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The final shovelful of coal has been mined in France, bringing to an end an industry nearly 300 years old. A last, symbolic block of coal was dug out at the La Houve mine, kicking off three days of events to mark the end of coal mining in France.
The mine, near the town of Creutzwald on the German border, is the last of an industry that once employed 300,000 and fuelled France’s industrial revolution.
Nuclear power now provides 80% of the country’s energy needs.
"I understand the (…)

The US has made clear that the transfer of sovereignty to a provisional Iraqi government on 30 June will be a limited affair, and that ultimate authority will reside at a gigantic new US embassy in Baghdad and with the military occupation force.
In sometimes heated hearings on Capitol Hill this week, senior Bush administration officials admitted they did not know who would be in the new government, precisely what powers it would exercise, nor the exact shape of the new Security Council (…)

WASHINGTON - Protesters crowded the National Mall on Sunday to show support for abortion rights and opposition to Bush administration policies on women’s health issues in one of the biggest demonstrations in U.S. history.
MARCH FOR WOMEN’S LIVES: MASSIVE PROTEST IN DC With the US Capitol in the background, hundreds of thousands of pro-choice supporters take part in the ’March For Women’s Lives,’ on the Mall in Washington, April 25, 2004. Protesters massed to show support for abortion (…)

Since the start of the war in March 2003, more than 700 US troops have died in
Iraq, with more than 100 killed this month alone.
In an extraordinary violation of the First Amendment, Bush has forbidden journalists
from taking pictures but the censorship
has been broken.
Bush try to hide the consequences of the war, firing two cargo workers who photographed
flag-draped coffins of U.S.
soldiers killed in Iraq
The Pentagon also criticized the release of the photos, since the (…)

Speaking beyond the masses to policy-makers, Francis Kissling of Catholics for
a Free Choice declared, "You will hear our pro-choice voices ringing in your
ears until such time that you permit all women to make our own reproductive choices."
Abortion-rights supporters marched in the hundreds of thousands Sunday, galvanized
by what they see as an erosion of reproductive freedoms under President Bush
and foreign policies that hurt women worldwide. It was the largest turnout in
favor (…)

Questioning the New Imperial World Order A Hearing on the Project for the New American Century ( PNAC) [hosted by Beursschouwburg and Les Halles]
Conclusions of the commission Saturday April 17 2004.
"To plunder, to slaughter, to steal, these things they misname empire; and where they make a wilderness, they call it peace." - Tacitus The Brussells Tribunal is a hearing committee composed of academics, intellectuals and artists in the tradition of the Russell Tribunal, set up in 1967 to (…)

http://www.marchforwomen.org
The time is right for a public demonstration of historic size in support of reproductive freedom and justice for all women. Threats to these rights have never been so systematic and coordinated, and the lives and health of women have never faced such peril. On April 25th, in our Nation’s Capitol we march to uphold - Choice, Justice, Access, Health, Abortion, Global and Family Planning.
For the first time ever this pro-choice march is a collaborative effort - (…)

The rush to war in Iraq echoes Reagan’s Iran- contra scandal
Sidney Blumenthal
"History? We won’t know," George Bush tells Bob Woodward. "We’ll all be dead." But in his book, Plan of Attack, Woodward’s facts move the past from the shadows, adding significant new documentation to the story of the rush to war in Iraq.
The serious constitutional issues and governmental abuses, the methods and even the continuity of some personnel that Woodward catalogues evoke memories of the Reagan (…)

On the occasion of May Day 2004, the WFTU conveys its fraternal greetings of international solidarity to working people and trade unions in all countries, wishing them success in their struggles for a better life, in a better world.
As the world’s trade unions and other social organisations proclaimed in recent years, a better world is, indeed, possible and is necessary. The clear aims of the working people and trade unions and their determination to pursue this struggle are abundantly (…)

National ID Cards
by Bruce Schneier
http://www.schneier.com/crypto-gram-0404.html#1
As a security technologist, I regularly encounter people who say the United States should adopt a national ID card. How could such a program not make us more secure, they ask?
The suggestion, when it\’s made by a thoughtful civic- minded person like Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times, often takes on a tone that is regretful and ambivalent: Yes, indeed, the card would be a minor invasion of our (…)