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Paris

Art, Oil And Arrests In Paris

By Jess Worth for New Internationalist Magazine - Art met protest in the Louvre today, as six performers ritualistically spilled ‘oil’ on the gleaming marble floor. As security guards, police and gun-toting soldiers looked on menacingly, the black-clad figures removed their shoes and socks, and walked ‘oily’ footprints in circles, to symbolise the polluting influence that two oil companies wield through their sponsorship of Paris’s most iconic museum. Singing ‘Total and Eni, out of the Louvre, allez allez allez!’ they held black umbrellas aloft, mirroring a much larger action that was happening outside, simultaneously.

Paris: Indigenous People And Small Farmers Say Rich Setting Agenda

By John Vidal and Terry Slavin for The Guardian - In the climate talks “blue zone”, in the Parisian district of Le Bourget, are the governments, their advisers and lawyers, big business and the financiers. Facebook has a stall, along with UN agencies and scientific bodies. But the world’s 4 billion small farmers, fishermen and women, indigenous peoples, hunters and gatherers, rural workers, pastoralists, and young people on the frontline of climate change, inhabit the “green zone”, beyond the fence where the decision-makers do not go.

Apocalyptic Capitalism

By Chris Hedges for Truth Dig - The charade of the 21st United Nations climate summit will end, as past climate summits have ended, with lofty rhetoric and ineffectual cosmetic reforms. Since the first summit more than 20 years ago, carbon dioxide emissions have soared. Placing faith in our political and economic elites, who have mastered the arts of duplicity and propaganda on behalf of corporate power, is the triumph of hope over experience. There are only a few ways left to deal honestly with climate change: sustained civil disobedience that disrupts the machinery of exploitation...

We Will Draw Our Red Lines In Paris

By Joe Solomon for Common Dreams - Even as you take your first first few steps inside the climate summit in Paris, it’s easy to get a bad feeling about things. First, you notice that there are nearly 200 concrete pillars lined up in rows in front the center, each wrapped in flags of the world’s nations. You wander among them, realizing many of the pillars are taller than the Island Nations they represent, wondering who will be the first to be wiped out by the scythes of rising seas and maddening cyclones.

Paris Plastered With Wanted Posters For ‘Climate Criminals’

By Mollie Reilly for The Huffington Post - A new campaign spearheaded by global advocacy organization Avaaz targets seven fossil fuel lobbyists and climate change skeptics who are in Paris for the COP21 climate conference. Avaaz, which organized hundreds of thousands of people across the globe to march in favor of a strong climate agreement, posted more than 1,000 wanted posters near some of the city's top hotels on Monday morning to catch the eyes of influential conference attendees. Avaaz volunteers also passed out flyers featuring the lobbyists' photos at metro stations near the conference.

Paris Climate Negotiations Won’t Stop The Planet Burning

By Nafeez Ahmed for Middle East Eye - The much-vaunted COP21 negotiations in Paris are, despite the claims of world leaders, dead on arrival. Emissions reductions targets are not up for discussion. Those pledges are already on the table, having been put forward voluntarily by each country. Government negotiators in Paris are instead looking at banal details of how and when countries should commit to improving their voluntary pledges, and ensuring "transparency" and "accountability".

Newsletter: Heroes In The War At Home

By Margaret Flowers and Kevin Zeese for Popular Resistance. Forty six years ago this week, 21 year old Black Panther leader Fred Hampton was murdered in his bed by Chicago police and the FBI. Hampton was a hero to many in his community for the work he did to feed hungry schoolchildren, create peace in his high school and within his community as a leader of the Black Panthers. His crime was being intelligent, talented and effective. In his short life, he rattled the power structure. In the war at home - the elite's war on the poor, hungry, homeless, sick, young and old - there are many heroes. Maybe this is one aspect of the US' war culture we can embrace - honoring our heroes and sheroes. In memory of the late Howard Zinn, let's honor those who work everyday for justice and peace. We are making a difference. Let's change the culture by lifting up the change-makers - those who make the world a better place - as our role models and heroes. Let's remember people like Fred Hampton. As Bill Simpich writes about Hampton and others killed for their activism, "They died in the war at home. They died holding this country to its promises. They died so we can be free. Hold them in the place of the highest honor."

Fossil Fuel Lobby Seen As Main Threat To Progress At Paris Climate Talks

By Nick Fillmore for Rabble - In the early 1950s, when it became widely known thatsmoking caused cancer, giant tobacco companies formed the Tobacco Industry Research Council (TIRC). Its main goal was to deny the harmful effects of tobacco and confuse the public. The tobacco lobby wormed its way into the United Nations' World Health Organization (WHO), wreaking havoc and slowing the WHO's efforts to reduce the growing number of cancer deaths. In response WHO finally built a firewall between public health officials and industry lobbyists. Only then was it possible to better control tobacco.

