People Before Profit blog

CARTOON

Sat, 24 Feb 2007 06:33:00 +0000

Chicago hosts Euro Film Fest

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 08:43:00 +0000

CHICAGO — March Madness is taking a fast break from the basketball court to the court of reel life, all deliriousness included.

At least 7,000 people are expected to attend the 55 Chicago premieres of films from two dozen European Union countries, in the 10th Annual European Film Festival at the Gene Siskel Film Center, 164 N. State St., March 2-29.

Quick, get that empty seat. Tickets are $9 a film. The best deal is to buy a Siskel membership for $45 (single) or $75 (dual). You can see 10 movies for $90 or become a member and see those same 10 movies for $50 and every other film for a year for $5 each. Pick up a guide, go to www.siskelfilmcenter.org or call (312) 846-2600 to get a sense of what different countries are presenting.

As an added treat, on Tuesdays, the film center will present a series of African American films featuring two late 1940s films by Spencer Williams and four Charles Burnett films from the ’90s.

Nasty Nas delivers pure hip-hop, no bull!

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 08:40:00 +0000

MUSIC REVIEW

Hip Hop is Dead

Nas, Def Jam Recordings

$13.99

New York’s hip-hop titan, Nasir Jones, has spent the past few years of his career in the shadow of rapper Jay-Z. Weak pop-crossover attempts like “You Owe Me” and “Oochie Wally” only served to uphold the notion that the Nas from his earlier album “Illmatic” was lost forever.

However, with “Stillmatic,” released in 2001, Nas took a step back — and forward — and paid tribute to his traditional style and swagger, once again making a case for real lyricism in hip-hop. Since then Nas has been putting out fairly respectable — although inconsistent — efforts.

“Stillmatic” featured the scorching “Ether” where Nas responded to Jay-Z’s diss track “The Takeover,” announcing to the world that nasty Nas was back. His following two songs “God’s Son” and “Street Disciples” further confirmed Nas’s lyrical ability and paid homage to hip-hop’s 1990s golden era. With his newest CD release “Hip Hop is Dead,” Nas goes right for the jugular and brazenly asks us to take a critical look at what we consider hip-hop today.

On this album, the beats are hard, and Nas’s flow is as lethal as ever. Some of the hype around it is focused on Nas now being signed with record label Def Jam, which currently has Jay-Z as its acting president. Fans are looking forward to this new team-up, which could get Nas the sales and the mainstream appeal he has been looking for. Early gossip around the album speculated that it was going to consist of all party tracks. When I heard that, my heart was broken. However to my surprise, it is not that at all. It is nothing short of pure hip-hop — from the first to the last track.

One element that that makes “Hip-Hop is Dead” stand out from Nas’ past efforts is the production and the various featured guests, with production from Scott Storch, Will.I.Am and Kanye West. Nas is obviously reaching out to current big names in hip-hop. And this, for the most part, works to his advantage. Nas utilizes each of the contrasting soundscapes to their maximum potential. On the soulful and relaxed “Still Dreaming,” Nas and Kanye trade nonchalant flows alongside a Billie Holiday style hook sung by Chrisette Michele.

And then there is the long awaited track “Black Republican,” featuring Jay-Z himself, where the two wordsmiths vividly illustrate the two sides of the hip-hop coin — Nas the Black militant and Jay-Z the Black Republican. The production of this track, by longtime collaborator L.E.S., is cinematic and compelling, and the verse ferociously laid down by Nas is even more so — clearly outshining Jigga’s. On the downside, the track is a bit short, with only one verse from Jay and Nas each. At the end of the song you are left wanting more.

Fortunately though, most of the material on Nas’ latest album is fairly solid. He maintains what he has been doing since “Stillmatic,” but this time incorporates more contemporary elements into his expanding traditional style. And it shows: some of the best songs may be the more untraditional ones. The last track, “Hope,” is an a cappella dedication to hip-hop in which he states that the art form will not die if we don’t let it. Finally, Nas takes a firm stand and delivers an album with no bullshit.

abdul.aziz1982@gmail.com. Reprinted from Dynamic magazine, a publication of the Young Communist League ().

Two Cuban films: sweet and bittersweet

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 08:33:00 +0000

“Silly Age” is a sweet nostalgic look at 1958 Havana and a family coping with the pending revolutionary changes within their family and society as a whole. The “silly age” referred to is pre-adolescence and follows the coming-of-age of a precocious 10-year-old named Samuel.

He and his mother are forced to move in with his eccentric grandmother Violeta, who is old, strict and set in her ways. But Violeta, an accomplished photographer, has some surprises to offer, and as her relationship with her grandson gradually develops, family life gets complicated during an emerging revolutionary Cuba.

Many films from Cuba highlight the broken family, considering the tragic circumstances that confront Cubans with the 40-year blockade of the socialist island. An enticing life of luxury is projected by the Miami Cubans.

“Silly Age” addresses this when Samuel, a young man experiencing many new and exciting things in life, discovers his stepfather plans to leave Cuba with his family when Fidel Castro comes to power. Samuel and his grandmother sense the coming tragedy of loss. The sensitive characterizations and colorful stories told by director Pavel Giroud make this a charming and important film about the early days of the revolution. The authentic sets and fine acting whisk the viewer back to the momentous era of the Cuban Revolution.

Which takes us to the other Cuban film featured at last year’s Toronto Film Festival: Camila Guzman Urzua’s “The Sugar Curtain.”

This documentary is a bittersweet tale of Camila’s memories of the grand pioneering days of the 1970s in Cuba. After her family was driven into exile by the 1973 Pinochet coup in Chile, Camila and her brother took refuge in Cuba. It was there, at a time she calls the “golden age,” where young pioneers embraced the fervor and excitement of a developing social revolution. Bonding with the developing country and the young people she shared her childhood with, Camila regretted the time when she had to move from the island.

Now, many years later, she returns to Cuba seeking memories of her friends and activities. Her discoveries are that almost all of her childhood friends who were so filled with revolutionary enthusiasm have left the island. The old buildings, camps and schools are crumbling and most are in disuse. The economic woes forced on the island by the unending U.S. embargo and the untimely demise of the Soviet Union, its major trading partner, are apparent everywhere she travels. She feels the spirit, hopes and dreams of her revolutionary childhood have vanished: Cuba has had to make drastic changes to survive the fall of the Soviet Union, and it has moved far from the ideals of her youth.

However, in any country, going back to one’s childhood memories is always fraught with possible disappointments. Friends always grow up and move on, buildings get old, and if there’s no funding, they crumble, often to be replaced by more modern structures. And memories of childhood as a “paradise” are not always the most honest and accurate.

To be fair, Cuba is recovering from the near fatal economic blow to the revolution. New structures are being built in place of the old, and the economy has turned around with the assistance of Cuba’s new ally Venezuela. Cuba has struck major new trade agreements with China, Mexico, Bolivia and other new friends. The Cuban people are honestly confronting problems of the revolution and seeking solutions.

Although these two nostalgic films paint different pictures of Cuban history, they are both vital and important studies of an amazing chapter in world history, lovingly made by two young filmmakers at a time when any film about Cuba is worth our attention.

