• Through a series of well-choreographed steps, a tiger-themed flash mob called “Freeze Tiger Trade” spearheaded by WWF-Malaysia turned heads and attracted attention on the status of our Malayan tigers here in Kuala Lumpur.

• In Turkey, nongovernmental organizations in the eastern province of Batman held a silent march and sit-in demonstration yesterday in protest of a mine explosion that claimed the lives of four people on Monday.

• On Wednesday, unionized workers of the West Indies Paper Products Limited in Jamaica walked off the job to protest against what they claimed was the failure of the management to improve wage and fringe benefits.

• More than 100 people at Yarl’s Wood Immigration Removal Centre in England went on hunger strike on Wednesday.

• In Azerbaijan, ten opposition activists jailed for participating in an unsanctioned rally calling for free elections in central Baku on July 31 have declared a hunger strike.

• Around 120 Chinese seasonal berry pickers in northern Sweden went on a 15-kilometre (9.3-mile) march overnight to Friday to protest their salaries

• In Malaysia, police forcefully broke up peaceful candlelight vigils held on August 1, against the Internal Security Act (ISA), and arrested 36 people in Petaling Jaya and Penang.

• Anti-BP protesters from Greenpeace disrupted a speech by the company’s chief of staff at a major oil conference in London yesterday, urging the company to change its ways following the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

• Members of an indefinite vigil held in front of the Massachusetts State House have reached their 17th day of protest against the anti-immigrant amendments added to the budget bill.

• More than 100 gay rights protesters marched in Toronto on Saturday to demand greater rights for all minority populations marginalized because of their gender, sexuality or socioeconomic status.

• Students and staff at 100 colleges and universities in Great Britain are protesting funding cuts that could keep 200,000 people out of universities next year.

• Students at the University of Puerto Rico voted to end their two-month strike against massive budget cuts on Monday after agreeing to a package with the administration that includes an extension of tuition waivers, the cancellation of a fee that would have drastically raised education costs, a commitment not to arbitrarily punish strike participants, and rejection of school privatization plans.

• Israeli soldiers injured several protesters on Sunday in an attack on a nonviolent demonstration against illegal settlements and the construction of the Israeli separation wall in the Palestinian village of Beit Jala, near Bethlehem.

• 12,000 Minnesota nurses voted to hold an open-ended strike on Monday following retaliation from employers after a one-day strike on June 10.

Last week, the Energy Action Coalition organized 45 “Crude Awakening” vigils, rallies and events around the country to mark the one-month anniversary of the offshore drilling disaster. (Click here to see a preliminary report, with pictures and links to local news coverage, on the actions.)

In London, two Greenpeace activists scaled BP’s office building and “hoisted a flag depicting the firm’s logo covered in oil and with the slogan ‘british polluters’ above the entrance in St James’s Square.”

And perhaps most significantly, a boycott of BP is taking off. Public Citizen is calling on folks outraged by what’s happening to pledge that they will boycott BP’s gas and retail products for at least three months.

Ultimately, however, we should use the horror of this environmental disaster to push for more fundamental change. As Robert Weissman, president of Public Citizen, writes:

…cash compensation for economic harms caused — while necessary — doesn’t bring back destroyed ecosystems and does little to mitigate the company’s culpability for not preventing the blowout in the first place.

The only good that can come out of the BP disaster is if it forces the United States to fundamentally reorient energy policy. As a matter of simple common sense, the Obama administration should reverse its new policy and stop offshore drilling expansion. More fundamentally, BP’s oil gusher is yet another reminder of the need for a massive shift away from fossil fuels and to investments in efficiency and renewable energy.

Members of the trans community and allies protested in front of the Tribeca Cinemas in New York City last week.  The rally was in response to the Tribeca Film Festival’s premiering of “Ticked-off Trannies with Knives,” a transphobic film that highlights rape and violence.

The New York Times quoted an organizer’s explanation for the protest:

“The transsexual and transgender communities are all too often the victims of violence, marginalization and discrimination as a result of inaccurate media depictions like this film, which is offensive, dehumanizing and misogynistic and causes further misunderstanding and harm to an already dangerously oppressed minority group,” said Ashley Love, a Magnet organizer.

