Foreign Policy magazine (FP) last week reported that Mark Zuckerberg has failed in his most recent attempt to get facebook into China.
Zuckerberg has been courting Chinese officials to promote facebook’s new geographic filtering mechanism that allows governments to manipulate the information available to their citizens.
FP reports that the Chinese government is more concerned about positioning Chinese software such as WeChat in the global market. We Chat currently has two thirds of a billion users. Facebook has over one and a half billion.
Papuan students across Indonesia protest the murder of half a million of their people
West Papuan protestors in Jakarta were arrested and beaten by police on Friday following Pupuan Independence Day protests in response the ongoing massacre of West Papuans to make way for Indonesian coastal settlements, palm oil plantations and vast forest clearing. West Papua is home to the world’s largest gold mine and significant oil reserves, owned by American interests. Over half a million people have been killed by the Indonesian Government since it took control of the region in 1969.
Indian billionaire Gautam Adani will visit Queensland this week to inspect the world’s largest coal mine and the rail and port facilities gifted to him last week by Prime Minister Turnbull.
The Australian taxpayer will support the Indian energy tycoon with one billion dollars in cash and 12billion litres of free water, every year.
Adani will be hosted by Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk and opposed by activists from Townsville to Brisbane who are preparing to mount a Standing Rock style campaign in support of the Wangan and Jaguligu people whose land will literally vanish as a 60 square kilometer hole is dug in the Galilee basin. The coal from the basin will double Australia’s annual carbon emissions.
International Workers Association wraps annual conference in Warsaw
The 26th International Workers Association Conference has just wrapped up in Warsaw. Delegates from Australia, the Americas, Asia and Europe met in the wake of the US election to hold their regular annual event in support of workers and the oppressed. A tour was conducted of memorials to the Polish anarchist’s significant role in fighting the Nazis during 1930s and 40s.
On the 2nd – 4th December 2016 there was a well attended congress of the IWA held in Warsaw, Poland whereupon it was resolved to reaffirm the aims, tactics and principles held by the IWA and to commit to strengthening and growing the international.
The congress has approved the creation of workplace organizer training and strategy for workplace activities groups. It was also decided to organize promotional events throughout the world to facilitate the dissemination of our ideas and encourage workers to join our ranks.
The congress also saw a number of new affiliations and, unfortunately, disaffiliations.
The CNT, FAU and USI have been disaffiliated as a result of a conscious disregard for process, statutes and dues of the IWA. The divisive and destructive attempts by of the CNT’s Confederal Committee in complicity with FAU and USI is nothing more than an attack on the very principles, tactics and aims of the IWA and anarchosyndicalism.
We denounce their attempts at appropriating the IWA’s name and creating a parallel organization to the IWA in the strongest terms possible.
We recognize the conflict within the CNT. We received declarations of support addressed to the congress by about 40 local unions from Spain (both current and former members of the CNT), and the congress was also attended by a number of observers from these and other unions who are concerned with developments within their organizations.
We remain in solidarity with one another and welcome those who are organising and fighting against exploitation to join us.
COP22 in Marrakech tries to enact Paris in a hostile climate
The Climate Change Conference in Marrakech ended on Sunday with 111 countries confirming their commitment to the agreement hammered out in Paris one year ago. “Paris was the deal, Marrakech is the detail,” said Salaheddine Mezouar noting that the conference had accelerated the implementation timetable agreed at COP21 in Paris.
Among the highlights, delegates from Australia and the UK presented a finance roadmap showing an annual expenditure of 100billion US dollars to fund climate action and local government officials committed to one gigaton of Carbon Dioxide reductions annually in addition to those commitments already made by national governments.
Cop 23 will be held in Bonn, Germany with Fiji as the presiding nation.
Mississippi fisherman reveals the gruesome results of a Vibrio infection
A flesh-eating bacteria related to cholera has terrified beach goers along the Southern US coast as reports of amputated limbs and deaths from the previously rare infection begin to mount. The Vibrio Vulnificis bacteria is infects humans who eat infected shellfish or who expose cuts and abrasions to infected water. It is most common after rain events wash water from estuaries and swamps into warm sea water. The nutrient and pollutant laden waters of US rivers and the toxic state of the Gulf of Mexico have combined to allow a number of pathogens to flourish. Rumours that the Vibrio bacteria was genetically modified and released under the name Cynthia to consume oil released from the BP spill in 2010 have not been confirmed.
