World News & Views

When Election Day arrives in November, the state of Virginia will likely play a huge role in determining whether Democrat Barack Obama or Republican John McCain is the next president of the United States. Unfortunately, the vote tally from the Old Dominion will be illegitimate because the state will disenfranchise nearly 350,000 individuals who are barred from voting because of felony convictions.

Banco de Venezuela is one of the most important banks in Venezuela, with a 12 percent share of the market in loans and obtained profits of US$170 million in the first half of 2008, a 29 percent increase on 2007, when its profits had already increased by 20 percent. It has 285 offices and 3 million customers. Banco de Venezuela was nationalized in 1994 after a massive banking crisis which bankrupted 60 percent of the banking sector, only to be privatized in 1996 and bought by the Spanish multinational banking group Grupo Santander for only US$300 million. In only nine months Grupo Santander recovered its original investment.

When I arrived in Rhodesia, 1968 had already been a momentous year in the United States. U.S. setbacks in Vietnam had led Lyndon Johnson to announce his withdrawal from the 1968 presidential campaign. Days later, on April 4, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, and Sen. Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated on June 5. Meanwhile, Black Power activists in the United States, led by young Blacks like me, were urging Black Americans to be proud of our African heritage. I felt lucky to be in Africa.

In a country where racism is still alive, it is important for White America not only to see, but also to understand Black America's story as well. For too long only a partial testament has been given to the adversity that affects millions of our people on a daily basis. Someone should take the time to find the "why." It is this question that millions of people never ask. Did CNN's "Black in America" answer it?

The Prisoners of Conscience Committee delegation from the United States returned recently from a fact-finding mission in El Salvador. We were in three cities - San Salvador, Suchitoto and Sansonate - and we talked to former combatants, government officials, union leaders, community leaders, members of street organizations, former political prisoners and more. One of my favorite groups that we met was Radio Zurda, a collective of youth who do a political radio show heard in El Salvador and Honduras, targeted towards a youth audience.

“His homeland, Gaza, is surrounded, starved, attacked, forgotten. He is a profoundly humane witness to one of the great injustices of our time. He is the voice of the voiceless.”

I was sitting in San Francisco, something like halfway between England and its former convict colony, Australia, when I stumbled on news that the Queen of England had placed former Australian Prime Minister John Howard, one of President George Bush's closest allies, very near the top of her list of 458 Australian birthday honors on June 9, just eight days after Australia's new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd finally pulled the last of the Australian troops that John Howard had, in 2003, committed to our Iraq War.

Vieques is an exquisite white-sand-trimmed island, a jewel in the blue Caribbean, where the 10,000 Viequenses fight valiantly for cleanup of massive contamination left by the U.S. Navy.

Sami Al-Hajj was released after spending more than seven years in U.S. custody. He was released without ever being prosecuted.

35 percent of the National Assembly members are Black, up from 33 percent in 2003 and 28 percent in 1998. Forty-three percent of the National Assembly members are women, making Cuba one of the worlds’ leaders in the percentage of women in representative government.

What’s different is you’re going to hear the voices of the people. You don’t usually hear the voice of the people.

While Washington assures that its sole interest in the region is combating “new threats” – terrorism, drug trafficking and the Maras gangs of Central America – Latin American people often see it as the pursuit of “imperialist” interests dictated by energy needs.

In San Francisco, more than a thousand people marched from Local 10’s union hall, led by the Local 10 Drill Team, along the Embarcadero where the 1934 Big Strike took place.

Supposedly, the UN occupation and the 2006 election had allowed Haitians to forget that its democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, had been overthrown in a violent coup. The massive protest over food prices has shattered this facade.

“We’re under domestic insurgency. If we don’t get it, it will get us.” – California Attorney General Jerry Brown, Anti-Gang Conference, Riverside, Calif., December 2007 “We’re mounting a coordinated, aggressive suppression strategy that targets the worst offenders and the most violent gangs. We’re converging local, state, federal and even international efforts … coming at them with everything we have.” – Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Feb. 8, 2007, press conference

Since 1963 West Papua, a land whose rich natural resources are being exploited by multi-national corporations, has been occupied by the Indonesian armed forces. The people of West Papua have been subjected to gross human rights violations including rape, torture, cultural genocide, murder and massacre.

A group of journalists is determined to seek a fair retrial of death row prisoner, noted journalist and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, and they point to evidence they say provides further proof of his innocence: photos from the crime scene that the jury never had the chance to see.

For small non-commercial radio stations across the country, the ability to stream programs on the Internet is indispensable. Instead of being limited to the wattage granted to them by the FCC, streaming on-line allows stations to reach listeners all over the world.

"There is nothing divine about something built to destroy life," said lifelong war resister and Western Shoshone elder Carrie Dann, as she was arrested, yet again, protesting "Divine Strake."

Multi-award winning photojournalist, Malaika Kambon, in 2004 detailed the crushing evidence of capitalist imperialist monster maneuvers the U.S. used then, bringing current seven years hence the rooted reality of Haiti’s and Iraq’s ongoing struggles today.