Aug 27, 2005

CRAWFORD, Texas — Just two months ago, people in this quiet, rural town, population 705, lived their lives in relative anonymity. But thanks to the lies of an infamous neighbor, the townsfolk have had to adjust to a daily barrage of photographers, reporters, television cameras and, most of all, protesters.
Haga clic aquí para texto español.

CHICAGO — Drivers here went into sticker shock as gasoline prices jumped 40 cents over the past week. A gallon of gas in Chicago averaged $2.82 on Aug. 23, up nearly a dollar from a year ago, according to chicagogasprices.com. Around the nation, the average price at the pump hit $2.59 — a 39 percent increase from last year’s $1.87.

The phones at the national offices of United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), a coalition of 1,300 national and local groups that oppose the Bush administration’s policy of permanent warfare and empire building, are ringing off the hook.

Half a million people in Ohio are so fed up with government corruption that they signed petitions to place four measures on the ballot in November aimed at curbing Republican one-party rule, which they blame for the pervasive sleaze.

You might assume that Pastors for Peace, which is being harassed by the U.S. Treasury Department for delivering humanitarian aid to Cuba, is in a pickle. But the Rev. Lucius Walker, director of the New York-based ecumenical group, thinks otherwise. He calls the department’s actions “another gift given to us by the U.S. government to organize and gain support for Cuba.”

Northwest Airlines mechanics, cleaners and custodians walked off the job Aug. 20, refusing to accept layoffs that would leave half of them without jobs, and pay cuts that would reduce the wages of those left by 25 percent. According to a statement on the Airline Mechanics Fraternal Association web site, not one of the 4,400 members has crossed the picket line to return to work.

PHILADELPHIA — When Philadelphia teachers return on the first day of school, they will be surprised. The new science curriculum some had tested in their classrooms using kits from Science and Technology for Children (STC) or Full Option Science Systems (FOSS) has been replaced with materials from K12 Inc.

CHICAGO: Residents campaign for winter heating
WASHINGTON: Station fires host for anti-Islam tiradeASHLAND, Ala.: Poultry workers fight Tyson Jim Crow
SAN FRANCISCO: Children of same-sex couples win equal rights
HARTFORD, Conn.: State sues feds over unfunded mandate
PITTSBURGH: Police use dogs and tasers on peace marchers

CARACAS, Venezuela — Carolys Perez came to tears when the World asked her about the changes taking place within Venezuelan society, the Bolivarian Revolution and its leader, Hugo Chavez.

SIMON BOLIVAR AIRPORT, Venezuela — Our very first experience as the United States delegation at the 16th World Festival of Youth and Students here was the warm and excited Aug. 5 welcome of a youngVenezuelan who is a social worker in the steep hill community that faces this airport, Mission Barrio Adentro. His name is Daniel, better known as “the guy in the red shirt” to many of the 700-plus U.S. delegates that journeyed here.

Erika, 19, a Chicana student from the Los Angeles area, was one of the more than 700 U.S. delegates to the 16th World Festival of Youth and Students, Aug. 6-13, in Caracas, Venezuela. Erika was interviewed before leaving for Venezuela in the July 30-Aug. 5 PWW. Below is the interview during the festival and next week the PWW will publish the last interview and Erika’s post-festival impressions.

LONDON — The family of Jean Charles de Menezes, the Brazilian electrician who was shot to death by British police on July 22 in the wake of two terrorist attacks here, have demanded an end to police “shoot to kill” tactics following revelations about the circumstances surrounding the killing.

On July 6, 350 soldiers from the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (Minustah) stormed the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Cite Soleil, one of the capital’s poorest districts and a hotbed of support for ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Based on recent developments and opinion surveys, it seems much less likely that the Bush administration will be able to rely on South Korea, traditionally one of the United States’ strongest allies in Asia, to isolate the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea).

Haiti: Denounce detention of priest
Britain: Gate Gourmet pickets can continue
Colombia: Attacks on indigenous communities continue
Mali: UN food agency urges more help for children

Animal advocates denounced the passage of the Dominican Republic-Central America Free Trade Agreement as a “deadly disaster” for farmed animals and wildlife.

President George W. Bush said today that he understands and respects the views of those who are calling for him to cut short his summer vacation, but warned that an immediate withdrawal from Crawford, Texas, would “send a terrible signal to the enemy.”

WASHINGTON (PAI) — The AFL-CIO created a procedure to let locals from unions that left the federation — the Service Employees, Teamsters, United Food and Commercial Workers and the Carpenters — stay in state federations and local Central Labor Councils.

Conyers to speak at Boston hearing on health care crisis.
Meet me in St. Louis.
Break time at last.
Steel solidarity.

NEW HAVEN, Conn. — The New Haven Board of Aldermen held a fiery hearing on July 25 regarding a proposal for a special hospital zone which will include a $430 million Cancer Center at Yale New Haven Hospital.

BRANFORD, Conn. — In a groundbreaking agreement, the Cintas Corp. has signed a pact with the state of Connecticut to stop using detergents which contain ingredients known as APEs (alkyphenol ethoxylates). APEs are toxic to fish and are potentially linked to cancer.

