Agro-imperialism

Hello People!
Working on a short video on land grab. More on that later.
Just stumbled on to this: http://farmlandgrab.org/

Chinese dissidents barred from meeting Obama

FT: China moves to quell dissidents

Also check out the press release issued by Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD)

As Obama Arrives in China, Police “Tuck away” Activists for Fear of Contact

Excerpts of the letter that CHRD sent to President Obama prior to his departure for Asia. Read the full letter here. It said Obama must urge the Chinese leaders to:

1. Immediately release those environmentalists and activists, some gravely ill, who have been incarcerated or made to “disappear” for exercising their freedoms of expression and political participation;

2.Stop punishing individuals for exercising their freedom of expression using Article 105 of the Criminal Code;

3.Provide a specific timetable for the ratification of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which it signed in 1998;

4. Amend the Criminal Procedure Law so that it protects the rights of the lawyers as stipulated in the newly-revised Lawyers Law;

5. And take concrete steps towards the abolition of the Re-education through Labor (RTL) system, which has been used to incarcerate activists, dissidents and religious adherents. The government has repeatedly promised to do so at the UN Human Rights Council and during human rights dialogues with the US and the EU.

Obama presses for Suu Kyi's release

Al Jazeera: Obama tells Myanmar to free Suu Kyi
I have blogged before about Suu Kyi's condition here.

The War Within

Dispossessed tribes ready to wage war with the state

Business Standard, New Delhi Pg 1 headline on a Sunday morning.

Cuban dissident blogger beaten up

Image courtesy: cubajournal.blogspot.com

WSJ: Beating Rattles Cuban Bloggers
Excerpts from the story:

Yoani Sánchez, Cuba's most prominent dissident blogger, is a 34 year-old whose poignant vignettes of daily life in Cuba -- and the resulting aggravations, humiliations and suffering -- have proved to be far more effective criticisms of the Castro regime than the bluster and bravado from Cuba's exile community in Miami.

Earlier this year, she won a top journalism prize from Columbia University but was barred by the government from traveling to New York to accept the award.

A decline in tourism revenues from the global recession and damage from several hurricanes last year have prompted the island's government to clamp down even harder on dissent and freedom of speech, according to a recent report by the Inter American Press Association, a watchdog group.

The group said Cuba currently has 26 journalists in jail, and it cited 102 incidents against Cuban journalists in the past year, including beatings, arbitrary arrests and death threats.

This is how close Dalai Lama is to the Tibet border

TAWANG, Arunachal Pradesh












News from Xinhua:
China voices firm opposition to Dalai Lama's visit to China-India border region

Times of India:
It's a big day for us: Dalai Lama

FT:
Dalai Lama defends his border visit

China Clean up ACT?

China denies resource raids as it pledges $10bn in loans to Africa

Barney Jopson of the FT reports from Sharm el-Sheikh
November 9 2009

Wen Jiabao, China's premier, has pledged $10bn in new low-cost loans to Africa over the next three years and defended China's engagement against accusations it is "plundering" the continent's oil and minerals....