Apr 13, 2002

WASHINGTON – More than 1,000 protesters chanting “pills cost pennies, greed costs lives” marched to the steps of the Capitol here April 10 to demand that Congress approve $750 million now and $2.5 billion next year for the U.N. Global AIDS Fund.

The 11th Congress of the Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) opened on the evening of International Woman’s Day with a speech by Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez Frias.

CHICAGO – Although her e-mail is still sent to the Illinois State Council of Senior Citizens, Connie Engholm is now the executive director of the Illinois Alliance of Retired Americans (IARA).

On April 4, 1967, exactly one year before he was assassinated, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke at the Riverside Church in New York and denounced the war in Vietnam. This was not an easy or popular thing to do. In 1967 critics of the war were still a minority and were often denounced as unpatriotic.

BUFFALO, N.Y. – A Town Hall meeting warning about the dangers of New York Governor George Pataki’s proposed budget to students and workers in the state’s higher education system, State University of New York (SUNY) and City University of New York (CUNY), was held at Buffalo State College on April 4.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney denounced the workplace safety policy announced by the Bush administration on April 5 as a “weak and unenforceable ‘plan’” that offers workers no real protections against the nation’s biggest safety problem – ergonomic injuries such as carpel tunnel syndrome, caused by repetitive motions, heavy lifting and poorly-designed work.

As we have done in the past, we are opening the pages of the May 4 edition of the World/Nuestro Mundo to our friends and supporters who wish to publish greetings celebrating May Day and Cinco de Mayo.

CHICAGO – “This is class war,” declared Barbara Ehrenreich, activist and author. Ehrenreich was responding to testimony before a Chicago Workers Rights Board on April 6 that focused on the devastating impact of the economic crisis and federal and state budget cuts.

NEW YORK – On May 1 a concert and rally will be held to celebrate the international workers’ holiday. It will be part of a series of cultural events entitled “Workers All: The May Day Arts Festival.”

WASHINGTON – Like arsonists with a can of gasoline, ultra-right forces in the U.S. are pouring fuel on the raging war in the West Bank seeking to destroy any initiative aimed at halting the violence and opening the way for a “two state” solution, Israel and Palestine coexisting side by side.