July 22, 2006

Demand rises for cease-fire in Middle East crisis. Calls for an immediate cease-fire, pullback of Israeli troops from Lebanon and Gaza, and an end to the bloodshed in the Middle East gathered momentum last week as the danger of a widening war continued to loom.

WASHINGTON — As 3,000 NAACP convention-goers applauded, Julian Bond, the chair of the nation’s largest civil rights group, accused the Republican ultra-right of scheming to block or suppress Black and other minority votes in this year’s midterm election.

NEW YORK — “I remember,” says Angie Lebowitz, “giving the paper out in Jamaica, Queens, when it was still the Daily Worker.” This was decades ago. Today, Lebowitz still distributes the People’s Weekly World every week like clockwork.

The streets outside the National Labor Relations Board office in Washington were sizzling, and it wasn’t just the July heat. For the first time in its 70-year history, the board was shut down for two hours July 13 as nine union and religious leaders, backed by 1,500 labor supporters, blocked traffic outside

As teachers unions geared up for campaigns to challenge the Bush administration’s troubled education law, the No Child Left Behind Act, up for reauthorization next year, the U.S. Education Department quietly released a blockbuster report concluding that public schools perform as well as, and sometimes better than, private schools.

DETROIT — Peace Action, the nation’s largest grassroots peace organization, held its National Congress here July 14-15 and November’s elections were a topic throughout.

PITTSBURGH — As the mostly African American and Latino congregation was preparing for weekly Friday prayers at Light of the Age mosque here on June 30, a dozen FBI agents raided the building and lined up worshippers outside at gunpoint.

CHICAGO — The VII Gay Games Sports and Cultural Festival began on July 15 and continued to rock this city through the week until July 22, with over 12,000 athletes, gay and straight, from more than 70 countries competing in 30 different sports.

SAN FRANCISCO — From the panelists speaking for a spectrum of immigrant communities, to the chants in globe-spanning languages that closed the program, the Community Forum on Immigration, Labor and Interracial Alliances was all about bringing immigrant communities together in action with labor, the religious community and other people’s organizations.

Worried about the failure of “free trade” deals for workers and farmers, U.S. and South Korean unions are joining forces to oppose the proposed Korean-U.S. Free Trade Agreement.