North America

This weekend, while US Congress voted to pass a historic health care bill, more than 100,000 activists gathered in Washington, D.C. to mark the dawn of a new civil rights movement. These activists included students, parents and children. They are young and old, Asian, African-American, Latino and Caucasian, and they are demanding immigration reform and economic justice now.

In a major victory for President Obama and congressional Democrats, the House has approved a landmark measure that would expand healthcare to over 30 million uninsured Americans while forcing millions to purchase health insurance. The 219-to-212 vote late Sunday night came nearly three months after the Senate’s approval of the bill on Christmas Eve.

Antiwar and peace activists held a protest to mark the seven-year anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Organizers say around ten thousand people took part, making it the largest antiwar protest since President Obama’s decision to escalate the war in Afghanistan last year.
At least eight people were arrested after laying coffins at a White House fence.

**Support for nuclear disarmament has spread to the heart of the Atlantic alliance and beyond.**

Obama’s call for a nuclear-weapons-free world in Prague unleashed a great outpouring of support from international allies and grassroots activists demanding a process to actually eliminate nuclear weapons. One recent and unexpected initiative has come from America’s NATO allies.

We often in the peace movement are in a reactive mode. But in order to successfully achieve our goals of ending war we have to flip the switch and become more proactive and force those in power to be reacting to us. Unless we begin to have a strategic discussion within the peace community then this will not likely happen.

Finance ministers from the G7 Industrialized Nations have pledged to forgive some $1.2 billion in debt owed by Haiti following last month’s devastating earthquake. Canadian Finance Minister, Mr. Jim Flaherty, made the announcement to the press during a two-day G7 meeting that took place in the Canadian Arctic town of Iqaluit.

The US President who had made a commitment to reducing his country’s nuclear arsenal, acknowledging the United States’ responsibility for having dropped the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, and pledged to work to achieve a world that is free of nuclear weapons as soon as possible, has let everyone down by breaking his promises.

President Obama delivered his first State of the Union address Wednesday night. A full two-thirds of the President’s seventy-minute address was devoted to the economy, the central theme of which was job creation. We get response from MIT professor Noam Chomsky author of Failed States: The Abuse of Power and the Assault on Democracy.

With 142 member nations already signed on, the new International Renewable Energy Agency is promoting a fast, global transition to clean, safe, and renewable energy. Alice Slater explains why it’s so necessary. “Every 30 minutes, enough of the sun’s energy reaches the Earth’s surface to meet global energy demand for an entire year.”

The Obama administration will not unveil the results of a major review of United States’ nuclear weapons strategy until March 1 2010, a senior Defense Department official told Congress late last month, “Because of the complexity of the issues being addressed”. Reports reveal dissension within the Obama administration.