Alterglobalisation Bournemouth is a monthly discussion group for people who want to question the status quo. read full story / add a comment

On Thursday we were on the streets of Bogotá as thousands of Colombians took to the streets again, this time in homage to the more than 15,000 victims of state terrorism in the country. We marched with campesinos from BP’s oil exploration region of Casanare, in the capital to attend the National Movement of Victims of State Crimes forum being held this weekend. The slogan, ‘for our dead, not a minute of silence, only a lifetime of struggle’ was particularly poignant as we stood beside, Dolores, whose two sons were killed by the army last year.

Espacio and COS-PACC, the Colombian social organization we’re working with in Casanare, have set up a scheme to protect threatened members of rural communities in the region by ‘twinning’ them with people in Britain, who undertake to follow-up their situation with the authorities and build up personal solidarity links as pen-pals, to remind people that they are not alone and disposable, as the strategists of state terror would like to have them believe. To take part get in touch.
read full story / add a comment

On Saturday the 1st of March, the Bristol Latin American Forum took over Bristol University's Department of Hispanic, Portuguese and Latin American Studies for a third year running. The forum incorporated plenaries, information stalls and workshops by a wide range of Latin American organisations and solidarity groups with performances, motif explanations and practicals by music, dance and cultural outfits, food and drink by the Kebele Social Centre, an all day film screening by Cinema Klandestino and a World Café 'interactive topic discussion' experiment - leading on to a rip-roaring after party at The Kuumba Centre. As in the years before, the day was a huge success. read full story / add a comment

Saturday, March 1, 2008 at 9:00pm- very very late
The White Hart Pub, 181 Whitehall Road, Bristol, BS5 9BJ
£2 donation on the door read full story / add a comment

On Saturday 16th February sixty No Borders activists came together in Manchester to discuss the future of the network. The gathering was called by Manchester No Borders, and groups from Brighton, Bristol, Newcastle, Oxford, Liverpool, London, Cardiff, Birmingham and many more came for a weekend of discussions, planning and hanging out with other No Borders activists. read full story / add a comment

BRISTOL LATIN AMERICAN FORUM
Saturday 1st of March 2008

Latin America is in a crucial stage of transition. Right now, history is unfolding before our eyes with dynamic movements changing the face of the continent. The Bristol Latin American Forum, which is now in its third consecutive year, invites you to explore these current issues in a stimulating political and cultural event. The day will feature an opening panel of distinguished speakers followed by workshops focusing on a range of Latin American topics, from neo-liberalism and struggles for liberation to film and literature. This year the Venezuelan Consular to the UK, Alvaro Sanchez, will speak and also run a workshop on The Revolution In Venezuela. There will be film, music and food. The forum will be held from 10am - 6pm on Saturday, 1st of March 2008 at the Department of Hispanic, Portuguese & Latin American Studies, University of Bristol, 15 Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 (entry at the rear of No. 21), hosted by Dr Matthew Brown. Entry is free (donations welcome), but note there are only 100 places for the day event, so arrive early. Now is your chance to get informed and get involved.

Speakers:

• ALVARO SANCHEZ – Venezuelan Consular to the UK & Ireland.
• AMANCAY COLQUE - Bolivia Solidarity Campaign Co-ordinator.
• ANDY HIGGINBOTTOM - Editor of Frontline Latin America.

Workshops on:

• The links between music and politics: live performances by LA musicians.
• Capoeira - an expression of Afro-Brazilian resistance culture.
• Climate change in Latin America: palm-oil and bio-fuels.
• Continuing repression in Colombia, and more.

Lunch will be provided by the Kebele Social Centre. Cinema Klandestino at the Forum will show film made in and/or about Latin America all day long.

After-Party:

Pachanga Sudaka present an evening of live Latin music at Kuumba Arts & Community Resource, 20-23 Hepburn Road, off Stokes Croft, Bristol BS6, with live acts as follows:

• ORQUESTA MONTPELIER - 16 Piece live salsa band from Bristol. Playing a fusion of Latin rhythms, Hip Hop and Afro-Cuban beats. One of the UK's most exciting orchestras of experimental Salsa.
• COLORES DE MI TIERRA - Rhythms, dances and melodies from the Caribbean coast of Colombia, reflecting a rich culture that is rooted in a mixture of African, Indigenous and European cultures.
• EL MERCADO DE MIRÁN - Contemporary acoustic music inspired by the traditional rhythms and melodies of African, Amerindian and European folklore in Latin America.

Plus Latin-Mashup DJs. £4/£5 entry.

