are about connection at a basic, human level.

Solidarity, said another, is about being shoulder to shoulder with people, back to back, meaning that if you are in solidarity with someone you will feel their pain. From this flows a preparedness to take risks with them, whether that be challenging everyday instances of racism or the policies of a fortressed Europe.

and moving forward together on the basis of equality and dignity.

The evening wrapped up with a focused discussion on the direct provision system.

How to build a movement that can effectively challenge this system, and one based on the principles of solidarity?

It’s a question that many activists ‘What does migrant solidarity not look have been trying to work through for like?’ some time now. Some This question (posed by the were present and shared Chair) proved as illuminating “This is a their experiences. They as the first. For the panellists, question solidarity is not about two that many activists spoke of organising and campaigning to date as people attending a protest have been well as future plans that together, with one being trying to work people could get behind. hauled off by police and the through for other leaving them there and some time ” heading off home.

Solidarity is not about speaking on behalf of somebody either; such pretence of solidarity is harmful because it diminishes the possibility of real solidarity.

When you’re in the street and you see an injustice and you say it’s not your business, that is not solidarity. Lastly, solidarity goes beyond exalting the attributes of another (as ‘resilient’, ‘resourceful’, ‘brave’); it’s about meeting people in all their humanity

MORE INFO

www.comhlamh.org

POLITICAL MOBILISATION

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Large mobilisation against impositions of TTIP and CETA trade laws at the European Parliament information office in Dublin, April 2016 | Credit: Thomas Hamann

TTIP Resistance Rising Fast

Public resentment with lack of democratic input and concerns about impacts sees TTIP under threat.

JILL MC ARDLE Comhlámh Member

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he Irish campaign against TTIP/CETA has been gathering pace for some time now, and the hard work of a dedicated group of citizens, activists and NGOs has seen impressive results in recent months.

Comhlamh’s Trade Justice Group has been busy doing its part to raise TTIP’s profile here: we designed and distributed pre-election leaflets, coordinated a Twitter campaign in the run-up to the general election and have been proactively engaging with policy makers and parliamentarians to gather allies and challenge the pro-TTIP narrative. The campaign also saw immense work from Clare Says No TTIP, who succeeded in getting Clare County Councilto pass a motion declaring the county a TTIP-Free Zone.

Ireland saw its first academic colloquium on TTIP this March, hosted by Trinity College Dublin. “Deciphering TTIP” drew on an incredible range of expertise, and succeeded both in spelling out the trickier details of the deal and setting it in a wider context of the encounter between neoliberal policy agendas and a global movement for justice and democracy.

Justice Group and Young Friends of the Earth, brought people together, harnessed the community’s creative energy and rallied us for action. This spirit and energy shone through on the day itself, which saw five hundred activists turn out from the Crumlin Says No, Comhlámh, Young Friends of the Earth, the People’s Movement, Sinn Fein, the Communist Party, individuals active in the TTIP Information Network and many others.

There were speeches from Crumlin activist Greg Fitzgerald and Matt Carthy MEP, from Mark Cumming, Head of Comhlamh, and Barry Finnegan, lecturer at Griffith College Dublin.

the day, and to feel a sense of community and unity around the issue.” Looking ahead, the movement intends to capitalise on this energy and momentum to grow its numbers and reach a wider audience, and plans are already in motion for the next European Day of Action in November.

The impending Council of the European Union vote on CETA is the next major challenge, and “It set the Europe’s Foreign Ministers will only be swayed centenary if citizens across the union stand up and make celebrations in the their voices heard. But trade negotiators context of the Trojan and corporate lobbyists beware: this mass Treaties’impending mobilization is already well underway.

usurpation of Irish sovereignty”

From the steps of the European Commission offices on Mount Street, Finnegan read the “Proclamation of the Irish Oligarchy”, a satirical reimagining of the 1916 Proclamation of Independence. It set the centenary celebrations in the context of the Trojan Treaties’ impending usurpation of Irish sovereignty, wryly proclaiming “the right of the corporations to the ownership of Ireland, and to the fettered control of Irish destinies, to be sovereign and indefeasible.”

