Physical blocking, which depends on the number of bodies in relation to the space and how they organize themselves. The large number and arrangement of participants is such that the opponent's intended action is not physically possible. When in 1956, 10,000 people occupied a site in Sunakawa, Japan, intended for a U.S. air base; it turned out to be nonviolent obstruction. The plan for the air base was given up. See 171 and 173.
In 2004 the Ukrainian people heard reports that Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych rigged the presidential elections so he could step in as Ukraine’s new president. The people’s campaign of strikes and protests forced a re-run election that was fairly contested, and was won by opposition candidate Viktor Yushchenko. [Ukrainians overthrow dictatorship (Orange Revolution), 2004.]
On 30 June 1998, the contract between Service Employees International Union Local 200A (SEIU) and Syracuse University (SU) expired. Preceded by two months of negotiation, SU made a final offer for a new contract before the 30 June deadline.
The Mi’kmaq first nations people are indigenous to what is now New Brunswick, Canada. The provincial government of New Brunswick holds all mineral rights throughout the province, making mining allowable wherever it chooses, including on indigenous land.
In 2013, Fuel extraction companies South Western Energy Resources Canada and Irving Oil proposed natural gas exploration of traditional Mi'kma'ki territory in New Brunswick called Signigtog. Gas extracted from the area would mostly be sent to the United States, but the environmental effects would remain.
Visteon is a global automotive company that spun off from Ford Motor Company in June 2000. In the U.K., during this transition period, Ford and the trade union Unite made a deal to guarantee that all former Ford employees – now Visteon workers – would keep the same wage and pension conditions. However, Visteon placed all newly hired employees under inferior contracts.
On 9 June 1987 workers of the Sindicato de Trabajadores de Lunafil (Lunafil Thread Factory Workers Union, or SITRALU) were given unwelcome news by management.
The Lunafil factory was located on the main highway in Amatitlan, just 15 miles from Guatemala City (capital of Guatemala). In that factory workers spun cotton grown on Guatemalan plantations into thread. The thread was then shipped to other factories for Guatemalan workers to use in sewing garments for export, the so-called maquiladoras.
Maggie Henry and her husband Dale have managed an 88-acre organic farm in North Beaver Township, Lawrence County—located in western Pennsylvania—for the past three decades. The Henry’s produce pork, poultry and eggs, and service Pittsburg area restaurants.
Ciba-Geigy was an international chemical corporation based in Europe, specializing in the production of dies and pharmaceuticals. During the 1930’s, Ciba-Geigy established a secluded factory in Toms River, Ocean County, New Jersey, where it synthesized vat dies and other pigments. The Tom’s River operation was a major employer in the community, while secretively disposing of toxic factory waste in unlined pits on site. The operation expanded over three decades, and, in 1966, Ciba-Geigy constructed a ten-mile long, subterranean pipeline to the Atlantic Ocean for disposing liquid waste.
Tuba Group factory workers in Dhaka, Bangladesh, stood up against
exploitation in the summer of 2014. The company, in which five factories
made products for businesses like Walmart and H&M, had become
notorious in recent years for some of the lowest employee wages in the
world (about US $38 a month) and the 2012 “Tarzeen factory fire” that
killed 112 workers. Since February of 2014, Delwar Hossain, the owner of
the group, had been in jail for the workplace negligence that lead to
the tragedy. However, workers continued to face unfair treatment.
The ozone layer absorbs ultraviolet radiation that can be very harmful to all forms of life. In 1974, however, scientists discovered that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), a chemical used in aerosol sprays, refrigerants, and the creation of synthetic materials, break down when they enter the stratosphere, and produce a chlorine atom, which then contributes to breaking down the ozone layer. In 1985, British Antarctic Survey scientists discovered a massive hole in the ozone layer above Antarctica.
The May 1959 opening of French government internment camps for Algerians suspected of being subversive agents of the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN) came towards the end of the Algerian War (11/1954-03/1962). The war, which ended with Algeria winning its independence from France, featured a wide variety of tactics, including torture by both sides. This torture led to the original conferences and protests of l’Action civique non-violente, a group dedicated to the right to resist oppression.
The British commissioner governed the state of Mysore in southern India from 1831 to 1881 when the administration reinstated the pre-existing Wodeyar (Wadiyar) Dynasty. Mysore became a princely state with the Wodeyar Dynasty ruling under the paramountcy of the British. The reigning Maharaja (king) during the Indian independence movement was Jayachamaraja Wodeyar. On 15 August 1947, India gained its independence from the British Raj.
