The 2010 Winter Olympics has escalated the homelessness crisis in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside and the Greater Vancouver area. Since the Olympic bid, homelessness has nearly tripled in the GVRD, while real estate and condominium development in the Downtown Eastside is outpacing social housing by a rate of 3:1. Meanwhile, a heightened police presence has further criminalized those living in extreme material poverty in the poorest postal code in Canada.

Less than a week away from the gongshow that will be the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Games. Chris ‘Okibi’ will be in the midst of the protests, hopefully bringing back some valuable footage and insights. For more information on Olympic resistance checkout the No 2010 website.

As I type this, leaders from the biggest industrialized nations are meeting in Copenhagen to discuss a possible treaty to diminish worldwide carbon emissions. As reported last month, it is already known that no deal will be reached during these talks. Many scientists say time is running out and others say it’s too late. Meanwhile in Canada, the forces of capitalism and industry are moving full force to extract the last bits of oil from the Alberta tar sands. The insanity of this project perfectly exemplifies Premise 10 from Derrick …

Stimulator aka Franklin Lopez serves up his own take on Black Friday, while critiquing Adbuster Magazine’s Buy Nothing Day, and presenting his own alternative, Steal Something Day. With poetic, anarchic words from Crimethinc, and Lopez’s cut-and-paste editing, Why I Love Shoplifting from Big Corporations makes for a nice short.

Stimulator, the brains behind subMedia and END:CIV, has released a new episode of his It’s the End of the World as We Know It and I Feel Fine web series. It features coverage of insurrectionary activity around the globe, most notably at home on the West Coast.

Here’s the latest from END:CIV. Both clips include footage and interviews we shot during our west coast tour. Interviews include Ward Churchill, John Zerzan, Lierre Keith and Dr. Michael Becker. The first piece breaks down the first premise of Derrick Jensen’s “Endgame”. “Civilization is not and can never be sustainable. This is especially true for industrial civilization.” The second clip is an updated edit of “Clearcuts” first released on the world wide web in June 2009.

The Yes Men Fix the World is a screwball true story about two gonzo political activists who, posing as top executives of giant corporations, lie their way into big business conferences and pull off the world’s most outrageous pranks. From New Orleans to India to New York City, armed with little more than cheap thrift-store suits, the Yes Men squeeze raucous comedy out of all the ways that corporate greed is destroying the planet. Brüno meets Michael Moore in this gut-busting wake-up call that proves a little imagination can go a long way towards vanquishing the Cult of Greed …

END:CIV is a film that examines our culture’s addiction to systematic violence and environmental exploitation, and probes the resulting epidemic of poisoned landscapes and shell-shocked nations. Based in part on Endgame, the best-selling book by Derrick Jensen, END:CIV asks: “If your homeland was invaded by aliens who cut down the forests, poisoned the water and air, and contaminated the food supply, would you resist?” END:CIV is currently in production.