By Swathi Ramakrishnan and Vijay Loganathan

With the arrival of summer, most of us in America think about drinking a refreshing bottle of Coca-Cola. It is a similar scenario in major cities of India. Unfortunately, that drink comes at a high social cost, not just in India, but around the globe, from Colombia to Palestine.

Due to scarce rainfall in the past few years in India, it has been very difficult for the farmers in drought regions to cultivate any crop. The situation is no better in Kala Dera, in the desert region of Rajasthan that has been in a drought for the past 8 years. It is home to a large Coca-Cola plant, set up in 2000, which reduced the ground water by 32 feet in its first five years. This pattern is seen in many drought-prone areas of India.

Water depletion is not the only problem that these plants cause. They have dumped their toxic waste into the surrounding areas or sold the waste to local farmers as fertilizers. In 2004, the leading newspaper, Times of India, confirmed the presence of pesticides in 12 products of Pepsi and Coca-Cola. The pesticides in these products are at levels that would never be tolerated in the US or Europe. This has not yet stopped the sale of Coke products. Instead there are plans for additional plants in the region of Ballia, where the groundwater is already heavily contaminated with arsenic thanks to Coke.

In his book, Belching out the Devil, Mark Thomas actually takes a look at other issues related to Coke not only in India, but also in places like Colombia, El Salvador and Turkey. Trade unions have launched boycotts in many countries because of Coke’s use of illegal paramilitary units to oppress workers in Colombia. Coke’s support of Israel’s occupation and siege of Gaza is equally disturbing. Read more »

Resistance to the privatization of UB and other promising activities on campus

By James Holstun

What’s large, ungainly, rust-colored, constantly threatened with extinction, yet surprisingly rambunctious?

A. The buffalo (bison bison)
B. The City of Buffalo (metropolis rustbeltica)
C. The University at Buffalo (academica publica)
D. All of the above.

People thinking about college campuses sometimes have an image of the radical sixties and seventies followed by apolitical torpor thereafter. But there are more signs of active political life at UB than there have been in decades. Here are a few highlights, which I hope will be of interest to WNYPC members.

UB Students Against Sweatshops
The committed activism of UBSAS is responsible for the formation of the UB Sweatfree Advisory Committee (SAC), which includes students, faculty, and academic staff. SAC works to monitor the compliance with fair labor standards of factories who manufacture apparel using the UB logo. For this and other activities of UBSAS, including contact information, please see their
blog (http://ubsas.blogspot.com/).

UB Students for Justice in Palestine
For the first time in decades, a group at UB has formed with the express purpose of working for peace and justice against the Israeli occupation of Palestine. UB SJP, which represents students, faculty and employees, has already begun coordinating advocacy work with the Palestine-Israel Committee of the WNYPC. For more, including contact information, please see the UB SJP blog (http://ubsjp.blogspot.com/).  Read more »

• Sunday, September 20 - Rally & March for a Real Jobs Program
• Building a Tent City in Pittsburgh for the Unemployed & Supporters the weekend before the G-20 Summit
• Organizing Caravans of Unemployed People and Supporters to Converge on Pittsburgh during the week of September 19-26
• Marches, Protests and Events Before and During the G20 Summit addressing demands such as: Bring the Troops Home from Iraq & Afghanistan Now! &  Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, World-Renowned Political Prisoner, Journalist, Activists and "Voice of the Voiceless!"

In September the eyes of the world will be on Pittsburgh, where the G20 countries will meet to consider what to do about the biggest global economic crisis since the 1930s. The heads of governments, finance ministers and central bankers that will be in Pittsburgh for the summit hear the concerns of bankers and corporate executives all the time. They need to listen to the voices of the millions of people who have lost their jobs and their homes because of the crisis. The Bail out the People Movement, a coalition of community, labor, religious, and grassroots activists, wants to help dramatize the crisis of joblessness, and the need for action both in the U.S. and worldwide to the G20 summit. It is now clear that the stimulus legislation passed by the U.S. Congress in March has done little to stop the loss of jobs. There is no recovery for the unemployed, the underemployed and the poor; and things are only getting worse. This is why we’re asking you to help make the idea of a Global Week of Solidarity with the Unemployed from September 19 through September 26, the week of the G20 Summit, a reality.

A TENT CITY AND MARCH FOR JOBS On Sunday, Sept. 20, the tent city will open with a rally and march for jobs. The main site for the tent city will be next to the Monumental Baptist Church in an historic section of the African-American community of Pittsburgh called “The Hill.” This location is just a short walk or march from the convention center where the G20 summit will be held, and from the rest of downtown Pittsburgh. Unemployed people and their supporters will inhabit the tent city from Sept 20 through Sept. 25. Additional locations for other encampments in Pittsburgh are being considered as well.
 Read more »