At the end of October, reports emerged in the Israeli press that Caterpillar, the world’s largest manufacturer of construction and mining equipment, had temporarily suspended sales to Israel. The apparent reason for this suspension is an ongoing civil trial in the Israeli courts around the death of US peace activist Rachel Corrie, who was killed by a Caterpillar D9 bulldozer as she tried to prevent the demolition of a Palestinian home in the Rafah refugee camp in 2003.

In response, activists claimed this news as a victory for the movement to end the sales of these machines to the Israeli military, which have destroyed at least 11,795 Palestinian homes over the last decade. As Sydney Levy of Jewish Voice for Peace wrote after the suspension was reported:

We take this as an indirect admission by the company that these bulldozers are being used to violate human rights and to violate the law. The Corrie story is sadly just one of thousands of stories of loss and pain.

Being born and raised in Peoria, Illinois, where Caterpillar has its world headquarters, I was thrilled to hear this news. Since so many people in the community depend on this corporation for their livelihoods, it can be a very difficult subject to raise during my visits home.

When I contacted the company for a comment on this story, however, I was quickly deflated.  In an email, Caterpillar spokesman Jim Dugan told me that the company’s policy regarding its business with Israel “has not changed,” and said that the news was “was based on rumors or speculation.”

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• A sit-in protest by 600 workers at a Hyundai factory in Ulsan, southeast of the Seoul, stopped the production of 922 vehicles worth 7.9 billion won ($7 million) on Monday.

• Dutch postal workers staged a 24-hour strike yesterday to protest plans by post and express mail company TNT NV to slash thousands of jobs.

• About 100 asylum seekers at a Sydney detention center have begun a hunger strike to protest their detention and the apparent suicide of an Iraqi detainee.

• In Peshawar, three different labor unions of Pakistan Railway staged a protest on a railway track and stopped the Awam Express which was bound to Karachi to protest a delay in the payment of their salaries.

• On Monday, hundreds of Bentley workers demonstrated outside the firm’s headquarters in the UK in protest at a proposed 4.5 per cent pay rise. Shopfloor workers staged their 30-minute silent protest after objecting to the firm’s pay offer.

• Students at the engineering department of the Science and Technology University in Tehran have refused to attend classes since Saturday in protest to educational challenges.

• In Fiji, prisoners at the Naboro Maximum Remand Cell went on hunger strike Monday afternoon to protest alleged mistreatment by prison guards.

At a labor conference in Nagasaki last week organized by UNI Global Union, a group that represents over 900 trade unions and 20 million workers, a nine-week strike by Dutch public hygene workers earlier this year won an award for the best action over the last five years.

According to Radio Netherlands Worldwide:

It was described as “an historic battle” on the UNI Global Union’s website. When the cleaners suspended work, rubbish piled up in public places like railway stations and airports. Litter bins in university buildings, train interiors and government offices were not emptied and spilled over. After six weeks, employers and unions began tentative talks about the strikers’ demands.

[...]

In the end, the cleaning workers got their salary rise, but there were more benefits to be reaped. Ms Lok, a member of the FNV-AbvaKabo union, said that it is dawning on employers that they should show some respect towards the cleaners. She explained the changed attitudes “have led to curbs on work pressure and to better working conditions, such as the availability of canteen facilities for the workers.”

Our friends who took part in the Disarm Now Plowshares action last year—which involved breaching a nuclear weapons base in Washington State to protest the first strike Trident weapons system—were recently honored by Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility. The above video contains interviews with all five activists facing trail December 7th in Tacoma. As always, their words are insightful and inspiring.

So it’s been a week since we launched the Move Bush’s Book campaign and dozens of great photos of people’s choice locations have been uploaded to the Facebook event page. Here are some of our favorites:

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• Around 200 people protested in the center of Moscow on Sunday to demand a halt to attacks on Russian journalists and activists after a string of assaults on reporters.

• Several hundred protesters gathered near the Gorleben nuclear waste storage facility in northern Germany on Sunday to demonstrate against plans to extend the period the site can be used as a storage site.

• Thousands of people demonstrated in Madrid on Saturday against Morocco’s recent crackdown in Western Sahara.

• About 500 university students from throughout Louisiana descended on the capitol in Baton Rouge on November 10 to demonstrate against cuts in state spending on education.

• Parents, educators and civil rights advocates held a demonstration on the steps of Manhattan’s Tweed Courthouse on Sunday against Cathie Black becoming the mayor’s replacement for schools chancellor, saying that the publishing executive lacks proper experience in the educational field.

