New book eloquently describes tragedy of Cuban exile
For people you know who are impervious to what you tell them about the triumphs of the Cuban Revolution or the evils of U.S. Cuba policy, but who have good hearts and can be moved by stories of human tragedy and triumph, here is an excellent holiday present.
Scofflaw UnitedHealth pushes UK privatization
UnitedHealth, the discredited scofflaw U.S. health insurance company, just paid $12 million in fines to 37 state governments for its illegal administrative practices. The settlement followed years of legal problems. This hasn’t stopped UnitedHealth from seeking to expand its profiteering in the United Kingdom.
Australia signs Kyoto pact on gas emissions
As one of his very first official actions Dec. 3, Kevin Rudd, Australia’s newly sworn-in prime minister, signed the instrument of ratification for the Kyoto Protocol limiting greenhouse gas emissions. The ratification will come into force in 90 days.
Medical students rally for World AIDS Day
CHICAGO — Wearing white lab coats and red armbands, dozens of American Medical Student Association members from schools across the Midwest rallied here Nov. 30, urging presidential candidates to back expanded, comprehensive programs to fight AIDS and reject President Bush’s abstinence-only focus. Nationwide rallies took place in San Francisco and Washington, D.C., on Dec. 1.
After elections, Venezuelans vow to press ahead
The campaign to reshape Venezuela’s 1999 constitution toward a socialist future ended Dec. 2 in a narrow defeat for the government of President Hugo Chavez.
Bali and Beyond: A New Green Economics
We have read the science. Global warming is real, and we are a prime cause. We have heard the warnings. Unless we act, now, we face serious consequences. Polar ice may melt. Sea levels will rise. A third of our plant and animal species could vanish. There will be famine around the world, particularly in Africa and Central Asia.
Must-see documentaries showcased in Toronto
For the first time in its 32-year history, the Toronto International Film Festival screened a film that was simultaneously available for free streaming on the Internet. The 7-minute short film, “Shock Doctrine,” based on Naomi Klein’s bestselling book, is co-directed by Mexico’s acclaimed director Alfonso Cuarón, famous for “Y Tu Mamá También” and “Children of Men.”
Communists and workers of the world celebrate the Great October Revolution
MOSCOW – Over 20,000 people marched and rallied here Nov. 7 to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Great October Revolution. The date marks the victory by the Russian working class and its peasant allies for political power, sending shockwaves around the world. Commemorative events involving thousands more were held across the country.
EDITORIAL: 1917
John Reed, the great American labor journalist and a founder of the Communist Party USA, was the first to bring this country the news of what had happened in Russia on Nov. 7, 1917. In “Ten Days that Shook the World,” he wrote that the workers, led by Lenin, and carrying the banner of “peace, bread and brotherhood,” had seized power.
Bush-Cheney vs. the Armenian genocide
During World War I, the Turkish-controlled Ottoman Empire was crumbling. In the decades before the war, economic dislocation and political crisis intensified the long-standing oppression of the Armenian Christian minority. World War I (1914-1918) was a bloody war between rising and aging empires: the Ottoman Empire was allied with the German monarchy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire on the losing side, against an alliance of Czarist Russia, Britain, France, Japan and the United States.
