Aug 3, 2002

Across the country, it is finally sinking in. There really was a bubble in the stock market, and it has now burst. This is not like Tiger Woods having a bad day at the British Open. He may rebound to his past glory, but the stock market will not.

PITTSBURGH – For steelworkers, 1949 was the year their union struck for pensions and health care. The strike shut down the entire metal-working industry, including aluminum and can. Over half a million members of the United Steelworkers of America (USWA) walked the picket lines carrying signs that read, “Too old to work. Too young to die. We want pensions.”

Bobby L. Harnage, president of the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), blasted the Bush administration and House GOP leadership for attaching a vicious anti-union amendment and attacks on the civil service code to the Homeland Security bill approved by the House July 25.

NEW DELHI, India – Violence in Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), one of the Indian states, seems to have no end. Lives of innocent people, mainly from the working class of Kashmir Valley, are still held at gunpoint. The last major incident, which took 28 lives, was in Rajiv Nagar, Jammu, July 12. Pakistan-based Lashkar-E-Toiba took responsibility.

We gather at a moment when genocide is being perpetrated on the Palestinian people by the Israeli government, backed by U.S. rulers. Mankind is witnessing the brutal massacre of innocent people and shameless violations of international laws and U.N. resolutions.

In a statement released from its headquarters in Prague, The Czech Republic, the World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) condemned the Israeli rocket attack on Gaza City on July 22 that killed 15 Palestinian civilians, including nine children.