http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=570&ncid=570&e=6&u=/nm/20051010/sc_nm/environment_amazon_dc_1

MANAQUIRI, Brazil (Reuters) - The worst drought in more than 40 years is damaging the world's biggest rainforest, plaguing the Amazon basin with wildfires, sickening river dwellers with tainted drinking water, and killing fish by the millions as streams dry up.

"What's awful for us is that all these fish have died and when the water returns there will be barely any more," Donisvaldo Mendonca da Silva, a 33-year-old fisherman, said.

Nearby, scores of piranhas shook in spasms in two inches of water -- what was left of the once flowing Parana de Manaquiri river, an Amazon tributary. Thousands of rotting fish lined the its dry banks.

The governor of Amazonas, a state the size of Alaska, has declared 16 municipalities in crisis as the two-month-long drought strands river dwellers who cannot find food or sell crops.

Some scientists blame higher ocean temperatures stemming from global warming, which have also been linked to a recent string of unusually deadly hurricanes in the United States and Central America.

Rising air in the north Atlantic, which fuels storms, may have caused air above the Amazon to descend and prevented cloud formations and rainfall, according to some scientists.

"If the warming of the north Atlantic is the smoking gun, it really shows how the world is changing," said Dan Nepstadt, an ecologist from the Massachusetts-based Woods Hole Research Institute, funded by the U.S. government and private grants.

"The Amazon is a canary in a coal mine for the earth. As we enter a warming trend we are in uncertain territory," he said.

photos:
http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2005/09/57759.html

story:
http://dc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/130470/index.php
http://dc.indymedia.org/feature/display/130221/index.php

reposted from san diego indymedia:

http://sandiego.indymedia.org/en/2005/09/111277.shtml

I am woken up just before the alarm goes off by an insect buzzing in my ear and am hoping it is time to go, as the metal bench isn't so comfortable tonight. Then the alarm sings, 2:30am.

Adriana and I wake up at 2:30, because we were told that there is a car at 4:30, hora de dios. in zapatista territory, there are three different times people use: city time, hora de dios which is one hour behind city time and hora de lucha which is one hour ahead of city time.

so we pack our bags and walk out into the rain. We are happy to be leaving, as we only brought food which has to be cooked, only to find there is no available communal kitchen in the part of the municipality of Pancho Villa where we have stayed.

so we follow the directions that one driver gave us to get back to ocosingo: go to the end of this street here and there should be a car to ocosingo at 4:30, if there isn't, just walk to the crossroad and there will be a car later, if there isn't, well, that's the way it goes. So, we are up at what we think is 3:30 to be ready by 4:00am in case the car is a bit early. if we miss it, there won't be another car back to the city until tomorrow and we'll have to eat 3 more meals consisting of doritos from the local coop store.

At the end of the street, a dog starts barking at us, and we quickly agree to just walk to the crossroads in case the car doesn't show up.

We keep walking until we get to a place in the road where the houses end and at this time of night, we are just walking into the darkness where we can only see as far as my head lamp reaches. So, we decide to stop here.

I ask about the time, to make sure. the watch says 3:25, which means that the car will drive by in 5 minutes. Or will it? "so is hora normal one hour ahead of city time", I ask Adriana. "Yeah, its one hour ahead, so when it's 3:30 city time, it's 2:30 hora normal." And so we realize that we have miscalculated and are 2 hours early for our car. We are standing in the dark, in the rain, carrying all of our heavy bags.

The last house we passed has a small covered porch with lights, so we agree to go back to there for shelter, but very quietly so that the dogs that barked as we passed won't start barking again. just as we reach the house, the dogs across the street start howling and barking. So we decide to turn back once again. Now the dogs from the house with the porch start barking too, but this time they are braver and they come barking right up to us and i have to shoo them away.

Alright then, we decide we're walking to the crossroads, through the darkness. Adriana points out that her only fear is getting assaulted, but thoughts of people in the community repeating that this is not a tense community reassuringly run through her mind. Plus, we don't seem to have much choice, and we think it is close.

