Coretta Scott King sadly passed away on January 31. As a public figure, both before and after the late Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s murder in April 1968, she took part in and led countless battles for human rights, peace, and racial, gender and sexual equality.
Most people in the United States would like to have seen the 140,000-plus U.S. troops who are still occupying Iraqi soil (in support of special U.S. corporate interests) to be finally withdrawn from Iraq by Christmas 2005. Yet neither Bush Administration officials nor Democratic Party establishment politicians appeared willing to bring
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These words, spoken by political prisoner Marcelino Miranda, reflect the unshakeable hope and courage that three years in jail have not been able to tarnish. Last Monday marked the three-year anniversary of the violent police attack on the remote Lenca descendent community of Montaña Verde, in southwestern Honduras, which led to the unjust imprisonment of Marcelino and his brother Leonardo.
Fireworks are exploding everywhere. The Caracas baseball team won a key game and they’ll now go on to final rounds, playing teams from various countries in the region. People have been driving around the city waving the team flag, honking horns and screaming out windows.
It’s the last day of the world social forum. Tents are being packed up and the streets are beginning to look eerily vacant. Buses full “foristas” roar off toward the airport. In many ways, it’s been a college semester smashed into a week. So much information has been floating around, so many panels listened to. However, just as it was at last year’s forum, the best part of the week wasn’t the panels themselves, but meeting like-minded people from all over the world. Meeting people in person whom I had only known through cyber space has been great.
Benjamin Dangl: How did you get involved in journalism and journalistic film making?
Brian Conley: Well, I initially intended to study history and political science in college. When I arrived there, however, I quickly decided that art and, particularly film, were very good ways to influence the public and to talk about important historical events that might not otherwise be learned or discussed in the public discourse.
Death is nothing new to the Morro do Estado, a mish-mash of redbrick favela housing that clings to the slopes high above central Niteroi, a city near Rio de Janeiro. But as locals crowded into the Bar do Raimundo for a game of snooker one Sunday night in December they had little idea just how close it was.
Within minutes five residents - among them three boys under the age of 15 - lay dead. The weathered cement walls outside the bar were pockmarked with gunshots and the pavement covered in a thick coat of blood.
Copyright Toward Freedom 2019