PORT ANGELES, Wash. — “Paddle to Elwha” brought thousands of Pacific Northwest Indians and their friends to the waterfront of this old Olympic Peninsula mill town Aug. 1 to celebrate the arrival of 76 dugout canoes from as far north as Alaska and far south as Coos Bay, Ore.

“If we had only stopped them at PATCO” became a common labor refrain in the union-busting years of the Reagan administration. Most in labor will now acknowledge that the lack of full labor solidarity was a key factor in the defeat of the PATCO (air traffic controllers) union. It opened the door to years of ferocious corporate and government attack on unions.

The criminal and dangerous statements made by far right “Christian” leader Pat Robertson on his Aug. 22 “700 Club” television show, calling for the assassination of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, should be swiftly condemned by the White House and Congress.

Paul Robeson stamp. Peace doves fly to Crawford. Housing bubble (out)burst.

Thirty-five years ago, on Aug. 29, 1970, some 25,000-30,000 people, mostly Mexican Americans, marched through the heart of the East Los Angeles barrios protesting the war in Vietnam. It was the largest Mexican American political demonstration ever until Cesar Chavez’s funeral in 1993. It was a time when young working-class Chicanos and Latinos were beginning to refuse to go to Vietnam, and those on the front lines, along with African American and white soldiers, began to resist the Pentagon’s orders.

Ebony and Jet have been decorating the furniture in African American living rooms and offices for many years. John H. Johnson, one of the wealthiest African Americans in the country and founder of Ebony, Jet and the Johnson Publishing Co., died on Aug. 8. His funeral a week later drew an overflow crowd, ranging from personalities like former President Bill Clinton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson to throngs of ordinary people who came to pay their respects. What was the essence of the contribution of John H. Johnson to the struggle for social progress?

“It’s Christmas in August for big energy, and consumers get lumps of coal,” was how Anna Aurilio of environmental and consumer advocacy group US PIRG described the new Energy Policy Act of 2005, signed by President Bush on Aug. 8. And despite a few ornaments attached to the Christmas tree as sops to the environment, the big presents under the tree had the energy industry’s name on them.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s much touted Disengagement Plan from Gaza and small portions of the West Bank focuses the world’s attention on the tug-of-war between the Israeli army and the Israeli settler movement. At the same time it obscures the absence of any meaningful peace process in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

HAVANA (AP) — In his 58 years, Silvio Rodriguez has watched wars come and go, ideologies blossom and wither, love emerge and evaporate.

For many years Cameroon-born Kaïssa worked as a backup singer for artists such as Cesaria Evora, Jean-Michel Jarre and Diana Ross. ...

UNITED NATIONS — On Sept. 14, over 170 heads of state will descend on UN headquarters in New York for history’s largest gathering of world leaders, a three-day World Summit. High on the agenda will be how to reach the “Millennium Development Goals” (MDGs).

PITTSBURGH — Candles flickered against the August sky as thousands gathered in their neighborhoods around this state, Aug. 17, inspired by Gold Star mother Cindy Sheehan.

CRAWFORD, Tejas — Hace solo dos meses que gente en este pequeño pueblo calmado, rural, vivían en el anonimato relativo. Pero gracias a las mentiras de un vecino infame, la gente del pueblo han tenido que bregar con un aluvión de fotógrafos, periodistas, cámaras de televisión y más que nada, las protestas.
Click here for English text.

Goeff Bottoms, de la Campaña Solidaridad con Cuba en Bretaña, encabeza la lucha por la libertad de los Cinco Cubanos en ese país. Dice Bottoms en referencia al fallo del Tribunal de Apelaciones el 9 de agosto, que le otorgó un nuevo juicio a René González, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, y Gerardo Hernández, “Hacemos campaña a favor de su libertad en vista de este fallo sabiendo que estamos empujando una puerta que está de par en par”.

El público irlandés ha reaccionado con ira al aprender que el gobierno de Colombia, encabezado por el derechista Álvaro Uribe, está tratando de extraditar a tres irlandeses, que se fugaron de Colombia a base de la antigua relación colonial entre Irlanda y Bretaña.

CARACAS (Agencia de Noticias Mundo Posible) — El embajador de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela ante la Organización de Estados Americanos (OEA), Jorge Valero, anunció la convocatoria para una reunión ministerial con el objeto de discernir sobre la Carta Social de las Américas.

CARACAS — Más de 17.000 jóvenes de todo el mundo concluyeron el XVI Festival Mundial de la Juventud y los Estudiantes aquí el 16 de agosto con una ceremonia música, baile y ánimo combatiente. El lema del festival fue “Por la paz y la solidaridad, luchamos contra la guerra y el imperialismo”.

La declaración criminal y peligrosa hecha por el líder “cristiano” de extrema derecha Pat Robertson en su programa de televisión “The 700 Club” el 22 de agosto, donde llamó por el asesinato del presidente venezolano Hugo Chávez por agentes estadounidenses debe ser condenado inmediatamente por la Casa Blanca y el Congreso.

TUCSON, Arizona – Los trabajadores del cobre en huelga contra la compañía Asarco están dispuestos a continuarla. Los mineros y obreros de fundición dejaron de trabajar el 1 de julio en protesta contra Asarco (y también la compañía matriz, Grupo México) por negarse a negociar de buena fe con la coalición de sindicatos que representa a 1.500 trabajadores en Arizona y Tejas.