Jun 12, 2004

WASHINGTON – Over 2,000 participants in a “Take Back America” conference here June 2-4 cheered speakers who urged a bolder, pro-peace, pro-worker, pro-equality program to rally voters against George W. Bush and the Republican right in November. click here for Spanish text

BEDFORD, Ind. – To workers on the mass picket line at the Visteon auto parts plant here, it seems like the company, a Ford spin-off, has planned long and hard to systematically slash their wages and wipe out their jobs.

Events on both coasts last week reflected the worry growing throughout the country about the impact on soldiers and their families of ever-lengthening deployments in Iraq and Kuwait.

Staff Sgt. Camilo Mejia is sitting in an Army brig at Ft. Sill, Okla., because he rejected the torture and brutality carried out by U.S. occupation forces in Iraq. Mejia served eight years in the Army National Guard and eight months in Iraq before refusing to go back to his unit there.

News Analysis

PITTSBURGH – Revivals uplift the heart and soberly prepare the head for Monday morning.

CHICAGO – Friends and relatives of community activist May Molina Ortiz are demanding that the U.S. Attorney for Northern Illinois, Patrick Fitzgerald, carry out a special investigation of her death in police custody May 25.

BRUNSWICK, Ga.: Protesters ‘unwelcome’ G-8 Summit / WASHINGTON: Gov’t workers fight for right to vote / BUFFALO, N.Y.: Patriot Act sweeps up artists / AIKEN, S.C.: Cruel Bush trick imperils drinking water

NEW YORK – New York’s Transport Workers Union Local 100 (TWU) hosted a panel discussion of Venezuelan labor leaders here May 26. The delegation included leading members of the Venezuelan Transport Workers, Public Service Workers, Grain and Food Workers, Health Care Workers and Teachers unions, all affiliates of the National Union of Workers (UNT).

Israel/Palestine: Israeli CP presses political solution / Greenland: Inuits demand their land back / Haiti: Flood takes huge toll / West Africa: U.S. carrier strike group to visit region / China: Economy keeps growing

DALLAS – North Texans were among the many Americans worried when the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) was signed May 28 by the foreign ministers of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and U.S. trade representative Robert Zoellick.