Oct. 7, 2006

ATHENS, Greece — Autumn festivals organized by Communist parties and their allied youth groups are a longstanding tradition in many European countries, especially in Greece, Portugal, Spain and, since 1991, in the Czech Republic.

Public Services International, a trade union federation of 640 public sector unions in 155 countries, including the U.S., demanded the release of Dr. Alberto Carvajal Salcedo, 70, a Colombian labor and human rights lawyer imprisoned recently.

SÃO PAOLO, Brazil — President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, the 60-year-old former factory worker and labor union leader, on Oct. 1 narrowly fell short of the majority vote needed to avoid a runoff election here. The political coalition of the Worker’s Party and the Communist Party of Brazil that backed “Lula” had 48.6 percent of the vote, just shy of the 50-percent-plus-one needed for an outright win.

Britain: Union revolt erupts at Labor Party meet
China: Communist Party sacks top leader
Iraq: Death and chaos, according to UN
South Africa: ‘Respect yourself,’ Archbishop Tutu says

NEW YORK — Several hundred transit workers, labor activists and academics gathered Sept. 28 for a conference titled “Assessing the NYC Transit Strike of 2005.”

Two stories roiled Massachusetts this summer. Seemingly unrelated, the two are connected by the contradictions between incalculable wealth and spreading poverty, a glut of capital and deepening individual and governmental debt, and extraordinary monopolization and growing social atomization.

CHICAGO — With 57,000 households having their heat shut off, people unable to cook, no hot water for bathing, and the chill of fall setting in, low-income Chicagoans are looking to use the upcoming election for governor to press for a law that would allow them to pay their utility bills based on their limited incomes.

HYDE PARK, N.Y. — People have long said that New York, with at least four vulnerable Republican-held congressional seats, is a battleground state. And as national scandals continue to engulf the Republican Party, local Democrats are getting a boost.

I work in Philadelphia with a group that is trying to get health care for all. Our overall goal is the passage of legislation that would create a government funded, single-payer health care system in the United States.

With media reports about the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and report cards on “homeland security,” President Bush is seeking to win back the mantle of great protector of the American people that has served him so well in past elections.