Protesters said both the derogatory language in the title as well as stark images of violence in the film lead to increased misunderstandings and violence against transpeople.

“People are telling us to lighten up,” Ms. Love added, “but I heard reports of two more trans women murdered this morning. It’s not a laughing matter. We’re not laughing at all.”

Not only do trans folks experience violence at shockingly high rates, they have problems accessing employment, medical care, and basic services such as public restrooms.

The Tribeca Film Festival declined to remove the film or change the title.  The movie description itself acknowledges the statistics–it was “inspired by the devastating increase in brutal hate crimes against the transgender community”–but its incarnation is seen as exploitative and encouraging of violence rather than explorative.

A candlelight vigil was also held, and as one activist put it:

This time we’re going to make ourselves heard. Because we’re tired of our dead being marginalized, overlooked, and even used as advertising material for a cheap gimmick of a film.

• Four Czech activists climbed the Krusnohorske theatre in Teplice on Saturday to protest the planned cancellation of coal mining limits by the Social Democrats, who were hosting a conference inside.

• Hundreds of demonstrators gathered near the Erez (Beit Hanoun) border crossing on Sunday to mark the 1,000-day Israeli blockade imposed on the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip.

• Around 1,000 men and women gathered outside the Jerusalem home of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday to protest gender discrimination on some bus routes in ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods, where women are made to sit at the back.

• About 1,000 people took part in an anti-nuclear protest in Edinburgh calling for the scrapping of Trident, saying money would be better spent public sector jobs and services.

• More than 300 Bahraini fishermen and their relatives demonstrated outside the Fishermen’s Protection Society in Muharraq on Saturday to protest the rapid decline in marine stocks due to a lack of regulation for fishing licenses and sand dredging of the seabed.

• A few hundred people gathered in the streets of Valletta, Malta on Saturday to protest the lack of enforcement of environment protection laws, such as encroachment on outside development zones, illegal hunting, air pollution, unauthorized groundwater extraction and other local issues.

In a number of theology classes, we talked about the unity of all beings and things on the earth.  We are all interconnected.  As I have sat with this over the last few years, the more I have come to believe this (from a scientific, theological, and social perspective, etc.).  Today our group – Witness Against Torture – did a Ghost Walk in the Senate Hart office building.  A number of us walked in orange jumpsuits with names of prisoners who have been cleared for release on our backs.  We each walked separately on a different floor and wing in a very prayerful and solemn way.  We went to “lobby” those in the Senate to help remember these men who have been “cleared for release” and are ready to leave yet remain in Guantánamo.

We put the jumpsuits on once in the building and after about 20 minutes a police officer came running up to me (very out of breath) as I was walking at a Thich Nhat Hanh pace… very slowly and deliberately.  He respectfully asked how I was doing and what I was doing here.  Then he requested my ID, followed by a number of investigative questions.  We weren’t doing anything illegal in our action, but they were checking on us.  After I was allowed to continue walking, another person – from the capitol police – wanted to talk to me.  As I told him that I was with Witness Against Torture, that I was not protesting or demonstrating, that I was lobbying to help follow the executive order to close Guantánamo and end torture, and that we were completely nonviolent, he responded: “Oh, Witness Against Torture.  I know you guys.  I’ve seen you for a number of years.”  They let me (and our whole group) continue to walk.

Apparently, I was one of the few who received this much attention from the police.  To be faced with this interrogation and questioning does make me feel uncomfortable.  I want there to be harmony in all relationships, so I don’t like lying or not telling the whole truth.  So it is difficult to engage with the police because my experience in past actions is that some of the officers have lied and significantly misled us.  After going through this relatively brief questioning (which Jerica Arents, another Witness Against Torture activist, overheard and described as “tough”), I was relieved to be able to continue walking.

