Editor’s Note From Rivera Sun
High fuel prices are causing shock waves and mass protests across the globe. Ecuador, which erupted in Indigenous-led protests months ago, rose up against both the high prices and the expansion of oil and gas extraction. This week, they won major concessions from the government. Citizens of other countries are still gripped in the throes of similar struggles. In India, people are making road blocks out of empty cooking fuel canisters, protesting the high prices. In the United Kingdom, a “rolling roadblock” of slowly moving truck convoys is delaying traffic in protest. Sri Lanka – which faces a catastrophic economic crisis – ground to a halt this week. People have resorted to riding their bicycles because fuel is not only outrageously expensive, it’s increasingly unavailable.
Economic woes are a recurring flashpoint from the St. Louis bus drivers who are calling-in-sick over low wages to the French airport workers on strike as inflation outstrips pay raises. But, they’re not the only issues of concern. Undocumented immigrants in the United States are mobilizing another push to protect DACA. Racial justice protesters poured into the streets of Akron, Ohio, after the brutal, 90-bullet police murder of Jayland Walker. Palestinian attorneys foiled Israeli attempts to evict people in Sheikh Jarrah. Meanwhile, Palestine Action chained themselves to a weapons factory in the United Kingdom where Israel gets the weapons it uses to occupy Palestinian land.
Homes and housing are hot button issues: In New York City, tenants disrupted their housing officials’ vote on whether or not to raise rents on rent-stabilized apartments. In Nashville, Tennessee, people camped out at city hall against bans on urban camping that threatened unhoused neighbors. In Minneapolis, an anti-eviction brigade is protecting an elderly woman from being turned out on the street after 18 years in the same house. Across the Atlantic Ocean, the London Renters Union pushed housing justice onto the agenda of the local elections.
My favorite action this week? A handful of climate activists glued themselves to a huge replica of The Last Supper painting as a reminder that extinction is looming and our last suppers are barreling down the pipeline toward us. Like Indigenous Ecuadorians, we need to demand lower fuel prices and an end to fossil fuel extraction. Economic and environmental justice cannot not be separated any more.
So, read through all the headlines, short captions, and pictures. There are stories that will open your eyes and light up your heart.
Enjoy this week’s news,
Rivera Sun
Photo Credit: Ecuador’s government and Indigenous leaders reach an agreement, ending protests.
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How We Won – The Housing Campaigners Who Forced UK Officials to Protect Renters: Along with fellow London Renters Union (LRU) members, Hannah resisted the first two evictions, before finally being forced into homelessness, her landlord having threatened to move a stranger into the property. Over the past several months, Hannah has been helping to organize LRU’s Side with Renters campaign. Launched in February, the campaign used May’s upcoming local elections, in which local Labour candidates were vying for votes, to push housing up the political agenda. They succeeded. Read more>>
Ecuador Indigenous Groups & Government Reach Agreement After Protests: Ecuador’s government and indigenous groups’ leaders on Thursday reached an agreement to end more than two weeks of protests against the social and economic policies of President Guillermo Lasso which left at least eight dead, indigenous leaders said. Protests organized by indigenous organization CONAIE erupted across Ecuador on June 13, with demonstrators’ demands including lower fuel prices and limits to further expansion of the mining and oil industries. Read more>>
One Thousand Acres Returned to Onondaga Nation: On Wednesday, June 29, 1,000 acres of ancestral homeland in the Tully Valley in Central New York was returned to the Onondaga Nation. The land return–one of the largest transfers from a state to an Indigenous nation—was part of a 2018 Natural Resource Damage Assessment and Restoration settlement. The settlement is an agreement between the Dept. of the Interior’s trustees U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, and the landowner, Honeywell International Inc., to transfer the land title back to the tribe. Read more>>
European Union Announces Plan To Cut Pesticide Use In Half: The European Commission has proposed a new law that would cut pesticide use in half by 2030 and completely ban the use of these chemicals near schools, playgrounds and hospitals. The proposal is part of a larger set of goals to reverse biodiversity loss and restore 20% of land and seas by the end of the decade. Read more>>
