COLOR LINES– What began as a hunger strike among inmates of the isolation wing of California’s Pelican Bay prison has turned into a statewide display of solidarity. A number of prisoners in Pelican Bay’s Security Housing Unit, California’s highest-security complex, refused their state-provided morning meal on Friday to protest the inhumane conditions of their confinement. Inmates in the Security Housing … Read More
united states
Child Poverty in US Nears 25%
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CBS– Unemployment improved a bit last month but it is still nearly nine percent and the trouble is job creation is so slow, it will be years before we get back the seven and a half million jobs lost in the Great Recession. American families have been falling out of the middle class in record numbers. The combination of lost jobs … Read More
Israel to Shut Down Gaza Aid Flotilla
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THE NATION– Amid the economic and social upheaval of Greece’s beleaguered capital city, where demonstrators have been protesting government-imposed austerity measures, forty activists from across the United States began training this week to nonviolently confront the Israeli military blockade of Gaza. The Americans are part of a flotilla of ten ships—from France, Ireland, Canada, Norway, Greece, Sweden and other countries—planning to … Read More
Alice Walker on the Struggle for Justice
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ELECTRONIC INTIFADA– Celebrated American author and poet Alice Walker will later this month be among 38 people aboard the Audacity of Hope, the ship sponsored by US Boat to Gaza as part of an international effort to break Israel’s maritime siege of Gaza. In a conversation with Ali Abunimah, Walker speaks about her thoughts on the eve of the trip and … Read More
Iraq: Thousands Rally Against U.S. Troops
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TIME– Iraqi Shi’ite militia fighters led a massive rally of followers of a hard-liner anti-American cleric on Thursday, marching in Baghdad in a show of defiance as Iraqi leaders weigh whether to keep U.S. troops in the country beyond the end of the year. An estimated 70,000 supporters of Muqtada al-Sadr waved Iraqi flags and shouted “No, no, America!” as … Read More