So we walk and we walk, in the rain, up and down this hilly, rocky road filled with puddles. We come to a point where a river is rushing over the road, "oh shit." Its about 10 feet across and who knows how deep. "I'll cross if you will," Adriana says. So we do. It is just deep enough to fully submerge my waterproof boots, so there goes any hope of being dry.

We continue walking on, and finally after a long time we come to the crossroads, relieved that we haven't accidentally passed them already. So we put our bags down and turn off our light so as not to attract attention.

At this point I'm viscerally scared. I realize that we're absolutely in the middle of nowhere, in the dark and that if anything happens, no one would even hear us scream, we'd just have to run. Then it starts raining harder.

So we wait, crouched by the side of the road, Adriana adjusts her rain jacket to cover her both bags to protect them from the water and we make small talk and watch the fireflies.

Finally, we see some light come over the ridge, but I don't believe it until I see the headlight because I'm afraid to be disappointed.

The truck pulls up. Its a standard car that we take to get into and out of these jungle communities, basically a pickup with a jungle gym type of thing on the bed so that people can pile in, stand and hang off the back. "Esta lleno," he tells us, all full. We look at the back of the truck in desperation and indeed it is filled with people hanging from the bars standing on the bumper. He says another car will be here in a little bit and drives off.

Fortunately another car comes, but it, too, is all full. Actually 3 more come, all full. We talk the second-to-last driver into letting us hang off the back. We hop on, and Adriana is able to get both feet in. I stand on the bumper, hanging from the bars with both hands as the car struggles up and down steep hills, puddles and huge bumps. Fortunately, about halfway through the 2 and a half hour ride, I get to stand with both feet in the truck.

We're back in Junax now, and I'm so happy to be here. All of our stuff is soaked from the ride, so we're spreading it out to dry. The same wonderful people from Chiapas and Puebla who I met my first night are still here and are very welcoming. Hopefully the indymedia office here will open soon and I can post this crazy story.

http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=20050929083717802

Experts at the US National Snow and Data Centre in Colorado fear the region is locked into a destructive cycle with warmer air melting more ice, which in turn warms the air further. Satellite pictures show that the extent of Arctic sea ice this month dipped some 20% below the long term average for September - melting an extra 500,000 square miles, or an area twice the size of Texas. If current trends continue, the summertime Arctic Ocean will be completely ice-free well before the end of this century.

Ted Scambos, lead scientist at the Colorado centre, said melting sea ice accelerates warming because dark-coloured water absorbs heat from the sun that was previously reflected back into space by white ice. "Feedbacks in the system are starting to take hold. We could see changes in Arctic ice happening much sooner than we thought and that is important because without the ice cover over the Arctic Ocean we have to expect big changes in Earth's weath

reposted from san diego indymedia: 1 | 2 Once the delegation ended, Adriana and I continued working on support projects to help the Zapatista communities. One of these projects is a follow up from a previous delegation, the Mother Seeds in Resistance delegation. This delegation had the opportunity to observe a conference that the Zapatistas held to discuss their plans to begin testing their corn for genetic contamination. Adriana and I travelled with two of the agro-ecology promoters to the community they live in to take photos of the testing process. These photos will be disseminated through the communities so that more people can help with the testing process.

Traveling through Chiapas, you see corn fields, or milpas, everywhere. Literally every mile you drive through contains corn fields. This time of year, most of them are folded in half for drying and are beige in color.

As we document testing the process, numerous people, young and old gather to watch. Once we finish, one agro-ecology promoter invites us into his home for pozol. Pozol is a thick drink made from corn, water and sugar. It is one of the indigenous customs of this region. I am nervous about drinking it, given the already precarious state of my stomach, but I do and it is very tasty.

