From the open publishing newswire: even forest activists will face trial on Dec. 6 for trespassing charges stemming from a demonstration last month protesting Steve Wills Logging and Trucking company. Demonstration blocks vital truck route. The demonstration included three separate roadblocks and took place at Fisher Road outside of Hydesville ? the site of the largest anti-logging rally ever held in the history of the environmental movement in the United States.

Of the seven activists arrested, six were charged with infraction trespassing, while protester Kim Starr received a misdemeanor charge of resisting arrest in addition to a misdemeanor trespassing.

"We were ready to get arrested," said Starr. "The sheriffs always act as [Pacific Lumber's] personal goons."

[ North Coast Earth First! ]

From the open publishing newswire: Just after midnight on December 3rd, 1984 Union Carbide's pesticide factory released a dense, white cloud of poison gas into the city of Bhopal and surrounding impoverished neighborhoods. As a cruel result of the gas, people were unable to control their bowels as they ran and choking, pregnant women aborted on the spot. People directly involved in the burial and cremation of the dead estimated that 8,000 died over the course of the first three days following the disaster. Roughly a half a million people were exposed to the gas, who then flooded the hospital. Two decades later, in total, 20,000 people have had their lives transformed into agony and shortened as a direct result of gas poisoning and 120,000 suffer debilitating and chronic ailments to this day. Future generations of Bhopal residents are not free of Carbide's touch either. Cases of birth defects and mental disabilities are widespread among the children of the gas victims.

In January of 2004, I flew to Mumbai, India for the World Social Forum (WSF). I had heard about the previous WSFs held in Porto Alegre, Brazil and made up my mind to go and cover it on the Portland Independent Media Center. WSF 2004 was held in India and not Brazil, as the previous three were. I first read the story of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy on the Corporate Watch website (corpwatch.org). Since I was planning on traveling in India for several weeks after the WSF, I made up my mind that I would seek out people working on Bhopal issues at WSF and see Bhopal for myself.

[ Internatonal Campaign for Justice in Bhopal | The Bhopal Medical Appeal and Sambhavna Trust ]

Today on BBC World Television, a fake Dow spokesperson announced fake plans to take full responsibility for the very real Bhopal tragedy of December 3, 1984. Dow Chemical emphatically denies this announcement. Although seemingly humanistic in nature, the fake plans were invented by irresponsible hucksters with no regard for the truth.

As Dow has repeatedly noted, Dow cannot and will not take responsibility for the accident. ("What we cannot and will not do... is accept responsibility for the Bhopal accident." - CEO Michael Parker, 2002.) The Dow position has not changed, despite public pressure.

[ DowEthics.com ]

From the open publishing newswire: Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb announced today that he would not pursue a recount in Nevada. Cobb and Libertarian Michael Badnarik had made the initial recount request on Monday.

"The Nevada Secretary of State's office presented us with hefty bill and a ridiculous list of tasks to be completed in an unreasonably short period of time," said Blair Bobier, Media Director for the Cobb-LaMarche campaign.

"We were asked to pay $349,000 but were not provided a detailed breakdown of the actual costs and we do not have confidence that our money will be spent wisely."

Green Party presidential candidate David Cobb today expressed his satisfaction with a ruling by a federal judge taking jurisdiction over a Delaware County, Ohio lawsuit and denying the county's attempt to stop the recount of presidential ballots in that county.

"We are very pleased that the judge recognized our right to a recount and that the recount will go forward in each and every county in Ohio," said Cobb.

The judge also provisionally granted the motion by the Kerry-Edwards campaign to intervene in the lawsuit in defense of the position of Cobb and Libertarian Michael Badnarik.

related: [ Voter Fraud in Florida and Ohio: Kerry Won the Election by at least 1,7 Million Votes | pdx indymedia sElection Fraud stories ]

From the open publishing newswire: Free Trade is the blueprint for terminal annihilation. Along with the fetishized glory of economic development, corporate invasion rides on the essential involvement of military and paramilitary forces assigned to eliminate entire societies. Those who remain become ill in the contaminated aftermath of resource exploitation of their homelands. Tho activists may be familiar with these two of many impacts of free trade, the growing plague of femicide is often overlooked or ignored as a side issue.

Humanity may well never recover from this carefully planned plunder. The Earth might do quite well in recovering without humans.

The systematic sexual brutalization of women and girls from Sierra Leone to Iraq, Pakistan to Guatemala, Dafur to Colombia, Edmonton to Juarez, The Congo to Chile, Spokane to Afghanistan, The Phillipines to China, Mumbai to San Diego has forced FEMICIDE out of the global closet of taboos. The scope and seriousness of targeting women and girls in horrific ways; rape, forced impregnation, trafficking, torture, sexual mutilation, honor killings and murder, illustrates the failure of truly integrating equality into the fabric of resistance not to mention the overall exclusion by societies and governments of women from dialog that impacts their lives.

