By Chris Marsden - 1 March 2013

Mass protests have been sparked by the death of a Palestinian prisoner in an Israeli detention centre, spurred on by evidence of torture and a hunger strike by other detainees...Two Palestinian teenagers were shot and critically injured by Israeli soldiers this week, along with several others who were seriously wounded. On Tuesday, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, Fatah’s military wing, claimed responsibility for two M75 Grad rockets fired on Israel, the first such attack in more than three months.

This video -- with commentary in French -- captures several minutes of footage of Montreal police charging protest lines.

By Ramsey Hart - February 23, 2013

Inspired by their own traditions and teachings...members of Neskonlith have drafted a water declaration stating the importance and sanctity of their watersheds and their opposition to mining in the territory. The Secwepemc women who spearheaded drafting the declaration are now circulating it throughout the community to build grassroots support.

By Warren Clark - Znet

The use of workfare has escalated over the past year...‘Mandatory work activity’, which compels people to work without pay for 30 hours a week for four weeks, has been expanded to 70,000 placements a year, despite Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) research showing that it had ‘zero effect’ on people’s chances of finding work. The so-called ‘work experience scheme’...is expected to put 250,000 people to work without pay over the next three years...With five other workfare schemes also in operation, it all adds up to workfare replacing paid jobs and driving down wages.

Author and longtime activist Nancy Kurshan’s new book, entitled Out of Control: A Fifteen Year Battle Against Control Unit Prisons, has just been released by the Freedom Archives. Kurshan’s book documents the work of The Committee to End the Marion Lockdown (CEML), which she co-founded in 1985 as a response to the lockdown at the federal prison in Marion, Illinois. It quickly turned into a broader campaign against control unit prisons and human rights violations in US prisons that lasted fifteen years, until 2000.

The Angola 3 case may help change the arbitrary and sometimes abusive use of solitary confinement.

By Harsha Walia - rabble.ca

"[T]he only way to keep this movement going is for us to see our actions in Idle No More as part of a larger and long-standing commitment to the restoration of Indigenous nationhood...[W]e need to go beyond demonstrations and rallies in malls and legislatures and on public streets and start to reoccupy Indigenous sacred, ceremonial and cultural use sites to re-establish our presence on our land and in doing so to educate Canadians about our continuing connections to those places and how important they are to our continuing existence as Indigenous peoples."

- Mohawk Author Taiaiake Alfred

Gentrification is the process by which poorer urban spaces are “cleaned up” and redeveloped to welcome upscale businesses and residences and the wealthier people who use them. A quick look at the City of Guelph’s long-term plans for the downtown and other areas undergoing development demonstrates that gentrification is underway in our city, and that although this gentrification is a complex process, its driving forces can be traced back to specific people and organizations.

After four decades of solitary confinement in the nation’s most populated maximum-security prison — and one of its most historically brutal — a member of the internationally known “Angola 3” has reasonable cause to expect that he will soon be released, his attorneys and supporters say. The request to set free Albert Woodfox, 65, is being heard by the same federal judge who in 2008 ordered that Woodfox be released, a ruling that Louisiana prosecutors successfully appealed and blocked.

10th January 2013 | Issue 835 - SchNEWS

The rapid expansion of Greece's homegrown neo-nazi movement, the Golden Dawn, should set alarm bells ringing for anti-fascists across Europe...Until the last couple of years the Golden Dawn, with their Swastika-lite logo, were a fringe far-right group...In the last elections...Golden Dawn received 7% of the popular vote and gained eighteen seats in parliament. Their strength on the streets hasn't gone anywhere either and they can draw thousands to rallies.

Last week, the "Dismantling Racism" class from St. Catherine University in Minnesota was taken on a Black Panther History Tour in Oakland and Berkeley, led by Billy X Jennings from It's About Time BPP Alumni & Legacy...An important friend and ally of the International Coalition to Free the Angola 3, Billy X Jennings' work was previously spotlighted in an interview with Angola 3 News, entitled "We Called Ourselves the Children of Malcolm."

By Stefan Christoff - Al Jazeera

Beyond contemporary extremes in inequality for aboriginal peoples in Canada, increasingly labelled "Canadian apartheid", Idle No More actions sound the alarm on questions of colonial injustice that reach to the political depths of Canada's existence and national character...Central to the Idle No More movement is a call for all Canadians to respect treaty rights, highlighting the constant refusal to acknowledge treaty obligations by successive Canadian governments over the past century.

By RON JACOBS - Counterpunch Weekend Edition

Recently, a movement of native peoples...calling itself Idle No More arose in Canada. The impetus for the movement is the Canadian government’s Omnibus Bill C-45. This bill seems designed to further abrogate treaty rights assigned to First Nations in order to expand resource exploration and extraction. The movement is slowly spreading to the indigenous nations of the northern United States, which have seen their lands ravaged numerous times over the course of history in the name of resource extraction.

By Alex Hundert - January 15, 2013

Decolonization is a process in which that domination is challenged. Myths are unlearned, and Indigenous governance models are revised. It is also a process of restoring balance to the land, and seeking more meaningful forms of justice. That is why, following the Idle No More movement from a cell in the Penetang prison, the words from the Oshkimaadziig Camp banner could not ring more true: No Surrender, indeed.

By Zoe Blunt - January 15, 2013

Anti-racist organizers report they have won several skirmishes with a "conspiracy cult" linked to US patriot and militia organizations. Anti-Racist Action says members of a group called We Are Change Victoria (WAC) began sparring with social justice activists and the People's Assembly (Occupy Victoria) over a year ago...WAC is part of a North American network loosely connected to US radio host Alex Jones, the Libertarian Party, the militia movement and patriot groups...The group promotes conspiracy theories about 9/11, chemtrails, gun control, human rights law, climate-change denial, and Holocaust denial.