Women World Wide: July 2024

July 8, 2024

Takes up: Protest in Brazil against a bill that equates abortion after 22 weeks with homicide; the 4th World Congress for the Abolition of Prostitution in Montreal; women outdo fundamentalists in Turkey’s local elections; and the cancellation of a state-sponsored mass wedding of 100 orphaned girls and young women in Nigeria.

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Handicap This!: September 2023

September 21, 2023

Takes up: Disability Pride Month; inaccessibility in Montreal’s light-rail stations; proposing cuts to disability payments in the UK, and Case Dominique School in Congo-Brazzaville for children with autism and Down Syndrome.

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Convoy misrepresents Canadians

March 19, 2022

Critical view by a Canadian on the Canadian “Freedom Truckers” convoys, comparing how gently the truckers were treated by the authorities compared to how brutally First Nation people defending their land are treated today and how badly people were treated during the “October Crisis” of 1970 in Québec.

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Women WorldWide: November-December 2016

November 26, 2016

Women’s news worldwide including a march against rape culture in cities in Canada; a march across Israel for peace by Israeli and Palestinian women; and South African teenagers challenging health clinics to give young women contraceptive information.

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Youth in Action, Nov.-Dec. 2015

December 15, 2015

McGill Univ. tent city for fossil fuel disinvestment; New Delhi College of Art protest; Westmount High School student picket supports teachers; Beirut “You Stink!” protests

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WOMAN AS REASON: Isla Vista murders fueled by misogyny

July 5, 2014

When you are despised for who you are, as those murdered by Elliot Rodger were—and women are not the only ones on a list that includes any differently sexed person, immigrants and all minorities but especially Blacks, people with disabilities, and that’s only in the U.S.—then a revolution has to be more than an economic change, it even has to be more than “from each according to his or her ability, to each according to his or her need.” Revolution has to be so deep and total that all human relationships are transformed. To do so, it must be total from the start…

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Lac Mégantic: capitalism’s train wreck

September 13, 2013

On July 6, around 1:15 AM, an unattended 74-car freight train filled with crude oil derailed and exploded in the center of the town of Lac Mégantic, Québec. This catastrophe was avoidable with even the slightest attention to safety, and is a result of cutting corners to save money, and the lack of anyone in charge taking responsibility for any aspect of the negligence, including those in the government.

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Québec: elections in midst of revolt

October 7, 2012

Montréal—On Aug. 22, at least 50,000 students, workers, and social justice activists marched peacefully from Place du Canada through the streets of Montréal to Place Jacques-Cartier in “joyous protest.” Some estimates were as high as 100,000. Demonstrations have been held on the 22nd of each month since March. This was the largest of the summer. [=>]

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Québec ‘Maple Spring’ repression

July 20, 2012

Montreal–The Printemps Érable (Maple Spring), named after the Arab Spring, continues in Québec and reverberates throughout Canada in an ever-deepening crisis since the massive Québec student strike began in February. It faces a new wave of brutal repression, whose extreme character accentuates the bankruptcy of Québec’s government.

In mid-May Line Beauchamp, Minister of Education, bad as she was, [=>]

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