Minneapolis, MN – On August 16, over 100 activists and community members held a celebratory rally in response to winning the struggle to shut down a long-time polluter, Smith Foundry.

St. Paul, MN – Members of the Climate Justice Committee held signs and banners in the Payne-Phalen neighborhood on Saint Paul’s East Side, July 18, calling attention to the pollution from the nearby Northern Iron foundry.

Last week, a Minnesota judge ordered that Northern Iron would be allowed to resume operations as normal, striking down an administrative order from the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) which came as a response to findings that the foundry violated its permitted emissions limits as well as the Clean Air Act.

Tacoma, WA – Tacoma residents gathered outside the Tacoma Public Utilities auditorium on July 2, to make their last statements ahead of the finalization of the city’s new charter.

By Charlie Berg and Joe Vital

Minneapolis, MN – Residents of the East Phillips neighborhood and organizers with the Climate Justice Committee rallied outside of Smith Foundry on Tuesday, June 4, after an announcement from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that it had reached a settlement with Smith, with the most significant provision requiring that the heavy-polluting foundry shut down its furnace within 12 months.

Chicago, IL – An energetic crowd of protesters gathered in Federal Plaza in downtown Chicago to celebrate Earth Day, April 21, and protest the construction of a mega-warehouse in South Tacoma, Washington. The mega warehouse is currently under construction by the Chicago-based real estate company Bridge Industrial.

Minneapolis, MN – On Sunday, April 21, a march of approximately 300 people from the Twin Cities metro area marched, blocking traffic for Earth Day.

The Climate Justice Committee (CJC) and Anti-War Committee (AWC) led the march. It drew attendees from the nearby Little Earth indigenous-preference housing complex, the surrounding East Phillips neighborhood, and Camp Nenookaasi, an encampment of the unhoused which has been forced by the city of Minneapolis to move many times.

St. Paul, MN – On Thursday, April 11, 50 people from the Climate Justice Committee and allies rallied outside the Minnesota Governor’s Eastcliff Mansion demanding that Governor Walz and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency shut down Smith Foundry in the East Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis.

Minneapolis, MN – On March 20, over 30 people rallied across the street from Smith Foundry in East Phillips neighborhood in Minneapolis. A miniature factory replica named Little Smith Foundry stood in front of the “Shutdown Smith Foundry” banner. Community members expressed anger at impact of the foundry’s pollution on the community of East Phillips and Little Earth which is allowed by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA).

Minneapolis, MN – The Climate Justice Committee (CJC) recently brought a taste of guerrilla theater to a local bureaucrat’s front lawn, March 3, to drive home a simple point: her wealthy, white neighborhood would never allow a major polluter like Smith Foundry to move in and disrupt their way of life.

And, as shown by the neighbors’ peeved reactions to our noisy presence and miniature factory replica on a quiet Sunday morning in pseudo-suburbia, their obsession with maintaining the status quo single-handedly proved the point.

More than 100 people, mostly mining workers, were killed last February 6 in a landslide disaster in a mining community in Maco, Davao de Oro (formerly Compostela Valley). This incident is the latest in a number of similar tragedies in the province which is one of the country’s biggest mining centers. The landslide occurred in Barangay Masara which is part of the area of mining operations of the Apex Mining Company, a company owned by Marcos crony Enrique Razon, one of the biggest bourgeois compradors and among the top billionaires, according to a statement by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).