It took a while to get re-centered.  I imagined what it would be like to face continued pressure and questioning like the men in Guantánamo, Bagram, and the many other prisons.  I got just a little taste of it.  But it moved me.  Then I thought of the horrific abuse on top of that.  I don’t know how people could withstand this.  I felt this deeper “interconnectedness” (that I mentioned above) because of this experience.  Tasting it in a tiny way made me feel this connection – the binding and connection of my heart, life, and soul to theirs.  We are all one.  We are all interconnected.  This leads me a step further.

Thich Nhat Hanh writes about an exercise of saying “You are me.  And I am you.”  This can help us grow in our awareness of our interconnectedness.  And even further, that we are literally all one.  So as I sit with the fact that I am the man at Guantánamo (Sayf Bin Abdallah) and he is me, what does this tell me?  If I am then being held and mistreated in Guantanamo, what must I do?  If I am yearning to be reconnected with my family and wife and kids after years and years apart, what does this mean?  I don’t have the answers.  But I think it calls for a deeper and more intimate journey with this issue.  I am hopeful and confident that we will be exploring and walking down that path as this Fast and Vigil for Justice continues.  We will be here through January 22, President Obama’s self-imposed “deadline” for closing Guantánamo, which won’t be met.  So our work continues.

Our good friend Kathy Kelly, who is also a contributor to this site, sent along a nice article a couple days ago – which ran on Common Dreams and several other sites – about the staggering human and financial cost of the many wars that the United States is currently engaged in. She also examines how our violence is only exacerbating the problems of terrorism and extremism, while the average Afghan continues to live in desperate need of humanitarian assistance. Kelly then explains the campaign that Voices for Creative Nonviolence has launched to address these concerns:

The U.S. Constitution states that Congress shall make no law to abridge the right of people to assemble peaceably for redress of grievance.  We are deeply aggrieved by the folly of these wars. Our right to free speech is irrelevant if we don’t exercise it, and so we intend to raise the lament of those who bear the brunt of our wars but whose voices seldom reach U.S. government figures.

For two weeks this January, leading up to the date when President Obama is due to submit his budget for Fiscal Year 2011 to Congress, Voices for Creative Nonviolence and friends will gather in Washington D.C. for a “Peaceable Assembly Campaign” project.  (www.peaceableassemblycampaign.org)

We’ll be meeting with elected representatives to raise questions about the folly and the crime of war, holding daily vigils at the White House, and engaging in acts of nonviolent civil disobedience to emphasize our refusal to cooperate with the war makers.

Please join us in this year-long campaign, whether in Washington D.C. this month, or participating locally where you live.   Visit the Voices website, www.vcnv.org, to learn more about ways to become involved, both locally through this coming summer and in the Days of Resistance in Washington.

We’ll be there from January 19th through February 2nd.

More than 250 people held a candlelight vigil outside the U.S. Military Academy in West Point on Tuesday night to protest President Barack Obama's decision to escalate the 8-year-old war in Afghanistan.

• Other protests against the escalation of war in Afghanistan were held in New York, Minneapolis, and many other cities across the country.

• A peaceful Boston University counter-protest of more than 200 people faced six picketers Tuesday afternoon from the Westboro Baptist Church, who held signs with messages such as “The Jews killed Jesus,” “God hates fags” and “Thank God for AIDS,” outside the Hillel House.

• Six of 31 national museums in France were closed because of a strike on Wednesday over planned job cuts, including the Georges Pompidou Center, which began the strike 10 days ago.

• An undocumented Mexican immigrant, who has been living in the United States for 20 years, recently began a hunger strike in front of the White House, calling for President Obama to pass comprehensive immigration reform by the end of the year, as he’d promised.

• Finnair canceled more than 20 flights Wednesday as ground staff extended a walkout to protest outsourcing of cargo and baggage services and the transfer of hundreds of workers.

• Dozens of people have demonstrated outside the Canadian embassy in Mexico City against the killing of an anti-mining activist. The protesters blame the death of Mariano Abarca on a Canadian-owned mining company, Blackfire Exploration Ltd , which is operating in the southern Chiapas state.

