AFGHANISTAN: Women election workers killed
Two Afghan women were killed and 13 were wounded on June 28 by a bomb that exploded on a bus filled with election workers travelling to Rodat to register women voters. A Taliban spokesperson claimed responsibility for the attacks and warned Afghans to stop working on the election process. As a result, the UN has reported that all female registration teams in the eastern, south-eastern, and southern regions of Afghanistan were suspended. In those areas, women are registering to vote in very low numbers. For more information, visit <http://www.feminist.org/news>.
TURKEY: Thousands protest Bush
More than 50,000 people came out in Istanbul on June 27 to protest the visit of US President George Bush to the country, and also to oppose the NATO summit he came to participate in. Protesters chanted "Istanbul will be a grave for NATO" and "Yankees go home!". Thousands also protested the opening of the NATO summit on June 28, amid clashes with police.
HAITI: Levis contractor locks workers out
Workers at the garment company Grupo M's Ouanaminthe factory, which manufactures jeans for Levis, are struggling to establish a union. On June 3, four women workers were stripped topless and interrogated by management for two hours, until workers forced a stand-off and the company brought in armed guards. Workers agreed to halt a one-day strike on June 7 when management agreed to negotiate. On June 8, Grupo M locked the workers out and announced the factory's closure. On June 9, Grupo M withdrew the threat to close and instead announced 254 workers were sacked (the union claims 370 workers have actually been laid off). The company recently received $20 million from the World Bank to keep the plant going. For more information, visit <http://www.icftu.org>.
PALESTINE: 21 wounded at Beit Hanun
On June 29, shortly after Beit Hanun's municipality had rebuilt damage from previous Israeli incursions, dozens of Israeli tanks and armoured bulldozers backed by combat helicopters invaded the town and started razing vast expanses of residents' arable lands and citrus plantations. Heavy, wide gunfire wounded 21 people, most of them children, according to the town's hospital. In addition, an ambulance was destroyed by gunfire and journalists were forced to retreat after being fired upon. The destruction reached streets, bridges, buildings, water, telephone and sewage networks.
NICARAGUA: Deal struck for university funding
After months of street protests, several serious casualties and at least one death, universities were able finally to claim victory on June 10 in their long and bitter struggle to get the government to comply with the constitution and fund the universities with 6% of GDP. After a police officer died as a result of being struck in the chest by a home-made mortar, the police took to the streets in an unprecedented protest to demand the government concede the money and end the fighting. Presidential secretary Eduardo Montealegre announced that the universities would receive the full 6% share, to be paid partly in cash and partly in government bonds to be redeemed within 12 months. For more information, visit <http://www.nicanet.org/>.
SOUTH AFRICA: Man killed at disconnection protest
Nineteen-year-old Marcel King was killed by security guards on June 24 in Pheonix, north of Durban, after residents attempted to stop an electricity disconnection. Caught by surprise by the disconnection, locals gathered around the van. King, whose relatives say was there to ask when the government's promised pay-as-you-go electricity system would be available, went to stand between his mother and a guard who was hitting her. He was shot in the head at short range. The family have laid charges, but as of June 27, no arrests had been made. For more South Africa progressive news, visit <http://southafrica.indymedia.org>.
UNITED STATES: Bioterrorism charges dropped
On June 29, art professor Steve Kurtz was charged with petty larceny, a much lesser change than the bioterrorism he was arrested for after calling police on May 11 because his wife had died from a heart seizure. On arriving at his house, the police called the FBI to investigate Kurtz's art supplies, which contained harmless bacteria. Kurtz's computers, manuscripts, books, equipment, and even his wife's body were impounded. Kurtz is a prominent member of the Critical Art Ensemble, which describes itself as "a collective of five artists of various specialisations dedicated to exploring the intersections between art, technology, radical politics and critical theory". Protests in three cities on June 15 condemned the charges as part of corporate attempts to lock up biotechnology access. The remaining charge relates to technicalities about how Kurtz obtained the bacteria.
From Green Left Weekly, July 7, 2004.
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