People Before Profit blog

Experts warn vs. attacking Iran

Fri, 26 May 2006 08:08:00 +0000

More than 200 scholars, academics, commentators and former U.S. government officials have issued a strong condemnation of the threat of U.S. military action against Iran and called on the Bush administration to enter into direct negotiations with the government in Tehran.

In a letter sent to the White House May 9, the group urged diplomacy to resolve concerns over the development of nuclear materials that have magnified tensions between Iran and the U.S.

“As the International Atomic Energy Agency has found no evidence of research or diversion of materials toward atomic weapons in Iran, concerns about future dual use of nuclear technology ought to be addressed in face-to-face negotiations,” wrote the signers of the statement. They warned that the likely “catastrophic regional and global consequences of escalating this crisis will not serve the interests of the United States, the course of democratic development in Iran, or the cause of global peace.”

Among the signers are professors Juan Cole, Ann Elizabeth Meyer, Charles Butterworth, Richard Falk, Ervand Abrahamian, Ghada Talhami, Ahmad Sadri and Noam Chomsky.

At a May 10 press conference, Sadri, who coordinated the project, said, “We started the letter out of a sense of frustration that the experts in the field were not being consulted as the U.S. develops policy toward Iran. This is the same mistake the U.S. government made before going to Iraq. We’re saying don’t do that again.”

For more information on the statement, visit the web site of the Friends Committee on National Legislation, www.fcnl.org.

Baseball heroes: YCL, Daily Worker hold place in baseballs struggle hall of fame

Fri, 26 May 2006 08:00:00 +0000

The fight to integrate Major League Baseball has many stories and players. One that the Young Communist League can take particular pride in is the role of the Daily Worker (the “grandmother” of the People’s Weekly World) and its sports editor Lester Rodney. In the 1930s Rodney and the Daily Worker’s sports writers, along with the Communist Party and Young Communist League, campaigned tirelessly to break the racist color line in baseball.

Rodney first met members of the Communist Party as a student at NYU in the early ’30s and was a fan of the Daily Worker, which he got on campus. Yet he was disappointed with the sports articles, which only reflected negative and narrow stereotypes of professional sports.

In the book “What’s My Name, Fool? Sports and Resistance in the United States” by Dave Zirin, Rodney said he remembers sending a letter to the editor of the Daily Worker. He wrote that he shared the view that there are a lot of things wrong with sports under capitalism, but that he loved baseball and sports. He asked a question: How and why are sports important to the U.S. working class?

Shortly after, Clarence Hathaway, the Daily Worker’s editor at the time, met with Rodney and immediately hired him to edit the sports page.

Rodney went straight to work. He remembered thinking that the racist segregation policies of baseball team owners was not a topic of sports coverage. “I said, ‘Look at this huge void here! No one is talking about this! What’s going on here?’”

At the same time Rodney became active with the YCL and used the DW sports page as an organizing tool in the campaign to end the Jim Crow color line in Major League Baseball.

“It just evolved as we talked about the color line and some kids in the YCL suggested, ‘Why don’t we go to the ballparks, to Yankee Stadium, Ebbets Field, the Polo Grounds, with petitions?’”

Rodney said the fans, the majority of whom were white, were supportive of teams hiring African American players. “People would say, ‘Gee, I never thought of that,’ and ‘Yeah, I think if they’re good enough then they should have a chance.’”

The YCL and its supporters ended up with at least a million and a half signatures that were then delivered straight to baseball commissioner Judge Kennesaw Landis.

Labor also played a significant role, said Rodney, “When May Day came along, the Transport Workers Union, or Furriers, or District 65, would march with signs that said, ‘End Jim Crow in Baseball!’”

It was not until 1947, when Jackie Robinson was signed with the Brooklyn Dodgers as the first African American baseball player in the Major League, that the color line was broken.

As author Zirin writes, “There is still unfinished business, but thanks to Rodney, we have a road map for the journey.” And, I would add, we can’t forget the dedication and commitment of the YCL.

Brooklyn elections and the developers

Fri, 26 May 2006 07:51:00 +0000

Big cities have been the bastion of the working-class and labor movement and of the racially and nationally oppressed. Most elected officials from these cities are Democrats. Virtually all of the trade unionists, African Americans and Latinos and most of the women elected to public office come from these cities and were elected on the Democratic line.

But far-reaching transformations taking place in the nation’s big cities may change all of that. They are a product both of capitalism’s ceaseless drive for maximum profits and conscious plans by the leaders of the system, especially the most reactionary ones. The housing, construction and development boom of recent years, which only recently has shown signs of slowing, is changing the class and nationality composition of whole cities, and with it reducing the Democratic majority.

High-rise luxury apartments, condos and offices; waterfronts privatized with luxury dwellings, hotels, recreational facilities and restricted parks; cruise liner ports; big-box stores; sports facilities featuring luxury boxes; glitzy casinos — all these are reshaping our cities. They are being financed by a host of federal, state and city public subsidies ranging from 30-60 percent of total costs, while finance capital — the big banks, developers, real estate and construction corporations — divide up 100 percent of the profit.

In cities like New York, economic planners appear to consider such development projects a permanent solution to problems of economic growth and jobs. The cities offer ever more subsidies to persuade developers to undertake projects with no use except profit.

In fact, these projects are socially harmful. They are a waste of public resources that could be used to build and maintain schools and recreation facilities, finance real low- and moderate-income housing, pay public workers decent salaries, and in other ways create more jobs. Worse, these projects drive the lowest-income people, African Americans, Afro-Caribbeans, Latinos and white working people, out of central areas to suburbs and beyond.

At first signs of such projects, real estate values in the area inflate. Rents go up for apartments and small stores. Real estate valuations and taxes for small homeowners soar. After a lifetime of thinking that at least their homes are safe, people are driven out. The developers calculate on attracting back the better-off people who had earlier moved to the suburbs. City planners calculate this movement will reduce social welfare spending in the city, while increasing the tax base. One consequence is that urban districts that have been represented by African Americans or Latinos once again become represented by white candidates less sensitive to the needs of specially oppressed peoples.

Recently The New York Times reported that development is returning Atlanta to a majority-white city as African Americans are pushed into the suburbs, and suggested this may lead to the end of Atlanta’s string of African American mayors. A study just completed in downtown Brooklyn, N.Y., shows a 17 percent drop in the African American population in the last few years due to such development projects.

These projects, made possible by huge giveaways of public funds, are justified as ways to “revitalize” cities and generate jobs. The developers seek to divide the widespread opposition with offers of small concessions to benefit a small group, while the overall-harmful consequences remain and the developers realize huge profits. An example of such concessions is the offer to provide 20-30 percent “affordable housing.” In New York City, this can mean rents as high as 33 percent of a $146,000 family income — hardly “affordable” for most working families.

Throughout New York, mass struggles are taking place against such projects. The best known is Atlantic Yards, the biggest project in Brooklyn’s history, with 17-20 high-rise buildings, two-thirds openly labeled “luxury,” and a basketball arena proposed for the busiest intersection — to be financed by nearly $2 billion in public money, out of a $3.5 billion total cost. A big movement against this has developed, and polls show public opinion opposed.

Expected to be approved in six months, Atlantic Yards has not achieved approval after three years. One reason for the success in halting the project has been its location in the districts of three progressive Black elected officials: Councilwoman Letitia James, state Sen. Velmanette Montgomery and Congressman Major Owens. Owens, whose record on all issues is among the most progressive in Congress, is retiring. Five candidates, four African American and one white, are vying to replace him in this 62 percent African American district. Only one of them, Rep. Owens’s son Chris Owens, opposes construction of Atlantic Yards. Wall Street and the powers that be prefer the white councilman, but they will take anyone but Chris Owens, because he is part of a unique combination of progressive African American leaders standing in the developers’ way. The outcome of the Sept. 12 primary election will determine whether a progressive continues in Congress to fight the Bush administration. But it will also impact the citywide fight over whether the billionaire developers should have their way.