Comhlamh’s First Wednesday’s Debate on TTIP was another achievement, albeit one that made explicit the uphill battle the movement faces to mobilise resistance.

The tongue-in-cheek text, signed “on behalf of the Provisional Application Authority”, also served to draw attention to growing concerns that CETA could be “provisionally” implemented for three years even in the event that the European Parliament rejects the deal.

Energy behind the Irish campaign galvanised this April, culminating in the Day of Action on the 23rd. In the run-up to the event, workshops organised jointly by Comhlamh’s Trade

Tessa Cornally, of the Comhlámh Trade Justice Group, commented on the success of the workshops and the event, saying it “was a great feeling to see so many familiar faces on

This April saw Barcelona declare itself a TTIP/CETA-Free Zone and 90,000 European citizens turn out to demonstrate on the streets of Hanover. These mobisations make it clear that this energetic Irish campaign is embedded within a formidable European resistance movement that just keeps growing.

FURTHER READS

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FOCUS ACTION FOR GLOBAL JUSTICE

GLOBAL

A busy street stall in Yangon, Myanmar earlier this year. | Photo credit: Garry Walshe

Air Of Optimism In Yangon Myanmar is still in flux, yet amid sectarian tensions and exploitation there is a growing hopefulness GARRY WALSH Development Programme Manager with Trócaire

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he streets of Yangon are teeming with life.

There are smells of spices, traffic choking the streets, street vendors selling peculiar exotic fruits, monks on megaphones calling from nearby pagodas; and this is all just on my ten minute walk to the office in the morning.

This city is intoxicating to a bewildered new arrival like myself, but it’s not just the tropical assault on the senses. You can’t help but notice the sense of optimism in the air as rapid change is sweeping through the country.

The day of my flight from Dublin to Yangon fortuitously happens to be the day that Aung San Suu Kyi’s party, the National League for Democracy, begins its first day in office.

It’s a significant occasion, as the pro-democracy icon leads her party into power. After she spent over a decade under house arrest, and the country spent over half a century under a military government, it’s remarkable to see change happening in a country that had been one of the most isolated in the world.

In recent years political prisoners have been released and press censorship has been relaxed. International sanctions have been dropped, and as a result, Myanmar (also known as Burma), one of the poorest countries in Asia, is now booming.

If you close your eyes in Yangon and just listen, you can hear the sound of construction sites everywhere.

Another project visit took me to Mon state, in the south.

I met women who are standing up to become leaders in their communities. Social norms in Myanmar are very traditional, and the expectations are that women should stay in the home, and shouldn’t lead their communities or enter politics. Some women I met dared to “Some of the biggest defy tradition and run for election, despite facing jeers from their neighbours, threats sticking points for even from female family members, and the talks will centre some faced physical violence from their around how exactly husbands. It is humbling to meet women to share the burden who are willing to face great personal risk of gas reductions to inspire other women to have a voice. across developed

Yet despite this progress, huge challenges still remain for the country. Ethnic insurgencies continue in the border areas, and after over 60 years of civil war, peace remains elusive.

A rise in nationalism manifests in growing calls to stop using the term Rohingya to describe the millions of Muslim forced to live in internal displacement camps. Such a rise in racism is also related to political and power structures. The military still controls 25% of seats in parliament, including key ministries, and controls most of the economy.

and developing

What gives me hope is to see these Myanmar’s vast natural resources are parts of the world” communities getting organised to defend their being exploited by foreign interests and rights. Civil society is now finding its voice in standing corrupt local officials. Teak, jade, gold, and copper up against injustice. Many NGOs are now able to operate in the are flowing out of the country with little benefit to local country, and support women’s empowerment, human rights communities. Many local communities also face land grabs. defenders and work towards building peace. That’s what’s brought me here to try and contribute.