WORLD NOTES

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 07:31:00 +0000

South Africa: UN studies state’s role in food security

A study comparing the effects of unrestrained market mechanisms with the results of state intervention in food production was released in mid-February in Johannesburg, by the UN news agency IRIN.

The authors, who are associated with the UK-based Overseas Development Institute, highlight the harmful role of corruption in both situations throughout Southern Africa.

Privatized agriculture has limitations, they say. They cite Malawi’s experience, where rural infrastructure problems, lack of consumer purchasing power and market inaccessibility argue against exclusive reliance upon privatized agriculture to feed people. In Malawi and elsewhere in Southern Africa, they say, farmers need food aid, cash transfers and subsidies in the form of credit, seeds and marketing assistance.

The UN study concludes that under no circumstances should “strategic grain reserves” in Southern Africa be privatized.

Afghanistan: More U.S. troops, deaths

Leaving Afghanistan on Feb. 14, Defense Secretary Robert Gates claimed that U.S. generals there concur with his upcoming recommendation to President Bush for a troop increase there.

Soldiers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, based in Italy, had already learned they would be going to Afghanistan instead of Iraq as originally planned. According to Reuters, two brigades are being sent to replace another whose stay has already been extended.

Military leaders are expecting a Taliban spring offensive and are responding to intensified fighting last year that killed 191 coalition troops, among them 98 Americans. Since 2001 the totals are 520 and 359, respectively.

Other deaths in Afghanistan are also noteworthy. According to Save the Children, infant and maternal mortality rates there are among the world’s highest. One-fourth of the children die before age 5. Pregnancy or childbirth kills 16 percent of Afghan women. Over 40,000 foreign soldiers are serving now in Afghanistan, including 27,000 U. S. troops.

Portugal: Abortion ban on the way out?

Portugal’s Feb. 11 referendum on abortion was not legally binding, because a majority stayed away from the polls. However, over 59 percent of those who did participate voted to allow women to have an abortion at a legally registered clinic within the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.

Portugal, Malta, Poland and Ireland are the only European countries that still ban abortions. In Portugal, where 23,000 clandestine abortions are performed annually, women face up to three years in jail for having the procedure.

Socialist Prime Minister Jose Socrates, who campaigned in 2005 to legalize abortion, takes the issue now to Parliament where the Socialists are a majority. Prior to the referendum, pamphlets showed up in elementary schools supposedly from the “Christian Church of Wisconsin” with lurid and inflammatory anti-abortion messages, according to Inter Press Service.

Paraguay: Popular ferment increasing

“Whether he is a democratic reformer or a demagogic populist remains to be seen,” says the Economist, nominating Fernando Lugo as possibly “the next Chavez.”

As a Catholic bishop in poverty stricken San Pedro, Paraguay, Lugo joined peasant land redistribution campaigns. Last year he held 50,000 people spellbound at an anti-corruption rally.

Asked by the church to resign, Lugo left the priesthood in December to form the Justice and Equality movement. On Feb. 11, he announced plans to challenge Paraguay’s Colorado Party, in power for 60 years, in a run for president. The vote is not until April 2008, but Lugo is running very strong in the polls.

Meanwhile the Paraguayan Communist Party, Socialist Popular Convergence, Popular Unity and other parties gathered in Asuncion on Feb. 17 with representatives of student, indigenous, labor and human rights groups to form the Socialist Patriotic Alliance. The founding parties had agreed in November to build a united movement for justice, socialism and national liberation, according to Neike.com.

China: Communist Party combats corruption

At a Feb. 13 meeting with officials of the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA), Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi outlined the need “to remove loopholes [and to] set up an effective mechanism for clean governance.” According to People’s Daily, SFDA head Zheng Xiaoyu and other officials are currently being investigated for taking bribes as part of a nationwide offensive against graft and corruption.

The offensive is being led by the Communist Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. Commission spokesperson Gan Yisheng announced Feb. 13 that the cases of 3,350 officials, including governors and ministers, have been turned over for prosecution. In all 97,260 Party members — 0.14 percent of the total — were sanctioned during 2006.

World Notes are compiled by W.T. Whitney Jr. (atwhit @ megalink.net).

Cubas Internet access cramped by U.S. blockade

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 07:26:00 +0000

The U.S. blockade’s effect on Cuba’s access to the Internet was a topic earlier this month as some 1,650 participants from 58 countries participated in Cuba’s 12th Information Technology Fair, held in Havana, Feb. 12-16.

The fair featured workshops, symposia and plenary sessions covering software innovations, electronic equipment and computer use in health care, education and business. It was directed at companies, both foreign and Cuban, as well as health care leaders and educators.

Opening the conference, Ramiro Valdes, Cuba’s minister of information sciences and communications, condemned the effects of the U.S. blockade on Internet access in Cuba. He spoke about Cuba’s own restrictions on access and highlighted the country’s technical advances and the dispersion of computers throughout the island.

Valdes pointed out that the 1996 Helms-Burton law bars Cuban use of a high-capacity, fiber-optic underwater cable running close to the island. Cuba is confined to low-capacity satellite linkages that limit Internet exchanges to a mere 124 megabytes per second for incoming communications and 65 megabytes per second for outgoing messages.

Cuba must prioritize Internet access, he said, based on considerations of social use. Health care, education, cultural and scientific institutions, plus businesses, embassies, media centers and government offices all have free rein.

A Cuban law promulgated in January 2004 restricts Cubans’ Internet access via home telephone lines. The measure, criticized by Amnesty International, exempts foreigners who are allowed to purchase access at considerable cost.

In this connection, Valdes discussed the problem of “cybernetic crime” and defended Cuba’s prohibitions against the diffusion of pornography, fascist ideology and material promoting terrorism or racism.

Critics say that access to anti-government web sites is also blocked.

The Cuban minister also discussed Microsoft’s near-monopolization of software, efforts by the U.S. government to subpoena Google’s records about its users’ searches, and the “digital divide.” He denounced U.S. policies blocking vendors worldwide from selling computer and electronic equipment to Cuba, a policy that also bar U.S. inquiries and potential purchases mediated through Cuban web sites.

Cuban speakers at the fair noted that 15,000 university students have studied computer science, and 38,000 others have taken classes at the technical school level. There are 600 young people’s computer clubs, plus computers in most classrooms.

Government sources say that as of 2005, Cuba had 335,000 computers, or 29.8 per 1,000 people. International studies, however, place Cuba last in Latin America for both mobile phone and Internet use. A government permit is required to buy a computer or subscribe to the Internet.

Internet access may be improving. Among 16 agreements the Cuban and Venezuelan governments signed Jan. 24 on tourism, oil exploration and trade, one has Telecom Venezuela extending a 970-mile-long fiber-optic cable from one country to the other. Officials say the project, which will increase Cuba’s Internet capacity 1,000 times, will be completed within two years.

Cuba’s Internet shortcomings came to world attention in early 2006 when Guillermo Farinas, a jailed government opponent, carried out a hunger strike to gain full Internet access, claiming his right to freedom of information was being violated.

At the time, Ignacio Alvarez of the Organization of American States condemned Cuban restrictions. He cited an OAS and United Nations joint resolution of the previous year noting “an obligation on all States to devote adequate resources to promote universal access to the Internet.” Reporters Without Borders, a recipient of CIA funding, chimed in, listing Cuba as one of 15 nations notorious for Internet restrictions.