COP21: 100 People Held In Paris Amid Climate Protest Violence

By Staff of Reuters - About 100 people have been detained after a major protest in Paris seeking a global climate deal turned violent, Paris’s police chief said. Michel Cadot told reporters that police had identified about 200 or 300 people who violated a ban on all protests under the country’s state of emergency. The state of emergency was declared after the recent extremist attacks that resulted in the deaths of 130 people in the French capital. Mr Cadot said on Sunday about 100 people found to have projectiles or other suspicious objects were detained. Police fired numerous rounds of tear gas on protesters near the Place de la Republique to disperse them.

It’s #TimeToChoose Climate-Friendly Food

By Michael Pollan for The Huffington Post - When the international climate negotiators assembling in Paris next week sit down for dinner, they might reflect on the climate impact of their meal. Indeed, in the midst of a growing - and very encouraging - global conversation on how to address the common threat of climate change, far too little attention has been paid at the highest levels to the impact of our diets and farming practices on planet-warming emissions. To put it another way: if we are serious about changing the climate, we need to get serious about changing agriculture.

The Climate Games: Preparations Over, Games Ready To Begin!

By Staff of Paris Climate Justice - As you may know from reading our response to the attacks in Paris, we have decided to continue the Climate Games in this city where the COP21 is taking place, despite the banning of all outdoor political demonstrations. The state of Climate Emergency is far too great for us to call the Games off. Christmas markets, trade fairs and football matches continue as normal, so why not the Climate Games? For further information and last minute updates, please check our website. The French government wants to reduce the COP21 to "the essential — negotiations”, we think that what is essential is civil society expressing itself in the streets and that without that, there should be no COP21.

Newsletter: Past And Present Myths Are Indivisible

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers for Popular Resistance. This week two remarkable reports came out about US militarism. The first by James Lucas, documented that the US has killed 20 to 30 million people in 37 nations in wars since World War II. The second by Nicholas Davies showed the impacts of US militarism since 9/11 finding 120,000 air strikes in seven countries, occupation of Afghanistan for 14 years, Iraq for over 8 years, and destruction of Libya, Syria and Yemen, 1.6 million people killed, mostly civilians, and 59.5 million people driven from their homes.US military why did you kill my family This is quite a remarkable record. These reports coincided with the celebration of Thanksgiving. Popular Resistance published eight articles debunking the founding myths and highlighting reality of genocide against the Indigenous to take their land and slavery of Africans brought to the United States for free labor. There are deep problems in the US culture. They are built on myths that cover-up genocide, slavery, racism and poverty wages. All transformations begin with a revolution of the mind. We need to change the American consciousness.

Police Tear Gas At Banned Global March For Climate in Paris

By Russia Today. Thousands of climate activists linked hands Sunday near the site of the deadliest of the November 13 Paris attacks, pleading for leaders to curb global warming on the eve of a UN summit. People of all ages joined in a human chain stretching for two kilometres (1.2 miles) along a wind-blown Boulevard Voltaire in eastern Paris, the first organised demonstration since the bombing and shooting assault claimed by the Islamic State group that killed 130 people. Out of respect for the dead, they left a 100-metre (300-foot) gap in front of a makeshift flower and candle memorial set up outside the Bataclan concert hall where 90 people lost their lives. Riot police deployed to guard the area, with armed officers fanning out in front of the massacre site. "Hear our voices! We are here!" cried the demonstrators ahead of the 195-nation UN summit, which aims to reach the first truly global accord to limit greenhouse emissions and avert a global climate disaster.

ISIS Should Not Dictate Refugee Policy Or Privacy

By Chelsea Manning for the Guardian. Following the horrific attacks by Isis terrorists in Paris and Beirut, we have rapidly seen blatant pandering to xenophobia on a disturbing scale and scope. Leaders throughout the US and Europe have demanded that authorities stifle the flow of migrants seeking asylum, and to increase the size and depths of intelligence and law enforcement powers in the US and Europe. I don’t have all the answers – but I do know that blaming minority groups, refugees and immigrants, investing in gigantic surveillance platforms and calling for expansive legal authority and the creation of a neo-Gestapo and panopticon-style police state aren’t one of them. Even in the weeks and months before the attacks, rightwing parties in Europe – most notably the National Front in France – have attempted to exploit a rising xenophobic sentiment following this year’s influx of migrants seeking refuge from Syria, Iraq and other parts of the Middle East. Immediately following the attacks such fears have “gone viral” in a way that is disturbing and frightening.

French Use Emergency Laws To Put Climate Activists Under House Arrest

By Gilbert Reilhac and Geert De Clercq for Reuters. France has put 24 green activists under house arrest ahead of the United Nations climate talks, using emergency laws put in place following the Paris shootings, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said on Saturday. Cazeneuve said the activists were suspected of planning violent protests at the talks which kick off on Sunday, a day ahead of the opening ceremony, and run until Dec. 11. The conference, also dubbed COP21, is seeking to agree a deal that signals a break with a rising reliance on fossil fuels, blamed by a U.N. panel of scientists for causing more floods, heat waves and rising sea levels. "These 24 people have been placed under house arrest because they have been violent during demonstrations in the past and because they have said they would not respect the state of emergency," Cazeneuve said in a speech in Strasbourg.

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Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

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