Daniel Rubin, a Brooklyn resident, is a member of the national board of the Communist Party USA.

CARTOON

Fri, 26 May 2006 07:43:00 +0000

Considering The Israel Lobby

Fri, 26 May 2006 07:40:00 +0000

A recent article by two prominent political science professors has touched off heated debate. “The Israel Lobby,” by John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of Harvard, outlines what it calls “the unmatched power” of pro-Israeli-government lobbying groups in influencing U.S. foreign policy and in controlling debate on U.S.-Israeli relations.

The authors, known as “realists” in international relations circles, have been subjected to vituperative attacks by U.S. promoters of right-wing Israeli policy such as Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz, who likened the article to the viciously anti-Semitic “Protocols of Zion” forgeries. Such attacks confirm one of the main points of the authors and many others: that powerful, well-financed right-wing Jewish groups work to stifle any debate, even among Jewish Americans, over the Israeli government’s militarist, chauvinist policies with regard to the Palestinian people, and over U.S. support for such policies.

The power these groups exercise in U.S. political life, including electing or defeating candidates, has been written about and documented in progressive publications. In addition to big campaign contributions and aggressive lobbying, they apply pressure and intimidation to institutions and individuals that shape public opinion including the media and, especially recently, academia.

The Mearsheimer/Walt article itself, originally commissioned by The Atlantic, was turned down by that and other U.S. publications, and was finally published in England by the London Review of Books.

At the same time, a number of Jewish progressives have taken exception to the authors’ pinning the primary blame on Jewish people, to put it bluntly, for destructive U.S. foreign policy.

What has drawn much of the heat from all sides is the authors’ assertion that this lobby, and Israel itself, is the main driver of U.S. policy in the greater Middle East, including in such actions as the Iraq war.

“Pressure from Israel and the Lobby was not the only factor behind the decision to attack Iraq,” they say, “but it was critical.” But then they dismiss other factors widely seen as major components of the Bush policy, even by its own architects, and they do not mention the enormous oil, gas and military industry lobbies. “Some Americans believe that this was a war for oil, but there is hardly any direct evidence to support this claim,” they say. “Instead, the war was motivated in good part by a desire to make Israel more secure.”

They write: “The Bush administration’s ambition to transform the Middle East is at least partly aimed at improving Israel’s strategic situation.” But they don’t say what the other, perhaps more fundamental, aims might be. They make no mention of any global geopolitical goals, such as entrenching U.S. (transnational corporate) domination through the Middle East and Central Asia to the borders of Russia and China and to the Pacific.

Mearsheimer/Walt note that Christian far-right evangelicals and ultra-rightists like Tom DeLay and Trent Lott are key members of the “Israel Lobby.” The authors also caution that Jewish Americans differ in their identification with Israel and their views on Israeli politics. They note that “the bulk of U.S. Jewry” is “more inclined to make concessions to the Palestinians, and a few groups — such as Jewish Voice for Peace — strongly advocate such steps.” However, such disclaimers get overshadowed when they go on to make generalizations like “American Jewish leaders often consult Israeli officials” and “Jewish Americans have set up an impressive array of organizations to influence American foreign policy.” Their loose characterizations, which have an unpleasant ring for many Jewish readers, make it easier for them to be attacked as echoing anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

It is true, however, that right-wing Jewish supporters of Israeli militarism and aggression like Paul Wolfowitz and William Kristol play a prominent role in the ideological grouping known as the neoconservatives, which gained unprecedented political influence in the current administration. In their view, undoubtedly, the ultra-nationalist interests of the Israeli right are conflated with the interests of the U.S. ruling class which these ideologues serve. This view meshes with long-standing efforts of right-wing Jewish lobbying groups such as AIPAC — the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — that seek to ensure U.S. support for Israeli expansionist, chauvinist forces.

It is also true, as the authors note, that prominent non-Jewish neoconservatives such as John Bolton, William Bennett and others are strong backers of the “Israel Lobby.”

But overlooked by much of the debate thus far is, in my view, the most significant aspect of the Mearsheimer/Walt article: its declaration that Israel has lost its strategic importance for the U.S. ruling class.

While Israel was useful to the U.S. during the Cold War, it has become a liability, they argue. Of course, this suggests that Israel has been a tool of U.S. foreign policy, contradicting the authors’ emphasis on Israel and the “Israel Lobby” as the chief drivers of U.S. policy.

“One might argue that Israel was an asset during the Cold War,” they write. “By serving as America’s proxy after 1967, it helped contain Soviet expansion in the region and inflicted humiliating defeats on Soviet clients like Egypt and Syria. It occasionally helped protect other U.S. allies (like King Hussein of Jordan) and its military prowess forced Moscow to spend more on backing its own client states.”

In other words, though of course these anti-communist academics don’t say this, Israel helped the U.S. install and support anti-communist regimes in the Middle East who stamped out communist, working-class and secular democratic movements — thereby promoting the rise of reactionary political Islamic movements that, ironically, now pose a problem for the U.S.

“Backing Israel was not cheap, however,” the authors continue, “and it complicated America’s relations with the Arab world.”

Following the 1973 OPEC oil embargo, they write, “Israel’s armed forces were not in a position to protect U.S. interests in the region,” specifically U.S. oil supplies from places like Iran. By the 1990s “Israel was becoming a strategic burden.”

So-called rogue states in the Middle East “are not a dire threat to vital U.S. interests,” they argue, and “the relationship with Israel actually makes it harder for the U.S. to deal with these states.”

“In fact,” they say, “Israel is a liability in the war on terror.”

Mearsheimer/Walt argue that the “Israel Lobby” has diverted U.S. foreign policy from “what the national interest would suggest.” On Iraq, Syria and Iran, if the neoconservatives and the Israel Lobby had not pushed an aggressive militaristic policy, they say, U.S. policy “would have been more in line with the national interest.” The authors never define that “national interest.” They appear to argue for a “more temperate” policy in the region, in which “preventive war would not be a serious option.”

They note differences within the Bush administration on Mideast policy, centered around former Secretary of State Colin Powell. Interestingly, their article drew praise from former Powell chief of staff Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, widely considered to be expressing views of Powell and others espousing the “realist” approach.

This article is an indication of significant disquiet in ruling-class circles. Perhaps it is even a trial balloon for establishment advocates of a significant shift in policy on Israel and Palestine. Differences are going increasingly public as the Bush administration’s Iraq war debacle deepens, with potential long-term destabilizing consequences throughout the greater Middle East and beyond. Some are no doubt concerned that the festering Palestinian statehood issue endangers U.S. capitalist class interests in the region. There are indications that some see advancing the interests of U.S. imperialism by building relationships with bourgeois political Islamic groups like the Muslim Brotherhood.

If a U.S. policy shift helps lead to establishment of a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel, that would be a momentous positive development. But the national interest as defined by the U.S. ruling class, whether of the neocon or “realist” variety, has little to do with the national interests of the overwhelming majority of the American people, Jewish and non-Jewish. It has little to do with the interests of the majority of Israeli and Palestinian people. Those interests revolve around the aspirations and struggles of the working class and its allies in all these countries.

Nevertheless, despite its shortcomings, if “The Israel Lobby” helps open up mainstream discussion on the above issues, it will have made a useful contribution. I hope it stimulates thinking among the left on the importance of encouraging and expanding Jewish participation in movements for peace and social justice. It should also lead to more attention to the role of anti-Semitism and new assessments of the class and political orientation of Jewish people in the U.S.

Susan Webb (suewebb@pww.org) is a member of the People’s Weekly World editorial board.

This week in labor

Fri, 26 May 2006 05:59:00 +0000

Meat packers win overtime pay

If you work in a meat processing plant, your workday starts long before you step into your place on the line. Before you lash on your arm and hand protection, you’re putting on work uniforms and a whole wardrobe of safety equipment: jumpsuit, boots, hair nets, face nets, hard hats and aprons. Then it’s a long walk from changing area to the work area.

