March 25, 2006

NEW ORLEANS — Sunburned and footsore but in high spirits, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Veterans for Peace (VFP) and their allies marched through this city March 19 chanting “Make levees, not war,” and “Hey, hey Uncle Sam, we remember Vietnam.”

Months of growing grassroots pressure for immigrants’ rights and against proposed harsh repressive measures are beginning to open new avenues of struggle for a fair and humane approach to immigration reform.

Steelworkers are rallying in front of Mexican consulates across the U.S. and Canada to demand that Mexico’s President Vicente Fox reinstate the head of that country’s miners union.

While the House of Representatives passed $92 billion “emergency” funding mostly for the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan last week, it also approved California Rep. Barbara Lee’s amendment that bars permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq.

WASHINGTON — The Senate rushed through a measure March 16 to increase the nation’s debt ceiling to just under $9 trillion, approved a $2.8 trillion 2007 fiscal year budget resolution and went home to try to explain to angry voters why they approved President Bush’s “steal from the poor” budget.

After a weekend of protests in which 1.5 million people took to the streets, French labor unions are preparing for a general strike in response to what they call a dangerous and disturbing new law.

Thousands marched down Chicago’s Michigan Avenue, March 18, demanding an end to the Iraq war. The evening march, estimated at 7,000, was one of the largest of hundreds of protests around the nation on the third anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq.

En español: Miles dicen no a la guerra

The third anniversary of the Iraq invasion was marked by worldwide demonstrations demanding an end to the occupation of Iraq and in many cases, “No attack on Iran.”