In Kachin, in the north of the country, I met a farmer who fled fighting and was forced to take refuge in an IDP camp. He It’s certainly not going to be an easy path for the country in took me to show me what remained of his village. While they the years ahead, and you can’t expect democracy and peace to had fled, the village lands were sold to a Chinese company. flourish overnight. But you still can’t help getting taken in by The village vanished, and in its place now stands a banana the optimistic mood here in Myanmar. Thankfully things are plantation. I walked through the sea of bananas, while he beginning to change around here, and it’s long overdue. It’s an showed me where the houses used to be. He even showed me exciting time to be here. the community graveyard, eerie amidst the dense foliage of bananas trees. His community is fighting against this injustice, campaigning to get their lands restored to them.

www.comhlamh.org

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FOCUS ACTION FOR GLOBAL JUSTICE

GLOBAL STRUGGLES

Neoliberalism Threatening to Annihilate Brazil’s’ Indios “recent developments now mean the situation looks particularly grave”

Senate plenary April 19 2015 as indigenous representatives camp at Esplanade of Ministries for indigenous rights | Photo: Jefferson Rudy / Agência Senado JILL MCARDLE Comhlámh Member

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he índios or indigenous peoples of Brazil have long been fighting to defend their ancestral land and cultural heritage from commercial interests. They have for decades faced forced relocation as deforestation caused by extractive activities has decimated their territory.

When they have tried to resist, these communities have been subjected to threats, harassment, violence and murder. Successive Brazilian governments have made some efforts to protect these groups, including the establishment of FUNIA, the Brazilian Government agency for indigenous peoples, which has successfully designated land as “Indigenous Territory” for over 517,000 Brazilian Indians Despite these efforts, recent developments now mean the situation looks particularly grave.

In December 2014, Brazil’s then President Dilma Rousseff’s appointed Katia Abreu as Minister of Agriculture. Abreu, known as the “Chainsaw Queen”, is an aggressive supporter of agribusiness who has pushed for intensified deforestation, monoculture farming and genetically modified seeds in her single-minded bid to boost Brazil’s agricultural output.

She also leads the Brazilian Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock (CNA), a group which represents agribusiness, timber, mining and energy interests. CNA now claims more than 250 senators and members of congress in its incredibly influential political lobby.

Also alarming is a proposed constitutional amendment known as PEC 251 that could strip FUNIA of its ability to demarcate indigenous lands and Brazil’s 300+ Indian hand this power communities are instead mobilising, strategizing, to a congress in forming alliances and the grip of organising vibrant powerful protests that have even commercial drawn many non-Indian interests.

Brazilians onto the On top of these streets. threats, last month’s ousting of Brazil’s leftist President Dilma Rousseff has intensified concerns. Already two new ministers have resigned, after secret recordings revealed they had conspired to impeach Rousseff in order to shield themselves from a federal investigation into corruption, and the interim president himself has been found guilty of violating election laws.

This new government wasted no time in implementing a neoliberal agenda of privatisation and austerity that

aligns with the interests of the powerful agribusiness lobby.

Amnesty International have already released a statement expressing concern about the “serious setbacks to human rights” this new legislative agenda will cause with regard to marginalized groups in Brazil, and listing PEC 251 as one of their top concerns.

As daunting as these attacks are, they have not been taken lying down. Brazil’s 300+ Indian communities are mobilising, strategizing, forming alliances and organising vibrant protests that have even drawn many non-Indian Brazilians onto the streets.

International rights organisations too are taking a stand, for example Survival International’s “Stop Brazil’s Genocide” Olympic year campaign. The organisation I am working for, the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization (UNPO), which advocates for the rights of indigenous groups and ethnic minorities, has launched an initiative to raise the plight of Brazil’s Indians at the international political level. This initiative aims to put proindigenous members of Brazil’s congress in contact with MEPs here in Europe, to strengthen alliances and grow the international pressure on Brazil to veto the passing of PEC 251.

