International notes
Ecuador: Banana workers fight for union/Vietnam: Gov’t sets 2003 social & economic agenda/Burkina Faso: Thousands march vs. privatization/New Zealand: Unions say overwork hurts families/Cuba: Education a continuing priority
Wo-Chi-Ca book offers glimpse of camp
There have been a number of books published in recent years that have surveyed the role of the “Left” in the pre- and post-war periods – some in critical, anti-communist tones, and others, like Red Diapers, the collective memoir of children of Communists, in a more positive and rounded view.
FARC responds to terrorist designation
In a July 18 statement, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia-People’s Army (FARC-EP) expressed great appreciation for the European Union’s role in the now-interrupted peace process between the FARC and the Colombian government, as well as profound regret that the EU has now excluded itself from the process through its recent listing of the FARC as a “terrorist” organization.
A specter haunting The New York Times
A specter may be haunting the august New York Times – the specter of communism.
World condemns Israeli attack
Governments and organizations from around the world have condemned the July 23 Israeli attack on five apartment buildings in a highly populated area of Gaza City. The F-16 fighter jet bombing killed 15 Palestinian civilians, including nine children, and wounded 150 people, and occurred at a time when seven of eight cities in the West Bank have been occupied for over one month.
Foreign policy: Shaping global affairs
American national politics has recently become driven and dominated by foreign and military policy. At a time when the global economy so directly shapes the national economy, and when global issues such as climate change are changing the ways Americans think about their relationship to the rest of the world, it is only fitting that national politics be framed by global politics. The common wisdom of citizen activists – global is local, local is global – has, it seems, finally seeped into the national political arena.
AFSCME puts political action at top of agenda
American workers are under attack by an anti-worker president who didn’t even win the election for the office he holds.
Anne E. Burlak Timpson May 24, 1911 July 9, 2002 May 24, 1911 July 9, 2002
Anne Burlak Timpson died at age 91 on July 9, 2002.
Wolfowitz invokes bad guys to justify civilian deaths
In a Machevellian-type of logic, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz justified the killing of Afghan civilians when a U.S. AC-130 gunship fired on several villages in Uruzgan province, July 1. Wolfowitz said, during a visit to Bagram air base, headquarters for U.S. military operations in Afghanistan, “We have no regrets about going in after bad guys and there were some there.”
New victims on the vain altar of the occupation
An Israeli soldier and a Palestinian fighter were killed July 17 as Israel mounted a massive manhunt in the rocky hills of the West Bank following the bombing of a bus that killed eight Israelis near an orthodox Jewish settlement.
