Fredericton Peace Coalition

Javier Correa, President of the National Union of Food Industry Workers (Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Industria de Alimentos, SINALTRAINAL), received a death threat, and the son of regional SINALTRAINAL leader José Domingo Flores was abducted and beaten. There are fears that the lives of members of SINALTRAINAL are in danger.

Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine, a prominent Haitian human rights activist, disappeared on the evening of 12 August, 2007. He is co-founder of the Trant Septanm (“September 30”) Foundation, an organization originally formed to help the victims of the 1991 coup in Haiti.

For over a decade groups organized by Pierre-Antoine have provided medical and psychological assistance to the victims of violence in some of Haiti’s poorest slums. The groups he helped to found also assisted migrants deported from abroad to resettle in Haiti, and he played a leading role in the successful campaign to disband the Haitian army.

Just after 6:30 pm, Wednesday, December 12, Santa and several of his elves were arrested for trying to deliver lumps of coal to Canadian Prime Minister Steven Harper. ACT for the Earth is calling for their immediate release and an end to Canada’s sabotage of the UN climate talks in Bali, Indonesia.

The US and her allies tried to legitimize their military occupation of Afghanistan under the banner of “bringing freedom and democracy for Afghan people”. But as we have experienced in the past three decades, in regard to the fate of our people, the US government first of all considers her own political and economic interests and has empowered and equipped the most traitorous, anti-democratic, misogynist and corrupt fundamentalist gangs in Afghanistan.

In the past few years, for a thousand times the lies of US claims in the so-called “War on terror” were uncovered. By relying on the criminal bands of the Northern Alliance, the US made a game of values like democracy, human rights, women’s rights etc…

Read the Press Release

The Vancouver Sun: The South Asian-Canadian community flexed its considerable muscles Monday, promising to abandon the Conservatives and boycott any airline that participates in the deportation af Laibar Singh. More than 2,000 people showed up at Vancouver International Airport to protest the imminent deportation of Singh, a paralysed man who the government said entered the country illegally.

Inka Milewski
Science Advisor and Health Watch Director
Conservation Council of New Brunswick
Monday December 10th, 2007

In a letter to the editor in the Dec. 3 Daily Gleaner, an associate professor in UNB’s chemical engineering department said uranium mining can sustain a community without destroying it.

He pointed to Elliot Lake as an example but gave no evidence to support the claim, nor did he define what would constitute destruction of a community.

At one point in Elliot Lake’s history, there were at least nine uranium mines operating. Now, there are none.

What’s been left behind are lakes, rivers, soil and wildlife contaminated with high levels of radium-226, a by-product of uranium mining and known carcinogen, and former miners with lung cancer and other radiation-related illness who file claims for compensation at a rate of one each week.

I know this because I lived in Elliot Lake. My father, a uranium miner, was one of the many miners that filed a compensation claim and has since died.

The incidence of cancer is not restricted to miners. I know this, too, because my mother died of cancer. So did the wives of many other uranium miners.

I am just learning that kids I went to school with in the 1960s and early 70s have died of cancer as well.

The fact that Elliot Lake still exists as a community could be viewed by some as evidence that it hasn’t been destroyed by mining activity. But with no mines operating now, environmental contamination that will last centuries and high cancer rates, it’s difficult to conclude that uranium mining has left Elliot Lake environmentally, socially and economically healthy.

In the past year, there have been ongoing debates in both Washington and Ottawa about potential free trade agreements with Colombia. The failure to implement a hemisphere-wide agreement has led the governments of both President George W. Bush and Prime Minister Stephen Harper to push for bilateral pacts with their ideologically-aligned ally in Colombia, President Alvaro Uribe. Both Bush and Harper are facing domestic opposition that seeks to thwart the signing and ratification of the agreements due to ongoing human rights abuses in Colombia, particularly against unionists. The US and Canadian governments repeatedly point to a recent reduction in the number of Colombian labor leaders killed as justification for a free trade agreement. However, in actuality, the intensity of attacks against Colombian workers has increased, not decreased, under the Uribe government.

:::::ACT NOW:::::

On Wednesday, 5 December, the Coalition Justice for Adil Charkaoui was informed that we could be heard before the standing committee – the following day, at 9:00 am in Ottawa. With the coincidence that Charkaoui was in Federal court at the time the news was received, he was able to obtain exceptional permission from the Federal Court judge to travel to Ottawa to speak before the committee on behalf of the Coalition. See transcripts of his and Mohamed Harkat’s presentations at www.jerome.koumbit.org/adil/en/node/242

However, the presentations of Charkaoui, Harkat, along with organizations such as Human Rights Watch, the Canadian Arab Federation, and the Quebec Bar Assocation fell on deaf ears. Despite clear warnings that the law is not even going to pass a constitutional test, the Committee made very minor amendments that will make no practical difference and approved the bill. It returned to Parliament on Friday afternoon, and the vote will probably happen on Tuesday, 11 December or Wednesday, 12 December.

TODAY AND TOMORROW, please make one final CALL to the MP for your riding, both in Ottawa and at their riding office:

- If they are Conservative or Liberal, demand that they vote against this disgusting law.
- If they are Bloc or NDP, demand that they actually do something to stop the law, which has been rammed through Parliament without opportunity for opposition, on the false pretext that the Supreme Court has imposed a deadline.

* Find contact details for your MP at www.parl.gc.ca
* Background information: below or www.jerome.koumbit.org/adil/en/node/232
* Find out how the MP for your riding voted at second reading: www.jerome.koumbit.org/adil/en/node/219

The chief and other councillors of a remote Northern Ontario native community are prepared to go to jail for disobeying a court order that allows exploratory drilling on what they consider traditional lands. At a Superior Court hearing Friday, counsel for Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) said his clients accept they were in contempt of Justice Patrick Smith‘s order giving Platinex Inc. the green light for the first phase of drilling and archeological pre-screening activity in the Big Trout Lake area.