Jan. 7, 2006

TALLMANSVILLE, W.Va. — Working hard, playing by the rules, living your faith and building community can be fatal when mining coal in the Sago Mine, cited last year over 200 times for safety violations and generating $15.7 million for the International Coal Group (ICG) through the third quarter of 2005.

NEW YORK — Subway and bus workers here are widely seen as having scored a victory over the Metropolitan Transportation Authority in the first citywide transit strike in a quarter century.

The news doesn’t stop for the holidays and, this year, neither did the World’s coverage. Even though there was no print edition of the paper, readers were able to keep up with important stories at pww.org.

Iran’s Tudeh Party announced that the security forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran arrested a number of leaders and key activists of the Tehran Public Bus Transportation Company Trade Union on Dec. 22-23.

Revelations that President George W. Bush ordered the National Security Agency to engage in massive spying on law-abiding people, in flagrant violation of federal law, have ignited a firestorm of angry demands that he and Vice President Dick Cheney be censured or even impeached.

Final results of Iraq’s Dec. 15 elections are not expected for at least two weeks, as investigations of vote fraud allegations continue. Meanwhile political deal-making is under way. Controversial preliminary results gave the Shiite Islamic coalition, which dominates the current government, a lopsided lead, but short of the two-thirds needed to form a new government.

CHICAGO — “Is it not time for peace and reconciliation in a time of war and belligerency?” asked Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.). “When the people of Venezuela are offering this gift to Chicago, then why should we not take this opportunity to simply reach out to the people of our city, and create a dialogue with the Venezuelan people?”

PHILADELPHIA — About 7,600 households here have been without heat since November. Another 7,000 households are using alternative heating methods, such as kerosene or electric space heaters, to keep the winter cold at bay.

TARPON SPRINGS, Fla.: Vietnam refuser faces court martial; PITTSBURGH: Bridge collapses, no one killed — this time; BIRMINGHAM, Ala.: Latinos sue to stop police harassment; LOUISVILLE, Ky.: Hundreds honor Emancipation Day

On a recent trip to Latin America, President George W. Bush said people must choose between “two competing visions.” One, he said, “pursues representative government, integration into the world community and freedom’s transformative power for individuals.” The other, “seeks to roll back the democratic progress of the past two decades by playing to fear, pitting neighbor against neighbor, and blaming others for their own failures to provide for the people.” Bush’s “two competing visions” refer to U.S. capitalism and Venezuela’s “21st-century socialism.”