‘Win for Wildlife’ as Federal Court Restores Endangered Species Protections Gutted by Trump: “In the midst of a global extinction crisis, the court’s decision to vacate the rules will help ensure that imperiled species receive the protections they desperately need,” said one advocate. Read more>>
National Congress of American Indians Adopts Resolution The Rights of Nature: The resolution, developed by Menīkānaehkem and the Center for Democratic and Environmental Rights, asserts that Indigenous Peoples “authority and ability … to protect the natural environment is essential to our inherent sovereignty and self-determination,” an ability at risk “from the many environmental crises that we face today,” and exacerbated by “environmental laws [that] treat nature and Mother Earth as a non-living entity existing for human use.” Read more>>
Restaurant Adopts A ‘No-Tipping’ Business Model By Paying A Living Wage: The owners of a San Francisco eatery have been defying the status quo for years with their “tip-free” model that offers all their staff a living wage with full benefits and even a share of the restaurant’s profits. Read more>>
Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe and Rayonier Negotiate Historic Deals to Purchase Land Back: The Port Gamble S’Klallam Tribe and the Rayonier timber company — which purchased the company from the family of the original colonizers — recently announced plans to sell 18.4 acres of land, the site of a former lumber mill that displaced the tribe from its home near Puget Sound, as a “conservation easement” where development would be restricted. The deal, announced in August 2021, was the latest in a series of land and rights purchases designed to return control of more land to the Port Gamble S’Klallam. Read more>>
Sudanese Security Forces Fire Tear Gas At Protesters: Sudanese security forces fired tear gas at protesters on Friday near the presidential palace in Khartoum, a day after nine people were reported killed during the largest anti-military rallies for months. Protest groups demanding a return to democratic rule have said they will organize an open-ended campaign of sit-ins and other peaceful actions in response to the deaths. Read more>>
Thousands Protest Threatens to Uzbekistan’s Autonomy: Uzbekistan’s government says at least 18 people were killed and hundreds injured in clashes between police and demonstrators in western Karakalpakstan that began when authorities unveiled plans to revoke the region’s autonomy. Over 500 were detained. Videos of the July 1 rally show crowds numbering in the thousands, an exceptionally rare outpouring that drew comparisons with events preceding the 2005 Andijan massacre. Read more>>
Egypt Uses Travel Bans & Asset Freezes To Stifle Human Rights Activism: Years-long travel bans and asset freezes against some of Egypt’s most prominent activists are being used to muzzle civil society and are exacting lasting damage on the personal lives of those targeted, according to two reports by human rights groups. Read more>>
Protests Erupt After Myanmar Military Group Kills Two Indians: Locals protest as they pay tribute to two Tamil youths who were allegedly killed after being reportedly stalked by motorcycle-borne youths and shot dead from a close range near the Buddhist Temple in Tamu, Myanmar. Read more>>
Tunisian Judges Unions Suspend Strike: Three Tunisian judges’ unions have decided to suspend a four-week-long strike started in protest at Tunisian President Kais Saied’s dismissal of 57 judges on June 1, they said on Sunday. Saied had accused the judges of corruption and protecting terrorists, charges which the Tunisian Judges’ Association said were mostly politically motivated. Read more>>
In Exile Or Prison, Cuban Activism Gutted One Year After Mass Protests: On July 11 last year, Cuba appeared poised for political change. Protests – the largest since the late Fidel Castro took power in 1959 – rocked the Communist-run island as Cubans poured onto the streets demanding social and economic reform. But the rallies were short-lived. Cuban authorities have since sentenced hundreds to jail time on charges from public disorder to sedition, prompting activists to allege rights violations. Other dissidents, under pressure and seeing momentum fizzle, have fled the island. Read more>>
