Namada Valley: demand for halting the construction of the dam till the displaced people were resettled
According to environmental-activist Vandana Shiva, the struggle of Narmada Bachao Andolan had become a bigger issue than of displacement. "It is now an issue of wastage of water for entertainment complexes along the Sabarmati in Ahmedabad. It has now become an issue of precious water being used for genocidal agriculture policies. It is whether the people of India would be able to live in this land or will our land and water become inputs for globally profitable corporates. It is not just a struggle of last 20 years but a struggle of the next 20 years."
HIC at the World Urban Forum
The next annual events of Habitat International Coalition will take place in Vancouver, Canada, from 18 to 24 June 2006
Sadar Sarovar Project : Activists’ Hunger Strike in Second Week
Because of decision by the Narmada Control Authority to raise the height of the Sardar Sarovar dam from 110.64 metres to 121.92 metres.
Basic principles and guidelines on development-based evictions and displacement
Evictions are a growing threat to world's poor. Forced evictions are acts and/or omissions involving the coerced or involuntary displacement of individuals, groups and communities from homes and/or lands and common property resources.
HIC at the World Urban Forum
The next annual events of Habitat International Coalition will take place in Vancouver, Canada, from 18 to 24 June 2006
Joint Declaration of Social Movements in Defense of Water
From March 14 to 19th, we, human beings with a holistic vision of life, activists from social movements, non-governmental organizations, and networks that struggle throughout the world in the defense of water and territory and for the commons, have shared ideas, struggles, worries and proposals. At the same time we have realized how our struggles have brought change around the world, slowing the process of water privatization. Now that we are not on the defensive, we are capable of promoting concrete proposals advancing in the life of every corner of our world.
Destroyed shelters, destroyed lives
In Cameroon, thousands of people have seen their houses destroyed and hundreds of others will undergo the same violence. “One day they came with an eviction notice, and the following morning, they came with their machines and destroyed everything, including banana and avocado trees, everything.” says Ms. Edzogo, resident of a partly destroyed neighbourhood in Yaounde.
Concerned at evictions, UN calls on Angola to comply with human rights laws
Not only Zimbabwe is executing massive eviction campaigns against informal settlers in Southern Africa. The Angolan government has maintained the same policy "for many years," a UN human rights official today revealed. He in particular criticised Angola for "violent cases" in the capital Luanda and for not letting him visit the country to make an inspection.
WSF: Karachi and the road to Nairobi 2007
The political atmosphere has changed since the first Forum, organised as a counterpuch to the all/mighty World Economic Forum. The question that hangs at the end of the three-legged Polycentric WSF 2006 is what comes next. While the WSF is no longer a yearly festival of political losers, neither is it anything else.
El-Hurriah Dwellers go on a Hunger Strike to defend their Housing Rights
The Egyptian Center for Housing Rights has kept track of the latest events witnessed in Port Said city, which have led 23 families to have come into a sit-in before the faculty of education, located at Mohamed Ali Street in Port Said, and been on a hunger strike since Thursday 23/3/2006.
People’s properties: Communities resist ‘ugly’ development
Whether it is against the megadam to be built over the Narmada River in India or the Kalabagh dam between Sindh and Punjab provinces in Pakistan, communities that share a legacy of oppression, social exclusion and economic deprivation vow to resist this aggressive brand of development.
Hope when there is no hope
Polls reported recently that more than 80% of Filipinos hope that 2006 will be better for them than the past year. This seems a good example of Christian hope of which it is said, “Christian hope begins when there is no hope.” Such hope appears to be deep in the bones of Filipinos, and luckily so for government and all in authority. In Happyland, Tondo on January 2 we met thousands of such people, still patient, forbearing and hopeful for better days, though a fire destroyed the homes of 3,000 families there two days before the New Year began.