According to Adelina Garcia, who has worked at Tyson Fresh Meats in Holcomb, Kan., for eight years: “The ‘off the clock’ work we do before and after shifts and breaks adds up to a lot of time during the work year.” Garcia is one of 262 meat processors at the giant 2,500-worker facility who have initiated a class action suit against Tyson, claiming they were due wages and overtime pay under the Fair Labor Standards Act for the extra time required to put on safety equipment.

Last November, the Supreme Court ruled in IBP v. Alvarez that meat plant workers had to be paid for the time required to put on and remove protective clothing and for time to walk to and from their work stations.

The vast majority of workers at the Holcomb facility are immigrants, many of them from Latin America.

Pride at Work convenes

Pride at Work, the labor constituency group for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender workers, has announced its triennial national convention will be held in San Diego from Sept. 7-10. This year’s theme is “There’s No Turning Back: Preserving What We’ve Gained and Creating a Better Future.” The theme reflects “workers fighting to hold onto their health care, pensions and living wages while also struggling to realize the dream of marriage equality, win comprehensive federal non-discrimination protections and end transgender inequality,” a statement from the group says. The convention will provide strategizing, networking and skills-building opportunities. For more information, visit prideatwork.org.

Strike vote in aluminum

An overwhelming majority of Alcoa aluminum workers from 15 USW locals voted to authorize strikes last week if contract negotiations are unsuccessful.

Health care for both active workers and retirees is an issue, said Jim Robinson, the union’s lead negotiator and director of USW District 7. “Alcoa is making record profits,” Robinson said. “We believe that our members have contributed significantly to those profits and we want a contract that provides for the economic security of our members and retirees. Our slogan is ‘Leave no one behind.’”

Cintas fined on living wage

Cintas Corp. owes workers and the state of California $1.4 million for breaking the city of Hayward’s Living wage law, Unite Here, the union which represents laundry workers, reports.

On May 11, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Steven Brick ordered the company to pay $362,584 in interest to 219 current and former workers from Cintas’ San Leandro and Union City laundries. Earlier, Brick had awarded the workers $805,243 in back pay and fined the company $258,900.

The city of Hayward contracted with Cintas in 1999 to launder city uniforms. As part of the contract, Cintas agreed to pay its employees working on the contract the city’s living wage, currently $10.86 an hour. In 2003, the company was paying $8.50 an hour. Backed by the union, a group of workers sued, charging the company with failing to comply with the living wage ordinance. After Cintas made the legal claim that the city’s living wage law was unconstitutional, the city of Hayward joined the case.

N.Y. NEA, AFT merge

“Teachers in New York state will have a single voice to advocate for the best public education possible for the Empire State’s students when the New York State United Teachers and the National Education Association New York merge Sept. 1,” says James Parker, a commentator on the AFL-CIO web log. The new combined union will be known as New York State United Teachers NEA/AFT. Delegates from both unions approved the merger in votes last month.

Paper workers unite

South African and U.S. paper mill workers are pledging to “take strong concrete steps at all levels of our unions” to rein in “unfair and high-handed” practices of South Africa-based Sappi Industries. During the apartheid era, the company was known as South Africa Pulp and Paper Industries.

The majority of Sappi’s blue collar work force is represented by the USW and South African Chemical, Energy, Paper, Printing, Wood and Allied Workers union (Ceppwawu).

A loud demonstration outside the company’s Boston office May 9 kicked off a USW-hosted tour by Ceppwawu representatives that visited Sappi paper mills in Skowhegan and Westbrook, Maine; Muskegon, Mich. and Cloquet, Minn.

In South Africa, Sappi refused to train black workers for higher skilled jobs or to give union recognition to maintenance and white-collar workers, says Ceppwawu. In the U.S., Sappi tries to cut health and pension benefits of workers. Health and safety is an issue everywhere, say the two unions. Sappi’s policy is “blame the worker,” they charge.

“It will take global solidarity to change how Sappi treats its workers,” USW President Leo Gerard declared.

CLUW opposes right wing health takeaway

By a 55-43 vote in mid-May, the Senate effectively dumped a right-wing group’s so-called “small business” health care bill. The “Health Insurance Marketplace Modernization Act” was renamed by the Coalition of Labor Union Women as the “Lose Your Health Benefits” bill.

Backers of the legislation claimed it would let small businesses band together to get cheaper health insurance coverage.

But the legislation would have done away with state requirements for insurers to cover specific services, CLUW said.

“Many state requirements are particularly important to women, including prescription contraceptives, mammography, cervical cancer screenings, bone density screenings, maternity care, and minimum hospital stays after mastectomy. Other requirements threatened ... include cancer treatment, diabetes supplies and education, mental health care, rehabilitation services, well-child care and immunizations,” CLUW said.

The National Mental Health Association, which also opposed the bill, said it would have overridden more than 1,000 state health insurance laws that currently protect consumers. Both groups said the now-sidetracked legislation would have produced huge hikes in insurance premiums.

NMHA said S 1955 would have let insurers charge more by discriminating on the basis of age, past health claims and health status. It would have prevented states from banning insurers from “cherry-picking” only the healthiest clients.

Bush zaps energy workers’ pensions

It’s not only under funded pensions that are under attack by the Bush administration.

The Department of Energy is forcing its contractors to terminate their employees’ traditional defined benefit pension plans and switch them to 401(k) plans. Defined benefit pensions guarantee a fixed monthly payment, while under 401(k) plans workers take on the risks of the stock market.

Last month, the DOE announced that it will no longer reimburse contractors for the costs of defined benefit pension and medical plans for new employees. This action, said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney in a May 3 statement, exposes the administration’s agenda to “destroy the defined benefit pension system.”

IBEW says ‘Lock’ out privatization

Should the civilian operators of our nation’s locks and dams work for for-profit private corporations?

Furthering the Bush administration’s right-wing agenda, the Army Corps of Engineers is proposing that the duties of all current federal lock and dam operators be privatized. The 230 locks and dams these workers maintain 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, are scattered across 12,000 miles of inland waterways in the United States.

The IBEW, which represents many lock and dam workers, is asking support for bipartisan legislation HR 5205, sponsored by Illinois Reps. Lane Evans (D) and Roy LaHood (R), declaring these workers “inherently governmental” and not subject to privatization.

This week in Labor is compiled by Roberta Wood (rwood@pww.org). Lance Cohn contributed.

Rank-and-filers demand Employee Free Choice Act

Fri, 26 May 2006 05:41:00 +0000

WASHINGTON (PAI) — Bob Boyle was fired April 28 from Oesterling’s Sandblasting Co., just outside Butler, Pa. “I wanted a little better and safer place to work,” said the 17-year veteran of the plant. Boyle and two other men, all fired for trying to organize for the Steelworkers union, described the hostility, lies and obstacles they encountered in their organizing drives during a May 8 lobbying effort by the union here. The effort, marshaled by Americans for Democratic Action, was in support of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).

“The most fundamental problem with U.S. labor law is that it’s good on paper, but the employer doesn’t suffer any fine or any penalty” for law-breaking, explained Human Rights Watch labor specialist Carol Pier. Even when workers win a favorable National Labor Relations Board ruling the appeal process takes five years or more.

Sarah Fox, a former Democratic member of the NLRB, said that the 1935 Wagner Act — the National Labor Relations Act — “was the first anti-discrimination law” of the 20th century. However, the act’s weak penalties and “lack of coverage” by the corporate media allow employers to get away with law-breaking. Fox focused on the weakest section of the law: the nature of the election campaigns unions must undertake to win representation rights. Employers have all the advantages — which often “makes the election invalid,” she said.

