Thais failed effort to corner rice market
Submitted by Empire Logistics on Feb 25 2014 03:18
As late as 2010, Thailand was the biggest exporter of rice, but in 2008 an attempt to corner the world rice market (much like the Hunt Brothers had tried to do with silver in the 1970s) failed miserably. Part of the current crisis in Thailand is due to Yingluck Shinawatra's role in this scheme.
Thai Effort to Control Rice Market Backfires
Payment Delays by Government Leave Farmers Deep in Debt
Wall Street Journal | Feb. 5, 2014
BAN NON SON, Thailand—Attempts to steer markets seldom end well.
Twelve years a slave - Solomon Northup
Submitted by Steven. on Jan 27 2014 17:52
A harrowing first person account of a free African-American being kidnapped into slavery in Louisiana for 12 years. First published in 1853, in 2014 the book was turned into a major motion picture directed by Steve McQueen. Trigger warning for physical and sexual violence.
A brief explanation of the concept of territory and its implications - Miquel Amorós
An explanation of the meaning of “territory”, illustrated in its historical, social, economic and political context from the times of Cleisthenes to today’s pathological “anti-cities” and mutilated rural areas, as the dynamic unity of humanity as transformative agent and nature as abstract totality, and its significance for the “anti-developmentalist critique” that seeks to reunify the these two aspects of the world in a two-pronged struggle to restore the emancipatory nature of the city (the agora, “city air makes one free”) and the salutary aspects of rural life (the commons, etc.), a struggle that goes by the name of “territorial defense”, the pivot of the modern social revolution.
A Brief Explanation of the Concept of Territory and Its Implications – Miquel Amorós
I. The Concept
The Chinese mountain Lushan is often enveloped in clouds and it is often hard to get a good look at it. Su Dongpo, a poet of the Song Dynasty, said, in verse:
“How could one tell what Mt. Lushan really looks like
when one is in the midst of the mountain all along?”
Bread riots down supply chains: From Cairo to Longview
Submitted by Empire Logistics on Sep 16 2013 06:47
One of the forms in which the working class exists today is at the various nodal points along global commodity chains. Even the global production of food is increasingly based on a just-in-time system of production, distribution and consumption -- in addition to being financialized and subject to speculative bubbles. But these commodity chains are vulnerable and this suggests struggles could spread down these chains.
Questions
- 1. Where is your food produced?
- 2. What percentage of your income goes to food?
Levellers, True Levellers, and the Diggers of 1649
An incomplete dramatisation of the founding of the True Levellers or the "Diggers" and their first agrarian commune.
A dramatisation of the birth and growth of radical movements especially the "Diggers" movement during the English Civil Wars. Founded by Gerrard Winstanly the Diggers were groups of commoners and soldiers mostly dispossessed during the conflict who staved of starvation by farming common land.
The progress of domestication - René Riesel
René Riesel’s reflections on the anti-GMO sabotage campaigns of 1998-2001 in France, the subsequent responses of the supporters of GMO research, the Montpellier and Agen trials and the resulting opportunistic political manipulations and media circuses, and the broader implications of GMOs, and the loyal opposition that wants to reinforce the power of the state in order to regulate them, within the context of the accelerating “domestication” and totalitarian conditioning of the population in a society he characterizes as a “world-laboratory where the sterilization of historical life is assayed”.
Unused farm land occupied in Vienna
Submitted by schmecks on May 7 2013 15:09
On Saturday, May 4th activists of the initiative „Solidarity Agriculture“, in short SoliLa!, occupied some farm land in the 21st district in Vienna, which was not cultivated or used in another way for years.
On Saturday, May 4th activists of the initiative „Solidarity Agriculture“, in short SoliLa!, occupied some farm land in the 21st district in Vienna, which is owned by the fund for housing construction and urban renewal of the City of Vienna and leased to a private person, that has not cultivated it or used it in another way for years.
Bosses open fire on migrant workers in Greece
Submitted by Thrasybulus on Apr 18 2013 21:20
More than twenty migrant workers were injured when their bosses fired on them with shotguns on Wednesday.
Bosses at a strawberry farm in Manolada, Ileia opened fire on workers demanding back pay on Wednesday afternoon. More than 20 people were wounded and taken to hospital after the attack. The majority of the workers were immigrants from Bangladesh.
Indonesia: How a new law on social conflict supports state repression
An analysis of how a new law (2012) in Indonesia is likely to be used in cases where corporate interests are the root cause of conflict, how such 'horizontal' conflicts can be deliberately created, and how conflict resolution is likely to produce a result in the company's favour. Translated from : Kontinum's website.
On 11 April 2012 the Indonesian parliament ratified a law on managing social conflict (Penanganan Konflik Sosial - PKS) in order to address Indonesia's experience of dealing with social conflicts, which has often been considered less than perfect. The government had previously used a range of different existing regulations as its reference when dealing with conflicts.
Report from autonomous peasant congress in Indonesia
Submitted by kontinum on Feb 10 2013 15:53
Short reportage from Indonesian Autonomous Peasant Congress
Dozens of peasants from various organizations in several cities in Indonesia, joined in Forum Komunikasi Masyarakat Agraris (Agriculture Community Communication Forum) or FKMA, gather in Yogyakarta to hold 2nd Autonomous Peasant Congress, 8-10 February 2013.
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