Some see such criticisms as motivated by less than benevolent intentions.

Fabio Leite attended the fair representing the International Telecommunications Union, where he is director of radio communications for this UN agency. “This sustained political aggression of Washington against Cuba,” he declared, “violates rules of the international organization.”

In this instance he was referring to unwelcome U.S. radio and television transmissions to Cuba that add up to 2,425 hours per week over 30 radio and television frequencies. They began in 1960.

Leite vowed that upon returning to Geneva he would denounce U.S. actions personally and inform all levels of his organization about Cuba’s telecommunications achievements, despite the blockade.

atwhit @ megalink.net

Inequality, poverty threaten democracy, group says

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 07:11:00 +0000

HOUSTON — There’s a new coalition in town. Convened to discuss the devastating impact of President Bush’s budget proposals, the city’s progressive, religious, labor and civil rights organizations and elected officials announced the formation of “Coalition of Working People and the Poor” on Feb. 16.

Pointing to the huge disparities between the rich and poor that have widened and deepened during the Bush administration, the coalition said inequality and poverty are a threat to democracy.

Bishop James Dixon II, senior pastor of Community of Faith Church, leads the coalition. There is “strength in unity,” he said. Others at the meeting said the Bush administration attempts to split social programs by making them compete for funding, pitting them against each other for a shrinking pot.

Dixon announced a March 24 demonstration here to protest human-needs funding cuts.

“We are appalled at the proposed budget of President George Bush, which further illustrates this administration’s callousness towards this condition,” Dixon said. “The message we continue sending to our nation’s less fortunate is hypocritical.”

Dixon cited these facts:

• 35.9 million Americans live below the poverty line.

• 8 million in Texas are without health insurance and over 1 million of those are children.

• The proposed federal budget would pay workfare recipients less than the minimum wage.

• The $195 million per day spent in Iraq could cover one year at a public college for more than 17,100 students; or enroll 27,000 more children in Head Start; or provide health insurance to 344,500 working Americans; or provide a week of unemployment benefits for almost 722,000 unemployed Americans; or fund a day of Social Security benefits for over 6.75 million retirees.

The coalition’s plan of action includes campaigns on Head Start, food stamps, children’s health insurance programs, and increasing the minimum wage.

For more information contact CWPP at (713) 688-2900.

Latinos lead fight for union at Tyson

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 07:00:00 +0000

The high injury rate at U.S. meatpacking plants is emerging as a big issue in the struggle to unionize that industry. The drive, among a largely Latino immigrant workforce, seeks to reverse the 25-year downward trend in unionization of the meatpacking industry which has been swallowed by monopolies intent on exploiting immigrant labor.

For years, 3,000 workers at Tyson Foods’ Holcomb, Kan., plant, have tolerated injuries as “inevitable” at one of the nation’s most hazardous jobs. Now, workers there are making the issue part of the fight for a union. At the Holcomb plant, 80 percent of the workers are immigrants from Latin America.

“We are taking on the giant with a rallying cry: ‘Sí, se puede!’” (“Yes, we can!”) said Tyson worker Ramon Sandoval. On March 1, the workers will vote on whether to unionize under the United Steelworkers union. If successful, the union will represent the workforce at the Holcomb plant.

In another recent fight, Holcomb workers sued Tyson last May because the company violated labor laws by not paying them for time spent putting on and taking off protective equipment.

Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) logs show that at least one worker is seriously injured at Tyson’s Holcomb plant every day. Workers there reported 452 injuries last year in addition to one death after a large metal door fell on top of a worker. These figures don’t include scores of cutting room workers who suffer nerve-damaged swollen hands from the repetitive meatcutting process.

In the last available year, 2005, the agency reported 47,500 injuries in the animal slaughter and processing industry (10 percent of the workforce) and 13 deaths.

“We are fighting for justice, dignity and respect,” said Sandoval, who volunteers at the union offices in Garden City, Kan., a few miles from the plant.

He described how on the killing floor, beef carcasses dangle from an overhead conveyer belt that streams past blood-spattered workers.

The assembly line in a beef processing plant works like this:

One worker slits a cow’s throat and the blood runs down into a pit below him or her.

The next worker skins the cow, and a third worker disembowels the animal.

Meanwhile, on another floor, in freezing temperatures, hundreds of workers cut the meat into sections.

Sandoval said bringing in the union will help slow the production line, help ease the repetitive motion injuries and bring better health and retirement benefits.

Carbon dioxide and other vapors from dry ice and chemicals used in packing meat are another source of injury faced by Tyson workers.

Meatcutter Manuela Lugas said vapors from the chemicals make her nose bleed and her eyes water, and she coughs all night at home. She said one of her friends at the plant, who is pregnant, has the same problem, but “she can’t complain because she doesn’t have legal work papers.”

The efforts by immigrant and other workers at Tyson and other plants has the potential to start turning around the de-unionization trend in the meat industry. In 1980, 46 percent of the industry’s workers were unionized, but by 1987 just 21 percent were in unions.

The rapid growth of big meat monopolies after 1980, Reagan administration attacks on unions, and the companies’ increasing use of a super-exploited immigrant workforce all helped weaken the unions. The workers’ current fightback, coupled with efforts to streamline the path to unionization through the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), are seen as a good start to strengthen unions in the industry. Passage of the EFCA would require companies like Tyson to recognize the union as soon as a majority of workers sign cards for union representation. This would avoid a drawn-out certification process stacked in favor of the company.

Tyson is the world’s largest processor of chicken, beef and pork, employing 114,000 people worldwide.

“Tyson feels they have a never-ending supply of cheap immigrant labor,” said union organizer Mark Pitt. “We have to show them that this situation will end.”

Plant manager Paul Karkienen repeatedly dismissed all issues raised by workers and the union as “rhetoric.” He said he opposes the union because “it always makes it harder when you have someone trying to intervene between you and your employees.”

Karkienen refused to address any other matters saying he considered them all “confidential.”

thewritergdr @ europe.com

WHATS REALLY GOOD

Fri, 23 Feb 2007 06:57:00 +0000

Last dance for controversial mascot

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s controversial team mascot, Chief Illiniwek, who performed during the school’s football and basketball games, danced his last dance Feb. 21, after the university decided to drop the Indian caricature.

University officials recently announced their plan to retire the 81-year-old mascot, who is portrayed by students wearing a buckskin-clad costume and a feather headdress.

Retiring the chief is a step forward and a victory for those who have pressured the university for years to dump the mascot, which they say was humiliating and created a hostile environment on campus. On-campus protests regarding use of Chief Illiniwek began in the 1980s and serious debates have been going on for at least the last 10 years.

“It would be the end of the chief, but the beginning of finally having our voices heard,” Charlotte Wilkenson told the Chicago Tribune. Wilkenson, 32, is a Native American graduate student. “This will be a time when we finally honor the people who have been fighting the issue, who have been saying all along to retire the chief in name, in symbol, in performance,” she said.

The university also decided to end the chief’s halftime show in response to the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s ban on schools with American Indian-related nicknames or mascots hosting championship events. The ban would open the way for the university to host postseason games, including next month’s National Invitation Tournament in basketball.