Women who dare voice the reality they face as individuals or as communities, risk being lableled as "man haters", "divisive", "having problems with men" or being killed. This has been the case in Juarez and Chihuahua, Mexico where women who speak out against the decade long unsolved serial torture murders of over 400 young women and over 4000 more missing are beaten and killed as well. Police are accused of beating and dismembering Lucha of Chimpimpin, a woman sent by her sisters who had organized against rape and violence there to Juarez to heed the call to stop and solve these heinous crimes. In Colombia, the horrific nature of torture, rapes and murders of women and girls has led the United Nations High Commission on Refugees to compare the situation to that of the similar gender specific attacks against thousands (possibly millions) of women in Sierra Leone, The Congo and Dafur. 3 women who addressed violence women are subjected to as Internally Displaced Persons in Colombia, Marta Cecilia Aguirre, Francis Giron Quilindo and Esperanza Amaris Miranda, have been murdered by armed groups.

From the open publishing newswire: Several Medford patrol units responded Thursday night to calls made by Victoria's Secret and the Rogue Valley Mall. An Ashland man was handcuffed and six others detained while an excited Victoria's Secret employee tried to accuse the detained of a variety of crimes. Officers released everyone without charges after about 45 minutes.

About 20 Jackson County residents had gone to Victoria's Secret to highlight endangered forest destroyed to ship more than million panty catalogs a day every day of the year. Forests in northern or boreal reaches of Canada are destroyed to make constantly the soft porn catalogs with zero recycled content, shipped nearly everywhere.

Along with the Medford protest, more than 100 actions took place today at Victoria's Secret stores around the country. Negotiations between the corporation and the San Francisco-based environmental organization ForestEthics broke down earlier this Summer. ForestEthics has promised to organize against the company until Victoria's Secret leads the catalog industry out of endangered forest destruction and into 50% postconsumer fiber within five years.

ten of us did cheers in lingerie at the mall's victoria's secret... we did some radical cheers and everyone fell down screaming "outch i'm a tree, stop cuttin on me" under the wrath of two lingerie clad protesters with fake chainsaws. The activists, mostly high-school and college students, stormed into pioneer courhouse square chasing a lingereted "tree" in an attempt to save him from the victoria's secret "logger". Security guards, having been tipped off by a press release from the group Forest Ethics, who planned the day of action, were quick to respond with cameras and violence.

The group rushed outside to put their clothes back on and was chatted at by security guards. The group caught the MAX to Lloyd center to do the same thing. When the first group went in, however, the gates were closed and there were security guards in front. The first group tipped off the second group, who was getting coffee. The second group called Victoria's Secret's HQ to ask what store hours were for Lloyd's Victoria's Secret and they said they would be closed all day.

From the open publishing newswire: The 'Students For Change' sponsored a rally today at the EMU on the UofO campus. Notwithstanding chilly December temperatures, there was a good turnout of perhaps a couple hundred people, mostly students. I was remembering back three years ago when I went to some of the UofO peace rallies where there were perhaps a dozen or so students. The increasing numbers is a really good sign. People are waking up!

When I first arrived upon the scene I saw a small cluster of waving american flags. Within the group was a woman holding a sign "Give Peace a Chance" so I thought they were patriotic dissenters. However, upon closer scrutiny I found that they were Pro-Bush, Pro-War, Pro-Republican, Anti-Peace, Anti-Eco, and Anti-Friendly folks. One woman's sign - decorated with a flower - read "Peace through Superior FirePower".

I walked over to their camp and asked a couple of the young men if they were ready to go and fight. They said that they would do their duty if they are called. I asked "why aren't you there now then". They hemmed and hawed until an older man butt in and told me that he already served and then started spewing the same old tiring rhetoric: "get a job", "thank me for your freedom"... When he asked me what I have done for this country, I told him that I do things everyday, adding that I have worked with homeless veterans. He paused for a moment but than came right back at me in a very angry provocative tone.

[ Other articles by peace rebel girl ]

From the open publishing newswire: Here in our country and our own community, we are seeing an escalation of the assaults on the rights and the safety of immigrants, refugees, working people, and, indeed, all citizens. A proposed Multnomah County Resolution addresses these matters. Similar in many ways to resolutions that have been passed by the City of Portland and by 351 other local and state governments to date, this resolution goes further in addressing the matter of discrimination and harassment, in addition to the matter of civil rights. Members of the Board of Commissioners have asked for expressions of public support, in the form of organizational endorsements, reports of personal experiences, and attendance at the December 9 meeting, at which members of the Board of Commissioners will vote on the resolution.

What: Multnomah County Resolution Expressing Commitment to Protect Civil Rights
Who: People who live, work, study, worship and travel in Multnomah County
When: December 9, 2004 - 9:30 to 10:30 AM
Where: 501 SE Hawthorne Boulevard, Portland
Action: Sign a letter of support as an individual, an organization, or come to the hearing.

