News and Updates: Worldwide Peasant Struggles
Indians celebrated the ruling as a confirmation of land rights they were granted in 1988 [AFP] The Amazon's indigenous groups have won a major victory with Brazil's Supreme Court upholding the integrity of a vast native reserve. Friday's ruling paves the way for the expulsion of white farmers living in the Raposa Serra do Sol reserve the...
Director-General of United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization Commends the Struggle of Women of Via Campesina MST Press Release (March 10, 2009) On the second day of mobilization of the International Women's Day by Via Campesina, a committee of farmers has been received in Brasilia by the Director-General of FAO (UN Food and...
Maputo, the capital of Mozambique was the site of the 5th International Conference of La Via Campesina. More than 600 men and women peasants and small farmers from 60 countries met from October 16 to the 23rd to discuss the situation in agriculture, emphasizing that the solution to the problem of hunger is Food Sovereignty. In contrast to the...
Inter-Press Service (IPS) By Walter Sotomayor BRASILIA, Apr 17 (IPS) - An urgent call to speed up the land reform process in Latin America was issued Thursday by rural activists at the 30th FAO Regional Conference for Latin America and the Caribbean, who also sharply criticised agribusiness interests and large estates in the region.
"We...
RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) — Rural landless workers in Brazil stepped up their campaign for agricultural reform Thursday by holding several demonstrations and occupying a hydroelectric plant and freeway toll stations, their organization said. The protests were part of the Landless Farmworkers Movement's "Red April" operation to force the government...
Stora Enso's Brazilian Imbroglio by Maurna Desmond, Forbes.com Paper maker Stora Enso is catching heat from activists in Brazil who recently invaded its factory and blocked major roads. The Finnish-Swedish company wants to plant roots in South America, but the locals haven't been very welcoming. On Wednesday, Brazilian land rights group...
Dear Friends of the MST, As we conveyed in the most recent MST Informa, many NGOs and social movements in Brazil are against government's plan to redirect water from the São Francisco river. According to some estimates, the project will spend billions out of the public coffers, drastically change ecosystems, cause migration of peoples, and...
RIO DE JANEIRO, Dec 14 (IPS) - The upper echelons of the Brazilian Catholic Church have decided to lend their support to Bishop Luiz Cappio, who is on hunger strike against the diversion of water from the Sao Francisco river, after the government confirmed it would go ahead with the project.
The authorities argue that the work is...
Current global modes of production, consumption and trade have caused massive environmental destruction including global warming that is putting at risk our planet’s ecosystems and pushing human communities into disasters. Global warming shows the effects of a development model based on capital concentration, high fossil energy consumption,...
Dear friends of the MST,
Today is the 40th anniversary of the death of the revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara. In countries around the world and especially in Latin America, activists from the left and social movements are carrying out events to commemorate the man who has been transformed into one of the greatest symbols of struggle for...