In 2005 the NCAA ruled that Chief Illiniwek and similar mascots at other universities were “hostile and abusive,” resulting in sanctions preventing the school from hosting men’s tennis and women’s soccer championship games.

NCCA spokesman Bob Williams said he will defend their position aggressively because they have an “obligation to ensure our NCAA championships are conducted in an atmosphere free of racial stereotyping and one in which all of our student athletes, athletic staff and fans feel comfortable.”

Hardaway gets rejected for trash talking

At the National Basketball Association’s 2007 All-Star game, former NBA player Tim Hardaway was banished because of a rant during a recent radio interview in which he made anti-gay slurs. Hardaway said he hated gay people and that they should not be permitted in the NBA, in the United States or the world.

This comment came a week after John Amaechi became the first retired NBA player to come out and announce he is gay. “His words pollute the atmosphere,” said Amaechi. “It creates an atmosphere that allows young gays and lesbians to be harassed in school, and where in 33 states you can lose your job. It hurts all of us, not just gay people.”

Neil Giuliano, president of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, told The Associated Press, “Hardaway’s comments are vile, repulsive and indicative of the climate of ignorance, hostility and prejudice that continues to pervade sports culture.” Giuliano added, “This ugly display is only the tip of a very large iceberg.”

Commissioner David Stern took action on behalf of the NBA, saying Hardaway was removed from being invited to the All-Star game “because we didn’t think his comments were consistent with having anything to do with us.” Stern told reporters that a discussion about openly gay players could be part of future rookie orientation programs.

Hardaway eventually apologized publicly for his comments. “As an African American, I know all too well the negative thoughts and feelings hatred and bigotry cause,” he said. “I am committed to examining my feelings and will recognize, appreciate and respect differences among people in our society.”

Amaechi said the anti-gay sentiment remains despite Hardaway’s apology. “Whether he’s honest or not doesn’t inoculate us from his words,” said Amaechi. “It’s not progress to hear hateful words.”

plozano @ pww.org

Texans pushed to accept pollution

Sat, 17 Feb 2007 12:35:00 +0000

Texas utility companies, backed by the governor, want to install 18 more coal-burning plants in Texas. Dr. Robert Gluck, a physician who is also mayor of Arlington, wrote, 'Air pollution is making Texas families sick. More dirty coal plants will mean more asthma, lung disease and premature deaths.' The Texas Committee for Environmental Equality held a number of hearings across the state. At the Dallas Public Library, a health care worker told them that asthma was the number one disease for North Texas children and that its incidence was growing. A spokesperson for a faith-based environmental organization put it bluntly: polluting Texas is a sin. Laura Miller, the mayor of Dallas, put together a coalition of municipal leaders from all over North Texas to oppose the coal plants. They and environmental experts predict more premature deaths, heart attacks, lung cancer deaths, asthma attacks, hospital admissions, and cases of chronic bronchitis. The utility companies say that Texas needs more electricity and that their proposal is the most economical way to get it, but they don't add in the additional health care costs. TXU, the leading utility with sponsorship of 11 of the plants, says that they will reduce overall emissions 20 percent, but the environmentalists respond that TXU was already mandated by government order to reduce emissions 20 percent long before the coal plants became an issue! A large coalition opposing coal plants called for a rally at the state capitol on Feb. 11 and a lobby day on Feb. 12. Around 1,500 turned out on a dismal day to cheer for environmental responsibility. Speakers raised issues of health and global warming. The crowd was persuaded to stand behind a bill in the state Legislature to put a moratorium on new coal plants.

flittle7 @ yahoo.com

Texas mayor grapples with racism

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 10:38:00 +0000

HOUSTON — The mayor of a tiny town on the Gulf Coast of Texas tried to lead the way for the nation in prohibiting the use of the “n-word,” the racist slur directed at African Americans.

“I just think it would be great if this little town of Brazoria, with 2,800 people, leads the way in fighting against this offensive language,” Ken Corley, mayor of Brazoria, said. Corley, who is white, proposed the City Council pass an ordinance making use of the “n-word” in an offensive or aggressive manner punishable by a fine of up to $500. His remarks were reported in the Houston Chronicle Jan. 23.

In a recent phone interview, Corley told the World that when he started working on the proposed ordinance, 90 percent of the town’s residents were in favor of banning the offensive language. However, when he presented it to the City Council, its members were “noncommittal.” Initially there was a 60-40 split in favor, he said, but it shifted to 70-30 against, with some arguing that the measure would violate First Amendment rights.

Corley said many people were “missing the point” of the proposed law. The aim, he said, was to change the way people treat other people and “to get them to treat people with respect.”

“After all,” he said, “all men were created equal.” Corley said he agreed with others who have argued that banning such offensive language might help reduce racially motivated violence and hate crimes.

But on Jan. 25, Corley backed down in the face of local opposition to the ordinance. Some African American residents, including clergy, supported the measure. Others said that education of African American children was of more concern. Some pundits said that you can’t force people through legislation to be kind to each other. Others maintained that racism and use of racially offensive language should be outlawed and people who engage in such behavior should face serious legal consequences. They argue that the First Amendment was not intended to protect racists from prosecution.

Brazoria, located 50 miles south of Houston, was founded in 1828 by slaveowners. By 1860, slaves made up 72 percent of the population. The most recent Census says the town is now 10 percent African American and 11 percent Latino.

phill2 @ houston.rr.com

Sudan doc rocks reel to real world

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 10:28:00 +0000

In a world with a lot of confusion, the film “God Grew Tired of Us” helps bring our dispirited lives into focus. Some movies present a tiny moment that makes a fair film good, but this one, directed by Christopher Dillon Quinn and Tommy Walker, is a great film, and little moments in it make it exhilarating.

This is the second mass-distributed movie about those who have escaped the human misery and warfare in Sudan, and who have resettled in the United States.

The first was “The Lost Boys of Sudan” (2003), which was a good film, but in “God Grew Tired of Us” we get some bite and sting that places the “saving host,” the U.S., in a funny and questionable position. That didn’t happen in “Lost Boys.”

While we in the U.S. may think of ourselves as generous hosts, the young Dinka men at the heart of this film teach us a thing or two about humanity.

“God Grew Tired of Us” takes a critical look at what happens 10 years after 12,000 children take a 1,000-mile trek, first from Sudan to Ethiopia, and then, as the political situation in Ethiopia changed, a subsequent forced trek to Kenya.

Words can’t even begin to describe the pictures of a 1,000-mile trek where mud and urine are the most nutritional food. You won’t find that in your L.L. Bean catalog.

The film compares this incredible, horrifying trek in Africa with the coldness and isolation that the young men experience in the U.S. Hearing these men articulate both experiences is a testament to the human spirit and something that may never have been documented in film before.

One of the resettled youths goes missing for three days. It turns out that he started acting strangely on a bus in Syracuse, N.Y., and was taken to a psychiatric hospital.

Without giving away too much, picture a kitchen in an apartment where the young men are learning what light switches do and how toilets work.

Later we see one of them dump Ritz crackers into a pot, crush the crackers with the handle end of a hammer and pour in some milk. I’m not sure why, but I felt like I was catapulted out of my seat by this scene.

