Booby Traps at Rio + 10
by Naomi Klein

On August 24, police even attacked a candlelight "freedom of expression march," held to protest these and other mass arrests. The spontaneously organized march was headed to a downtown prison, but before the crowd of 1,000 local and international activists had walked a block, riot police surrounded them and barricaded the road. Without warning, stun grenades were fired at the marchers, injuring three.

The World Summit on Sustainable Development isn't going to save the world; it merely offers an exaggerated mirror of it. In the gourmet restaurants of Sandton, delegates are literally dining out on their concern for the poor. Meanwhile, outside the gates, poor people are being hidden away, assaulted and imprisoned for what has become the iconic act of resistance in an unsustainable world: refusing to disappear. [read more]

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The State machinery of intimidation and misinformation

JOHANNESBURG 27 August - With only four days to go before the showdown in Sandton, the lines between protesters and the State have become increasingly apparent. Not only in the form of police repression – which according to many international anti-globalisation protesters has bypassed the draconian standards of Seattle, Québec and Genoa – but more sinisterly within the mainstream media as well. The corporate media has been working hand-in-hand with the intelligence agencies and other government officials in circulating untruths and fabrications aimed at demobilising mass movements rejecting the neoliberal agenda of WSSD and at justifying excessive use of force, unjustified arrests, torture and a flawed legal system. [read more]