Analysis

The Bolivian government of President Evo Morales has dealt with recent challenges handily. As a result, popular support for his policies is growing, and the prospects for further advances in a progressive and revolutionary direction are strong.

President Bush warmly received Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert at the White House Nov. 13, less than a week after two fateful events: the midterm elections, where U.S. voters repudiated the Iraq war, and the Nov. 8 Israeli shelling of the Gaza Strip village of Beit Hanoun, where at least 18 Palestinian civilians were killed and more than 45 others wounded.

DALLAS — Unable to wait a full week after their shellacking in national elections, the far right in Texas unmasked its fanatical racism on Nov. 13. While state legislators amassed anti-immigrant bills for the coming year’s session, the City Council of Farmers Branch, a town located just north of Dallas, unanimously approved some of the most anti-immigrant measures in the nation.

CHICAGO — “This is a global issue, part of globalization and capitalism,” said Alejandra Ibanez on Nov. 10 at the opening night of an exhibition about the effects of gentrification in the Pilsen community on the city’s lower west side.

NEW YORK CITY — In 2001, New York State Supreme Court Justice Leland DeGrasse ruled that New York State was in violation of its own Constitution which guarantees every child the right to a “sound, basic education.” Since then, education activists, teachers and parents have been fighting — in the courts and in the court of public opinion — to remedy the gross inequities in public school funding.

With 91 percent of the vote tallied, former Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega of the Sandinista National Liberation Front claimed victory over his closest rival, U.S. favorite Eduardo Montealegre of the National Liberal Alliance, in the Nov. 5 presidential election.

Ohio, Indiana, Missouri and Pennsylvania were big players in the national tidal wave for change Nov. 7. Here are quick highlights from some of our volunteer correspondents on the ground in those and other states. Look for more analysis next week

En todo Tejas, y posiblemente en las comunidades latinas del mundo, la gente se están riendo de la maniobra eleccionaria republicana de “proteger” a los norteamericanos del terrorismo con la construcción de un muro de 700 millas en la frontera con mexicana. Esta legislación está llena de contradicciones.

HOUSTON — Texas is known for hot weather, but the heat of struggles is exceptional this fall. We progressives in Houston find ourselves literally running from one event to another without time to catch our breath.

SÃO PAOLO, Brazil — The Brazilian people have rejected a right-wing onslaught and handed Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva a decisive re-election as president. In one of the most contentious presidential elections in Brazilian history, the right wing and its media system furiously pushed its candidate, Geraldo Alckmin, hoping to regain the power it lost in 2002.