From New York Times we hear that President Bush is threatening to veto a bill that “would pay tuition and other expenses at a four-year public university for anyone who has served in the military for at least three years since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.” The main reason for this? Fear that it would cause an exodus from military ranks. In a society in which workers have faced a 35 year-year downward pressure on their standard of living (Independent (UK) 23 March), i.e. the cost of living has increased whereas wages have remained stagnant or decreased, many...
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About 12 people were killed and more than 50 were taken to hospitals with gunshot and stab wounds last night in Johannesburg, South Africa’s largest city. Local police used tear gas and rubber bullets in attempt to try to stop the attackers – gangs of armed youths. (BBC) This was not, however, the racial violence we are used to hearing regarding South Africa. The victims of these attacks are immigrants from neighboring African countries such as Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Malawi etc. The BBC report sated that “Since the end of apartheid, millions of African immigrants have poured into South Africa...
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After months of labor unrest over pension reforms, thousands of workers in Greece walked off the job yesterday and marched through the streets of Athens in protest of current conservative government’s plans to privatize more industries. According to the report: Dock workers, hospital and civil aviation authority staff and workers at Greece’s biggest phone company OTE walked out a day after the government agreed to sell a stake in OTE to Deutsche Telekom and share management with the German firm. In other industrial sectors there were slowdowns or stoppages, including the grounding of dozens of flights and the closing...
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Members of a union representing the workers of the indigenous Kanak population in the French Pacific territory of New Caledonia have been forcibly removed by local police for blocking entry to more than two dozen businesses, according to a report from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). The workers were protesting for the right to strike after several union members had previously been punished for similar work stoppages. The ABC report mentioned the claim of the local French employer’s group, Medef, that “the workers were punished for unjustified absences from work during an illegal strike,” and added that “In January,...
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Can you spare a dime?
The American government’s potential bail out package is now at $7 trillion and rising. It will be the most expensive single expenditure in American history, more expensive than WWII ($3.6 trillion in today’s dollars, and greater than the Marshall plan, the Louisiana purchase, the Korean War, the Vietnam war, and the entire budget of NASA to date (including the moon landing) together, all in today’s dollars(globalnetnews-summary@lists.riseup.net). You have to wonder how a government that can’t solve poverty, homelessness, and health care for its citizens can access theses prodigious sums. Just like 1939 when a decade of deprivation for the...
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