While the struggle is continuing in southern Sudan, it’s interesting to see what is happening in the reel world as it relates to this real world.

Helen Mirren (“The Queen”) has reason to expect an Oscar, and rightly so, for portraying the queen of England as a wonderful and tough woman imprisoned by the pomp and circumstance of her position on a tiny island in the North Atlantic. Yet it was Britain’s tentacles that stretched across and strangled the Third World and left northeast Africa saddled with arbitrary boundaries. Those boundaries partially account for the current crisis.

“God Grew Tired of Us” gives us clues about the bigger picture and proves once again that when we only know half the story, we will be thirsty enough to want the whole thing.

Maybe we should be “sentenced” to live and walk on a trek with the Dinka. Maybe we would forever be cured of the curse of being from a country that eats Ritz crackers with a Martha-Stewart-inspired shot-out-of-a-global-warming-aerosol-can of something called “processed cheese food” in a country that “elects” a cheating George Bush to represent us for the whole world to see.

God Grew Tired of Us

Written by Christopher Dillon Quinn

Newmarket Films, 2006

89 minutes

A compelling auto industry whodunit: Who Killed the Electric Car?

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 10:24:00 +0000

Electric vehicles have been around since the beginning of the 20th century. One hundred years ago they even outnumbered gas-driven cars.

However, mass manufacturing, cheap, abundant oil and automatic starters ensured that gas-driven cars triumphed over electric cars.

One would think that mounting air pollution and global warming would have already spurred a resurgence of electric-powered vehicles. But that hasn’t been the case.

Chris Paine’s fascinating documentary “Who Killed the Electric Car?” narrated by actor Martin Sheen shows how big business and the Bush administration have undermined the re-emergence of the electric car.

California state legislators in 1990 required car companies to build and sell electric cars that produced zero pollution. By 2003, 10 percent of cars in California were to be electric. General Motors’ sleek, space-age-looking Electric Vehicle 1 (EV1) was the first successful prototype.

Suited for short distance travel within an urban environment, the EV1 was fast, quiet and easy to maintain, according to test drivers. The car cost the same to operate as ordinary gas-driven cars, but the principal fuel, electricity, cost much less than gasoline. Improvements in battery technology allowed EV1s to travel more than 100 miles without recharging.

Other auto companies quickly followed suit with their own electric vehicles.

Nonetheless, corporate opposition to electric cars began to grow. An oil-industry-funded front group pressured public utilities and city councils to abandon a small utility surcharge to fund construction of recharging stations for electric cars. They also paid for editorials in the print media arguing against the electric car.

Fearing that auto companies would not comply with the 2003 mandate, the state’s Air Resources Board, which was responsible for enforcing the mandate, softened its demands. If car companies did not want to build more EVs, they would have to demonstrate that there was insufficient demand.

According to interviews with former auto company employees, executives and test drivers, GM and other car companies discouraged demand by emphasizing the limitations of the electric car and building few models.

For instance, GM was only building four cars a day and that number was subsequently reduced. As a result, cars were difficult to get and waiting lists grew. “I don’t think GM tried hard to get electric cars out rapidly,” admitted former board member Tom Everhart.

Car companies even hired a public relations firm to counter “greater consumer acceptance of electric vehicles,” according to an auto industry document. Then they sued California.

The Bush administration joined the lawsuit. To divert attention away from EVs, car companies began promoting hydrogen-powered vehicles, an unproven and expensive technology. The Air Resources Board caved in to the pressure and killed its electric car mandate on April 24, 2003.

In the aftermath of their victory, auto companies made sure their EVs disappeared from California’s smog-shrouded road network forever. They seized the EVs and sent them to scrap yards to be shredded into scrap metal. Test drivers who wanted to buy or lease their electric cars were turned down.

Why did the auto and oil industries and the Bush administration kill electric vehicles in California?

The auto companies, which profit from after-sales service, feared that their profits would decline as electric cars require fewer spare parts and less maintenance. Oil industry profits would dry up if electric cars caught on. The Bush administration is dominated by former oil and auto industry executives, and it is only too willing to do those industries’ bidding.

“Who Killed the Electric Car?” is a compelling, well-made documentary that sheds light on the destructive powers of capitalism to impede technological change and measures that would benefit the environment.

tpelzer @ shaw.ca

Who Killed the Electric Car?

Directed by Chris Paine

Produced by Dean Devlin/Plinyminor, 2006

90 minutes

In Darwins shadow, a socialist pioneer of evolution

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 10:20:00 +0000

The man was writhing in the grips of Malaria. A torrent of tropical rain beat on the roof of his Indonesian hut. In the calm interludes between the sweats and chills, he wrote about ideas — big ones. It was 1856, and naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace was writing about how species evolve.

Little known today, Wallace went on to become the co-discoverer, with Charles Darwin, of the theory of natural selection, the engine behind evolution. And he became a socialist.

Who was this overshadowed scientific pioneer?

Wallace left school early to work as a surveyor. He loved to read, and England’s public libraries, not pubs, were his university. He was fascinated when he heard a presentation by socialist Robert Owen in a workingmen’s Hall of Science. While working in Wales, he found himself in the midst of the insurrectionary Rebecca Riots of 1842-43. These experiences left their political mark.

In 1848, Wallace’s interest in natural history led him to Manaus, deep in Brazil’s Amazon River Basin. While he contemplated the origins of species, he needed to earn a living, and it was dangerous. He collected insects, birds and other specimens along the Amazon and Black Rivers and sold them to interested parties. One of his customers was Charles Darwin.

After four years in the Amazon contemplating the variety among animals of the same species, he decided to return to England. He made his way to the port city of Pará with parrots, other birds and detailed notes of his experiences and observations. Disaster struck when his ship, the Helen, caught fire. A combustible balsam cargo had ignited. While he escaped in a lifeboat, his precious specimens and notes were lost.

Undaunted, Wallace journeyed to the tiny island of Ternate, among the Spice Islands of Indonesia in 1854. More collecting and observing wildlife led to his 1858 paper, “On the Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely from the Original Type.” He mailed it to someone he felt would be most interested — Charles Darwin.

Darwin was astonished that this young collector had independently thought through, as he had, how species evolve. Darwin had kept his thoughts on this mostly to himself, knowing the explosiveness in Victorian England of a materialist explanation of species’ origins. Now there was a chance he could be “scooped.” Some friends of Darwin’s, botanist Joseph Hooker and geologist Charles Lyell, moved to protect their friend.

Both Darwin’s and Wallace’s papers were read on July 1, 1858, at the Linnean Society in London. They were among six other papers read that night. Not many took notice. It was a yawner. Meanwhile, Wallace was still collecting insects in New Guinea to make a living. Darwin, due to family fortune and some timely investments, was not burdened as Wallace was by the need to earn money. So he set to work. His famous “Origin of Species” (1859) was the result.

Charles Darwin is correctly referred to as the father of modern biology. He collected mounds of evidence for evolution and its associated theories. He experimented on worms and barnacles. He wrote prolifically. But he also tipped his hat to Wallace in “The Origin of Species.” He quoted from an 1855 paper of Wallace’s: “Every species has come into existence coincident both in space and time with a pre-existing closely allied species.” Darwin wrote that Wallace and he agreed that this was “descent with modification” in action.