• A coalition of local faith and community groups in District Heights, Maryland gathered near a gun dealer on Saturday to pray for him and call for him to abide by a 10-point code of conduct for responsible firearms sales. Police have traced more than 2,500 guns used in crimes in the past 18 years back to this one dealer.

• Work at a coal loading rail depot in Scotland was disrupted by environmental campaigners last week after they attached themselves to the conveyor belt and the front gate to protest open cast mining.

• Some 2,000 people in the Agusan del Sur province of the Philippines rallied on Saturday for an end to illegal mining and illegal cutting of trees.

Aung San Suu Kyi, Myanmar’s beloved resistance leader, has apparently just been released after more than seven years of house arrest—and 15 years of the last 20. A Nobel Peace Prize winner, she has been a champion of and symbol for the grassroots efforts to topple the incredibly repressive rule of the military dictatorship in that country. This news comes just as the junta announced that it has secured, by way of rigged elections, leadership in both houses of the country’s parliament. Here are some images of the crowds awaiting her release:

She is expected to speak publicly on Sunday. But according to The New York Times, she wasn’t completely silent: “We must unite!” she said. “If we are united, we can get what we want.”

Aung San Suu Kyi has been an advocate of the crippling international sanctions against Myanmar—which are meant, in part, to pressure the junta for her release. According to this Al Jazeera report (and Nicholas Kristof), some believe that in doing she has become out of touch with the needs of the people:

If you haven’t already, make sure to see Burma VJ, a film about how a small group of media activists risked their lives to cover the remarkable Buddhist monks’ protest in 2007:

This protest, in what appears to be Lithuania, may have the right idea when it comes to the debate over the role of technology in activism: it’s going to take some combination of old and new methods. (Also, finally, a use for the iPad… am I right?)

• 500 students took to the streets of Dublin Wednesday night in protest at alleged Garda brutality during last week’s USI-organized Education not Emigration student march.

• On Wednesday afternoon, union leaders in Nigeria said they would end their strike at midnight after receiving assurances from the president to raise the minimum wage to $150 a month. They held out the possibility of a prolonged strike if the government doesn’t act.

• Almost a dozen women from El Paso, Texas, began their fourth day of a hunger strike in front of the White House yesterday. The women, from the group La Mujer Obrera (LMO), launched the action to do more than just protest the violence and poverty in the Southwest border region.

Tens of thousands of students marched through central London yesterday to protest government cuts of colleges and universities, as well as proposals to triple tuition fees. Organized by the National Union of Students (wow, does the US have one of those?) and the University and College Union, the protest was described by the BBC as “noisy but good natured” and filled with students who were “articulate and animated, ready to tell anyone who would listen that they were enraged by the raising of fees.” That is, until about 200 violent anarchists broke away, started smashing windows, and hurling placard sticks, eggs and bottles at police officers. The destruction culminated in the occupation of the Millbank office complex, where the Conservative Party has offices.

As protesters surged, a succession of windows were smashed and demonstrators flooded into the entrance.

Security guards scattered and the handful of police inside were completely overrun. As the police tried to stop them, protesters clicked a battery of cameras in their faces.

A few yards away, in surreal calm, guests carried on eating in the adjacent Pizza Express.

It was a bizarre sight inside the building.

Demonstrators wearing police hats danced on tables. A protester ripped a security camera from the ceiling and danced in triumph. Slogans were spray-painted on walls. Smoke from the bonfire blew across the crowd.

The protesters smashed everything inside with relentless ferocity. Office chairs were used as weapons to destroy what was left of the glass.

The level of anger and the swiftness of the violence seemed to have caught everyone by surprise. It had lurched without warning from a well-organised, up-beat publicity event to something much more destructive.

Who were the rioters? It wasn’t obvious from close-up.

National Union of Students president Aaron Porter was aghast at what had happened, turning a huge turnout into a huge mess of shattered glass.

He looked appalled as he talked about how the protest had been “hijacked”, taking it away from the planned route.

That’s precisely what such actions do. They hijack attention away from the issue that turned out thousands of people and refocus it on the destructive behavior of a few individuals. It doesn’t matter that the protest violence pales in comparison to the state violence of education cuts or that the protest violence was directed at property and the state violence is directed at people. The average person simply will not see it that way. They will believe the students to be crazy and dismiss their struggle. Furthermore, it will only mean tougher policing of the peaceful activists the next time they stage a march.

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