‘Stop The Violence’ – Tacoma Residents Call For Action After Teenager’s Homicide: Community activists, local politicians and devastated Tacoma residents shouted chants of “Whose street? Our Street!” and “Stop the violence!” as they walked down a car-less Hilltop street Thursday evening to support the family of Iyana Ussery, a Tacoma 14-year-old who was murdered Wednesday. Tacoma Cease Fire, a grassroots organization that promotes non-violence throughout the city, was prompted to organize the peace walk after Ussery was shot and killed in a car full of teenagers. Read more>>
Indians Make Road Blocks With Gas Canisters In Protest Of High Cooking Fuel Prices: Protesters blocked the roads of major cities with fuel gas canisters, opposing high prices. Leaders alleged that due to the inefficiency of the Modi government, the prices of all essential commodities were rising consistently. They said the Prime Minister was forcing them to give up cooking gas and return to firewood for cooking. Read more>>
Sri Lanka Is “Grinding To A Halt” Amid Austerity, Prompting Mass Protests: Sri Lanka’s government has forced the closure of all schools and announced plans to cut electricity several hours a day. Protests are escalating amidst a growing economic crisis and gas shortage faced by some 22 million people, many forced to wait for days and nights in long lines for fuel. Read more>>
Detroit Rallies Support For Coffee Strikers: Shoppers, pedestrians and motorists on busy East Jefferson Avenue learned about the ongoing strike against Great Lakes Coffee. Dozens of coffee workers and their supporters held a spirited picket line on June 25 outside of the Rivertown Meijer store just east of downtown Detroit. The store has a GLC franchise inside of it that is operating with scab labor; GLC has permanently closed its site in Midtown and is still operating at its Woodward Corner location. Read more>>
Rolling Roadblock Against High Fuel Price Protests Slow Traffic in the United Kingdom: Slow moving trucks stalled traffic as irate drivers protested high fuel prices with rolling roadblocks. Read more>>
French Airport Workers Strike For Higher Pay Amidst Inflation: Flights from Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris and other French airports faced disruptions Friday as airport workers held a strike to demand salary hikes to keep up with inflation and an urgent hiring push to deal with resurgent travel demand. Read more>>
St. Louis Bus Drivers Sickout Strike: In St. Louis, scores of bus drivers held a “sickout” strike during contentious contract talks. The workers are upset by Metro Transit’s proposal to give workers only a 2% raise at a time when inflation is 8%. “They worked through COVID and we had a driver shot last year. This is a very rough time.” Read more>>
Following Bold Strikes, Yakima Workers Launch New Worker Center: In the spring of 2020, a series of bold strikes over farm and fruit workers in the Yakima Valley, Washington, led by the independent union Familias Unidas por la Justicia. The strikes shut down more than a dozen sites throughout the Yakima Valley. Now, the workers are launching the Fair Work Center to assist workers with a variety of problems. Read more>>
Dutch Farmers Block Food Warehouses Over New Environmental Rules: Farmers in the Netherlands have blockaded supermarket distribution centers in continuing protests against new environmental rules on nitrogen emissions that are likely to put many of them out of business. Fishers on Monday blocked ports in a show of support for farmers. The blockade prevented ferries from sailing to almost all the Wadden Islands off the country’s northern coast and caused lengthy delays, shipping companies reported. Also on Monday, farmers used tractors and large bales of hay to block entrances to the supermarket distribution centers, as the association of food traders warned of supply bottlenecks. Editor’s Note: Like the protests in Sri Lanka over the lack of planning for an organic transition, these protests show that a Just Transition is an absolute necessity for climate justice. Read more>>
Cancer Alley Residents Mobilize For New Push: Residents have protested the industrial plants for years, saying the facilities affect their health. Now, several companies and the State of Louisiana are proposing new industrial facilities that they say will be carbon neutral through a process called carbon capture. But after years of industrialization, many local residents and environmental activists are skeptical. Read more>>
Yellowstone Tour Guides Are Building Momentum For Change: Underneath the beauty of Yellowstone lies an ugly history of union-busting and intimidation by government contractors of National Park Service workers, the ones who labor to keep the park beautiful. “I never had anyone spit or threaten to beat me up until I tried to unionize at Yellowstone,” says former Yellowstone tour guide Ty Wheeler. Read more>>
