Palestinians protest Israeli jail conditions
April 17 was widely observed across the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as “Prisoners’ Day,” a day of solidarity with Palestinian prisoners who are languishing in Israeli jails. Thousands of people took to the streets to protest what the Palestinian Prisoner Club called “intolerable living conditions” inside Israeli prisons.
Rising Japanese militarism sparks Asian protests
Tensions between Japan and its East Asian neighbors have reached a boiling point, with demonstrations against rising Japanese militarism erupting in China, Korea, Vietnam and elsewhere within the past few weeks.
At University of CaliforniaSanta Cruz: Students send military recruiters packing
On April 5 nearly 300 University of California–Santa Cruz students and community allies shut down the annual Stevenson Event Center Career Fair, where recruiters from the Army, Navy and Marines had set up tables. The activists demanded that recruiters leave immediately and turn their tabling spots over to student counter-recruitment activists, which they eventually did.
Eyewitness report: Washington U students sit in for justice
ST. LOUIS — I am one of roughly a dozen students at Washington University who walked into the admissions office of our school April 4 carrying food, commitment, clothes, books, nerves and a passion for economic justice for the workers on our campus. We’ve been sitting in for 15 days and conducted a hunger strike for six of those days. We won’t be leaving until justice — in the form of a living wage for campus workers — is achieved.
National Clips
BILLINGS, Mont.: Legislature condemns Patriot Act; SPRINGFIELD, Ill.: Protest weakening of lead standards; THREE RIVERS, Texas: Hometown honors hero; BIRMINGHAM, Ala.: Deaths blamed on privatized jails
Border bigots get cool reception
TUCSON, Ariz. — The Statue of Liberty made a quick trip to Tombstone, Ariz., on April 1, welcoming all new immigrants coming to America in search of jobs and freedom. She also came to have her say about the Minuteman Project, a group of armed civilians invading Arizona in the month of April who claim the U.S. government hasn’t done enough to “secure” the Mexican-U.S. border.
L.A. mayors race could make history
LOS ANGELES — With less than a month to go before the May 17 vote in the heated mayoral runoff here, there are strong signs that City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa could become the city’s first Mexican American mayor since 1872.
U.S. seen as roadblock to ending nukes
NEW YORK — The Bush administration — not the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), Iran, or any other “rogue state” — is most responsible for the threat of nuclear proliferation, say organizers of the March and Rally for Peace in Iraq and Nuclear Disarmament Worldwide set for May 1 at the United Nations.
Communists launch online discussion
With a newly launched web site, the Communist Party USA is inviting broad discussion on how Americans can defeat the Bush agenda and build a bigger and stronger movement for peace, democracy, jobs and equality.
Workers Memorial Day 2005: In Memory of Gary Puleio
Gary was killed on the job at a concrete plant on August 15, 2001. He had been employed there only three months as a cement truck driver and fell 25 feet to his death, from a cement tower, while shoveling gravel off the hopper to clean it.
