Jun 15, 2002

“This is just what we need to be doing,” was the reaction of many of the participants in two Connecticut “Eyewitness to Occupation” events featuring remarks by Judith Le Blanc following her two-week fact-finding tour as part of a delegation of the Fellowship of Reconciliation.

One RadFest workshop that drew the lively participation of about 30 activists was the panel on “Socialism in Cuba” featuring John Gilman.

Stephen Jay Gould, a world-renowned scientist whose life bridged humanity, science and social involvement, died in May of lung cancer at age 60.

Attorney General John Ashcroft has just issued new guidelines for FBI surveillance and investigations, which threaten to take us back to the days of J.Edgar Hoover. He has now virtually given absolute power to FBI field office directors to investigate anybody and everybody at their own discretion.

ST. LOUIS, Mo. – Jobs with Justice held its first Workers Rights Board hearing here June 8 at the Ethical Society of St. Louis. It was entitled “St. Louis Confronts the Recession” and was co-sponsored by the Ethical Action Committee and the Institute for Policy Studies.

As President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Sharon met in Washington, D.C., last week, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) reoccupied Ramallah with a shoot-to-kill curfew, forcing the Palestinian Authority (PA) to cancel the first meeting of its new cabinet.

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has admitted something accepted by just about everyone but George Bush – that human activity is responsible for global warming. The EPA study, “Climate Action Report 2002,” was based on National Academy of Sciences research. It was prepared for the United Nations and projects the impact of global warming on the United States. For the entire article, click on the headline. To visit the global warming study by the EPA, click here.

NEWARK, N.J. – In a closely contested run-off City Council election held here June 11, independent progressive candidate Ras Baraka was denied a seat as a Councilman-at-Large by a mere 85 votes. In these run-off elections, eight at-large City Council candidates were competing over four seats. Baraka came in fifth with 8,805 votes, which was 85 votes short of the 8,920 obtained by Gayle Chaneyfield-Jenkins, an incumbent City Council member.

In a stinging response to George W. Bush’s speech in Miami on May 20, Cuban President Fidel Castro last Saturday contrasted the island nation’s social and economic achievements with the grinding poverty and oppression that earlier dominated the lives of most Cubans.

Chicago’s Puerto Rican community, overwhelmingly working-class and 130,000 strong, is concentrated in several neighborhoods on the Northwest Side of the city. All are major battlegrounds in today’s struggle to preserve and expand affordable housing.