Protesters in Ohio Are Met With Riot Police Following Killing of Jayland Walker: Hundreds of people in Akron, Ohio gathered outside the police department’s headquarters and marched through the city late Sunday, demanding justice for Jayland Walker after police footage was released showing that the 25-year-old Black man had been fatally shot from behind at least 60 times by officers as he tried to flee from a traffic stop on June 27. Read more>>
Here’s Why Arab Americans Like Me Are Supporting Efforts to Defund the Police: “As an Arab American whose community has endured chilling surveillance, I back the movement to defund the police.” Read more>>
The Invisible Workforce – The Impact Of Injustice On Black Domestic Workers: Even before the pandemic, most domestic workers had no healthcare or other benefits. They were largely not protected by workplace laws, and the most vulnerable among them – Black immigrant domestic workers – were often unable to access resources being offered to help individuals and families survive a job loss, illness, potential eviction and hunger. Read more>>
Undocumented Immigrants Take To The Streets As Appeals Court Debates Future Of DACA: Over 100 undocumented immigrants and their supporters descended on a federal appeals court in New Orleans Wednesday, as oral arguments began on a case that will determine the future of DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals — the program protecting hundreds of thousands from deportation. With their futures at stake, DACA recipients are helping one another cope with legal uncertainty, as they continue the fight for a pathway to citizenship. Read more>>
Black Arts Legacies – Showcasing Blackness Through Pop Art: Tariqa Waters, a Seattle-based curator, gallerist and artist, is resisting the art establishment with big and bold immersive experiments. Her explorations of Black life employ a technicolor palette and a sense of humor that can feel jarring in Seattle, a city whose art scene reflects its 65% white population. This is precisely why her reflections on the appetite white America has for Black culture are so incisive. Read more>>
Latin Americans Take To The Streets For LGBTIQ Rights: Hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets across Central and Latin America on June 25 to celebrate the gains made by LGBTIQ activists and demand further change, as part of International LGBTIQ Pride Month. Read more>>
NYC Activists Push Back Against Proposed “Feminist” Women’s Jail in Harlem: Opponents of the proposed women’s facility in Harlem affirm “there is no such thing as a feminist jail.” The prison abolitionists resoundingly oppose the proposal of a Women’s Center at Riker’s and insist that true safety and healing requires the release of incarcerated people and investment in high-quality social services for people upon their release. These opponents of the Harlem women’s facility affirm “there is no such thing as a feminist jail.” As they see it, freedom from violence is a foundational part of feminist politics, and prisons are inherently violent institutions. Read more>>
Women Are Taking Over The US Labor Movement: Over the course of the pandemic, the majority of essential workers were women. The majority of those who lost their jobs in the pandemic were women. The majority of those who faced unstable care situations for their children and their loved ones were women. And now the majority of those organizing their workplaces are women. Read more>>
NYC Tenants Disrupt Vote To Increase Rents: On June 21, over a hundred tenants and housing rights activists rallied in front of Cooper Union in New York City to protest the Rent Guidelines Board’s vote to increase rent on rent-stabilized apartments in the city. Amid chants of “Housing is a human right!” and demands for a rent rollback, speakers and community members at the action expressed their dismay and anger at the anticipated approval of the rent increase before heading inside to disrupt the vote. Read more>>
Protesters Rally Overnight About Camping On Public Property Law: Starting July 1, people experiencing homelessness who sleep on state-owned land could face prison time and heavy fines. The controversial law has many people concerned about the unhoused community in the area. That’s why several people gathered at Legislative Plaza for a rally and march to Commerce Street Park. Some advocates are planning on sleeping overnight at the park to send a message to lawmakers that homelessness should not be a crime. The group Open Table Nashville organized the protest. Read more>>
