A massive movement of students overthrew the dictator and aim for deeper social transformation, which needs to encompass various social forces. Can the needed solidarity between students and workers chart a way forward?
Bangladesh
World in View: Bangladesh student protests a mass movement?
August 3, 2024What started as a student protest at universities has become an expression of profound discontent about life in Bangladesh. Can this mass movement grow and force authentic change?
World in View: Garment workers protest in Bangladesh
November 16, 2023Garment workers poured out of factories in Dhaka and other cities in Bangladesh to demand a wage of about $200 a month. The police responded with tear gas and rubber bullets. Bangladesh is the second largest garment-producing country in the world after China.
Cyclone spotlights disasters in Burma, China
June 5, 2023After Cyclone Mocha devastated Rakhine State in Myanmar (Burma) on May 14, the National Unity Group representing civilian opposition and armed resistance reported 200 Rohingya Muslims had been killed as the storm hit with 130-mile-per-hour winds.
May-June: Women WorldWide
May 11, 2023Takes up: Canadian Dawn Dumont Walker’s struggle to keep her son and escape her abusive ex-partner; the Spanish parliament passing legislation for paid leave for debilitating menstrual pain and decriminalizing abortion, including for minors; and the life-altering and horrendous suffering of women in Bangladesh due to climate chaos.
Rohingya burned out
January 31, 2021Rohingya Muslims have faced extreme hardship at the hands of Burma’s military with the cooperation of the civilian government under once opposition leader Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, spurred on by Buddhist religious leaders encouraging genocide.
Capitalism is the real pandemic
April 6, 2020Neither the coronavirus nor the ongoing climate changes are merely “acts of nature.” Rather both have emerged at this moment because humanity is grounded—entrapped—in the economic-social-political system(s) of capital/capitalism. It is the behemoth that we must examine: the monster we must free ourselves from.
Chicago Vigil for the Rohingya
September 27, 2018Over 100 people gathered in Chicago’s Federal Plaza on Aug. 25, 2018, for a vigil on the one-year anniversary of the massacre of the Muslim minority Rohingya in Burma.
Youth In Action: September-October 2016
September 17, 2016A look at youth activism including factory workers protest the murder of child laborer Sagar Barman; women’s skateboard team Las Brujas finds creative ways to fight male domination in the sport of skateboarding; Helena High School students supporting Kaitlyn Juvik in her right to choose not to wear a bra; and activists who protested two years ago in Hong Kong for freer elections are sentenced and vow to continue the struggle.
Refugees risk death fleeing war, terror and climate chaos
June 28, 2015Worldwide, the refugee crisis is unprecedented and is fueled by war, terrorism and climate change. The worldwide response is paltry with country after country turning away or deporting frantic and desperate people in search of a safe haven.
World In View: Threats to Rohingya
March 11, 2015Over one million Rohingya, a Muslim people living in Burma (Myanmar), are once again being subjected to threats from the state.
Youth In Action, September-October 2014
August 30, 2014Salt Lake City students, faculty and supporters defend Multicultural Initiatives Department; Dreamers fight deportations; Texas students, faculty and staff oppose “shared services”; students protest REI sweatshops.
Capitalist economy is failing
March 15, 2014Ongoing national strikes and demonstrations by fast food workers demanding a $15 an hour living wage show that workers’ reality is not the media-touted economic “recovery” enjoyed by the super-wealthy finance capitalists. In real life the 2008 depression drags on. In a punitive move, Congressional Republicans wouldn’t even allow a vote for long-term unemployment benefits to continue, in spite of the record 1.7 million, or 37% of the officially unemployed, who have been out of work for six months or longer. Previously, a rate anywhere near this was called an emergency, compelling an automatic extension of benefits.
L.A. garment dialogue
February 23, 2014Garment workers and organizers from Bangladesh and Los Angeles discussed their labor conditions at the downtown L.A. Garment Center
Premeditated murder in Bangladesh
July 10, 2013Rana Plaza, the building that collapsed in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on April 24, killing 1,127 workers—most of them young women—was constructed illegally. It is easy to show negligence and affix blame to this or that individual. But the greater truth lies within a system that is based on the most production at the lowest cost, with workers’ lives—and deaths—regarded as only one more cost of production.
Violence ‘normalized’
May 17, 2013We are living in contradictory times, especially when it comes to women’s struggle for freedom. On the one hand you have a Women’s Liberation Movement that has never been more radical, unified and global. On the other hand there is more repression, and the violence is more brutal and deadly than ever before.
From India to Egypt to U.S., women fighting for freedom
March 17, 2013From the March-April 2013 issue of News & Letters
by Terry Moon
Two recent events have shown the deep and seemingly intractable worldwide oppression of women and, at the same time, revealed women’s militancy and determination to change their oppressive reality. First was the vicious gang rape and murder of Jyoti Singh Pandey at the end of [=>]
Readers’ Views, May-June 2011
June 8, 2011From the new issue of NEWS & LETTERS, May-June 2011:
Readers’ Views
Contents:
- A CALL FROM SOUTH AFRICA
- STUDENTS WIN AT USF
- THREE HISTORIC ANNIVERSARIES
- JUSTICE FOR JOHNATHAN CUEVAS
- FROM YEMEN TO THE U.S., MANY VOICES OF WOMEN’S LIBERATION
- DETROIT SYMPHONY VICTORY
- FOR JOHN ALAN (ALLEN WILLIS)
A CALL FROM SOUTH AFRICA
A call by Abahlali baseMjondolo for Madikizela to step down as MEC [Member [=>]
Triangle fire centennial
March 26, 2011March 25, 2011, marks the centennial of the Triangle Waist Company factory fire where 149 workers, most of them young Jewish immigrant women, jumped to their death from a ten-story building. The fire doors were locked to keep the women from stealing a bit of cloth or thread; the building had no fire escapes, and [=>]