• Daimler workers in Germany have walked out in protest at the company’s plans, announced on Wednesday, to assemble Mercedes C-Class models at its US plant in Alabama and shift German production from Sindelfingen to Bremen.

• Striking workers at a local supplier forced Fiat to halt production at its Termini Imerese plant in Sicily for a second day Thursday, to protest against the company’s decision to stop making cars at the plant after 2011.

As the President mulls over how many additional troops to send to Afghanistan, in a recent article for Truthout, Jeff Leys wrote that the antiwar movement seems to have gone missing over these past several months. Apart from the action on October 5, in Washington and other antiwar events around the country on October 17, he unfortunately seems to be right.

Nevertheless, we can and must step up the pressure. For those interested in taking action, Leys suggests joining the Peaceable Assembly Campaign (PAC) – the latest effort by our good friends at Voices for Creative Nonviolence to challenge the militarism that is so pervasive in our country.

From January 19 through February 2, the PAC will maintain a two-week vigil at the White House and engage in regular acts of nonviolent civil disobedience, starting on the day President Obama enters his second year in office, continuing through his anticipated State of the Union address to Congress, and concluding on the day he is to submit his budget for 2011 to Congress.

Then after February 2, the Peaceable Assembly Campaign will focus its work upon Congress. Similar to the Occupation Project effort of 2007, the PAC will organize lobbying – both legal and extralegal (i.e., civil disobedience) – in the home offices of representatives and senators who do not commit themselves publicly to oppose additional funding for the wars and occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the occupation of the Palestinian territories.

You can become involved with the Peaceable Assembly Campaign at www.peaceableassemblycampaign.org.

Ready to do something about it? Starting in a few days, leading up to Gandhi’s birthday, NP is organizing a “12 Days of Peace” campaign as a way for people to take part in the struggle for peace. Each day, there is something you can do, in coordination with others around the world:

Monday, Sept. 21
Celebrate United Nations’ International Day of Peace by working a day for peace – donating all or a portion of your day’s wages to a non-profit, non-governmental organization seeking to foster nonviolent peacekeeping worldwide.

Tuesday, Sept. 22
Sign the Peace Alliance’s petition to create a Department of Peace with a cabinet level Secretary of Peace on the presidential staff (www.thepeacealliance.org).

Wednesday, Sept. 23
Write a blog post and/or a status update on Twitter and Facebook noting that you are marking The 12 Days of Peace.

Thursday, Sept. 24
Re-establish and re-connect with a past friend, relative or colleague with whom you’ve had conflict.

Friday, Sept. 25
Write a letter to the editor of your local newspaper, and/or a letter to your Congressperson expressing support for nonviolent, unarmed peacekeeping in conflict zones worldwide.

Saturday, Sept. 26
Visit a community park with your friends and family for a picnic or gathering in celebration of peace and harmony among those closest to you.

Sunday, Sept. 27
Conduct a prayer for, or meditate upon, peace.

Monday, Sept. 28
End your day by enjoying a piece of music that demonstrates peace to you, such as “Imagine” by John Lennon or “Peace on Earth” by U2.

Tuesday, Sept. 29
Watch the 18-minute film Civilian Unarmed Peacekeeping: Building a Nonviolent Peaceforce, documenting the social and economic benefits of unarmed civilian peacekeeping as trained Nonviolent Peaceforce workers seek to create a safe space for peace within conflict areas. View at: http://tinyurl.com/n7xvl9.

Wednesday, Sept. 30
Spend time with your children and family discussing the social and healthful benefits of practicing peace among their friends and community.

Thursday, Oct. 1
Plant a rock for peace. www.plantingrocksforpeace.org

Friday, Oct. 2
Celebrate Gandhi’s birth anniversary – and the U.N. International Day of Nonviolence – by borrowing Gandhi’s autobiography, The Story of My Experiments with Truth – from your local public library.

If you’re interested in taking part, let us know. We’d love to hear about it, and we’d be happy to be your blog of choice for September 23′s activity. Send in your experiences and we’ll post them.