Wallace was respectful of Darwin and his work. In 1882, he was a pallbearer at Darwin’s funeral. But he also differed from the famous biologist in some important ways. While both saw the importance of the environment, it was Wallace who developed this more in his later writing. And he did it from a working-class perspective. Note this sentence from his 1909 paper “The Plunder of the Earth”: “The struggle for wealth, and its deplorable results … have been accompanied by a reckless destruction of the storied-up products of nature, which is even more deplorable because more irretrievable.”

Wallace was the first president of the Land Nationalization Society of England. His advanced political ideas helped him avoid the pitfalls that trapped other 19th century evolutionists. Edward Bellamy’s utopian “Looking Backward” convinced Wallace of the socialist alternative. He opposed social Darwinism and eugenics. He understood that class-driven economics and politics, not biology, had much to do with the corruption and injustices of society.

While we give Darwin his due, is it Alfred Russel Wallace’s socialist views that keep his 21 books out of print? The political left, and especially those in the environmental movement, should read more of this far-seeing worker naturalist.

Nick Bart is an environmental activist in Connecticut.

CARTOON

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 10:06:00 +0000

Single-payer would save lives

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 08:21:00 +0000

At Temple University Hospital in Philadelphia, a 60-year-old woman has been hospitalized for weeks suffering from heart failure. Nurse Patricia Eakin says the woman should not have been in the hospital in the first place.

But the woman is in the hospital because with no insurance, she didn’t have money to buy enough medicine to prevent or slow the heart disease.

She was taking the medicine every other day, and not every day as the prescription called for, said Eakin, who is also president of the Pennsylvania Association of Staff Nurses and Allied Professionals, an independent statewide nurses union.

Meanwhile, in Colorado, the medical bills of a 3-year-old hemophiliac child are approaching his father’s company’s lifetime limits on health care coverage. It’s cases like these that sent advocates of government-run, single-payer health care coverage to Washington in late January to raise the visibility of their cause.

Their timing was perfect. That’s because President Bush’s Jan. 23 State of the Union address called for taxing what he termed “gold-plated” health insurance. He also called for giving a tax deduction — more usable by wealthier taxpayers — to individuals for their first $7,500 in yearly health insurance spending, and $15,000 for families’ spending.

Bush’s scheme drew scorn from the single-payer advocates. They said it would only throw more people into the ranks of the uninsured while lining the pockets of the insurance companies.

No help for ‘underinsured’

Even Bush’s White House admitted his deductions would only help at most 3 million of the 47 million uninsured — and none of the “underinsured,” like the father of the hemophiliac child.

By contrast, they said, their plan, HR 676, the government-run, single-payer health care bill crafted by veteran Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), would help everyone. The bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio) and 52 other lawmakers, is one of a raft of competing health care proposals, including Bush’s, floating around Washington.

HR 676 had more than 78 backers in the last session of Congress. Kucinich told a Jan. 24 press conference that after it is reintroduced, he’ll schedule a House subcommittee hearing on it, possibly in April.

The advocates, led by Deborah Burger, president of the California Nurses Association, and Dr. Oliver Fein of the Physicians for a National Health Plan, contend a government-run single-payer plan would cut costs. It would eliminate the health insurance companies and their paperwork, denial of coverage and high overhead. The plan would cover everyone, they say, including the uninsured and underinsured.

What Katrina revealed

“We sent nurses as volunteers from California” to treat refugees from Katrina-ravaged New Orleans, said Burger. The nurses expected to treat trauma from the hurricane. They were wrong.

“They were treating hypertension and heart conditions. For many of these people, who were poor and without health insurance, it was their first visit by a health care professional, ever. The nurses were doing primary care, and they saw how our patched-up health care system doesn’t work,” Burger added.

Advocates say single-payer health care would save money compared to the present system by eliminating $500 billion to $600 billion in overhead, duplication, high CEO pay and advertising. Overall, the U.S. spends $2 trillion, one-sixth of its gross national product, on health care.

More than 220 union groups, the latest being unionists in Oklahoma and the Minnesota Association of Professional Employees, back HR 676, said Kay Tillow, a spokeswoman for the Louisville-based single-payer campaign organized by union nurses.

Kucinich said single-payer would be financed by small payroll taxes on employers and employees, elimination of overhead, a surtax on the wealthy, a tax on stock and bond transfers and the end of Bush’s tax cuts for the rich. In return, backers promised single-payer would let people choose their own doctors, guarantee care, and end deductibles, co-payments and high premiums.

“We’ll see dramatic savings and redirection of resources from the insurance companies to the general public,” Kucinich said.

Press Associates, Inc.

Brainstorming on Kentucky River decision

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 08:17:00 +0000

WASHINGTON — Starting what promises to be a complex, tough campaign of education, mass mobilizing and lobbying, a group of unionists met Feb. 7 to brainstorm on how to combat and overturn the National Labor Relations Board’s “workers are supervisors” decision.

Participants emphasized the need to educate their own members — and then the general public — on the fact that the agency’s ruling last year could affect them.

The meeting, organized by the AFL-CIO Department for Professional Employees, discussed the impact of last year’s decision that expanded the legal definition of who is a supervisor. The NLRB vote was 3-2, following party lines, with President Bush’s three appointees voting for the change.

Estimates of the number of workers affected range from 8 million workers to 34 million.

In what are called the Kentucky River cases, the NLRB ruled workers are supervisors even if they spent as little as 10 percent to 15 percent of their time in actual supervisory duties. The board also ruled that if workers could be held responsible for actions of the others that they “supervise,” that makes them supervisors. And if workers use “independent judgment” in assigning others, that, too makes them supervisors.

AFT official Phil Kugler said the situation is so bad that “a school bus driver who can assign a school bus aide to a particular bus” could now be ruled a supervisor.

Labor law does not cover supervisors. Employers have the green light to fire, demote, or discipline those categorized as supervisors, and to force them to engage in management’s anti-union campaigns. Supervisors currently make up 10 to 12 percent of the workforce. Adding 8 million more would take that number as high as 20 percent. In some occupations, the impact is even greater.

The Economic Policy Institute says 35 percent of registered nurses, about 843,000 people, would be defined as supervisors under NLRB’s ruling, as would 123,800 (18 percent) of licensed practical nurses. Almost half (46 percent or 59,500) of airline pilots and navigators would be supervisors, along with 24,100 (12 percent) of media editors and reporters.

Even workers not thought of as supervisory, such as kindergarten teachers and social workers, would see thousands of their members ruled as supervisors and stripped of their rights under labor law. EPI said 49,500 (19 percent) of all kindergarten teachers, 16,200 (8.5 percent) of elementary school teachers and 36,000 (23 percent) of all social workers would be deemed “supervisors.”

Faced with that impact, session participants turned to brainstorming. They discussed contract language, first drafted by a New Jersey AFT nursing affiliate, to force firms to agree not to reclassify workers as supervisors. Putting that language in the contract covering 10 locals and their agreements with hospitals “was a strike issue,” said Jean Lucas, former president of AFT Local 5118.