To insure employers don’t break labor law, the Employer Free Choice Act would make court orders against their violations easier to get. It would institute triple damages, like other civil rights laws. EFCA would write card-check recognition into labor law. It would mandate that if labor and management cannot agree on a first contract within 90 days of the start of bargaining, there would be mandatory arbitration.

EFCA would ban captive-audience meetings where employers and “consultants” can harangue against unions — and workers must attend or be disciplined.

At the Washington briefing, Boyle described management threats — plus a last-minute pay raise — that turned the tide from a 14-6 majority for USW into a 14-6 defeat, before he was fired. Those threats included a statement, legal under current labor law, from the firm’s accountant that it would “save $800,000 if the union came in” by yanking the workers’ 401(k) accounts, vacation days, holidays and health care. Management also threatened to sell to another firm.

After the vote, management told the workers it was “Bob’s fault” that they got NLRB subpoenas regarding an investigation into the company’s breaking of labor law. Managers then encouraged co-workers to refuse to work with him and several agreed. Then the company president turned to Bob and ordered: “Get out!”

Brian Breining, fired Jan. 24, and co-worker Brian Smith, fired April 6, from Cultured Stone Co., of Dover, Ohio, told similar stories. There, they said, management also tried to enlist local police to evict USW organizers and members from a tent they set up in another company’s parking lot across the street from Cultured Stone’s entrance. Such labor law-breaking puts fear into other workers, Smith said. “‘I’ll sign an authorization card, but I won’t speak up for the union, one told me,” Smith said. “And guys would come up to me and say ‘I’d like to speak up the way you are, but I’ve got a wife and kids.’”

EFCA has more than 210 House backers, including several Republicans.

On the other side, House Workforce Protections Subcommittee Chairman Charles Norwood (R-Ga.) is pushing legislation to outlaw card-check recognition.

WORLDNOTES

Fri, 26 May 2006 05:37:00 +0000

Nepal: People celebrate their victory

Around the country late last week, people were celebrating the House of Representatives’ May 18 proclamation stripping King Gyanendra of his royal powers.

The legislature ended Gyanendra’s control over the army, made his income and assets taxable, took away his power to convene and adjourn the legislature, and declared that “all the provisions of the Constitution and laws that contradict this proclamation shall be deemed nullified ipso facto,” the e-Kantipur news agency said.

The proclamation said the legislature “is sovereign for the exercise of all the rights until another constitutional arrangement is made to take responsibility to move forward in the direction of full-fledged democracy and end the autocratic monarchy.”

Leaders of the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist) — the second largest party in Parliament — said their party’s main goal is to establish a democratic republic. “We have only made the king powerless; the constituent assembly elections will decide whether to keep or remove the king,” said the party’s general secretary, Madhav Kumar Nepal. “If we don’t go for a democratic republic, we will lose all the achievements we have now gained,” CPN-UML leader Bam Dev Gautam added.

Over the weekend, the Department of Information removed some 150 billboards with quotes from Gyanendra, put up after he assumed absolute power in February 2005.

Italy: Strike halts buses

A 24-hour public transit strike May 18 brought local public transportation virtually to a standstill throughout Italy, leaders of the FIT-CISL union said. “Buses have stopped in small and large cities and the average participation in the strike ranges between 90 and 95 percent in the north, center and south of Italy,” the union said.

“The undeniable success of the strike shows the determination with which all workers in the sector are following the negotiations for renewal of the contract,” said union leader Walter Baricevic.

Israel: Supreme court denies family reunification

The Israeli High Court of Justice voted narrowly May 14 to deny family reunification for Israeli Arabs married to Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza.

“Thousands of couples are affected by this discriminatory law, which forces Israeli Arabs married to Palestinians to leave their country or to be separated from their families and children,” Amnesty International said in a statement last week.

Observers have noted that couples thus barred from living together in Israel can’t be reunited in the Occupied Territories either, since military law does not allow Israeli citizens to live there.

The Israeli Knesset is slated to review the ban on family reunification in July. It passed the ban in July 2003 after it had been introduced as an administrative decision by the interior minister.

Colombia: Gov’t attacks protesters

Colombian military forces attacked farmers and indigenous people participating in a May 15 nationwide protest against the government’s free trade pact with the U.S. and its repressive policies, and urging defeat of President Alvaro Uribe in the May 28 presidential elections, The Associated Press reported. One protester was killed and some 30 more injured, five of them seriously, at the village of Piendamo, over 200 miles southwest of the capital city, Bogota.

The National Agricultural Workers Union said the government is using violent repression against “permanent mobilizations” of thousands of farmers, indigenous Colombians and Afro-Colombians protesting the civil war and demanding human rights and agrarian reforms. The union called for an end to the government violence, and negotiations to resolve the crisis faced by rural communities.

Korea: U.S. mulling peace treaty

The Bush administration is reportedly considering the possibility of concluding a peace treaty with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea), even as Washington continues to participate in six-party talks on nuclear issues.

Technically, the two states have been at war since 1950; the 1953 armistice only ended the fighting. About 30,000 U.S. troops still occupy the southern half of the Korean peninsula.

South Korea, formerly a staunch U.S. ally opposed to the DPRK, has been steadily drifting away from U.S. influence and starting to make its own policies regarding the DPRK. Former President Kim Dae-jung, who initiated increased contact and cooperation between the nation’s two halves in 1998, is scheduled for a return visit to the north at the end of June. The south’s current president, Roh Moo-hyun, said he would meet with DPRK leader Kim Jong Il “anytime, anywhere” to discuss anything.

Some observers say the Bush administration’s move is an attempt to offset its growing political isolation in the region, although they warn that no one should be fooled into thinking that Washington is any less committed to bringing about “regime change” in the north.

World Notes are compiled by Pamella Saffer (psaffer@pww.org). Marilyn Bechtel and Dan Margolis contributed.

Venezuela, Libya to aid African nations

Fri, 26 May 2006 05:26:00 +0000

Venezuela and Libya will offer free medical aid and discounted oil to developing countries in Africa, Libyan Foreign Minister Abdel Rahman Shalqam said May 18.

“The leaders of Libya and Venezuela discussed the formation of a team from both countries, in addition to Cuba, to support the developing poor countries of Africa,” Shalqam said as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez ended a two-day visit to Libya where he met with Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi.

“Cuba will provide the medical crews, while Libya and Venezuela will support these crews and hospitals financially,” Shalqam said.

The initiative would expand Venezuela’s Mission Miracle program outside Latin America, where it has set up free eye surgeries in Cuba and Venezuela.

During his European tour earlier this week, the Venezuelan president told rallies in Austria and Britain that he was willing to provide cheap heating oil for poor Europeans.

Venezuela has already delivered discounted heating oil to some poor communities in the United States. Citgo, the U.S. subsidiary of Venezuela’s state owned oil company, has provided cheap heating oil for seven economically hard-hit areas of the United States.

–Morning Star

www.morningstaronline.co.uk

Venezuelas revolution reaches across continents

Fri, 26 May 2006 05:20:00 +0000

Chavez, Morales cause stir in Europe

Revolutionary struggles moved onto the world stage as Presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia and Hugo Chavez of Venezuela went to Vienna, Austria, on May 11 for the Fourth European Union/Latin American Summit. They joined leaders of 58 nations in the largest diplomatic gathering there since the Congress of Vienna in 1815.

The EU is the leading source of investment capital for Latin America and the region’s second largest trading partner after the United States.

“Investment security” had top billing at the summit. Morales, who nationalized Bolivia’s natural gas and oil reserves on May 1, drew some flak for reiterating Bolivia’s refusal to compensate foreign oil companies that had exploited it for so long, and his statement that contracts with the Brazilian company Petrobas are illegal.

Bolivia and Venezuela expressed sharp criticism of U.S.-backed “free trade” agreements at the summit.

In response, President Vicente Fox of Mexico and Austrian Premier Wolfgang Schuesal joined with UN General Secretary Kofi Annan and Peruvian President Alejandro Toledo in denouncing Venezuela for threatening to withdraw from the Andean Community of Nations trade bloc because of its U.S. ties.