From the open publishing newswire:

Alan Graf writes: I agree with some of the posts on this site and with Lloyd Marbet that this settlement has not as of yet made any noticeable difference in the brutality and oppression of the Portland Police.

However, for those of you who know me, I have been involved in trying to bring accountability to the police for years. See the Majority Report on the city of Portland website. I don't do this for recognition or for monetary gain. My grandparents were dragged out in the middle of the night by nazi thugs in uniform to be gassed to death at Auschwitz. I am genetically inclined to do battle with the forces of oppression for the sake of my grandparents and my children and grandchildren. Like everyone else, I appreciate appreciation, but don't expect it.

I, like Lloyd, would have preferred some written policy changes. However after negotiating for five months, the city offered us only watered down policy directives that were meaningless. I was not ready to recommend some meaningless piece of paper to my clients. [ read more ]

Related: [ The deadly effects of oppositional thinking and the power of contemplative practices | Northwest Constitutional Law Center ]

From the open publishing newswire: Alan Graf's speech, copied to Indymedia, is full of misrepresentations. The plain fact is that the suit failed miserably to accomplish anything of real or lasting value.

The plaintiffs, with the exception of Lloyd Marbet, were satisifed with a cash payment and no changes in the Police Department policies and practices, nor were the guilty parties punished in any way. The litigants settled by using the tax payer's money and calling it done. Tax payer money isn't the problem; police brutality and poor decision making is the problem. This suit in no way effects either of the two. In fact, it simply reinforces the City position that it can buy its way out of any problem, and that criminal actions by City employees can be ignored.

Comment: No, the real problem we have is that people would rather whine than act creatively and intelligently, and sling mud and pick nits with the people who are already doing so. Have a little vision! Let me offer you a very realistic scenario how this judgment can be very useful: [ more comments ]

From the open publishing newswire: The Grand Opening of a new community-oriented education project, Books to Oregon Prisoners (BtOP), will be happening on Saturday Dec 11th at the newly re-opened Reflections Mirror-Image Bookstore, at 330 N. Killingsworth, noon-4 pm. At the grand opening, members of the community can come in and order books to send to their friends and family members incarcerated in Oregon state prisons.

Until now, the only way to send books to people incarcerated in Oregon state prisons was by ordering them online through Amazon.com or Powells.com. For many working class people, this option is out of the picture. BtOP has solicited donations of brand new books from book publishers and distributors, and for a $5 suggested donation, anyone can select two books from our catalog and we will send them to an incarcerated friend or family member.

The Grand Opening of Reflections features an art show by former Black Panther Billy X, on Saturday December 4th at 6 pm.

From the open publishing newswire: So, if you go to portlandonline.com, you can access the video archives of City Council meetings. Click on "Portland City Council 12-1-04 9:30AM" and you get to see, as the first item on the agenda, the Council discussing the $300k settlement for protesters injured by police during the A22 Bush Protest and March 20 Iraq War Protest.

Linda Meng, the City Attorney, is the first person to speak, and she reiterates that her office is recommending that the City settle for that amount. She also says she hopes this is the "last such case" in which protesters are able to band together and sue the City as a group. She alludes to "litigation strategies" her office has been developing to avoid this situation again, but demurs from discussing them "at this juncture", the implication seeming to be that such talk would be better behind closed doors. (That was my personal impression anyway).

related: [ Alan Graf's Press Conference Speech rebutted | rebuttal to rebuttal ]

From the open publishing newswire: Today, November 29th, 2004, at 11 am, we, Indigenous Peoples' delegates, declare a hunger strike and spiritual fast inside the United Nations Palais des Nations in Geneva, during this 3rd week of the 10th session of the Intersessional Working Group on the United Nations Draft Declaration for the Rights on Indigenous Peoples.

We, Indigenous peoples' delegates from different countries, undertake this action, with the support and solidarity of Indigenous Peoples and organizations from around the world, to call the world's attention to the continued attempts by some states, as well as this UN process itself, to weaken and undermine the Draft Declaration developed in the UN Working Group on Indigenous Populations and adopted by the UN Subcommission for the Prevention of Discrimination and Protection of Minorities in 1994.

Western Shoshone protest war | Shundahai Network

From the open publishing newswire: Earlier this fall it was finally admitted by scientists and researchers at the university of Harvard Medical School in Cambridge Mass. that Linus Pauling was absolutely correct in his research and findings in the 1980's on the best way to combat AIDS. That way of course was to rebuild the immune system.

Pauling's credentials as a scientist are of the highest order yet when he presented his research on mega dose vitamin therapy and AIDS to the medical establishment in the United States and abroad in the 1980's the entire western health care industry went to work to discredit his findings. Creating rigged short-term studies produced in months to refute years of research the Pauling Institute carefully conducted.

Pauling and his fellow researchers had been under this onslaught from the Western medical establishment prior to their AIDS work.

[ Other articles by Lloyd Hart ]