“Against looting, socialism!” Say the Çanakkale people (Turkey) against Canadian Mining Corporation Alamos

Thousands protest against Alamos Gold Mining in Çanakkale

By Adrien Welsh 

It was with this rallying cry that activists from the Çanakkale branch of the Turkish Communist Party joined the thousands of demonstrators who stormed the site of the Kirazli gold mine project operated by the Canadian mining company Alamos. Despite a few altercations with security personnel, a human tide of thousands of protesters were determined to voice their opposition to the company caused deforestation and defeated the company's security agents. Once on the site, the event went off without a hitch, the protesters came among others to make an eminently symbolic gesture: planting trees.

De Beers' Colonial Plunder in Attawapiskat

Jay Watts

In 1995, a report issued as part of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples called suicide “one of the most urgent problems facing aboriginal communities." 22 years later, Canada’s ongoing colonial project is still taking a staggering and gruesome toll on the health and lives of First Nations. In Attawapiskat, a community of close to 2,000, there were 11 suicide attempts last Saturday, on top of 100 suicide attempts since last September.

In response to such events there has been mobilization. In Toronto, Idle No More and Black Lives Matter have responded with an occupation of an Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada office; in Ottawa people are marching from Parliament Hill to INAC in Gatineau; while other INAC offices are being occupied in Winnipeg, Regina and James Bay.

Imperialism, Canada, mining

A Brazilian television report that aired Sunday night said Canadian spies targeted Brazil's Mines and Energy Ministry.

The report on Globo television was based on documents leaked by former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden and was the latest showing that Latin America's biggest country has been a target for U.S., British and now Canadian spy agencies.

The report said the metadata of phone calls and emails from and to the Brazilian ministry were targeted by the Communications Security Establishment Canada, or CSEC, to map the ministry's communications, using a software program called Olympia. It didn't indicate whether emails were read or phone calls were listened to.

A spokesman for Prime Minister Stephen Harper would neither confirm nor deny the allegations when asked to respond to the report late Sunday night.

- CBC News