Participants also discussed legislative fixes, but speakers said allies on Capitol Hill are still working on language to negate the Bush board’s decision. And they stressed it will take a lot of lobbying — and a change in the White House — to reverse it.

Kugler gave one example of a successful campaign to convince management not to follow a related Bush NLRB ruling, at Temple University in Philadelphia. The Bush majority had ruled that private-university graduate- student teaching assistants and research assistants are “students” (who are not covered by labor law), not “employees” (who are).

“We ran a community campaign, enlisted the local central labor council, looked at who was on Temple’s board and who was in the Legislature — and found Temple got state appropriations,” Kugler said. That forced Temple to cover the TAs and RAs in a contract.

Some of the session participants reported that web sites of union-busting law firms are already advertising their services to draft plans to help companies convert workers into “supervisors.”

THIS WEEK IN LABOR

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 08:15:00 +0000

Nurses demand adequate staffing

More than 500 nurses, led by the Washington State Nurses Association, rallied Feb. 5 at the State Capitol at Olympia to demand legislative action on a new nurse-patient staffing ratio bill.

The legislation, sponsored by state Rep. Dawn Morrell (D), a registered nurse, would form a 15-member state committee to set minimum nurse staffing levels for every hospital. Morrell said that understaffing is responsible for high turnover of overworked nurses. They can’t provide top quality care, so “I watch them drop out. They go to other jobs,” she told local media before the rally. “This is a retention bill.”

Get mass transit rolling

The first streetcars to be built in the U.S. in years will be union-made, at the Oregon Iron Works in Clackamas, Ore., the Northwest Labor Press reports. The $4 million contract will provide “dozens of good union jobs” for members of Iron Worker Local 516 there, said Business Manager Mike Lappier.

The prototype streetcars will be used in Portland, and there is already interest from 80 other cities, officials told a Jan. 26 press conference. The money came from a grant from last year’s federal mass transit and highway law.

The prototype streetcar is based on the model manufactured in the Czech Republic by Skoda, which makes the streetcars Portland now uses.

Charter school goes union

Charter school teachers in the southeast Florida city of Pembroke Pines voted by a 4 to 1 margin to be represented by the Broward Teachers Union, an affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association. This win is considered significant because charter schools are often created as nonunion alternatives to the more unionized public schools, writes James Parks on the AFL-CIO Now blog.

The newly organized group includes 295 teachers. Because Florida is a “right to work” state, the union must recruit each individual worker to join, even after a majority have voted for the union.

“Our hope has always been that by negotiating a contract, we will be able to give all teachers a voice,” said third-grade teacher Grace Thomas.

Union vote electrifies TXU

Workers at TXU, Texas’ largest power company, voted 254-218 to be represented by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Dec. 18.

The organizing victory came after the IBEW helped workers conduct a public campaign against TXU’s contracting out plans. Last June, the utility giant announced its intention to outsource the jobs of hundreds of employees, from linemen to clerks. The results would have been reduced holidays, vacations, sick days and overtime pay while service for both homeowners and industries would be jeopardized.

After the state public service commission rejected the outsourcing plan, the workers voted in the union.

Kentuckians against union-busting

Not even zero-degree weather prevented Communications Workers, Teamsters, Carpenters and Letter Carriers from protesting union-busting. CWA reported that on Jan. 29, their rally outside the Lexington, Ky., Chamber of Commerce’s meeting drew 40 picketers against the union-bashing seminar inside.

Organized by CWA Local 3372 Secretary-Treasurer Barbara Pierce, the new president of the Bluegrass Central Labor Council, the pickets called attention to the seminar titled “How To Keep Your Workplace Union-Free.” CWA reports the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is hosting similar sessions elsewhere.

In Lexington, the pickets drew backers with “people honking their horns in support like crazy” from a nearby four-lane highway, said Local 3372 Executive Vice President Bryce McGowan. One Teamster paid his way inside to join 32 business owners at the $399-per-head program, to learn what he could “until he got sick to his stomach,” McGowan added.

Massachusetts nurses call Romney plan bad medicine

The national media have given extensive positive coverage to Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s health care bill, but Massachusetts nurses aren’t buying it. Instead, the 23,000 member Massachusetts Nurses Association (MNA), the Bay State’s largest statewide health care union, supports single-payer health care and has endorsed HR 676, national legislation introduced by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.).

The MNA’s endorsement of HR 676 was unanimous, reports RN Sandy Eaton, a member of the group’s board of directors. Eaton is also chair of MASS-CARE, Massachusetts Campaign for Single Payer Health Care. MASS-CARE has developed a slideshow presentation on the Massachusetts insurance company boondoggle. Go to: .

N.Y. CLC safety seminar

Chemical hazards, ergonomic risks, machine tool and lock-out systems, and other hazards are being reviewed at worker safety and health course initiated by the New York City Central Labor Council for its affiliates. The New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health is providing the expertise.

A second goal of the seminar is to promote support for labor’s issues in the state Legislature under the administration of newly elected Democratic Gov. Eliot Spitzer. These issues include stronger enforcement for public sector safety and health regulations, fairer workers’ compensation laws and the establishment of a multi-union coalition that will be ready to jump into action when the need occurs.

UFCW blasts Wal-Mart health care hypocrisy

United Food and Commercial Workers President Joe Hansen blasted Wal-Mart, “the largest corporation that provides the least health care to employees,” for its sudden advocacy of “health care for everyone.”

“Wal-Mart is actually decreasing health care coverage to employees,” said Hansen in a Feb. 7 statement. Hansen charged that while Wal-Mart is changing its public posture, “it also needs to change its actual corporate practices and that practice begins with taking responsibility for its own employees.”

Hansen’s statement began with the 1.3-million-member union’s commitment to “universal, affordable and quality health care coverage” and the need to build a broad-based coalition to bring about health care reform. The statement also emphasized the union’s commitment to continue to fight for good health care benefits at the bargaining table even while fighting for reform of the current system.

Korean, U.S. unionists march together

Korean activists joined U.S. unionists at a rally Feb. 12 outside the Washington, D.C., hotel where a “free trade” agreement between Korea and the U.S. is in the final stages of negotiation.

The Bush administration is pushing for passage of the agreement, known as KORUS FTA, before the president’s “fast track” authority expires June 30. Under the fast track procedure, Congress can only vote a trade agreement up or down; it cannot amend it. Without fast track, trade deals such as KORUS or NAFTA, which the former was modeled after, would encounter a difficult time passing in Congress.

Hyun Lee, a Korean American who traveled from New York City for the protest, explained that many Koreans are upset about the proposed agreement, which they fear may weaken workers’ rights.

The protesters included representatives from the Korean Confederation of Trade Unions (KCU) and the Federation of Korean Trade Unions (FKTU) as well as the AFL-CIO, Change to Win and affiliated unions.

U.S. labor groups are pushing for agreements to include enforceable provisions on workers’ rights and environmental protections.

This Week in Labor is compiled by Roberta Wood (rwood @ pww.org). Phil Benjamin and Press Associates Inc. contributed.

WORLD NOTES

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 08:07:00 +0000

China: President Hu Jintao visits Africa

In late January, Chinese President Hu Jintao undertook a 12-day, 8-nation African tour. Chinese-African economic cooperation was high on the agenda.

