June 2, 2007

WASHINGTON — Voicing anger that Congress approved an Iraq spending bill May 24 with no timeline to withdraw U.S. troops, antiwar activists vowed to press on with demands that the lawmakers “do what voters elected them to do” and pass legislation to end the war.

CHICAGO — Answering the question, “Are the civil rights and labor movements united?” with a resounding “more than ever,” the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists held its 36th international convention here May 23-28.

In the 1950s, during the height of the anti-communist hysteria led by Wisconsin Republican Sen. Joseph McCarthy, thousands of people, from shop workers to Hollywood figures, became victims during the Cold War’s initial years.

TUCSON, Ariz. — While Congress debates “tougher security at the border,” the temperature is rising above 100 degrees in the Sonoran Desert. Already 84 bodies have been found along the Mexico-Arizona border, more than this time last year.

NEW YORK — “When I left New York City in the early ’80s, I paid only $150 a month in rent,” said a cabdriver who participated in last week’s demonstration here against the city’s growing crisis of affordable housing. After living in Florida for 15 years, he recently returned, finding that “the same kind of apartment in the same neighborhood is maybe $1,000.”

WEST POINT, N.Y.: Hundreds protest Iraq war, Cheney
AMHERST, Mass.: Former Bush aide booed at graduation
OBERLIN, Ohio: City Council calls for impeachment
BIRMINGHAM, Ala.: Medicaid slashed on phony pretext

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe has been adamant that 56 prisoners held by the country’s principal guerilla army, the left-leaning Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), would be freed by military rescue operations, not through a humanitarian exchange.

Argentina: Children march against hunger, poverty
Japan: Peace constitution in jeopardy
Iran: CIA destabilization plans come to light
Kenya: Global warming causing sea damage
Great Britain: Child poverty on the rise

PAINESVILLE, Ohio — In sorrow and anger, over 200 people held an evening rally in front of St. Mary Catholic Church here, May 21, protesting sweeping arrests by federal immigration authorities over the weekend.

BIRMINGHAM, Mich. — Led by several Latino construction workers from the Southwest and by Robert Masciola of the national AFL-CIO, an informational rally was held outside of the shareholders meeting of Pulte Homes, Inc., at the Community House in this upscale suburb of Detroit, May 10.