Newsitem List

3/11: As the finance ministers of over 40 countries convened at the annual Interamerican Development Bank meeting in Fortaleza, Brasil, thousands of anti-capitalists and reformist liberals protested their dreams of selling off the last square acre of Brazil to the highest corporate bidder. Summary | Photos | IMC Brasil | Background on the BID?...

3/29-31: Anarchists will again converge in SF for the annual Anarchist Book Fair. Scores of anarchist conspirators and bookworms are expected to arrive this weekend for the 5th annual anarchist cafe this Friday and the Book Fair on Saturday at Kezar Pavilion. On Sunday, a Bay Area Anarchist Conference will take place at New College....

3/17: 300,000 to 500,000 people took to the streets of Barcelona over the weekend to oppose "free" trade and capitalist expansion. The EU Spring Summit has provoked a diversity of resistance, from anarchists and anti-capitalists to reformist groups. Riot police fired tear gas on the crowds and injured several dozen protesters, including several press photographers. Around one hundred arrests have been reported so far. Video | 3/14 report | 3/10 Reclaim the Streets report | Photos | Complete ...

3/17: An Israeli tank shell slammed into a Bethlehem church compound on 3/14, as IDF troops invaded the city. The building also housed a hospital and an orphanage. For the past week, Israel has defied international outcry as they continue their blood-soaked raids into occupied Palestine. Using armed soldiers, F-16 bombings, missiles, attack helicopters and gunships, Israel has killed over 100 Palestinians (mostly civilians) and kidnapped more than 500 other people in the past week alone. H...

This Sunday, March 10 people will be meeting at Civic Center Plaza in San Francisco to call attention to the nationwide housing crisis and demand the quick passage of the National Affordable Housing Trust Fund - an ambitious piece of housing construction legislation now in Congress. There will be speakers, on-site tenant counseling, performances and action! Details | National Housing Trust Fund Campaign | SF Land Trust Task Force...

The first-ever city sponsored homeless summit, a free, all-day event, designed to bring together homeless people, service providers, advocates, commercial interests, city department heads, elected officials, and concerned neighborhood groups, took place at SF Herbst Theater on Thurs 3/7. Over 700 people attended a rally held on Sunday which has become an all-night vigil outside City Hall....

2/20: Since September 11th, the rapidly-expanding US law enforcement apparatus has been on the move, disappearing and kidnapping thousands of people without revealing any information to their families. Many people do not know where their loved ones are. At least one man has died in custody and many more report torture (Audio). One of 23 demonstrations across the country in solidarity with the disappeared in the U.S.A. took place at the Federal Building in San Francisco 2/20. There was a heavy...

2/19: Concurrent rallies took place at three Bay Area airports to express solidarity for the thousands of immigrant airport employees who face termination under the Aviation and Transportation Security Act. As baggage screeners become federalized and new citizenship requirements come into effect, thousands of non-citizen workers stand to lose their jobs – 1,200 in the Bay Area alone. In Oakland, airport security companies informed their employees that “anyone who attended the conference sho...

Now is the time! Take action for the U'wa! - as of Nov 3 Occidental has begun test drilling at the Gibraltar 1 drillsite, under cover of US elections' publicity....

3/17: As Maxxam/Pacific Lumber continue their aggressive quest to liquidate the last of their old growth holdings in Humboldt County, activists continue to rise up into the canopy of these ancient trees to peacefully resist. Two new tree-sits have gone up within the past week, located near the town of Freshwater, where despite evidence of off-the-chart sediment levels in the water caused by destructive clear-cut logging practices, the California Department of Forestry is giving Maxxam the go-...

Tree-sitting protests have begun on Pacific Lumber property at Grizzly Creek, where some of the largest remaining unprotected old-growth redwoods are on the chopping block. Help is needed right now or these trees will be cut! A new group of activists have emerged out of the Pacific Northwest calling themselves "The Natural Guard," setting up a tree-village 220 feet up in an enormous (24 ft diameter) redwood called Zen connected with a traverse to another tree named Merlin. More platfor...

Nov 2, Eureka, Ca: The Green Party of Humboldt County held a news conference at the courthouse to explain that Al Gores ratings are his responsibility and not Ralph Nader's. A vote for Nader is a vote for Nader and not George Bush. Later the Nader supporters, numbering 30 to 40 marched to the Democratic Headquarters with signs and leaflets....

2/25: Two IMCs have recently come under fire from different sources. On Feb 20, Italian paramilitary police raided several locations they claimed were Italy Indymedia centers - seizing computers, archives and equipment supposedly in search of materials relating to the anti-G8 protests in July 2001. Italy IMC | Italy IMC press release | Police violence at solidarity demo in London & video Also, the Swiss-Jewish pressure group Aktion Kinder des Holocaust (Children of the Holocaust) is threaten...

The SF Police Commission decided to keep the cops who assaulted 4 Hunter's Point teens on active duty, even after seeing and hearing eyewitness testimony, photographic evidence including the badge numbers of officers involved. The families of the teenagers have decided to return to the Police Commission on Wed, April 10th at the Hall of Justice at 5pm with a list of demands. On 2/27, 100 people showed up at the Police Commission to express their outrage about police violence and to demand tha...

Oakland 2/19: The Oakland City Council approved funding for a 24 hour, year-round 100 bed homeless shelter, and GAP financing for 1,500 rental units of very low-income housing to be built. With a sigh of relief, Bay Area Housing Activists applauded the efforts of council member Nadel and Reids Task Force on Homelessness, for addressing the ever growing problems of homelessness in Oakland. Details | Housing News...

Over 40 organizations and individuals that have experienced homelessness or provide services to homeless people unveiled their community-based plans to combat homelessness. "We have spent the last several months gathering input from experts on homelessness-homeless people and organizations that work with them," said LS Wilson, an organizer with the Coalition on Homelessness. While various proposals have been introduced in the last several weeks, none incorporate input from people directly aff...

The "article" here is two paragrphs from a world socialist website (wsws.org)article 11/2/00. For the entire article click on the web address. This is presented to discourage a vote for Nader, but to stimulate discussion....

PROTEST WILLIE BROWN & THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY MACHINE CORRUPTION AT CLINTON'S ADDRESS ON 10/27 11:00AM AT MOSCONE SOUTH....

Latest Dot.coms go belly up including San Francisco's Petopia.com...

A community forum to plan responses to police brutality in San Francisco Hunter's Point is being held this Thursday. Tenisha Bishop and Susie McAllister document yet another SFPD rampage against blacks in Hunter's Point. These two mothers tell what happened on Martin Luther King's holiday as they watched their children get beat by police. The police told one mother when she asked why this was happening, "As long as you people are here, we will act like this." Photo #1 | Photo #2 | Upcoming Co...

The Department of Corrections is proposing changes to the current visitation rules which will have a profoundly negative impact on prisoners and their families. These changes pose yet another assault on the primarily poor minority communities which constitute the majority of those incarcerated in California's (in)justice system. A public hearing to review the proposal will occur on March 8th in Sacramento. Details...

1/22: The Oakland City Council passed the Spees/Brunner Task Force Deal to redefine current rent laws. Despite 70 people who spoke out against it during public comment, the already despised new rent proposals passed by a vote of 6 to 2. The 2 people who spoke in its favor were John Holmgren of the Oakland Realtor\\\'s Association and Greg McConnell, a landlord lobbyist, both of whom served on the Task Force that drafted the plan. The new rent law ends the moratorium on rent increases afte...