The summit authorized the EU to negotiate with six Central American nations for a free trade zone.

Hugo Chavez was politicking elsewhere. On May 13 he and Morales attended an “Alternative Summit.” That evening in Vienna, 5,000 young people heard Chavez talk about the future of humanity. “I am convinced that people of my generation must spend every day, every hour … fighting for a better world,” he said. “That world is called socialism. I believe that only the youth have the necessary enthusiasm, the passion, the fire, to make the revolution.”

Chavez spent May 14 and 15 in London where he joined hundreds of trade unionists, members of Parliament and businessmen in tumultuous meetings. London Major Ken Livingston hosted a large gathering at the Camden Town Hall. Writing in Counterpunch, Hugh O’Shaughnessy said, “London hadn’t seen such a demonstration of popular participation in politics for years and years. … Chavez courted, charmed and won the Town Hall audience with a discourse of Third World hope.”

Before leaving London for Libya and Algeria, Hugo Chavez repeated an offer he had made in Vienna to provide low-income Europeans with cheap heating oil.

U.S. patients to get free eye surgery

U.S. citizens afflicted with a variety of eye diseases will be leaving for Venezuela on July 4 for free ophthalmologic care, the Venezuelan government announced May 19. The North Americans are enrolled in the so-called Mission Miracle (“Misión Milagro”) project launched by Venezuela and Cuba as part of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA), a cooperative trade pact.

President Hugo Chavez announced some time ago, “We are going to bring U.S. citizens [to the Venezuelan state of Lara] to operate on them for their vision, because there is nobody there to take care of poor people in North America.” The announcement appears to bring that pledge closer to fulfillment.

Mission Miracle is part of a program in which Venezuela and Cuba expect to care for 600,000 Latin American people with eye problems every year. Already teams of Cuban and Venezuelan ophthalmologists and health workers, working mostly in Barquisimeto, the capital of Lara state, are operating on patients from El Salvador, Ecuador, Guatemala, Colombia, Chile and the Dominican Republic. The most common diagnoses are cataracts and eyelid tumors, said a report from the Havana-based news agency Prensa Latina.

Washington blocks arms sales to Venezuela

The U.S. State Department announced a ban on sales of weapons and military equipment to Venezuela on May 15. The rationale was that Venezuela shares intelligence with Iran and Cuba, thereby interfering with the U.S. “war on terrorism” and threatening U.S. security.

Venezuelans criticized the U.S. action as part of a growing campaign of hostility toward their Bolivarian Revolution.

In a statement published May 19, Venezuelan Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez accused Washington of “continuing its long campaign to de-legitimize and undermine my country’s democratic government.”

Caracas accused the U.S. government of imposing the ban on military sales in order to weaken Venezuela’s defenses at a time when the country is preparing for a possible U.S. invasion.

The ban will reportedly have little effect because Venezuela depends very little upon the United States for military equipment. However, the U.S. move is clearly calculated to suggest that Venezuela somehow abets terrorism, a charge it vehemently denies.

Caracas took pains to spotlight U.S. hypocrisy on this score. Ali Rodriguez, the country’s foreign minister, said, “To tie Venezuela to its particular vision of international terrorism [represents] new heights of cynicism and shamelessness.” In his May 15 statement, he noted that President Bush had said, “He who shelters terrorists is a terrorist,” yet the U.S. is sheltering one of “the most criminal of terrorists in the Western Hemisphere, Luis Posada Carriles, a well- known assassin in the pay of the CIA.”

Mayoral candidate welcomed on home turf

Fri, 26 May 2006 05:12:00 +0000

OAKLAND, Calif. — “Unity in the Community” was the theme as neighbors gathered May 20 at West Oakland’s DeFremery Park to greet former Congressman Ron Dellums in the area where he grew up, and to express their support for his campaign to become the city’s next mayor.

Other area candidates, union and community organization leaders joined in addressing the gathering, which was initiated by Local 10 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU).

Dellums, who campaigns on a program of bringing the community together to achieve a “21st century model city” with good jobs, health care, education, affordable housing and a healthful environment, drew warm applause as he told the crowd, “As a community, we can do super things.” Among Dellums’ endorsers are the Alameda County Central Labor Council, the Alameda County Democratic Party and several area Democratic Party clubs.

“The mayor of this city has a responsibility to galvanize the community across all the lines that divide us, into a powerful human coalition where people feel their own humanity, respect their own dignity and the dignity of others, and feel the power of their citizenship,” he said.

The program was emceed by Clarence Thomas, chair of the ILWU East Bay Joint Legislative Committee, who recounted the many ways Dellums supported labor and the community while he was in Washington, including raising the pressure in Congress against South Africa’s apartheid regime while Local 10 was initiating the union’s boycott of South African ships.

In the crowd were Coalition of Black Trade Unionists leader Damita Davis-Howard and other CBTU members. After hearing Dellums, Davis-Howard said she felt his vision “is about leading Oakland into the 21st century.” Dellums “is a grassroots person” who shares the concerns of people who live in ordinary apartments and houses and travel the city’s streets every day, she said.

Also present was West Oakland environmental activist Margaret Gordon, who said she views Dellums as “more open, transparent and accountable to all the people.” She added, “He wants to serve everyone, not just those with money and the developers.”

Also speaking was Assembly candidate Sandré Swanson, a longtime aide to Dellums and Congresswoman Barbara Lee, as well as City Councilwoman Desley Brooks, City Council candidate Aimee Allison and other labor and community leaders.

As Ohio goes, so goes the nation?

Fri, 26 May 2006 05:10:00 +0000

This old truism may still be true.

As everyone knows, Ohio’s vote tipped the scales for George W. Bush in 2004. Many questions were raised at the time about the security and accuracy of that vote. The recent May primary elections in Ohio, in which electronic or optical scan voting machines were in place statewide for the first time, raised many of the same questions.

In November, Ohio voters will choose between Republican Kenneth Blackwell and Democrat Ted Strickland for governor, in a race that will have national implications. Blackwell, an African American arch-conservative, is the current Ohio secretary of state. Strickland, who is white, is a moderate, with left-of-center views on some social issues. He is an ordained minister and is backed by most of the labor movement.

The May primary voting in Cuyahoga County, which includes Cleveland, was marred by the failure of the electronic voting machines to accurately read over 15,000 absentee ballots. Why that happened is still being investigated. The ballots had to be hand-counted by hired temporary employees. The result of some close races is still unknown as of this writing.

While it appears that most voters were pleased with the new electronic voting machines, there were numerous reports of problems at various polling locations. Poll workers received only three hours of training on how to set up the machines, program voter cards, take down the machines at the end of the day and transmit the voting tallies to a central receiving location. As many as 20 percent of the poll workers did not show up at the polls on election day, causing some polls to open late and some wrong instructions to be given to voters.

All of these problems are the subject of investigation by a special committee set up by the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections. The chairman of the board, Republican heavyweight Bob Bennett, and its director, Michael Vu, a declared Democrat, have pledged complete openness in this investigation. A preliminary report is due June 15 and a final report July 15. The secretary of state has called for an investigation into what went wrong in Cuyahoga County.

In addition to the problems that occurred with the electronic voting machines, there are unsolved problems with provisional ballots, poll worker training, public education and registration. An independent, nonpartisan community-based coalition has studied these problems, offered solutions and demanded resolution since 2004. These problems may also be addressed by the board-established investigating committee.

Voter confidence in the election system in Cuyahoga County, Ohio’s largest county, has no doubt been shaken by the failure of the system to work properly during the May primary. Whether the problems will be fixed in time for a fair and honest election in November remains to be seen.

NATIONALCLIPS

Fri, 26 May 2006 05:02:00 +0000

NEW ORLEANS: Nagin re-elected

Mayor Ray Nagin won a second term May 20, beating out Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu 52-48 percent. Nagin begins his second term on May 31 — a day before the start of the 2006 hurricane season.

