Feature Archives

Venezuela’s President Hugo Chávez sent battalions of soldiers to the border with Colombia and put his air force on alert after the Colombian military killed 18 members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) inside Ecuador, including Raúl Reyes, a senior official of the FARC. Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa fortified his border with Colombia after the incident. Chávez is in the midst of negotiations with the FARC to release hostages, several of whom have already been freed. He warned that a Colombian operation against the FARC inside Venezuela would be a “causus belli."

On September 1-4 of 2008, the Republican Party is holding their convention in Minnesota. The RNC Welcoming Committee wants to make sure that "this time the fear-mongers will be met with their own biggest fear: people mobilized, organized, and taking the future back into their own hands." From March 2-8, the RNC Welcoming Committee's Infotour will make six stops in Northern California to share their plans and get input to take back to Minneapolis on their preparations to crash the convention in the Twin Cities in September.

On February 7th, the Australian Government released graphic photos of whales being slaughtered by a Japanese whaling fleet to the media. The Australian Government has also extended the mission of the Oceanic Viking in documenting the whale slaughter in preparation for an international legal case against Japanese whaling. The graphic images apparently show a mother minke whale and its calf being winched aboard a Japanese vessel after being shot with explosive tipped harpoons.

Direct Action to Stop the War (DASW) organized protests for Tuesday, February 5th, the day California voters went to the polls for the 2008 presidential primary, to demand that Democratic presidential candidates take stronger anti-war positions. DASW called into question the "anti-war" credentials of candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Protesters gathered at 5pm in San Francisco's U.N. Plaza and in Oakland's Frank Ogawa Plaza for marches to Clinton's and Obama's campaign headquarters in SF and Oakland.

On January 20th, Retired Army Col. and US diplomat Ann Wright spoke in Santa Cruz to an audience of about 70 people about her new book "Dissent: Voices of Conscience". The book profiles government officials whose loyalty to the Constitution and the American people ultimately transcended partisan politics. The afternoon opened with songs from the Raging Grannies, and an introduction by Santa Cruz County Supervisor Neal Coonerty and Diane Rejman of the GI Rights Hotline.

On January 10th, Boatamo Mosupyoe, Professor of African Studies at CSU Sacramento, spoke at the Veterans Memorial Building in Santa Cruz. Dr. Mosupyoe is an expert on mediation and interest-based negotiation, conflict resolution and civil society’s role in mitigating and resolving conflicts. Mosupyoe addressed Africa’s unique contribution to the growing appreciation of mediation and conflict resolution methodologies and ethics in addressing regional and world problems.

On Saturday, January 19th, the San Francisco Tenants Union will be holding a "Save Rent Control Convention" from 1:00-4:00pm to raise awareness and organize against an anti-rent control ballot measure that recently qualified for the June 2008 elections. The measure, which purports to be about reforming eminent domain, will abolish rent control in California, erode environmental protections, negatively affect local land-use planning, and stop future water projects.