This democratic and transnational resistance movement is the last defence against a neoliberal policy agenda threatening to annihilate Brazil’s rainforests and the índios communities who call them home.

www.comhlamh.org

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CULTURE

Power

Through the looking glass theatre reframes working class experiences in an unequal system.

SIVE BRESNIHAN Comhlámh Member

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apitalism: The Musical describes itself as an acrobatic political satire on the state we’re in and the future we can create.

An ever-evolving production, its latest incarnation premièred in The Back Loft, Dublin in February of this year. A second sell out run followed in April.

The largely crowd funded piece is written by Deirdre Murphy and tells the tale of a heroic group of ‘everyday’ Superheroes, aided by a powerful triumvirate of Fairy Godmothers. During the course of the piece the Superheroes, a diverse bunch with common cause, tell their own stories – who they are and why they care - while a trio of Emperors breathes down their necks.

Deirdre Murphy has said that the intention of the piece was “to give a particular spin on a lot of events that have been kicking around the world lately....something that could investigate, with a relatively light touch, subject matter that couldn’t be more serious.”

Certainly, the different elements of the piece (music, script and choreography) cohere to create a magical but terribly unequal kind of world and what unfolds is both an eloquent and insightful commentary on our own condition and a space from which to look at it anew.

From the opening “the tale of a Superheroes number “Go Get a heroic group Job”; to a mid-way tune called of ‘everyday’ “Beginning to See”: to the showSuperheroes, aided stopper, “Tide has Turned”, the by a powerful super talented, international triumvirate of ensemble cast bring the narraFairy tive alive with acrobatics, song, Godmothers.” and expertly choreographed movement.

Balancing humour with edge, the piece depicts (as a kind of cycle) our Superheroes acting on new found consciousness and the quelling of their efforts by those in positions of power and privilege.

It is a neat portrait of how, through ongoing interactions with power structures, ordinary people gain knowledge of “the system” and the means (ultimately) to foster social transformation.

The original incarnation of Capitalism: the Musical was crowdfunded and supported by an Arts Council Bursary. The cast is comprised of professionals with years of training and experience but they essentially work on the project for free and have aspirations to form a worker’s collective so that form mirrors content. On June 11th , they performed (donation only) at the Grangegorman Squat in Dublin 7, a long time vision for them all.

This is a great project! If you’d like to help it stay up and running, or find out about upcoming performance dates, give “Capitalism: The Musical” a like on Facebook and check out their website www.capitalismthemusical.com

The Fairy Godmothers discuss and the Emperor stands on the shoulders of everyday Superheroes in scenes from ‘Capitalism: The Musical’ | Photo Credit: Turlach O Broin

FAIR TRADE

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A large poster calling for sustainable and just trade. | Photo Credit : Kevin Dooley CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 via Flickr

LOCAL & GLOBAL JUMP IN NUMBER WITHOUT HOMES Homelessness crisis grow in Ireland; 2,117 children in May ll There has been a 79% increase in the number of kids in emergency housing since May 2015 and an 86% increase in families. Meanwhile there has been a growth in grassroots campaigning and practical solidarity such as the Irish Housing Network.

See http://irishhousingnetwork.org/

ANTI FRACKING SOLIDARITY

Making Campaigning Work Fairtrade marks a significant birthday as the struggles against supply chain exploitation remain as relevant as ever.

PETER GAYNOR Fairtrade Ireland

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story in Ireland over 20 years ago was that the only place you could buy Fairtrade products was from charity shops or the car boots of pioneering volunteers who drove around the country selling the produce.

Many of these original volunteers were returned development workers like Colm Ryder and others in Comhlámh.

The Fair Trade movement was born out of the understanding that millions of people were poor, not because they didn’t work hard producing goods we bought from them, but because they were exploited in supply chains where everybody except the primary producer of goods like coffee made a profit at their expense. From middlemen, known as coyotes in Latin America, to large multi-national companies and retailers alike, products like coffee and bananas known as Black and Green Gold respectively, were and remain a source of huge profits.