Fewer than half of the city’s 455,000 pre-Katrina residents are living in New Orleans; most remain scattered elsewhere in Louisiana and beyond. Turnout for the election was 38 percent, slightly higher than the April primary. According to The Associated Press, the vote split largely along racial lines, but both candidates got about one-fifth of the “crossover” vote. Racial inequalities were exacerbated after Katrina, and rebuilding plans have raised concerns about the future of some African American neighborhoods.

PITTSBURGH: National health care movement adds another sponsor

Temple Sinai was filled with labor representatives, community activists, elected officials and religious leaders supporting the growing grassroots movement to pass HR 676, the “Medicare for All” bill. They got a boost when local Democratic Rep. Mike Doyle announced that he had become the 70th member of the U.S. House to sign on.

The bill’s author, Congressman John Conyers (D-Mich.), keynoted the citizens’ hearing. State Sen. Jim Ferlo outlined efforts at the state level to provide insurance coverage for all Pennsylvanians through SB 1085.

In an all too familiar story, Terry Kennedy described in often tearful detail her family’s struggle with cancer and parents working two jobs apiece just to cover the health insurance and hospital bills.

The Western Pennsylvania Coalition for Single-Payer Health Care launched a postcard campaign and inspired new activists for the movement.

BOSTON: Campus protest greets Rice

Following three weeks of petitioning by 800 students and 150 rot s invitation to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to deliver the commencement address and receive an honorary degree, hundreds demonstrated at graduation May 22 and graduates wore black armbands.

Arguing that Rice’s view on international affairs violated Roman Catholic values, two leading theology professors at the college started the protest. The administration received a letter signed by 19 Catholic educators based in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Kenya, Jerusalem, Honduras and the U.S. saying, “As Jesuits we are scandalized and outraged” by the Catholic college’s decision to award an honorary doctorate to Rice. The letter called Rice “one of the principal architects and representatives of the Bush administration’s illegal and immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq.”

Adjunct professor Steve Almond resigned in protest. The president and vice president of the student government opposed the invitation to Rice.

LAS VEGAS: Unions campaign to save schools, services

The words sound sensible and harmless. Republican state Sen. Bob Beers, a candidate for governor, initiated a petition campaign to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot to limit state and local budgets to the combined rate of inflation and population growth unless voters approve otherwise. Known as the Tax and Spending Control Act (TASC), the measure needs 83,156 signatures by June 20 to get on the November ballot.

No so fast, says truck driver Anthony Lock. As he explained to a voter in the desert heat, “It would lead to harmful reductions in vital public services like education, transportation, health care and fire and police protection.” The voter, who had signed Beers’ petition, signed Lock’s and asked for more information.

The Nevadans for Nevada campaign led by the state AFL-CIO is the first in this state where an organization is going back to voters who signed a petition for a ballot initiative and asking them to rescind their support — stop the question from getting on the ballot. Nevadans for Nevada has a small army of paid and volunteer workers on the street, clip board in one hand, flyers in the other. They are reaching out to registered voters across the Silver State.

The AFL-CIO has also filed suit to halt TASC. Not just workers are worried about what the 400 pages of text in the TASC measure means. The Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce has joined in the campaign, although not part of Nevadans for Nevada, to stop TASC.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C.: City Council says ‘Impeach Bush’

City Council chambers and town hall meetings are not the most exciting settings for a deepening expression of the people’s will, but they are effective. Earlier this month, this city’s eight City Council members representing 52,440 residents unanimously approved a resolution calling on the state Legislature to take steps to impeach President Bush. They join a growing number of state and local governments across the country in exercising a little-known part of the U.S. Constitution enabling the states to force Congress to begin impeachment proceedings.

Legislatures in Illinois, California and Vermont have already begun drafting legislation for presidential impeachment.

Democratic parties in Nevada, Wisconsin, New Mexico, and North Carolina are considering a campaign for impeachment. For more information: impeachpac.org.

National Clips are compiled by Denise Winebrenner Edwards (dwinebr696@aol.com).

Immigrant rights activists vow to press forward

Fri, 26 May 2006 04:49:00 +0000

Led by President Bush and the right-wing Heritage Foundation, Senate Republicans closed ranks and turned their backs this week on the millions who demonstrated for immigrant rights this spring.

As the World was going to press, the Republican-led Senate was moving to pass S 2611, the hotly debated “compromise” immigration bill, after defeating Democratic-led efforts to ensure a path to citizenship and stronger civil rights and labor protections for most undocumented workers. The Senate vote was expected on or before May 26.

The legislative package, S 2611, known as the Hagel-Martinez compromise, was patched together in early April before the Senate’s spring recess in an attempt to reach a bipartisan consensus on issues relating to legalization for the undocumented, a temporary worker program and border and interior law enforcement. During the recess, most Senate Republicans, including their leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), were seeking even harsher restrictions on immigrants.

Mass nationwide demonstrations and boycotts by millions in April and May generated pressure on the Senate to adopt even stronger pro-immigrant rights measures than embodied in the compromise, and with continued mass lobbying pressure in mid-May, resulted in proposed amendments by liberal Democrats prioritizing legalization and immigrant rights.

On May 15 President Bush launched a public relations blitz to prioritize enforcement issues in the Senate debate, featuring deployment of the National Guard on the border with Mexico. Administration political guru Karl Rove made visits to the Heritage Foundation and congressional Republicans.

Bush staged a second press conference at the border at Yuma, Ariz., May 18, and dedicated his May 20 national radio address to border enforcement. The Heritage Foundation began projecting that major legalization would result in tens to hundreds of millions of documented and undocumented immigrants coming into the country in coming decades.

The Bush blitz was timed to coincide with the reopening of Senate floor debate on S 2611 on May 15, with Frist planning for a final vote by May 26. During the first week, restrictive and punitive Republican amendments dominated the debate, with most being narrowly defeated. This set the stage for the defeat of major pro-immigrant amendments this week.

The pro-immigrant amendments, led by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s proposal to provide legalization for most immigrants who arrived in the U.S. prior to Jan. 1, 2006, were introduced on May 22. Frist rushed through their defeat May 23. The Feinstein amendment lost by a vote of 61-37, with only one Republican in favor.

Then, in quick succession, amendments by Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) to get a better deal for people seeking asylum, Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) to beef up enforcement against labor abuses, and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) to give relief to families with U.S. citizen members which are being broken up by the deportation of a family member, were all shot down by the Republicans. By opposing these amendments, “moderate” Republicans like Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) revealed their loyalty to corporate interests rather than to either immigrant or non-immigrant workers.

When and if a bill is passed by the Senate, a conference committee of selected House and Senate members would be established to reconcile its provisions with the draconian Sensenbrenner bill, HR 4437. The joint House-Senate bill, which could come to vote in June, is expected to be enforcement-heavy and to contain weaker, if any, legalization provisions. If the joint bill wins approval of the full House and Senate, it will likely resemble Bush’s original January 2004 proposal for harsh enforcement and a guest worker program.

Immigrant rights groups are looking to return to street heat and mobilizations for citizenship, voter registration, education and turnout to influence the continuing legislative process and the Nov. 7 elections. The We are America Coalition, which includes labor, religious and immigrant rights groups, says that July 1 will be a kickoff for massive voter registration drives all over the country. There will be a drive for naturalization of eligible non-citizens, major rallies around Labor Day, and then large-scale campaigns to mobilize the pro-immigrant vote in November.

WHATSREALLYGOOD

Fri, 26 May 2006 04:45:00 +0000

Student walkout protests teacher cuts

On May 11, 100 students at Plum High School in a Pittsburgh suburb walked out of classes to protest a proposed budget that would eliminate teachers, cut middle school programs, impose a fee on students for extracurricular activities, end foreign language, music and art classes and cut at least one elementary school guidance counselor. “I’ve already been threatened with suspensions, but I don’t care,” said Jared Snodgrass, 17, a junior who organized the protest. “This is for a bigger cause.”

