Feature Archives

Wednesday, March 19th, 2008 marks the five-year anniversary of the beginning of the US war and occupation of Iraq. Events will be held all over the United States to observe and protest the ongoing war and its environmental, societal, and financial tolls. The Iraq war is the second longest in U.S. history. It has killed more than one million Iraqis and 4,000 U.S. troops. The cost of the war is now running at more than $400 million per day, nearly $5,000 per second. In San Francisco, there will be direct actions throughout the day on the 19th, as well as an ANSWER march.

On January 24th, United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Chuck Conner announced the availability of $74.5 million in emergency funding to combat the light brown apple moth (LBAM) "infestation" in California. President Bush's recent budget proposal sent to Congress sets aside $330 Million to eradicate plant pests, like the LBAM. It is unprecedented to design a long term plan to spray chemicals on people, which are untested for safety.

On Wednesday, March 5th, 2008, several students at San Francisco State University came together to Reclaim the Quad in protest of the fee hikes. Since 2002, fees have gone up 94% -- making education inaccessible and unaffordable to working class students. The latest fee increases and budget cuts have caused students to pay more for less. Students on campus have been organizing to demand an end to the fee hikes using direct-action and educational outreach.

Direct Action to Stop the War is planning "mass direct actions" to protest the 5th anniversary of the US-led war and occupation of Iraq. For March 19th, DASW is organizing a day of decentralized, multiple-target direct action against government offices and war profiteers in downtown San Francisco. Direct Action Radio will be on 102.5 and streamed over Indybay. People will be able to call in reports from the street. DASW, along with community organizations, held a direct action outside of the Chevron refinery in Richmond on March 15th.

A federal court in San Francisco has wiped whistleblower site Wikileaks.org offline, granting an injunction requested by lawyers for a Swiss bank, which is attempting to prevent the public from accessing allegations of illegal activity at the bank. On Feb. 18th, Judge Jeffrey S. White ordered Wikileaks.org's San Mateo-based domain registrar to "disable the wikileaks.org domain name" and to "immediately clear and remove all DNS hosting records for the wikileaks.org domain name."

To celebrate the growing support for medical cannabis and the spread of safe access in medical cannabis states throughout the nation, Americans for Safe Access (ASA) organized Medical Marijuana Week 2008. Medical Marijuana Week commemorated the passage of Proposition 215, California's medical cannabis law. Each day during the week, Americans for Safe Access announced opportunities to advance safe access to medical cannabis, through actions such as educating one's community, meeting with U.S. Senators, and more. Events were held in San Francisco, Oakland, and Berkeley during the course of the week.

On Wednesday, Feb. 13th, attorneys will present oral arguments in the infamous Fajitagate case before the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in a special hearing at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall. In a motion for recusal filed last week, plaintiff's attorney Dennis Cunningham asserted that Judge Bybee, one of three judges on the panel, cannot be fair because of his involvement in authorizing the Bush Administration's torture policies.