Tomgram: Allegra Harpootlian, Ending the Forever Wars?

Posted by Allegra Harpootlian at 3:15pm, June 23, 2019.
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I remember well the antiwar movement of the Vietnam era. I was in it and it was distinctly in the streets, big time. I was typical, for instance, in traveling to Washington in October 1967 for a march on the Pentagon, which proved to be the largest antiwar protest ever staged to that point -- a crowd so vast I had never seen the likes of it before. And I returned to the capital a year or two later for a far more chaotic antiwar demonstration in which I remember having to choose between staying with a bold friend eager to rush further into the tear-gas-laced streets around the Washington Mall or run for it -- alone. (I reluctantly chose to stay.) And then there were all the little moments of work and opposition over so many years, the moments when you weren’t with crowds of people in those streets, but you were still focused on opposing that American war from hell.

And then, of course,

1.The Lubicon Cree: Ongoing human rights violations

The Lubicon Cree: Ongoing human rights violations

The Lubicon Cree: A case study in ongoing human rights violations exerpts from article by  Amnesty International

he Lubicon Cree: A case study in ongoing human rights violations. ... 

Territory that the Lubicon have relied on to hunt, fish and trap is now crisscrossed by more than 2400 km of oil and gas pipelines.

That's more than five wells for every Lubicon person.“..

.the basic health and resistance to infection of community members has deteriorated dramatically.

The lack of running water and sanitary facilities in the community, needed to replace

the traditional systems of water and sanitary management...is leading to the development of diseases associated

with poverty and poor sanitary and healthconditions.” Lubicon complaint upheld by the United Nations Human Rights Committee in 1990

By Niklas Hagelberg iklas Hagelberg is Coordinator, Climate Change Programme, UN Environment

NAIROBI, Kenya, Jun 5 2019 (IPS) - Fossil fuels—oil, gas, coal and their derivatives—pollute the atmosphere and emit the greenhouse gases that are ramping up global heating to dangerous levels. But did you know that governments around the world are subsidizing this pollution?

Historically, governments around the world have used fossil fuel subsidies for a variety of reasons, including to promote energy independence, encourage industry and cushion the poorest in society.

But they never took sufficient account of what economists call “externalities” such as air pollution and the resulting impacts on our health.

There is a special kind of madness in a system that funds the healthcare burden from asthma, respiratory diseases and lung cancer, and at the same time funds companies that pollute the air and contribute towards these health issues in the first place.

Students from Janet Langston’s Grade 3 and 4 class at Margaret Jenkins elementary celebrate the school’s efforts to remove invasive species from Trafalgar Park (below King George Terrace). The park was covered in gorse and blackberry and wild flowers and roses are now thriving. (Travis Paterson/News Staff)

Margaret Jenkins students 2.5 years into restoration

• TRAVIS PATERSON
• May. 30, 2019 9:45 a.m.
• COMMUNITY

The reclamation of Trafalgar Park continues but to anyone who has visited in the past three years, the removal of invasive species has revealed a landscape unseen for decades.

And the work has been done by a pair of Margarets.

Well known Uplands Park advocate and volunteer Margaret Lidkea helped lead a program for nearby Margaret Jenkins elementary school students. Lidkea provides the know-how and the students provide the muscle.

By Thalif Deen - Reprint

Sweden’s Minister for International Development Cooperation Peter Eriksson

STOCKHOLM, May 17 2019 (IPS)  - When the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) concluded a three-day forum on “Peace and Development” on May 16, the primary focus was the daunting challenges threatening global security, including growing military interventions, spreading humanitarian emergencies, forced migration, increasing civil wars, extreme weather conditions triggered by climate change and widespread poverty and conflict-related hunger.

For many decades, said the Swedish Minister for International Development Cooperation Peter Eriksson, the rules of war were designed by the Geneva Conventions.

“Do we need to develop and adopt common principles for building peace?,” he asked, before a gathering of more than 400 high-level policymakers, researchers and practitioners in the Swedish capital during the opening session of the sixth annual Stockholm Forum on Peace and Development

A huge concrete dome built over a crater left by one of the 43 nuclear blasts on Runit Island photographed in 1980 (AFP Photo/)

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres raised concerns Thursday that a concrete dome built last century to contain waste from atomic bomb tests is leaking radioactive material into the Pacific.

Speaking to students in Fiji, Guterres described the structure on Enewetak atoll in the Marshall Islands as "a kind of coffin" and said it was a legacy of Cold War-era nuclear tests in the Pacific

Originally Published on Tuesday, May 14, 2019 by Common Dreams

The Al Marzoqah oil tanker on Monday, a day after it was attacked outside the Fujairah port in the United Arab Emirates. (Photo: EPA-EFE)

Is the Trump administration attempting to concoct a false pretext to justify launching a war against Iran?

Gareth Porter without citing any concrete evidence blamed Iran for reported attacks on Saudi and UAE oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz over the weekend.

Commentators quickly likened the accusations to the Gulf of Tonkin incident, referring to the "fabricated" event that President Lyndon Johnson used to massively escalate America's war in Vietnam.

Gul Jan, 90, and her family fled their village in Ab Kamari district and went to Qala-e-Naw in search of drinking water and food during the 2018 drought in Afghanistan. When this photo was taken in 2018, she, her son Ahmad and her four grandchildren had been living in a makeshift home in the Farestan settlement for internally displaced people for at least four months. Courtesy: NRC/Enayatullah Azad

UNITED NATIONS, May 11 2019 (IPS) - More people are displaced inside their own countries than ever before, and only higher figures can be expected without urgent long-term action, a new report found.

Launched by the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center (IDMC) of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), the new Global Report on Internal Displacement examines trends in internal displacement worldwide and has found a dismal picture.

Related IPS Articles

• 1m Rohingyas at severe health risk
• West Africa’s Fine Line Between Cultural Norms and Child Trafficking
• Education for All—Refugees Too

“This year’s report is a sad reminder of the recurrence of displacement, and of the severity and urgency of IDPs’ needs. Many of the same factors that drove people from their homes now prevent them from returning or finding solutions in the places they have settled,” said IDMC’s Director Alexandra Bilak.

“The findings of this report are a wake-up call to world leaders. Millions of people forced to flee their homes last year are being failed by ineffective national governance and insufficient international diplomacy. Because they haven’t crossed a border, they receive pitiful global attention,” echoed NRC’s Secretary-General Jan Egeland.

According to the report, over 41 million people were estimated to be living in internal displacement as of the end of 2018, 28 million of which were new displacements.

A majority were due to natural disasters and just three countries accounted for 60 percent of all new disaster-related displacements.

DearJason Kenny,

Thank you so much for accepting responsibility for turning off the taps to BC.

Your friendly "overworked and underepresented" environmentalist.

What the %^&*$#@ are you thinking shutting down Alberta's oil exports to BC?

Your not so friendly oil industry.

Your not so happy oil patch worker.