National campaign dumps prison industry

After a yearlong campaign led by students, graduate teachers, faculty and community members, Farallon Capital Management, a hedge fund that manages many college and university endowments, has divested from Corrections Corporation of America, a private prison company cited for prisoner abuse. The campaign began at Yale University and was coordinated by the Yale Graduate Employees and Students Organization, a leader in the national movement to unionize graduate students. “This is a major victory for the values of higher education,” said GESO member Sarah Haley.

‘Lavender graduations’ boost LGBTQ pride

Many campuses are organizing receptions and award programs called “lavender graduations,” honoring lesbian, gay bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning students. This year, lavender graduations are being held on more than 50 campuses, up from just a handful a decade ago. “Such an event shows commitment to the LGBTQ student,” said Shane Windmeyer, founder of Campus Pride, a national LGBTQ youth organization.

Students say ‘HMO profiteer’ contradicts university values

Students picketed UnitedHealth CEO Bill McGuire’s May 20 commencement speech at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minn. Calling McGuire a corporate “HMO profiteer,” the students said his billion-dollar stock option fraud contradicts the university’s mission to serve the public interest. “We need a single-payer system: one common pool administered by an accountable, public, single payer,” said a press release.

Compiled by Pepe Lozano (plozano@pww.org)

U.S. mulling peace treaty with North Korea

Wed, 24 May 2006 10:23:00 +0000

The Bush administration is reportedly considering the possibility of concluding a peace treaty with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or North Korea), even as it participates in six-party talks aimed at resolving nuclear issues. Some see this as a sign of U.S. desperation in the face of its growing isolation in the region, much of it the result of its “hostile policy” towards North Korea.

Technically, the two states have been at war since the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War, because no peace treaty had ever been signed. This is illustrated most clearly by the occupation of the southern half of the Korean peninsula by tens of thousands of U.S. troops.

The DPRK, along with the peace and democratic movements in the south, resent this. North Korea has said repeatedly since the start of the nuclear crisis that it would discontinue its nuclear program if the U.S. were to pledge not to invade the north. The Bush administration initially took a hard line rejecting this position, but may be reconsidering it now for its own reasons.

Many nations in the region have been moving away from U.S. influence, especially China, Russia and South Korea. Both China and South Korea have been working economically with the DPRK.

South Korea, formerly a staunch U.S. ally opposed to the DPRK, has been steadily drifting away from U.S. influence, and starting to make its own policies regarding the DPRK. Former President Kim Dae-jung, who initiated the “Sunshine Policy,” which increased contact and cooperation between the nation’s two halves, in 1998, is scheduled for a return visit to the North at the end of June.

The south’s current president, Roh Moo-hyun has said in mid-May that he would like to meet with DPRK leader Kim Jong Il “anytime, anywhere” to discuss anything. The south’s reunification minister, Lee Jong-suk, reiterated the statement, saying on Korean television that he was determined to see a North-South summit occur before 2008, when President Roh’s term expires.

Such a summit would be the first since the last — and only — North-South summit in 2000, which produced the Joint Declaration of June 15, 2000. In the agreement, both sides agreed to settle the question of reunification without foreign interference.

Also problematic for the U.S. has been the stalemate reached in the six-party talks, which include Japan, the U.S., China, South Korea, Russia and the DPRK. While a tentative agreement was reached in 2005, where the DPRK agreed to call a halt to its nuclear program if the U.S. built light water reactors capable of supplying electricity, the talks hit a stalemate after the U.S. accused the DPRK of money-laundering and froze North Korean assets at certain banks.

Much of the U.S. money-laundering charges proved to be untrue, according to South Korea’s intelligence agency. The DPRK refuses to return to negotiations until the U.S. releases its funds.

The Bush administration, faced with the failure of its policies in Korea, has been forced to make a change in its policies. However, solidarity activists warn that no one should be fooled into thinking that the Bush administration wants anything other than “regime change” in the North.

Castro denounces slanders about personal wealth

Sat, 20 May 2006 12:35:00 +0000

The news was supposed to have been a shocker. Forbes magazine reported in its May 4 issue that behind a revolutionary and socialist veneer, Cuban President Fidel Castro is now the seventh richest ruler in the world, with $900 million at his disposal. The magazine put his worth last October at $500 million.

In 1998, Forbes magazine claimed that Castro had $1.4 billion, hinting that he skims off 1 percent of Cuba’s GDP. At the time the government denied the charge but did not mount a media counterattack because of the demands of economic recovery.

Forbes last year had a different explanation for Castro’s supposed wealth. “Cuba’s socialist dictator-for-life derives his fortune from a web of state-owned businesses. Among his profit-generating operations: a convention center near Havana; retail conglomerate CIMEX; and MEDICUBA, which sells vaccines and other pharmaceuticals produced in Cuba. ... Sold state-owned Havana Club rum to French liquor giant Pernod Ricard for $50 million in 1993.”

This time, Cuba is fighting back. On May 16, Castro, taking part in a television roundtable, addressed the nation: “If they can prove that I have one single dollar, I will resign from all my responsibilities and the duties I am carrying out; they won’t need any more plans or transitions.” No more assassination attempts, terrorist attacks, diplomatic assaults: just provide the proof, he was saying, and he’d be gone.

Castro asserted that that the Forbes slander campaign has been a Washington propaganda operation for eight years. Its authors are ignorant of Cuban realities, he said, and don’t understand revolutionaries, just “politicians and thieves.”

“All my wealth, Mr. Bush, fits in the pocket of your shirt,” he said.

Other Cuban leaders joined Castro on the television program. They included two scientists who spoke of their people’s high revolutionary standards. Agustin Lage, director of Cuba’s Molecular Immunology Center, said, “We don’t need to defend ourselves; Fidel is defended by his life’s work, his ethics and his consistency. ... We are here to accuse those who steal and those who lie.” He condemned the suggestion “that we are a country of idiots or cowards without a notion of history and that we would allow the nation to be led by a leader capable of stealing and enriching himself.”

“The campaign against the Cuban president is politically motivated; it shows that the enemies of the Revolution are losing the ideological battle,” Lage said. He also pointed out the impossibility of profiteering from MEDICUBA: the company exports no medicines or biological products. He suggested that the focus on Cuba’s bio-technology industry comes from U.S. recognition that it’s a sector that produces significant income, a pattern far from universal.

Dr. Concepcion Campa directs the Finlay Institute, a center for research and production of vaccines and biological agents. She said, “Cuba’s enemies are incapable of understanding those people who do not think of money as a God. … Fidel has taught us that wealth is not measured by who has the most, but instead by who needs the least.”

“The Forbes’ defamation makes us feel sad because they are not capable of understanding that the blood, sweat and tears shed by the Cuban people have earned our greatest wealth: our service to humanity.” She cited as an example Cuba’s donation to Uruguay in 2002 of 1 million doses of a meningitis vaccine developed in Cuba. At the time, Uruguayan UN representatives were siding with the United States against Cuba.

Campa claimed that, “All of us Cubans are multi-millionaires since Fidel has taught us that people are not worth what they own, but what they are and what they are able to do.”

Castro’s modest and austere lifestyle has not gone unnoticed in the world press. For example, a BBC News story said, “Diplomats and businessmen in Havana, who have had close access to Mr. Castro, do tend to concur that avarice is not one of his vices. Most say his personal life is notable for its austerity, our correspondent adds.”

In the United States, however, views contrary to the allegations put forth by Forbes magazine have yet to surface. Nor do counter-arguments from elsewhere in the world, like the BBC’s, get a wide airing here. Uncontested lies and deceptions, reiterated and swallowed whole, once again are reinforcing prejudices among a manipulated and disrespected citizenry.

