About the size of an aerosol can, the colourful bomblets drop from airplanes.

“They look like sweets scattered in the sky,” said one survivor. “You don’t realize what they are until they touch you. You don’t know until they make you bleed.”

A single cluster bomb packs thousands of the small explosives, each with enough explosive punch to kill. Dropped from the air or fired from artillery, they spread over a wide area, and if that area has civilians, some of them are sure to die.

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Photo: Student gather in opposition to privatization in Montreal.

Throughout recent years social movements in Quebec have been locked in a political battle with the current Liberal government. A social struggle revolving around public control over key institutions in Quebec society. At the front-lines in this struggle has been the Quebec student movement, which in building on a long history of militant action has openly confronted government attempts to cut public funding from educational institutions and open doors to private corporations to Quebec’s public education systems.

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Photos capturing a fantastic global hip-hop concert in Montreal on Sunday, November 2nd, co-presented by the Festival du Monde Arabe and Tadamon!, featuring Aks’ser (Arabic for ‘against the traffic’) a Lebanese hip-hop duo from Beirut and the international rhythms from Nomadic Massive from Montreal. Upwards of two-hundred people attended the concert at La Sala Rossa, bringing together people for an evening featuring hip-hop expressions from Montreal to the Middle East rooted in conscience expression and social justice.

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If you’ve ever been to Lebanon, you know that people don’t read road signs there. Beirut hip hop duo Aks’ser—Arabic for “opposing traffic”—follow that tradition, but refuse to crash anyone else’s party. With Arabic hip hop paving its lane in the international music scene, there’s no denying members Wael Kodeih and Houssam Fathallah (aka Rayess Bek and Eben Foulen), with their former producer Tarek Yamani, their rightful seat among its pioneers. They’re chauffeuring the modern identity crisis to its crossroads at 1,000 miles an hour, hoping to steer the condition of their people in a new direction. The Mirror caught up with Bek in advance of their Festival du Monde Arabe appearance.

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«Nos chansons représentent le côté violent, le côté guerre de ce que l’on vit. On a besoin de montrer une autre image du monde arabe», disait Rayess Bek à la foule rassemblée au Medley mercredi soir lors du concert d’ouverture du Festival du monde arabe (FMA). Le rappeur reviendra dimanche soir avec Iben Foulen, son complice au sein d’AKs’ser, pour partager la scène de la Sala Rossa avec les Montréalais de Nomadic Massive.

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Photo: Hundreds gathered at Concordia University for Territories by Mary-Ellen Davis.

Within the framework of the weekly film screening series, Cinema Politica, to watch striking cinematic works that examine the critical role of media within the context of the reality of Israeli apartheid. Including a striking documentary from filmmaker Mary-Ellen Davis on photojournalist Larry Towell, from Mexico to Palestine, with the globally celebrated Magnum photo agency and a striking documentary film from Germany that portrays the life and work of a Palestinian journalist with Aljazeera.

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MONDAY OCTOBER 6th, 19h30
Concordia University
room H-110. 1455 de maisonneuve
metro Guy-Concordia

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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 18TH, 7:30pm, 2008
(rain-date, same time Sunday)
in the lot beside l’Insoumise
2035 St-Laurent. between Ontario and Sherbrooke
metro St-Laurent
free, but donation encouraged

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picket to support the international campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions!

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19th 12h00
Indigo Bookstore
corner of St. Catherine & McGill College
(metro McGill)
Montreal, Canada

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Press Release: Bil’in announcs that it has commenced legal proceedings in Canada.

Photo: Palestinian village of Nilin through a window smashed by the Israeli army.

Bil’in, West Bank, Palestine: The Village of Bil’in, in the West Bank, Occupied Palestinian Territories, announced today that it has commenced legal proceedings in Canada against two Canadian Companies for committing war crimes. The case has been filed in the Quebec Superior Court sitting at Montreal, Canada. A full copy of the claim is attached.

Bil’in alleges that Green Park International Inc. and Green Mount International Inc., both registered corporations in the Province of Quebec, acting as agents for Israel, are illegally constructing residential and other buildings on lands under the municipal jurisdiction of the Village and are marketing and selling condominium units to the civilian population of the State of Israel. Bil’in further alleges in its claim that its land and the defendants are subject to the rules and obligations of international law because the West Bank is occupied territory arising from an act of war that took place in 1967.

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