June 11, 2005

PHILADELPHIA — In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court declared that segregation in schools was unconstitutional. It took another 25 years to make any changes in the educational system in some cities, even in the North.

When the African National Congress of South Africa won a popular mandate of 70 percent of the vote in a landslide victory in 1994, following the overthrow of the racist, U.S.-supported apartheid regime, popular expectations ran high. The inauguration of Nelson Mandela as the first president of a new, nonracialist South Africa symbolized a historic turning point.

While the Japanese government, under pressure from the Bush administration, continues to step up militarization and threaten other nations in the region, Japanese people have increasingly taken the stage to express a desire for peaceful relations with their neighbors.

With five months to go before elections are held in Haiti, its Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) is planning to disenfranchise many voters by refusing to register residents in poorer neighborhoods.

Pakistan: Phone workers strike vs. privatization; Iraq: More journalists murdered; Argentina: Private water firm pulls out; Palestine: Workers’ situation worsening

SANTA ANA, Calif. — Southern California’s progressive activists are uniting in outrage over the failure of the Orange County district attorney and the Garden Grove police department to charge Minuteman Project supporter Hal Netkin for allegedly ramming his van into peaceful immigrant rights demonstrators May 25.

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, speaking in Caracas on May Day, invited “all industry to be part of the new society,” saying, “We will help every industry to expand production and will provide the funding to do so. However, the only condition is that workers be allowed to be part of the management.”

The latest employment report, released by the Labor Department June 3, showed job growth slowed nearly to a crawl in May. Employers boosted payrolls by only 78,000 after a hiring spurt of 274,000 in April.

DALLAS — Dallas school employees staged a rally here May 23 to protest attacks on public education and tax giveaways to the rich.

A May 29 New York Times article by Robert Pear, “Health Leaders Seek Consensus Over Uninsured,” reported that “24 ideologically disparate leaders representing the health care industry, corporations and unions, and conservative and liberal groups have been meeting secretly for months to seek a consensus on proposals to provide coverage for the growing number of people with no health insurance.” Pear has done a real service in bringing this development — and its dangers — to light.