Agriculture

Peru will host the UN-sponsored Conference of Parties climate talks this December. The world’s peak climate conference, the COP is an annual event first held in Berlin in 1995, leading to provisional developments such as the Kyoto Protocol. Peru is also a country increasingly affected by the consequences of climate change. A study published by the United Nations Development Project said: “Peru has been ranked third globally in terms of risk to climate related disasters.”

In a speech to the nation on September 2, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro announced “five revolutions”, as part of a campaign to “improve our service to the people”, Venezuela Analysis said on September 3. Maduro said the revolutions would be a “a new way of functioning” for the government. The five revolutions “should be united, and should define the government policies, giving power to the people, it will be the people who push government policy”.

The Queensland government has limited the ability of the public to object to a mining lease. The Mining and Energy Resources Bill, passed on September 9, means only affected landholders, their neighbours or local councils can object to mining lease applications in the Land Court. In a statement, campaign group Lock the Gate said: “In an 11th hour move, the Queensland government has silenced objections to mining projects across the state giving open slather to Indian coal billionaire Gautam Adani to develop the Galilee Basin into one of the largest coal precincts in the world.”

Residents in Gloucester, NSW, have set up a permanent camp to stop coal seam gas (CSG) company AGL from beginning exploration in the Gloucester Valley. Organisers of the camp said: “In August, the state government changed a state planning regulation to allow AGL to frack four existing coal seam gas wells without undertaking a full environmental impact statement. “AGL have not started fracking yet — they will give the government 28 days notice before beginning fracking, but we don’t want to let them get started at all.

Palestinian boycott hitting Israel's economy In the last two months, Palestinians across the West Bank have begun heeding calls to boycott Israeli goods in increasing numbers as popular campaigns have taken to the street to promote the campaign, Ma’an News Agency said on August 28. Economic analysts say the campaign could potentially have a major negative effect on the Israeli economy. It could also buoy the Palestinian economy.

More than 3000 landless families occupied the Santa Monica farm in Brazil on August 31. The farm, registered in the name of businessperson and Brazilian Democratic Movement Party Senator Eunicio Oliveira, is a complex of more than 20,000 hectares. It is self-declared as unproductive. The occupation was organised by the Landless Workers' Movement (MST), a powerful Brazilian social movement that fights for land for the poor.

About 1000 people marched from parliament house to Victoria Square in Adelaide on August 2, to show opposition to the proposal to turn farmlands into gaslands. The rally and march, organised to show the danger to South Australia’s food bowl, water and tourism, was jointly organised by the Limestone Coast Protection Alliance, Stop Invasive Mining Group — Eyre Peninsula, and the Yorke Peninsula Landowners Group. It had a strong rural focus, with people travelling from all over rural and urban South Australia to attend.

The largest coalmine ever built in Australia, and one of the biggest in the world, received final approval from the federal environment minister Greg Hunt on July 28. The Carmichael coalmine in central Queensland, owned by Indian company Adani, is forecast to produce 60 million tonnes of coal a year over the next 60 years. This dwarfs Australia’s current largest mine, which produces 20 million tonnes a year.

Twenty-one people were arrested last month while engaging in peaceful civil disobedience in protest against a proposed tar sands mine in north-eastern Utah. This would threaten local land and water, as well as contribute to the global climate crisis. As they await charges, US environmental groups expressed solidarity with the protesters who stood for freedom from dirty fossil fuels and devastating climate impacts.

The Summit of the Group of 77 plus China, marking the alliance’s 50th anniversary, closed in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, on June 15 with the adoption of a declaration entitled “For a New World Order for Living Well”. There were delegates from 104 nations out of the 133 from the global South that now make up the Group of 77 plus China. Bolivia is chairing the alliance this year, and its president, Evo Morales, hosted the summit.

A 13-year-old boy from Brazil’s Guarani tribe makes a political stand in front of 70,000 football fans and what he thinks is an international audience. A movement led by indigenous women in the United States beats a billion-dollar brand of the big, bad NFL. These two stories share more than the fact that they took place during the same week. They share the ways that people in power have sought to combat their courage by trying to render them invisible.

Sudan’s people are bearing the brunt of the country’s deepening economic crisis. According to Bella Bird, World Bank director for Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan, half the population is now living below the poverty line. Last August, Sudanese economist Hassan Satti estimated the real figure would likely exceed 95%.