Palestinian Attorneys Foil Settler Attempt to ‘Evict’ Families from Sheikh Jarrah: The Ministry of Jerusalem Affairs said in a press statement that Palestinian attorneys foiled a Jewish settlers’ attempt to drive the Ja‘oni, al-Kassem, al-Kurd, and Iskafi families out of their houses in the neighborhood. In the statement, the ministry explained that the attorneys successfully secured an Israeli Supreme Court decision rejecting the settlers’ petition that an expanded tribunal reconsider the court’s last decision to the effect of canceling “eviction” orders against the four families from their houses. Read more>>
‘I’m Not Going Anywhere Now’ – Minneapolis Residents Band Together to Help Elderly Woman Facing Eviction After 18 Years: Linda Taylor, a great-grandmother of three, was facing eviction after losing her job during the pandemic. She confided in Andrew Fahlstrom, a professional housing rights organizer who lived across the street. He quickly pulled support from others in the community. Read more>>
Palestine Action Shuts Israel’s Military Drone Factory: Elbit Systems is met with direct action once more, as Palestine Action activists have taken to Elbit Systems’ (Israel’s largest arms factory) factory in Shenstone and closed the site for the third time in two weeks. The Elbit subsidiary operates as UAV Engines LTD. and is responsible for manufacturing Elbit’s military drone engines. Activists have locked on across the factory gates and hurled symbolic blood-red paint onto the premises, leaving the site inoperable. Read more>>
National Council of Elders Release Statement Calling For Peace From Ukraine To Uvalde: The United States capitalist system rests upon a power that is secured by violence and the threat of violence. Hence violence pervades all aspects of our lives here in the U.S., corroding our most essential connections to each other. Our government is ready to spend trillions on war, but will not legislate to provide money to feed the hungry, house the homeless, provide a good education for our children, health care for all. Read more>>
We The Peoples Before Premiers At Kennedy Center, Telling Indigenous Stories: The sold-out event that brought more than 50 Native performers to the stage, including Joy Harjo (Muscogee Creek Nation), Supaman (Apsaalooke Nation), and Pura Fe Crescioni (Tuscarora/Taino). We The Peoples Before was billed as a collaboration in recognition of the rightful place of Native cultural practice as a central influence on the national landscape of arts and culture in the United States. Read more>>
Climate Activists Glue Themselves To Replica of The Last Supper: A group of climate activists who have disrupted major galleries this week to send a message to the UK government have struck again — this time at the Royal Academy of Art in London. On Tuesday morning, demonstrators from Just Stop Oil (JSO) glued themselves to a frame housing a copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” that is believed to have been painted by two pupils of the Italian Renaissance master. The activists also spray-painted the demand “No New Oil” in white underneath the painting, a spokesperson for the gallery confirmed to CNN. Read more>>
Sri Lankans Ditch Car For Bikes To Weather Economic Crisis: Countless thousands, many of them middle-class professionals, who have switched to two wheels for everything from work commutes to grocery shopping after the country – mired in its worst economic crisis since independence in 1948 – all but exhausted its fuel supplies. Read more>>
NATO Summit Met With Wave Of Creative Protests: From a die-in at Picasso’s Guernica to an alternative peace summit, climate and antiwar activists made their “No to NATO” demands clear. Read more>>
Co-ops For Freelancers? Guilded Challenges The Idea Of “Starving Artists”: When it comes to the creation of works of art in our time, the broader society we live in has normalized the archetype of the “starving artist”. Yet art is labor and the fruits of that labor are what make society worth living in, so artists and cultural workers should get paid fairly, should have access to benefits like healthcare, and should have ownership over their work and process. This is the foundational belief of the new worker co-op, Guilded. Read more>>
The ‘World’s First Library Farm’ Is Home To Plush Gardens And Community Innovations: Since 2011, community members local to The Cicero Branch of the Northern Onondaga Public Library (NOPL) in Upstate New York have tended to a lively library farm, leading innovations in urban farming and food access. Read more>>
