Day: July 5, 2013

MONSANTO FACES OPPOSITION IN PUERTO RICO

by Carmelo Ruiz Marrero, World War 4 Report

Agricultural biotech corporate giant Monsanto pretty much has had its way in Puerto Rico since it first set up seed breeding operations in the island in 1983. But the last few months have seen a hailstorm of bad publicity and protests against the corporation’s local activities.

On June 11, Monsanto Caribe, the company’s local affiliate, refused to testify at a Puerto Rico Senate hearing on proposed seed legislation, bill PS 624.

“Monsanto does not produce, sell [or] offer…basic or certified seed with the purpose of planting in Puerto Rico,” argued company representative Eric Torres-Collazo in a letter to the Senate agriculture committee explaining the decision not to testify. Technically true, since all the seed this and other biotech companies produce in Puerto Rico is for export. But committee chair Ramón Ruiz-Nieves has not accepted Monsanto’s argument, pointing out that the company receives substantial subsidies from the local agriculture department and it is registered with the PR government as a bona fide farmer. Ruiz-Nieves informed the press that he intends to summon Monsanto again.

Anarchists in Tahrir Square

An anarchist tent in Cairo’s occupied Tahrir Square. The Egyptian anarchist bloc participated in the anti-Morsi protests—but with a dissident perspective that warns against either Islamist or military dictatorship. Joshua Stephens of Waging Nonviolence speaks with Mohammed Hassan Aazab, a member of… Read moreAnarchists in Tahrir Square

ANARCHISM IN EGYPT

An Interview from Tahrir Square

by Joshua Stephens, Waging Nonviolence

I met Mohammed Hassan Aazab earlier this year over tea at a table of young anarchists in downtown Cairo. The anniversary of the revolution had just passed with massive protests and the emergence of a Western-style black bloc that appeared to have little to do with anarchists in the city. At the time, much of the ongoing grassroots organizing was against sexual violence—in particular, the mob sexual assaults that have become synonymous with any large gathering in Tahrir. The trauma of such violence carried out against protesters was apparent in our conversation. In fact, Aazab told me that he was done with protests and politics, and had resigned himself to the dysfunction of day-to-day life in Egypt.

Then came June 30. Crowds reportedly as large as 33 million took to the streets to call for the Muslim Brotherhood to step down from power, just a year after Mohammed Morsi took office. In the pre-dawn moments of July 1, as Aazab’s phone battery dwindled steadily, I reconnected with him to chat a bit about his return to resistance.