The Indypendent writes: The New York City Independent Media Center has just published the April edition of The Indypendent . This month's newspaper is based on the theme "Our World In Peril."

Welcome to the online version of The Indypendent , the monthly newspaper of the New York City Independent Media Center. This month's newspaper is based on the theme "Our World In Peril." We hope you enjoy the stories. Below is an overview of the issue with links, as well as a full listing of articles. The Indypendent is run entirely by volunteers and relies on the generosity of its supporters. Please consider supporting independent journalism by subscribing to the paper today. If you are interested in getting involved email imc-nyc-print@indymedia.org.

The Indypendent: A World In Peril

(download 20-page PDF version)

History has a sense of humor, but it appears to be a cruel
one. It has bequeathed to us an idiot-emperor clueless about
the countries that he wants to bomb into freedom. It’s given us
a global war against terrorism that brutalizes those who resist
the globalized apartheid. And it’s left humanity simmering
from an epidemic of conflicts fought in part to satiate
America’s petroleum appetites, even as the earth cooks from a
century of fossil-fuel binging.

Never before has our world been in so much peril. At one
end stands a messianic elite, ready to reshape the world with
nuclear weapons as their sword and free trade as their religion.
At the other is humanity and the planet, treated like commodities
to be controlled, used and discarded.

Notions of international law and justice hold no sway anymore. All that matters is brute force. Israel has smashed
countless treaties, covenants and U.N. resolutions in its blitz
against Palestine. As our eyewitness accounts make
horrifyingly clear, it’s not a war against terror, but against the
Palestinians because they refuse to submit.
The U.S. double standard was also exposed by the brief
coup in Venezuela. The White House called for
President Hugo Chavez to respect democracy upon his return
to office, even after it had welcomed the coup. Elsewhere in the
region, the Colombia war is intensifying as the U.S. drops its
pretense of fighting drugs so it can fight rebels who threaten
U.S. oil interests.
And next door in Ecuador, the IMF dictates policies that displace
indigenous peoples from their ancestral homelands to
prepare the way for oil companies to exploit pristine rainforests.

The world at large is also at peril. Whole ways of life are
disappearing as languages go extinct. The freakishly
warm temperatures of late are “the gift-wrapping on the time
bomb” of global warming. Because of climate change
and basic misuse, our very finite supplies of freshwater are drying
up. Add corporate-pushed genetically modified
organisms to the mix, and the melting polar ice caps
may be the least of our worries.
But as tens of thousands gather in Washington, D.C., this
month to display resistance and a belief in a better world,
recent events also affirm the centrality of “People Power” to
changing the world. If not for the courage of a few hundred
international activists putting their bodies in harm’s way,
Israel’s assault would have been even more murderous.
If not for the outpouring of popular support for Chavez, the
coup may have succeeded. If not for the sacrifice of eco-saboteurs,
Americans would feel no qualms about their SUVdependent
lifestyles.

We hope you find The Indypendent informative and
thoughtful. We aim to provide the best independent reporting
from around the world and at home. We invite you to become
a subscriber. Only by creating alternative bases of information
and power can we hope to challenge the real axis of evil. And
then, maybe, we can have the last laugh.

Listing of Stories from the April Indypendent

Palestine Under Siege

By Mike Burke

The horror in Palestine could have been far worse if not for the hundreds of international peace activists, including 10 New Yorkers, who attempted to accomplish what the world’s leaders failed to do. These volunteers became “a sort of grassroots United Nations, trying with their puny resources to keep the promises their governments have broken,” wrote George Monbiot in the UK Guardian.

Why For Me Being a Jew Means Being for Palestine

By Rachel Neumann

I have never felt more Jewish than when fighting for Palestinian freedom. By this I mean fighting for the right of Palestinians to live without occupation, to decide their own futures, to have equal access to water, to land, medicine and health care, to be able to walk down the street and buy a piece of fruit without fear of being shot. It is important to clarify that this support of Palestinians does not inherently lead to a support of the eventual Palestinian state.

Palestine Journal

By Jordan Flaherty & Kristen Schurr

Frontline reports from New York members of the International Solidarity Movement from Al-Azzeh refugee camp outside of Bethlehem and from Nablus.

NYC Women in Black Stand for Peace in the Middle East

By Jessica Stein

“I think it’s particularly important to stand with Women in Black right now,” says Michele James, “because the U.S. media and the New York City media is completely biased and isn’t publishing much of the truth of what’s going on in Palestine.” Many participants mentioned their need to speak out as Jews against what is being done by Israel ostensibly on the behalf of Jews around the world.

Futility & Failure at the U.N.

By Donald Paneth

An atmosphere of futility and failure is palpable here at the United Nations. War engulfs Palestine/Israel, continues in Afghanistan, and is threatened against Iraq. The warmakers are candid about their intentions. Peace has no appeal.
Most days, the doors to the chamber of the United Nations Security Council are locked.

