Apr 12, 2003

OAKLAND, Calif. – Outraged witnesses and community leaders used words like “preemptive,” “premeditated,” and “brutal” during an emotionally charged meeting of the Oakland City Council to describe the Oakland Police Department’s attack on anti-war demonstrators and longshore workers near the gate of the Stevedoring Services of America dock on Monday, April 7.

As the U.S.-led assault stormed through Iraq this week, it left a trail of death, destruction and chaos – wrecked cities, villages and farms; water systems destroyed; families decimated. It also left a trail of bitterness among the Iraqi population.

“Before I left Baghdad on the day U.S. bombing began, I sat and cried with many of my Iraqi friends who asked me ‘What’s going to happen to us?’” Even after five years reporting from Iraq for Democracy Now!, the Nation and others, independent journalist Jeremy Scahill had no easy answer. In an interview with the World, Scahill touches on why this regime change will not liberate Iraq.

WASHINGTON – More than 2,500 Children’s Defense Fund (CDF) delegates gathered here April 8-11 to fight Bush administration cutbacks in food stamps, Medicaid, and education and to demand that Congress enact the Dodd-Miller “Leave No Child Behind Act.”

Mary Loehr works out of a small office in Ithaca, N.Y., where she coordinates a national campaign to build support for those who choose to withhold federal income taxes in protest against war.

Thousands of activists are expected to converge on Washington, D.C., April 10-15 for the “Mobilization against military and economic intervention in Latin America and across the globe.”

None of the numbers in the March unemployment report are good:

* Official unemployment stuck in the 5.8 percent range.

NATIONWIDE: Struggle for peace continues / ALBANY, N.Y.: 40,000 workers say: Patient care, not cuts / MINNEAPOLIS, Minn.: Civil liberties victories / SAN ANTONIO, Texas: Honoring Chavez / PHILADELPHIA, Pa.: War protests

BALTIMORE – On a cold April 4 with the daffodils blooming, the Waters-Bey family buried their son, Marine Staff Sergeant Kendall Waters-Bey, at a military cemetery in the rolling countryside of Greenspring Valley north of here.

Celebrations of the life of Cesar Chavez, co-founder of the United Farm Workers, have spread acrsoss the country since his death ten years ago. They include protests, marches, teach-ins and festivals as well as official city, county and state holidays aimed at keeping his legacy alive.