Street Report from the G20

Common Dreams
Short video from Democracy Now
by Bill Quigley
The G20 in Pittsburgh showed us how pitifully fearful our leaders have become.
What no terrorist could do to us, our own leaders did.
Out of fear of the possibility of a terrorist attack, authorities militarize our towns, scare our people away, stop daily life and quash our constitutional rights.
For [...]

Zimbabwe drops activist charges

BBC
Follow up to story May 2009
Terrorism charges against a prominent Zimbabwean rights activist have been thrown out after a court ruled she had been tortured while in custody.
The Supreme Court granted Jestina Mukoko a permanent stay of prosecution after she told how security agents took her from her home and beat her.

No place like home: Brazilian immigrants leave US for better job prospects

Christian Science Monitor
The deep US recession – and a rebound in Brazil – have reversed the flow of migration. Will other immigrants follow?
By Taylor Barnes
When Leonardo Nakao’s flight from Brazil landed in Boston at 1:30 a.m., he didn’t have to search long for a job. By 5 a.m., he was pumping gas at a suburban [...]

Grace Mugabe’s dairy farm in deal with Nestlé

Mail and Guardian
Grace Mugabe, the wife of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, owns dairy farms that sell up to a million litres of milk a year to food giant Nestlé, London’s Sunday Telegraph reported.
Grace Mugabe took over six of the country’s most valuable white-owned farms around 2002, the newspaper said.

G20: Leaders Agree on Reforms, Poor Still “Out in the Cold”

By Eli Clifton
PITTSBURGH, Sep 25 (IPS) – World leaders at the two-day G20 Summit in the U.S. city of Pittsburgh agreed to work cooperatively to recover from the global economic crisis and create structural reforms with long-term growth as the goal.
In their end of meeting statement, the heads of the world’s biggest economies also vowed [...]

VATICAN: Pope Names Participants in African Synod of Bishops

VATICAN, September 25, 2009 (CISA) -Pope Benedict XVI has named participants in the second Africa Synod of Bishops to be held October 5 to 25 at the Vatican.
The list includes bishops, experts and auditors from dioceses and Catholic institutions across Africa. The synod theme is: The Church in Africa, at the Service of Reconciliation, Justice [...]

Waiting for the Second Synod for Africa

News from Africa
Is Africa the future of the global Church? Numbers are in its favour. In 1900 Sub-Saharan Africa’s catholic people were less than two million, but in 2000 they increased up to 130 million: an amazing growth that never happened before in the Church’s history.
Renato Kizito Sesana
The atmosphere of enthusiasm and joy of being [...]

Brown move to cut UK nuclear subs

BBC

The Lib Dems said keeping Trident on a ‘like-for-like’ basis was ‘unrealistic’

The prime minister is to tell the United Nations that he is willing to cut the UK’s fleet of Trident missile-carrying submarines from four to three.
Gordon Brown will make the offer at a meeting of the UN Security Council on halting the spread of [...]

ACTION: Immigrants STILL need protection

Justice for Immigrants
Take Action!
Contact your Senator on Health Care and Immigrants
Background: On September 16, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Finance, Sen. Max Baucus (D-MT), introduced his version of health care reform in the Senate.  The Senate Committee on Finance will likely debate this bill during the week of September 21.  A key issue in [...]

Bishops say health reform should include all immigrants, legal or not

By Chaz Muth
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Though Bishop William F. Murphy of Rockville Centre, N.Y., concedes there’s no political will in Washington to include illegal immigrants in health care reform, he believes it’s the country’s moral obligation to ensure that everyone in the nation receives proper medical care.
That includes those who enter the country illegally, he [...]