Experiments with truth: 11/23/09
- Around 200 people blocked the entrance to the Parliament House in Canberra Australia this morning to press Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to secure a strong, legally binding treaty at the upcoming UN Climate Meeting in Copenhagen. Police arrested approximately 150 people taking part in the nonviolent direct action.
- Four people were arrested yesterday morning after they walked into Fort Benning during a protest against the activities of the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, which has a record of training some of the most brutal Latin American military officers. This year marked the 20th annual protest at Fort Benning, which was sparked after six Jesuit priests were massacred in El Salvador in 1989.
- Two “concerned citizens” locked down to a drill rig on Coal River Mountain’s Bee Tree mountaintop removal site yesterday morning, effectively stopping the blasting, while two others held a banner with the message “Save Coal River Mountain”.
- Hundreds of clergymen, congregants and reform advocates lined the sidewalks outside Independent U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman’s Stamford home Sunday night in a show of support for universal health care.
- About 70 University of California, Santa Cruz students ended their occupation of the main campus administrative building without arrest yesterday morning. This was the latest protest at a UC campus since the university announced a 32 percent tuition increase and cuts in funding on Thursday. 41 students were arrested on Friday for occupying a Berkeley building most of the day.
- Thousands of workers protested in four Dutch cities on Saturday against a government decision to increase the state retirement age from 65 to 67 by 2025.
- Thousands of Spanish farmers marched on Saturday through the streets of Madrid, halting traffic to protest the low prices they receive for their produce which they say is leading them to financial “ruin.”