Bristol Latin American Forum 2008 On The Web:

LIVE WEBCASTING of workshops with interactive discussions (and further information) can be accessed at http://bristollaf.blogspot.com/

Key Participant Organisations: Colombia Solidarity Campaign, Bristol Solidarity with Venezuela, Cuba Solidarity, Kiptik, Espacio Bristol-Colombia, BLINC, Bolivia Solidarity Campaign, Mapuche International Link. read full story / add a comment

SWRDA, the unelected quango with its fingers in many of the most major decisions in the region, has invited Digby Jones, aka Baron Jones of Birmingham aka Sir Digby, to Bristol to answer the question, "Are South West companies making the most of Globalisation?" read full story / add a comment

Monthly open discussion group that looks at whats happening in the 'world economy', and why, and tries to make sense of the mayhem - is capitalism in crisis, how bad will a recession be, who is to blame, and how can we react? read full story / add a comment

Public Meeting:
KENYA IN TURMOIL: WHAT REALLY LIES BEHIND THE CONFLICT?

7.30pm Wed 20th February
@ Monte Carlo Cafe,
Stapleton Road (opp. Natwest Bank), Easton

Speaker: Ken Olende (journalist of African affairs)

read full story / add a comment

SATURDAY 23rd FEB 1:30pm (come earlier for yummy food) read full story / add a comment

This story doesn't have too much to do with Bristol. Except that, as the Buddha would say, we're all fundamentally interconnected. Or, to put it another way, one woman's waste is another woman's garden furniture.

And maybe the pics will help to stoke the fire in your bellin... read full story / add a comment

‘I am Colombia’ were the words stamped across the rather artificially large chest of the woman who nearly ran us over in her four-by-four on Monday morning. No doubt she was on her way to the government-sponsored mobilization against the FARC guerrilla that took place in cities across the world today, despite condemnation from Colombian social movements, the left-leaning opposition and the mother of Ingrid Betancourt - the former Green Party senator who has been a hostage of the FARC since 2002. read full story / add a comment

This is the second day of Espacio Bristol-Colombia's two-day training for potential volunteers interested in doing accompaniment work with the Network of Friendship and Solidarity with Colombia.

The workshop will take place at Kebele Community Coop, 14 Robertson Road, Easton, Bristol from 11am-5pm on Saturday 16th and 10am-4pm on Sunday 17th Feb. read full story / add a comment

Espacio Bristol-Colombia will be running a two-day training for potential volunteers interested in doing accompaniment work with the Network of Friendship and Solidarity with Colombia.

The workshop will take place at Kebele Community Coop, 14 Robertson Road, Easton, Bristol from 11am-5pm on Saturday 16th and 10am-4pm on Sunday 17th Feb.

More details at: http://www.espacio.org.uk/training.htm

Please contact us if you're interested: espaciobristol@redcolombia.org read full story / add a comment

BRISTOL LATIN AMERICAN FORUM 2008
PRESS RELEASE

Latin America is in a crucial stage of transition. Right now, history is unfolding before our eyes with dynamic movements changing the face of the continent. The Bristol Latin American Forum, which is now in its third consecutive year, invites you to explore these current issues in a stimulating political and cultural event. read full story / add a comment

Mapuche International support coordinator Reynaldo Mariqueo needs help with all aspects of campaigning locally and globally.
If you have language or media skills, if you care about human-rights and environmental issues, please get in touch. read full story / add a comment

16th - 17th February, Bristol,

Espacio Bristol-Colombia are organising a two day training for people interested in going to Colombia to do solidarity ‘accompaniment’ there; that is to both provide an international presence to deter the army or paramilitaries from killing social activists and to work with Colombian organisations building solidarity links. read full story / add a comment

There are thousands of Pakistani's living in and around Bristol, why do we not hear from those people (Pakistani's) most affected by such a major global event? read full story / add a comment

Please help make sure that our friends don’t end this month in a mass grave.
On Wednesday night, we stayed with our friend Luis Eduardo Garcia who is a member of the Colombian food-workers’ union, Sinaltrainal, and a worker in the Coca-Cola factory. At 5 o’clock on Thursday morning Guayabo went with Luis Eduardo and another member of Sinaltrainal, Jose Domingo Florez, to give out leaflets workers starting their shift, reminding them that that day, 6 December, was the eleventh anniversary of the murder union leader Isidro Gil, who was killed inside a Coke bottling plant during negotiations with the company.
We’ve just received news that that Thursday night, when Domingo got home, he found an envelope in his garage containing a death threat. read full story / add a comment

Guayabo Pastuso and I have been traveling quite a bit recently. We went back to the region where BP are extracting oil to investigate an NGO that the oil companies set up to train rural community members in a more ‘entrepreneurial’ approach to farming, amongst other things. This was a wee bit nerve wracking and I had to go in disguise so that I wasn’t recognised from previous trips as I was trying to be an academic without links to social movements. The oil companies have put tiny amounts of money into this rather dubious NGO in comparison with the huge amounts of funding given to the army - who killed yet another farmer in the region a few days ago. This isn’t the only part of the country where the army is killing populations who don’t fit into a development model geared towards resource extraction by multinational corporations. Last week we traveled to north-east Colombia to hear evidence that social organizations had collected into murders by the army in the region of Catatumbo. read full story / add a comment