Brazil’s civil society needs to start having a major discussion: a discussion about the exploration, production, and use of oil found in the pre-salt layer. The management of our natural resources – our oil, our minerals, our water, our land, and the like – should be controlled by the people, and administered on the basis of national interests.

Agrarian Reform has reached a standstill all over Brazil. It was for this reason that, in July, MST workers from 12 Brazilian states protested in the streets, at INCRA (National Institute of Agrarian Colonization and Reform) headquarters, and farms, demanding the settlement of the 140,000 encamped families and public funding for the already existing settlements.

The MST needs your support to stop a campaign to criminalize all social movement activity in Rio Grande do Sul
In late June, the MST presented a document to the public that proves a strategy on the part of the Rio Grande do Sul State Public Ministry to “dissolve” the MST. The document outlines a meeting, on December 3, 2007, during which the State Public Ministry decided to outlaw any mobilization of landless workers, including marches and walks, to intervene in settlement schools, to criminalize leaders and members and to “deactivate” all the encampments in Rio Grande do Sul.

NEW YORK (Associated Press) - Some 300 protesters blocked a key iron ore export railway belonging to mining giant Vale as nationwide protests against multinational corporations continued Thursday for a third day.

Companhia Vale do Rio Doce SA said in a statement that farm workers started blocking the railway line that carries 70 cargo trains and about 1,000 passengers daily.

The Associated Press
Tuesday, June 10, 2008

SAO PAULO, Brazil: Thousands of landless rural workers invaded dams, railways, plantations and corporate headquarters in a wave of protests across eight Brazilian states on Tuesday.

Rogerio Homm, a coordinator with the Via Campesina activist group, said the protests are aimed at large corporations that benefit from Brazilian policies favoring agribusiness over small farmers.

Esteemed friends of the MST,

The approval of Provisionary Measure 422, Medida Provisória (MP) 422, by the federal deputies on Tuesday night, May 27, a few hours after the resignation of Marina Silva, the Ministry of the Environment, confirms that the defense of biodiversity is losing the battle against deforestation and development at whatever cost, which are defended by diverse sectors of the government.

The recently approved MP 422 can be translated as the “legalization of land grabbing”. It deals with the sale of public lands of up to 1,500 hectares without bidding— broadening the limit by a thousand hectares—under the tutelage of INCRA (National Institute of Colonization and Agrarian Reform, or Instituto Nacional de Colonização e Reforma Agrária).