Arriving in Zambia after visiting Cameroon, Liberia and Sudan, Hu declared that economic development must be based on equality and mutual benefits. He asserted that “the basic foothold for China’s economic development is to expand its own domestic demand” rather than build exports. Recently China has increased imports from Africa and has adjusted tariffs to suit African needs.

Hu went on to Namibia, South Africa, Mozambique and Seychelles. In Namibia, whose trade with China increased 100 percent in 2006, Hu offered developmental aid. In South Africa, he announced a $2.6 million grant in support of agricultural education.

The newspaper People’s Daily highlighted Chinese educational assistance over 50 years to 50 African nations. From 1956 to 2006, 18,000 young Africans studied in China on scholarships. China constructed advanced laboratory facilities at 21 African universities.

Egypt: Gov’t jails student for blog

Designating Karim Amer a “prisoner of conscience being judged for the peaceful expression of his opinions,” Amnesty International (AI) has called upon the Egyptian government to release the university student from jail.

Prosecutors say that Amer used an Internet blog to disparage Egyptian religious authorities, President Hosni Mubarak and Islam. His trial began Jan. 18, and he faces a 10-year jail sentence.

Amer was jailed for 12 days in October 2005 because of Internet commentary regarding an allegedly anti-Islamic video shown by a Coptic Church in Alexandria. Al-Azhar University expelled him in March 2006 and issued a complaint that led to his being jailed in November. Denied family visits, he has been subjected to solitary confinement.

Rebelion.org quotes AI spokesperson Malcolm Smart as suggesting “that the authorities want the trial of Karim Amer to serve as a warning to other bloggers who dare criticize the government.”

Palestine: Union leaders face deadly attacks

Bombs almost destroyed the Gaza headquarters of the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions (PGFTU) on Feb. 2, while fire devastated its allied Workers Voice radio station. The federation’s headquarters had previously been bombed Oct. 12, and several union leaders have received death threats.

Two rockets hit the home of Rasem Al Bayari, deputy secretary-general of the federation and a prominent critic of the Israeli occupation, on Jan. 29, followed by bombs and shootings of his residence the next day. There were no injuries.

In a demonstration Feb. 4 in Ramallah, the PGFTU protested against what the federation’s general secretary, Shaher Saad, sees as attempts to destroy the labor movement. On its web site, the PGFTU called upon Palestinian authorities to investigate the crimes, whose perpetrators are unknown, and to help deal with Gaza’s factional violence and extreme poverty.

Established in 1965, the PGFTU represents 270,000 members, or 75 percent of Palestinian workers.

Czech Republic: No free ride for U.S. bases

A growing “No to the bases!” movement, with 30 groups involved, actively opposes U.S. plans for radar installations in the Czech Republic purportedly directed at a hypothetical North Korean or Iranian missile attack. The radar component is connected with defense facilities located in Poland.

In August 2006, two public opinion polls found that a majority of Czechs, in one case 83 percent, oppose the idea. On Jan. 25, U.S. officials officially requested permission to locate a radar base in the Jince locality. A day later a Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson declared that such a move would have “negative consequences for international security.”

The Czech government reportedly favors the radar station, which Communists and Socialists say should be submitted to a referendum. Ceskenoviny.cz reported that 2,000 people — Radio Free Europe said “a few hundred” — demonstrated against the base in Prague on Jan. 29, followed by 300 people marching in Jince on Feb. 7, most of them signing a petition for a referendum.

Bolivia: Women prepare for local politics

Bolivian women, many illiterate and unschooled, are increasingly taking on political responsibilities, with 340 of them serving on 329 town and city councils.

The Association of Women Town Councilors of Bolivia met in La Paz, the nation’s capital, Jan. 29. Over 100 women honed negotiating and communication skills and discussed legal aspects of their work.

The UN’s Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women, co-sponsor of the event, will be facilitating similar meetings in Ecuador, Colombia and Peru. The group’s research indicates that previous experience — labor activism, for example — inadequately prepares women for administrative roles fashioned by men.

Too often, says an Inter Press Service report, women are silent on reproductive rights, education, health and human rights.

“Factors like families, political violence and the machismo” force many to leave office, according to UN specialist Altagracia Balcacer.

Over the past 10 years, women in Latin America have held 14 percent of executive positions and 17 percent of the seats on town councils. Women make up 25 percent of left-wing President Evo Morales’ cabinet, including the ministers of justice, interior and health.

World Notes are compiled by W.T. Whitney Jr. (atwhit @ megalink.net).

Anti-NATO protests rock Spanish city

Fri, 16 Feb 2007 08:05:00 +0000

Antiwar demonstrators filled the streets of Seville, Spain, last weekend to protest plans by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to escalate the number of its troops in Afghanistan and Kosovo, the former province of Yugoslavia.

The demonstrations coincided with an informal summit of NATO’s defense ministers in Seville on Feb. 8-9, which followed an emergency meeting of the alliance’s foreign ministers in Brussels one week before. At the Brussels meeting, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice pressured NATO-member countries to strengthen their military forces for possible deployment elsewhere.

The protests culminated on Feb. 11 with a citywide march that revealed the intensity of the people’s opposition to imperialist interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, to threats of new invasions, to foreign bases and to the NATO alliance itself. The marchers affirmed their solidarity with those peoples who are struggling against foreign domination.

A wide range of movements and organizations from Europe, the Middle East and Latin America participated in the actions, including representatives from the World Peace Council and the World Federation of Democratic Youth. Participants from Palestine, the Czech Republic, Brazil, Venezuela and Nicaragua were visibly present, among others, giving the events a distinctly international flair.

Activists and leaders of the Communist parties of Spain, Portugal, France, Italy (Refoundation), Bohemia-Moravia and Greece were also in Seville for the protests and took the opportunity to meet with each other. At the conclusion of their meeting, they issued a sharply worded denunciation of imperialist aggression and called for the world’s peoples to take a new road of peace and social progress.

Alluding to the two world wars, they said people should “not allow capitalism to lead the world to destruction as in the previous century — another world is possible, a socialist one.”

The communists called for the removal of all U.S. military bases from all foreign countries, a reduction in military spending, the prohibition and destruction of all weapons of mass destruction, the dissolution of NATO, and the creation of “a new idea of human security which will focus on the basic problems of humanity — hunger, poverty, inequality, disease and injustice.”

Among the topics discussed was the illusion that many hold about the European Union acting as a counterweight to the U.S. The communists stressed the reactionary and war-oriented character of the EU, which simply strives to compete with the U.S. for a bigger share of the world’s resources.

The role that the U.S. and European elite envision for the new military bases in Romania and Bulgaria, most probably to be used for strikes against Iran, was mentioned repeatedly, as was the increased militarization of the EU overall. It was also noted that the Bush administration’s pressure on the Czech Republic and Poland to install anti-missile bases continues, despite the protests against them.

NATO’s plans to establish a unified military force — a force that will be led by a centralized structure to counter member-nations’ qualms and that will include land, sea and air forces — remains a grave source of concern to a wide spectrum of political currents on the continent.

Laura Petricola (laurajopetricola @ yahoo.com) writes from Athens, Greece.