Refugee Crisis Worsens

By Donald Paneth

The numbers are staggering — 3.8 million Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria; 3.6 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran; 900,000 “internally displaced persons” in Afghanistan itself. These are the hottest spots on the world refugee map today.

IMF Fuels Colombia Fire

By Garry M. Leech

The privatization of state-owned entities, such as banks, utilities, communications and mining companies will be a bonanza for those who can afford to purchase them — namely, multinational corporations and Colombia’s economic elite. But privatization will likely reduce government revenue, hurt businesses and result in massive lay-offs as private investors streamline in order to maximize profits without regard for the public’s welfare.

The Indy Index: IMF - Death By Debt

By NYC IMC Staff

Why are so many people protesting? For more than 20 years the World Bank and IMF have foisted Structural Adjustment Programs (SAPs) upon heavily indebted nations in the Global South. In theory, SAPs bring financial stability to poor countries and ready them for economic growth. Structural adjustment policy is best summed up in four words: earn more, spend less. In that line, the IMF and World Bank force governments to cut spending, raise taxes and increase trade with rich countries. Already deep in debt, countries have little choice but to agree or see the Bank and IMF turn off the credit.

Chavez Fends Off Corporate Coup

By Gregory Wilpert

What Venezuela needs is a class compromise where social peace is maintained by a more just distribution of the country’s immense wealth. But globalization, with its incessant downward pressure on wages, makes such a compromise difficult. But perhaps Venezuela is an exception because of its oil wealth. Such an exception, though, will only be possible if power plays, such as the recent coup attempt, come to an end.

Drilling and Debt: Big Oil Invades Ecuador Big Oil Invades Ecuador

By Kenny Bruno

The Ecuadorian Amazon is home to 10 indigenous, forest-dwelling groups. The southern Amazon is blanketed with unspoiled rainforest, and free of oil wells and pipelines. At least three indigenous groups, the Shuar, Achuar and Kichwa, have stated unequivocally that they oppose new oil activities in their territory. But plans for oil exploitation are moving forward nevertheless. Since the drilling has not yet started, there is still a chance that the indigenous people, with the help of activists in Ecuador and abroad, can stop this premeditated madness.

Free Vs. The SUV Explosion

By Priya Reddy

Like a junkie, the U.S. remains hooked on huge, gas-guzzling vehicles. The Sierra Club reports that an SUV wastes more energy in a year than would “leaving a refrigerator door open for six years, a bathroom light burning for 30 years, or a color TV turned on for 28 years.” According to the report, SUVs put out 28 more pounds. of carbon dioxide per gallon of gas consumed, as well as 43 percent more global-warming pollutants and 47 percent more air pollution than the average car.

Butterflies in December

By Jim Gordon

While perhaps difficult to see from the city, harbingers of climate change are evident. At the Mohonk Preserve on the Shawangunk Ridge in southern Ulster County, about 90 miles north of Manhattan, the weather was so warm this winter that some flowers, including segments of forsythia shrubs, were “tricked’’ into blooming early. Butterflies were observed on the ridge in December. Cherry trees bloomed in Buffalo in November, the first November on record without any snow in that “snow belt” city. “A phrase I use is gift-wrapping on the time bomb. It’s wonderful now, but it’s going to get really ugly in a few years,’’ said Ross Gelbspan, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and author of a book on global warming called, The Heat Is On.

H2OH! World Water Supply Dropping

By NYC IMC Staff

We use it to generate electricity. We dispose of our waste in it. We tote it around in designer bottles. Water. It’s the essence of life as we know it. And it’s everywhere. But, increasingly for much of humanity, there’s hardly a drop to drink.

Community Activists Trash Incineration

By Heather Haddon

With many industrialized nations searching for alternatives to landfills, a number of cities and regions are once again looking at burning their refuse. Leaders like New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg have let previous recycling and waste reduction strategies go up in the smoke of tentative plans for more modern incinerators. “No matter what you hear about people yelling and screaming, an awful lot of [incineration] technology has gotten very much better,” he stated in a March radio address. Better, perhaps, but non-toxic? “No,” say many researchers and community opponents who continue to mobilize and successfully defeat incinerator schemes.

Courts Continue War on Poor

By Simon Finger

A pair of recent Supreme Court decisions from late March, relating to the rights of public housing tenants and working immigrants, has local activists up in arms, and could have serious implications for some of the most vulnerable New Yorkers.

Students Won’t Buy McCollege

By Anne Venesky

On April 30, CUNY students plan to demonstrate for the restoration of TAP, the repeal of “stealth tuition hikes” such as technology fees, a repeal of the post-9/11 doubling of tuition for immigrant and undocumented students — a policy also being fought in the State Assembly — and ultimately, free tuition and open admissions.

World's Languages Are Fast Disappearing
By Rebecca Tuhus-Dubrow

Hundreds of languages have gone the way of the do-do bird, and thousands more are in the precarious position of the spotted owl. Many more cannot even be mourned, since, like countless species, they have evolved and vanished without leaving any record of their existence.

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