An alleged attempt to defraud Ivory Coast citizens of millions of dollars of compensation awarded for being poisoned by toxic waste has been protested by Amnesty International. An AI letter to the Ivory Coast justice minister on December 18 accused an organisation called the National Coordination of Toxic Waste Victims of Cote D’Ivoire (CNVDT-CI) of falsely claiming to represent the 30,000 victims who brought a case against oil-trading company Trafigura in Britain.
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The terrible devastation caused earthquake in Haiti, the worst to hit the Caribbean half-island in 200 years, is a combination of natural and human-made catastrophes.
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Thousands may have been killed and tens of thousands left homeless. This is a moment in which your solidarity is of critical importance.
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It is has become clear that First World leaders are unwilling to commit to what current science indicates we need to do to avoid extremely damaging climate change. Representatives of the poor countries have become increasingly angry and vocal at their marginalisation by the rich governments.
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The UN COP15 Climate Summit in Copenhagen has dramatically revealed a growing divide between the poor and rich countries, whose development has depended on exploitation of the Third World and the environment.
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The article below is a December 17 column by former Cuban president Fidel Castro
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"Can a finite Earth support an infinite project? The thesis of capitalism, infinite development, is a destructive pattern, let’s face it. How long are we going to tolerate the current international economic order and prevailing market mechanisms? How long are we going to allow huge epidemics like HIV/AIDS to ravage entire populations? How long are we going to allow the hungry to not eat or to be able to feed their own children? How long are we going to allow millions of children to die from curable diseases? How long will we allow armed conflicts to massacre millions of innocent human beings in order for the powerful to seize the resources of other peoples?" — Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez, speaking at COP15, December 16, 2009
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The press conference by Ecuador’s delgation to the United Nations climate change summit in Copenhagen can be viewed here. Also, the join press conference of representatives nations from the Latin American anti-impieralist bloc, the Boliviarian Alliance of the Americas (ALBA) can be veiwed here. Representatives from Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua took part.
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As I write, there are two Copenhagens. One is the Copenhagen swamped with 100,000 protesters demanding climate justice, social justice, solidarity and community before corporate profit.
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Transcript from US radio show Democracy Now! of Bolivian President Evo Morales’s December 16 speech to the United Nations climate change summit at Copenhagen.
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“The Copenhagen climate summit was pretty much summed up in the high-level segment yesterday when [Australian climate minister] Penny Wong's speech was interrupted by whistles and chanting and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez got a standing ovation”, Lenore Taylor wrote in the December 17 Australian.
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A 28-year-old Tasmanian who’s never been to El Salvador or experienced civil war, I interviewed veteran Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) activist David Rodriguez.