Feb 22, 2003

Thousands of Bolivians heeded the call of trade unions for a 48-hour general strike Feb. 17-18, to demand the resignation of President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada. They were protesting the government’s handling of the country’s worsening economic crisis, and protesting the deaths of at least 22 people in protests last week.

International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) General Secretary Guy Ryder, on Feb. 7, asked Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to take action to protect human and trade union rights and to bring those who violate them to justice. With the spiraling of murders and death threats against them, Colombian trade unions are critical of the purely security-oriented policy of their government.

BRANFORD, Conn. – When workers at the Cintas uniform plant here began organizing several weeks ago, the company responded with illegal surveillance and pink slips for union supporters. The workers, many new immigrants, are among 17,000 being organized at 300 Cintas plants in the U.S. and Canada.

It’s been said that two swallows don’t make a spring. But that didn’t stop The New York Times writer who hailed the 0.3 percent decline in the official unemployment rate last month as the “first signs” that the labor market is “healing.”

BUFFALO, N.Y. – In protest of Gov. George Pataki’s proposed increase in tuition to the State University of New York (SUNY) and City University of New York (CUNY) systems, students held candlelight vigils on campuses throughout the state.

Thousands of teachers, school administrators, parents and students converged on the Oklahoma State Capitol Feb. 12 to protest the state’s budget crisis. They demanded that the state’s educational system not continue to be sacrificed.

Last year, President Bush’s chief economic adviser at the time, Lawrence B. Lindsey, estimated that it would cost $100 billion to $200 billion to wage war against Iraq. Lindsey was subsequently sacked by President Bush because Bush’s official line is that this will be a cheap war costing “only” $60 billion. Lindsey’s estimates were more realistic, much higher, and therefore totally unacceptable.

Just over half a century ago, Paul Robeson and William L. Patterson, two giants of the struggle for African-American equality, delivered to the United Nations a petition titled “We Charge Genocide: The Crime of Government Against the Negro People.”

The American people are not a ‘focus group’

On Feb. 15-16 a new peace movement was born. A movement that represents the people’s heartfelt concerns that international problems be resolved peacefully, instead of what the Bush administration has pushed – a war on Iraq.

Bush the liar

It seems that there are still people out there who have not concluded that everything the president and his pawns (or is it the other way around?) say about anything is a distortion or outright lie. And these people seem to believe that Iraq actually poses some sort of threat to something other than oil company executives’ profits.