How To Start A Bike Kitchen: A bike kitchen is a place for people to repair their bikes, learn safe cycling, make bicycling more accessible, build community, and support sustainable transportation by getting more people on bikes. For those interested in starting a bike kitchen in your town, here’s a round up of the essentials for getting started. Read more>>
100 Years Ago In Spokane, The Great Railway Worker Strike Commenced – With 100% Participation: In 1922, about 1,250 railroad shop workers in Spokane went on strike, along with tens of thousands of rail workers from all over the country. There were four major railroad shops in Spokane, including the huge Great Northern shop in Hillyard. The workers were protesting pay cuts and various working conditions. Participation in the strike was at 100% among Spokane union employees. Read more>>
Weaving Nonviolence Into The Fabric Of Everyday Life: Members of the Nonviolent Global Liberation Community discuss the work of building a truly nonviolent world, one experiment with truth at a time. Their commitment and resolve to explore and address all areas of life, from market economies to home life to the even greater question of what it means to be human and deeply experience our shared humanity, reminds us — to paraphrase NGL’s co-founder, Miki Kashtan — that freeing ourselves from our habits and conditioning of violence, to truly build a nonviolent world, requires both “systemic analysis and individual tenderness.” Read more>>
Steps To Organizing a Co-op: All cooperative development involves six steps that must be covered in order to to bring a cooperative idea to fruition. Margaret Bau with USDA Rural Development, a long time co-op developer, and Alex Stone, the Executive Director of CooperationWorks! share their secrets. Watch here>>
Tell US Congress: Don’t Expand The Military Draft To Women – Abolish It For Everyone: Once again, the US government is considering expanding the military draft to young women as well as young men. Tell senators and representatives to oppose this. Ask them to abolish the draft and draft registration for everyone. Learn more>>
Nonviolence Toward Earth: Acting upon the climate crisis is a growing urgency and OUR responsibility. Now, more than ever, we need to practice Nonviolence Toward Earth. This 6-week course with Merwyn De Mello and Rivera Sun will explore the many dimensions of how we can both practice nonviolence toward the Earth and join nonviolent actions on behalf of the planet. (July 12) Read more>>
Cultural Organizing 101 With Highlander Center: In this workshop, participants will share experiences and learn how to expand the role of art and culture in their organizing and advocacy efforts, activating community members to develop cultural tools that can help bring more interest and energy to issue campaigns. (July 18) Learn more>>
Resisting Surveillance & Winning: How have Arab youth, immigrant, and refugee women resisted, and successfully abolished surveillance programs in Illinois? What important research on federal surveillance programs have they fought for, and won through lawsuits, FOIA requests, and direct actions? If you and your community are impacted by surveillance, this panel will offer exclusive research, lessons and tools to resist it! (July 21) Learn more>>
Perspectives From Ukraine – Go Beyond The Headlines: Register now to hear stories directly from Ukraine and learn more about our work. Since shortly after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, NP has been conducting a rapid program assessment as one of the only protection agencies on the ground. We’ve met with women’s shelters, student groups, elderly residents, and more to keep people safe and connect the vulnerable to the resources they need. (July 21) Read more>>
2-Hr Intro To Kingian Nonviolence: Join us for an overview of Kingian Nonviolence Conflict Reconciliation. Kingian Nonviolence is an approach to conflict and community leadership that offers values and methods useful for anyone who wants to use conflict constructively in your personal life, in group settings, or in community issues and building a reconciled world. (July 25) Learn more>>
Take Action To End The Blockade On Gaza: It’s been over 15 years since Israel imposed its military blockade on Gaza. Today the humanitarian crisis is worsening—with more than 80% of Palestinians in Gaza dependent on international assistance to survive. The U.S. can help to end this situation. Tell your representatives to call for an immediate end to the blockade. Learn more>>
Guns to Gardens–August Trainings: Presbyterian Peace Fellowship invites you to join them for their Guns to Gardens action circle trainings this August. (Thursdays, Aug-Sept) Learn more>>
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