Meanwhile, the Cuban people get a refresher course on the quality of political information that emanates from the north, and which would be theirs, if the Bush administration were to have its way.

Sudanese Communist Party statement on the May 5 Abuja Agreement on Darfur

Fri, 19 May 2006 15:14:00 +0000

The Abuja Agreement reached between the government of the Sudan and the Sudan National Liberation Movement, Arkowi, was disappointing for the Sudanese people and for the people of Darfur, who made great sacrifices in order to attain a comprehensive agreement that meets their demands for a just division of wealth and power.

First: The agreement does not differ from the Nivasha one [the north-south peace agreement signed in January 2005] in its bilateral nature. It is similar to the latter in the intense pressure exerted by foreign elements, in order to impose the agreement. Thus it resembles the features of the bilateral agreement signed in Nivasha, in addition to the fact that its shortcomings and weaknesses are greater — a fact underlined by the refusal of the Justice and Equality movement and the SNLM, Abd el Wahid faction, to sign.

Second: Since the beginning of the Darfur crisis, all political forces in the Sudan have agreed to the holding of a national conference to reach an appropriate, realistic and radical solution to the problem. But the government refused the offer. Furthermore it circumvented proposals for an internal Darfurian dialogue prior to the national conference. The purpose of such dialogue was to hear the people of Darfur and be guided by their ideas at Abuja and elsewhere. But the dialogue did not conform to the required conditions set by the government, which objected to the participation of the political forces from Darfur, thus blocking a Sudanese solution to a Sudanese problem. This took place despite the fact that the government agreed at Abuja talks on Nov. 9, 2004, to present all would-be agreements at Abuja to the people of Darfur at a comprehensive national conference before concluding the agreement.

Third: The agreement deals with the government as if it were a neutral party in all the atrocities that have taken place in Darfur, while the government in fact is an integral party in the deepening of the crisis. Consequently the agreement did not deal with the question of holding to account officials and others responsible for crimes committed in Darfur.

The text of the agreement did not specify the mechanism through which the Janjaweed, will be disarmed, arrested and presented to a fair legal process.

Foreign “international” and regional powers who designed and brought to life the Nivasha agreement followed the same procedure in the solution to the Darfur crisis. This was done for a basic objective, which is the prolongation of the government’s term, because it is the only Sudanese government that can serve the interest of those powers not only in Darfur but throughout the region. Darfur, Chad, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Central African Republic and all states of Western Africa up to the Atlantic Ocean have become a field of competition and conflicts among the transnational corporations that seek to usurp, in the first place, African oil and other natural resources, using for this purpose such projects as the NEPAD [New Partnership for Africa’s Development] and similar development partnerships. The USA plays the dominant role in this regard.

Fourth: Talk about the position of Darfur and the demarcation of its boundaries, etc., does not conform to any objective reasons. Darfur has had the same boundaries since it was invaded by colonialist forces in 1916: one governorate of Darfur, with known historical and geographical boundaries. This state of affairs cannot change because the present government has divided it into three provinces, to realize its overriding desire to create disunity among the local tribes, African and Arab. The people of Darfur have been unanimous in their various conferences and even at Abuja and elsewhere in insisting that Darfur be one united province. They, the people of Darfur, can themselves choose how to determine its future.

Fifth: For all these reasons, we are of the opinion that what took place in Abuja is a deal that was brokered between the government and the “international community.” The people of Darfur as well as the entire Sudanese people are not a party to this deal. It is true that the government has shyly stated that it will agree to the entry of UN troops to Darfur only after the peace agreement is signed. But despite all the noise and empty threats which the government expressed about only allowing foreign troops in Darfur over its dead body, it has opened wide the Sudan borders to the entry of such troops, even though the agreement is still not complete, and even though peace has not materialized.

We would like to emphasize our keen desire that the question of Darfur be solved peacefully and democratically, in conformity with the wishes and aspirations of the people of Darfur, civilians and armed movements, and that the armed movements reach a program of minimum coordination of their demands, stances and actions to solve the crisis and attain the just demands of its people in division of power and wealth. We support their demand that they should have the post of one of the vice presidents of the republic and be represented in the executive and the legislative bodies, both on the federal and provincial levels, in proportion to their numbers and contribution to the national wealth.

For such an agreement to be a reality and implementable it should be presented to the people of Darfur before it is implemented, in an all-embracing conference for the people of Darfur. This will guarantee the minimum success of efforts to solve the crisis in Darfur. Otherwise the crisis will reproduce itself regardless of time.

Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Sudanese Communist Party, May 7, 2006

WHAT'S ON

Fri, 19 May 2006 07:44:00 +0000

BUFFALO, NEW YORK May 24, Wed., 7 p.m. Judith Le Blanc, nat’l co-chair, United for Peace and Justice, & a vice chair of the CPUSA, speaking on “How to Work for Peace in the World and in the U.S.” At El Buen Amigo, 114 Elmwood Ave., just north of Allen St. Free and open to the public.

CHICAGO May 20, Sat., 1:30 p.m. Labor Remembers the 1937 Memorial Day Massacre, featuring: Cecil Roberts, int’l pres. UMW; Esther Lopez, Ill. deputy chief of staff for labor; Tom Conway, vp USW. At 11731 South Ave. “O”. Sponsored by SOAR, District 7 of the United Steelworkers union and ReUnion.

CHICAGO May 21, Sun., 3 p.m. Truth Serum Blues, A play by Ismail Khalidi & Bassam Jarbawi. At Victory Gardens Theatre, 2257 N. Lincoln Ave. Tickets $10 through Victory Gardens box office. 773-871-3000. Talk-backs with Khalidi, local scholars & activists will follow performance. Presented by: Ill. Humanities Council, Arab American Action Network, Univ. of Chicago Human Rights Program, & Pangea World Theater.

Flood damage points to government neglect

Fri, 19 May 2006 07:42:00 +0000

WORCESTER, Mass. — The worst flooding in 70 years has devastated much of Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine, leaving dozens of towns disaster areas, and focusing public attention on decades of neglect for the Massachusetts infrastructure, especially its 3,000 dams.

Damage from heavy rains has been widespread: 60 percent of Saugus, Mass., was underwater at press time.

Raw sewage spewed into the Merrimack River and flooded towns in the surrounding valley as sewage treatment plants failed. A burst sewage pipe in Haverhill, Mass., began pouring 35 million gallons of sewage per day into the Merrimack. Lowell, Mass., as well as other cities and towns, found themselves bracing for the possible loss of drinking water.

Across the region, thousands of residents were evacuated, while homeowners feared for the worst.

At press time authorities and residents alike were worried that the Spicket Falls Dam in Methuen, Mass., would be breached. At around 9 p.m. on May 15, a portion of the dam had given way. Its collapse would create havoc and disaster for communities downstream.

While the cause of the flooding was natural — a storm that stalled over the region — much of the resulting threat to human welfare stems from official neglect.

The Senate Post Audit and Oversight Report on dam safety, released in Boston on May 15, pieces together a picture of decades of government neglect. According to the report, Massachusetts has no comprehensive list of its dams, despite urgings 30 years ago by the University of Massachusetts that it compile one.

Further, under the leadership of Republican Gov. Mitt Romney, the Department of Conservation and Recreation failed to adopt dam safety regulations until 2005 — three years after the Legislature past a statute requiring the DCR to do so.

The document goes on: Half the state’s dams “have not been assessed for any type of structural condition, while at least 5 percent of dams have no known hazard potential classification.” In 2001, only 14 percent of dangerous dams in the commonwealth had emergency action plans. That number actually decreased to 8 percent the next year, in contrast to the national average, 36 percent.

According to the report, the problems have worsened under Romney. While the commonwealth has only seven full-time employees to monitor all the dams, the Romney administration has denied any requests to raise staffing. In addition, while the authorities in charge of dam safety requested about $1 million dollars for dam safety, Romney only allocated about half that amount, $512,476.