The ten year civil war in Nepal that claimed over 13,000 lives ended in 2006 when Maoist insurgents gave up their armed revolt in order to integrate themselves socially and politically. At the end of the war, more than 19,000 former Maoist combatants remained sequestered in barracks controlled by the U.N. Part of the peace agreement called for their gradual integration into Nepal’s security forces, but army chief Rookmangud Katawal, who strongly opposed the integration of politically indoctrinated enemy soldiers, blocked this process.
On 10 June 2014, the Guatemalan Congress approved Decree 19-2014, more commonly known as Plant Varieties Protection Bill or the Monsanto Law (because of Monsanto’s, a multinational company, promotion of the law) and it was planned to take effect on 26 September 2014. The Monsanto Law outlawed the replanting, transportation, or selling of privatized seeds without permission, and made these actions punishable by one to four years in jail and a fine of 1,000 to 10,000 quetzals (130 to 1,300 US dollars).
Due to a large aging population, 34 million out of the 143 million Russian citizens lived on pensions in 2005. Prior to 2005, a typical Russian pension consisted of just over $70, which central and regional governments supplemented with free public transportation, housing subsidies, and for some pensioners, free prescriptions and telephones.
In Liberia, a small country on the west coast of Africa, the Monrovia Consolidated School System (MCSS) oversaw all public schools in the capital city of Monrovia. Its three main high school campuses were William V.S. Tubman, G.W. Gibson, and D-Tweh High School. As of 2013, enrollment in MCSS schools totaled over 20,000 students.
In the 1870s, the Maharaja (prince) of Patiala, a small princely state in the Punjab region of northern India, implemented the Biswedari (big landlord) system, which appointed biswedaris as local authorities of agrarian villages. The biswedaris, mostly government officials and close kin of the Maharaja, gradually took full possession of lands and reduced the original owners to the status of muzaras (tenants). Muzaras had to pay batai (share rent) to their landlords, consisting of half of their crop, though landlords often overestimated the crop yield to justify taking a larger share.
In 2014, French livestock farmers experienced a six to eight percent decrease in prices of their goods due to falling prices worldwide, a Russian embargo on European Union goods, as well as competition between supermarkets, while distribution companies’ earnings remained the same. On 17 June 2015, members of the French food industry agreed to a hike in the price of meat and dairy in order to increase the amount of money going to the farmers. The agreement stipulated a five-cent price increase per kilogram of beef per week.
Starting in 2008, the Brazilian government began commissioning nearly forty police pacification units (UPP) in over two-hundred of Rio de Janeiro’s shantytowns, known as favelas. This pacification project aimed to maintain security in territories after Rio’s special police unit (BOPE) cleared the communities of gang leaders and drug traffickers who, for decades, controlled the favelas and inspired their violent reputations.
In November 2003, tens of thousands of Georgians took to the streets to protest against the contested results of a parliamentary election. This campaign ousted President Eduard Shevardnadze, a hold-over from the former Soviet leadership, and put in place a pro-Western party, the United National Movement (ENM), headed by Mikhail Saakashvili. After the demonstrations concluded, altogether known as the Rose Revolution, Saakashvili’s newly elected administration implemented a zero tolerance approach to petty crimes.
When Rudolph (Rudy) Giuliani took office as New York City’s 107th Mayor on 1 January 1994, the city had a budget deficit of $2.3 billion. The Republican candidate planned to close the city deficit by eliminating 15,000 city jobs. Police, firefighters, and teachers, which made up 60 percent of total city employees, were exempt from the job cuts. With these exemptions, the city administration had to find its staff reductions from less that 40 percent of its 216,000-strong work force.
Between 1970 and 1976, Russell Bliss used a toxic mixture of motor oil and dioxin to spray the unpaved roads in Times Beach, MO. The community hired Bliss, a career waste disposer, to reduce its dust problem. Unbeknownst to residents of the small town, Independent Petrochemical Corporation (IPC) paid Bliss for the disposal of its hazardous dioxin waste. Under the auspices of Northeastern Pharmaceutical and Chemical Company (NEPACCO), IPC generated dioxin through its production of Agent Orange during the Vietnam War.
On 14 October 2015, student protests began at the University of Witwatersrand in response to an announcement by the university board that there would be a 10.5% increase in tuition fees. On 15 October, students barricaded the gates of the university. Over the next two days, both student and staff members held a sit in, causing the eventual lock down of the university as the blockades obstructed lectures and activities. On 17 October, the University of Witwatersrand agreed to suspend and renegotiate the fee increases.
