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Joining Forces: Toward Freedom and COA News Combine Efforts

We are excited to share the news that Currents of Awareness (COA) News has merged with Toward Freedom. This merger will allow Toward Freedom to grow and expand its coverage and resources. TF will continue its regular publishing schedule and focus at TowardFreedom.com while drawing from COA's Independent News Affiliates Network. COA News and Toward Freedom have been collaborating for years, and this merger is a continuation of that solidarity and teamwork.

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The ‘Poorly Housed’ Rise Up in France

Though France's endless winter is finally thawing, for tens of thousands spring time marks the beginning of another cold spell: evictions and the wild goose chase for a new place to sleep. People waiting for years to get into public housing, those living in unsafe conditions, the homeless, and those crammed into dilapidated hotels make up the over three million people in France classified as mal-logés, or the 'poorly housed.' French housing laws prohibit evictions during the winter, thus for the mal-logés, the season's changing brings little relief.

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No Longer Silent: Sexual Harassment in China

Xiong Jie
As working hours wound down in Sichuan, a southwestern Chinese province, 29-year-old human-resources manager Liu Lun invited recent college graduate and new hire Chen Dan into his office and asked her to be his girlfriend. When she refused, he grabbed her by the neck and forcefully kissed her. Colleagues overheard and called police. Chen escaped.

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Pacifism and The Military-Industrial-University Complex: Interviewing Mark Rudd

Mark Rudd
Mark Rudd was the chairman of the Columbia University chapter of Students for a Democratic Society [SDS] at the time of the 1968 Columbia Student Revolt; and Rudd's autobiography, Underground: My Life with SDS and the Weathermen was finally published in March 2009. In an interview with Toward Freedom, Rudd responded to some questions about how U.S. pacifists might consider responding to the role U.S. universities play in the current historical era of "permanent war abroad and economic depression at home" and about his new book.

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Israel: Netanyahu and the ‘Future of the Peace Process’

Benjamin Netanyahu
It seems that the Palestinian-Israeli 'peace process' is in serious jeopardy. At least, this is the immediate impression one gleans from media reports from Israel. Unlike, Israel's Kadima and Labor party 'moderates', Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu is largely considered to be a possible impairment to the negotiations aimed at facilitating a two-state solution. The media story, however, is riddled with misconceptions and dotted with false assumptions.