Afterwords, we go into San Andres to find a car back to Oventik. In San Andres, I am reminded that we are in a war zone. Many of the buildings are old and worn and many people sit on the street and look at you. I'm speaking not only of the war that the Zapatistas are waging with the Mexican government, but of the economic war the U.S. is waging with Mexico. Subcomandante Marcos has said that Neo-Liberalism and Free Trade is "the finance bomb" that the U.S. has used on Mexico.

When passing through cities and places that aren't exclusively Zapatista, it is important to be cautious of talking about why you're here. Not everyone in Chiapas supports the Zapatistas, and the danger of the situation is apparent when you're in a city looking for a ride somewhere. You don't want to end up being taken somewhere you don't want to be going. We sit on the side of the highway, waiting for a taxi to pass.

Outside of the carcoles, you never know who is Zapatista and who isn't, so you never want to talk too much about what you're doing. I had already made the mistake of talking too much in the car on the way here to San Andres, and Adriana told me I shouldn't. So I was already nervous.

The police drive by as we sit. One car offers us a ride, but our friend, the promoter, says that he thinks they are drunk. Finally an official collective taxi arrives and we drive home as night sets in.

The next day we make plans to go to another Caracol, La Garrucha. Adriana has never been there and we want to work on some projects there as well.

Before we leave, we meet with the people who run the bike workshop. They give us a detailed report of how they spent the last donation a member of a Schools for Chiapas delegation gave them. They also show us their wonderful bike workshop, with lots of well arranged tools, an air compressor for tires and for painting and a rack for holding bikes to work on. They recently received a donation to have electricity installed in their workshop, which they want us to see. They tell us of their need for more support and their plan to make the bike workshop more sustainable so that they can help set up workshops in other communities. With more tools to fix car tires, they would be able to bring in income from people needing car repair. They say that there isn't a place to repair car tires within an hour and a half drive, so it is a major need of the community.

/////

Adriana and I arrive in Ocosingo at night to take the morning car out to La Garrucha. We're told they only leave at 5am and 7am. In the morning we head down to where the cars leave from. Again we're in this careful negotiation for transportation, where we don't want to tell everyone that we're going to La Garrucha, so it looks like the vans say they're going to San Quintin, which becomes our destination. So we sit in this huge dirt lot where vans for various destinations come, and find out that the car should be there in a few hours, and I sleep with my head on my bag.

Finally the car shows up, a pickup with a sort of cage on the back so that people can stand up and hang on. We start the ride to La Garrucha and I quickly learn why they have this setup. The road is dirt and full of holes, mud puddles and huge rocks, with steep up and down inclines through the mountains. This is the drive into the Selva Tzeltzal region in the Lacandon jungle. The trees and landscape are beautiful, but it takes all of my effort to help myself up so that my ass isn't smashed on every bump or so that my head doesn't hit the bars while I'm standing up. It's a long, difficult ride that lasts over 2 hours.

We arrive in La Garrucha at the Caracol Hacia un Nuevo Amanacer, which means towards a new dawn. The caracoles have their own names and the municipalities also have their original names and their autonomous names. It makes me think of this whole project as something so human and something I can relate to so much. What would you rename your community or city? The autonomous name for La Garrucha is Francisco Gomez. The name of the Caracol in Oventik is possibly my favorite, Caracol en Rebeldia y Resistencia por la Humanidad, or Caracol in rebellion and resistance for humanity.

We're received in La Garrucha by the comite de vigilancia, who's building has a gorgeous black, red and white mural on the outside depicting a well known photo of a Zapatista woman pushing a Mexican soldier back.

After talking to them, and the comite de comunicacíon who have a great satellite dish painted like a Zapatista on top of their office, we head to the dormitory for the peace observers. Its a short wooden building and all over the inside of it is wonderful graffiti from the many nationals and internationals who have stayed here. Some in italian, some in german, some in spanish. Some of it reads "the only good fascist is a dead fascist", "I want to be a flower, but if I can't, I'll be a rifle", "no gods, no masters and no fucking balls". I add "queremos un mundo sin capitalismo, sin fronteras, collectivo organic".

