World

Tuesday, 22 March 2011 22:38

Written by Thomas C. Mountain

Bombing Libya; 1986-2011

In 1987 I was a member of the 1st US Peace Delegation to Libya. We went there to commemorate the 1st anniversary of the US bombing of Libya in 1986. In April 1986 US warplanes struck Tripoli at 2 am. They bombed the Gaddafi family residence, wounding several of his family members and killing his 15 month old daughter. My daughter was about the same age at the time and I really, really felt it.

The US planes also bombed a civilian apartment complex, miles from any military targets, killing dozens of children as they slept. I helped place flowers on the graves of these children in the Martyrs Cemetery located in the middle of the old Italian race track in Tripoli.

World

Thursday, 04 November 2010 12:05

Written by Democracy Now

Global Food Security and Sovereignty Threatened by Corporate and Government “Land Grabs” in Poor Countries

Since the food crisis of 2008, food justice activists have warned that governments, in concert with multinational corporations, have accelerated a worldwide “land grab” to buy up vast swaths of arable land in poor countries. According to The Economist magazine, between 37 to 49 million acres of farmland were put up for sale in deals involving foreign nationals between 2006 and mid-2009. The purchases are often made in the name of development, but critics see a new means to deprive local populations, especially in Africa and Asia, of their land and their chance at food sovereignty.

The phenomenon is a failed agricultural system. It’s totally upside down and backwards. And instead of fixing it, they are now sending it overseas, creating these large-scale corporate plantations, all in the name of development and improving food security in poor countries. But instead they are exporting a failed model, and that is causing great threats to food security internationally.