When you think about it, Fairtrade was a silly idea that should never have worked.

The idea that one individual buying a cup of Fairtrade coffee could make any real difference to anyone was ludicrous.

But then some of the most powerful forces in the universe kicked in. Like the imaginative force of many people asserting that a nameless person we do not know, thousands of miles away up a muddy mountain, is as deserving of human respect and dignity as anyone else; the unbeatable force of a mass of people believing this same thing – and then collectively doing something about it. The force as Albert

Einstein said, of compound interest; cup by cup Companies are involved with sustainabilit began to add up. ity initiatives like Fairtrade for all kinds of A ‘joke’ at the time from one of the largest reasons. Often it is to secure future supply of coffee companies in the world was that they commodities in uncertain times. Young peodidn’t believe in what we were doing, and that ple don’t want to grow cocoa in West Africa if they would close us down if we ever got above they aren’t going to get a decent income – so 4% of the coffee market! Happily, in some coun- where will the next generation of cocoa farmers tries like Ireland, we have gotten well above come from? ; and in India, as the sub-continent 4% - it’s about 9% in Ireland – and instead of develops, tea estates are finding it impossible closing us down, very large coffee companies to get workers on remote plantations with have begun to see the absolutely compelling poor wages; and in coffee, growing demand in case Fairtrade makes for coffee farmers and for emerging economies, tied to pressure on prolong term sustainability in the coffee industry. duction and yield from climate change, create It is estimated that in 2015 approximately 40% a tightening of supply for coffee companies that of global coffee production now carries encourages an engagement with sustainsome form of sustainability claim. ability initiatives. But sustainability Back in 1996, Bewley’s was needs to be economic and social the first Irish company to “20 years ago the as well as environmental. source raw materials on only place you The challenge for the could buy Fairtrade Fairtrade terms. The originext twenty years is exactly the same as when Fairtrade products was from nal order was for two tonnes charity shops or the of Fairtrade coffee and at started – to help ensure that all farmers and workcar boots ” the time we didn’t know if it would sell at all. We sold over ers benefit more from inter1,000 tonnes of Fairtrade cofnational trade – for millions of fee in 2015 and in February 2016 farmers and workers in developing Bewley’s announced that 100% of its countries that is still a distant dream…

Bewley’s branded coffee would be Fairtrade by Check fairtrade.ie to see how you can become the end of the year which will add considerably a Fairtrade Ambassador! to that number.

Over the years since Fairtrade began, campaigning groups, NGOs, trade unions, Fairtrade Towns groups have brought Fairtrade from the margins to the mainstream – from Bohemilymount Park in Phibsborougr car boots and charity shops to every shop in the country. We still have small dedicated Fairtrade companies - but we also now work with some of the biggest companies not just in the country, but in the world - the nuns in Kylemore Abbey have Fairtrade chocolate as do Cadbury/Mondelez.

FIND OUT MORE

The weekend of the 17th June saw a all island “Water Pressure” gathering in Woodburn Forest, Co Antrim ll Those present demonstrated solidarity with Tina Louise Rothery, a York s h i re b a s e d a nt i-f r a c k i n g activist. Tina has been fined £55,000 for obstructing Cuadrilla in the Fylde, Lancashire. Ways to suppor t Tina found at http://occupylondon.org.uk/ activist-tina-rothery-sued-for-55342-37/

STREET ART DOCUMENTS STRUGGLE

Political artwork is center stage in ongoing labour struggles in France ll The French government is seeking to impose drastic changes in workers rights, without any prior discussion with the t rade un ion movement. This has seen massive street protests and social movement mobilisation in opposition to plans to increase the working week from 35 to 46 hrs a week. Accompanying this is a flourishing of political art and street tagging. The above is a collaboration between dockers and JRartiste. You can see lots more here. http://larueourien. tumblr.com/