ERA Alert!!!!.

About 50 members of Odioma community in Bayelsa State of Nigeria have been reported massacred on Saturday, February 19, 2005 during a military raid by a “Joint Task Force” of the Nigerian Army and Navy. The soldiers also destroyed the whole community with houses bombed and burnt in a manner reminiscent of the Odi Massacre of 1999. Those killed are mostly women, children and the elderly. The traditional ruler of the community, C. G. Omieh, Igoni the XXI, is still missing

BITUMEN EIA forum turns mere PROMISES TALKSHOP

A recent EIA Forum organized by Bitumen Exploration and Exploitation Company of Nigeria (BEECON) was turned into a promise making meeting by BEECON and officials of the Federal Goverment.

Highlights:

• EIA Draft Report yet to be ready
• EIA Forum Agenda Neglected
• Unredeemable Promises Dominate EIA Forum
• Environmental issues Relegated to the Background

... From Porto Alegre !!

28 January 2005 (Porto Alegre, Brazil)

The WSF is gathering momentum and there is great excitement in the air that “Another World is Possible.” At the FoEI tent, this evening (28th January) awards were given to selected communities who have had outstanding struggles against transnational corporations engaged in destructive extraction of resources in their territories. The beautiful certificate given out to them has written on it “Another World is already happening.” On Sunday evening, an award will be presented to the Ogoni people of Nigeria for their courageous struggles against Shell.
Of the events I said I would participate in yesterday, I ended up taking the stand in only one: reading resistance poems from my collection: We Thought It was Oil but it was Blood. More Details

January, 30th

Saturday, 30 January was a great day at the WSF. A major event I participated in was the Creditors' Public Assembly at which the people declared, "WE DON'T OWE, WE WONT PAY!" There were testimonies from across the world denouncing the so-called external debt as illegitimate, odius and repugnant.
In the evening, yes in the evening...Great singing by Ricardo Carere of the World Rain Forest Movement. He sang songs from his new CD titled "28 Greatest Hits." Strumming away at the guitar, I was astounded because I could never have guessed he was a musician besides being an international forest campaigner. Read More ...

This is my last posting from PoA, folks…