There is a lot of activity here. Possibly because of the Encuentro that was held here the past weekend to discuss the Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandon and the Other Campaign to send a committee of Zapatistas out of the jungle and around Mexico in order to build a broad alliance of leftist groups working outside of, or beyond, the electoral sphere.

We meet and talk to some peace observers from Argentina and Matamoros and meet a guy from Barcelona who we also saw in Oventik. He's volunteering with the health clinics.

There are lots of animals, more pigs here than in Oventik, as well as the usual dogs and chickens. There are also more beautiful murals that we photograph.

One afternoon it rains. Its a hard jungle rain that pounds on the metal roof of our dormitory. It goes on and that night the lights go out, so we all head into the cafeteria for light and company. In the cafeteria we talk to pass the hours. The woman from Matamoros talks about her work to educate people in Mexico about the grim reality of crossing the border and I tell her of our campaign against the border and for human rights for migrant people. Many people have asked Adriana and I about the US, how much it costs to go there and f there's work. Clearly the U.S.'s economic war with Mexico is taking its toll and like any war torn country, lots of people want to migrate out of it.

After about two days, we decide to head out to the municipality of Pancho Villa to learn about their schools and see what their needs are. This is another crazy ride through the muddy, rocky roads of the selva, but this time we depart at 5am for the 2 1/2 hours back out to the transportation center and 2 1/2 hours back into the deep jungle after waiting about 5 hours for a truck that will go to the community.

In Pancho Villa we have a meeting with the Education Promoters. They tell us of their many needs, like the need for a typewriter, as simple as it is. They stress that overall their schools need money because they can buy materials with the money. We also hear of their reasons for starting autonomous schools. The government schools don't teach or speak in the indigenous languages, which contributes to their disappearance and to the loss of indigenous culture. A promoter from one community tells us that the closest government school is a 5 hour walk and that the little ones can't make the walk because of the mud. Many of them speak of teaching "with love and care" and respect for the children, saying that in Mexican schools many teachers still hit the children. The promoters and the school coordinators tell us that they are still planning and working and trying to develop better methods of education than the state methods, saying that it is an important part of their autonomy.

The disonance between what is happening in Washington DC tonight and what is happening in Louisiana is too much for me to rationalize. Progressives talk about ending racism, poverty, and showing how much they "care" about other people. But it seems that for too many people, those ideals are values of convenience. And when it becomes inconvenient, uncomfortable, or frightening - then the values become almost valueless.

http://neworleans.indymedia.org/news/2005/09/5603.php

On San Diego Indymedia.

reposted from san diego indymedia:
http://sandiego.indymedia.org/en/2005/09/111214.shtml

At Junax, I met many awesome people who were in town for the Plenary of the EZLN over the weekend. I met some people from Puebla and D.F. but also some people from Greece who work with A School for Chiapas and Athens Indymedia. There was a lot of excitement about La Otra Campana and La Sexta and all of the new developments there.

In the morning, I took the combi from San Cris to Oventik, the caracol where I was supposed to meet Adriana from Schools for Chiapas with the rest of the delegation from the US. A combi is a van that takes lots of people to different places cheaply, for example the one hour ride to Oventic was about 15 pesos, or $1.50.

A caracol is like a center for a Zapatista community. Now that I have been here a bit I have been learning from Adriana a bit more of the structure of the Autonomous communities. There is a long history behind the name caracol, but it means mostly that the caracols are centers for information to come in and out of, and the offices of the various community councils are located there.

Driving into Oventic and passing the sign 'usted esta entrando territorio Zapatista, aqui el pueblo manda y el gobierno obedece', I realized the gravity and reality of the Zapatista struggle for the first time. Its one thing to read about the rebellion and the EZLN rising up and taking over San Cristobal and kicking out the government, but its another, far more real thing, to see a large scale autonomous zone with my own eyes.

