Feature Archives

Global UN Climate negotiations are proceeding in Copenhagen with over one hundred heads of state expected to attend in the next week. 2009 was the fifth hottest year on record, and scientists are saying a Climate Treaty is more urgent with global carbon emissions still increasing and acidification threatening marine biodiversity.

On December 12th, 100,000 people took to the streets of Copenhagen, but around 3pm police charged into the march and made arbitrary arrests of an estimated 1,000 people. Further protests are occurring over the next week inside the conference center and on the streets.

On November 30th, the 10th anniversary of the global justice movement’s successful non-violent shut-down of the WTO in Seattle, activists exposed some of San Francisco’s worst climate criminals, demanding that they stop financing climate change and standing in the way of climate solutions. Protesters met at Justin Herman Plaza marched to a non-violent civil disobedience at the Bank of America where about two dozen people were arrested.

On Friday, November 27th at 11am, a protest at Emeryville's Bay Street Mall will call on people to boycott the mall and to respect the sacred Ohlone site. The Bay Street Mall was built on top of an ancient Ohlone burial site after years of protest actions by the local Native American community. The construction of the mall unearthed thousands of human remains, many of which were taken away to a landfill in the name of consumerism, and others are kept in a library at UC Berkeley.

Danny Blackgoat, a longtime Dine' (Navajo) resister of forced relocation, will be traveling from his home at Big Mountain (AZ) this weekend to speak in Santa Cruz on Friday, Nov. 13th and San Francisco on Saturday, Nov. 14th. He will be screening a new 24 minute film featuring Pauline Whitesinger, and giving an hour long presentation about relocation, coal mining, and recent happenings at Black Mesa.

On Thursday, October 29th, Israelis and internationals joined Palestinians for a quiet protest against the destruction of olive trees near the village of Susya, South Mountain Hebron. The Hoshia family who own the land in this area, had more then twenty olive trees cut down by settlers in October. During the recent months, settlers destroyed hundreds of olive trees own by Palestinians in the West Bank.

On October 21st, Fresno State saw one of its largest mobilizations since the 1960s. The student walkout was in protest against the recent fee increase of 32% (fees go up almost every year typically by around 10%), class furloughs (pay more get less), over-crowded classrooms, faculty layoffs, staff layoffs, a corrupt administration, and a corrupt Associated Students, Inc., which refuses to represent the students. The California State University master plan from the 60s promised free education to all, but the university is now run like a for-profit corporation.

Otis writes:,"The rally and march against police brutality on Thursday, October 22nd, in Oakland at 14th and Broadway at 12pm, must be a powerful political expression of our anger and determination to stop a system which sets the police on the people, and then defends them from punishment. First the police murder Oscar Grant in Cold Blood! Now, the the judge has agreed with the murderer's attorney, that killer-cop Johannes Mehserle cannot get a fair trial in Oakland. A screaming irony, considering the "fair trial" that Oscar received at the hands of judge-jury-executioner Mehserle." Actions will also be happening in Arcata, Eureka, and Santa Rosa.