Arriving at the gate of Oventik, you are met by the masked Guardia, or Guard, men and women who you must ask to enter. A banner in 5 languages in the auditorium where we slept describes the EZLN as 'el guardia y corazon del pueblo', the guardian and heart of the community. Once you ask to come in, the Guardia takes you to the Comite de Vigilancia, who keep track of who is coming an going from the caracol. As a Zapatista center in a war, there is a strong feeling of a culture of security here.

The first night in Oventic it rained hard. Oventic is at a very high elevation and is cold all the time. You can see the clouds hugging the surrounding mountains, and at times they envelope the caracol as well.

The next day we travelled to San Juan de La Libertad. The Junta Del Buen Gobierno emphasizes that people should go to other communities as well as Oventik, since Oventik is the closest to the city and gets the most traffic. Zapatista territory is made up of 5 regions, and each region has a caracol as its center of information. Within each region there are many municipalities and each municipality has its own Consejo, or community council. The Junta Del Buen Gobierno is a council for the entire region which makes decisions about equally distributing resources, allowing visitors in and resolving community conflicts. It is made up of volunteers from the community who are rotated every 10 days or so. At least this is my simple understanding from being here for a few days and asking questions. It seems to be like a clear, beautiful example of horizontalism and direct democracy.

On our way to San Juan de La Libertad we passed a Government military base. When we spoke to the Consejos, someone asked about the base. They told us of numerous times when the military has tried to enter the community and the men, women and children gathered and told the military to leave. Each time the military left. The consejos also told us of the community's many needs and call for continued support. They said they were very pleased and honored to have visitors from as far as the United States.

For more info see:

http://www.ezln.org
http://chiapas.indymedia.org
http://schoolsforchiapas.org

This is the first of a number of reports I plan to write about my experience here...

This is from last year when a woman was shot in the eye with a "less than lethal" weapon, and died instantly. The person who shot her was  trainer for police, who is supposed to instruct them to never shoot these weapons at head level.

Cops Not Charged For Murdering Innocent 21 Year Old

Officer Rochefort Milien and the other cops involved in the murder of Victoria Snelgrove, a 21 year old Emerson College at the Red Sox pennant victory celebration last year, will not face charges, the Boston Globe reports. I think some sort of protest/direct action would be appropriate, more on this if it happens.

http://agoraxchange.org

Welcome.

25 March 2005
agoraXchange is an online community for discussing and designing a massive multi-player global politics game challenging the violence and inequality of our present political system.

We put forward agoraXchange to elicit collaboration for challenging a world in which myths about birthright result in violence and suffering within and among nations and families. We urge eliminating the laws responsible for nation and marriage because we believe that these institutions misshape our material and psychic lives and constrain the imagination in ways that stunt us all.

We are disturbed by the familiarity and even acceptance of war among much of the world's population, where each day on average hundreds will die from bombs, guns, machetes: over six million dead in wars since 1989, tens of millions friends and relatives in grief. We see but cannot fathom a world in which a family will live for a year in southern Africa on less than what a few businessmen pay for a quick lunch in London. And we are mystified as to why each year tens of thousands of people should die from drowning, suffocation, dehydration, and being shot and stabbed simply because they lack a piece of paper and attempt to move between borders, to whose location they never agreed. We also believe human beings deserve an earth that has air that is not toxic, water that is uncontaminated, and an infrastructure that affords everyone basic education and health care.

Finally, we see the travails of war, hunger, restrictions of movement, environmental degradation, the lack of compassion in our political institutions and in our families, as largely rooted in laws that use birth for assigning us our place in life. It is the law of nationality that makes one's place of birth determine where one may move and live, and not competencies of language, knowledge of a Constitution, or even education. It is the laws giving us inheritance and kinship that determine whether one will have access to the hundreds of trillions of dollars in wealth from estates or whether one will grow up in poverty. It is marriage law that produces the family tree, whose roots are always national.

Read more...