The argument escalated until Gale was shoved into the lap of Mayo's sister, who was sitting two booths away, holding a 10-month-old baby. That's when police pulled out a Taser stun gun to subdue him.

"They beat this man in front of all these kids then Tased him in my sister's lap," Mayo told the newspaper. "They had no regard for the effect this would have on the kids. This is Chuck E. Cheese, you know."

"Rio de Janeiro. The murder of Dorothy Stang, a 73 year-old American nun who helped peasants engage in sustainable agriculture in the Amazonian rain forest, comes as oligarchic interests and the parliamentary right are on a political offensive against the government of Luis Inacio "Lula" da Silva. This takes place as fissures are opening up within Lula's governing Workers Party while social organizations are mobilizing to demand the implementation of reforms Lula aligned himself with before he became president."

Community members were among the 200 protesters who marched on Premier Jean Charest's office on Valentine's Day and their message was clear: Kahnawake will not stand idly by and allow industrial hog farms to pollute our water.

"The 19-million-acre Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska brings to mind images of polar bears and other wildlife living in wilderness undisturbed by man. West of the refuge is Prudhoe Bay, whose image brings to mind all of the ugliness, however necessary, associated with pumping oil -- pipelines, wells, roads, airports, air and noise pollution, housing, gravel mines, production plants, power plants and frequent spills."

VANCOUVER - "The Parliamentary Subcommittee that is set to review the criminal laws on prostitution is coming to Vancouver to speak with local sex workers from March 28 to 30, 2005. The Subcommittee, which reconvened in November, has asked Pivot to appear before it, and has also requested Pivot's assistance in reaching out to sex workers to get their firsthand opinions on law reform."

Feb 28, 2005 -- PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti (Reuters) - Three people were killed on Monday when Haitian police opened fire on a crowd of demonstrators protesting the ouster of former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide a year ago, witnesses and officials said.

Also see A first hand account by Bill Quigley.

SKULL VALLEY, Utah - "The Goshute Indians are not mighty in number, financial capital or political clout....But over the last eight years the Goshutes (formally the Skull Valley Band of Goshutes) have outlasted, outwitted and outplayed powerful forces arrayed against them, as they have sought to build what would be the nation's biggest bunker for the storage of highly radioactive waste...."

"The Bush administration plans to begin Arab-language satellite-television broadcasts to Europe later this year in a new escalation of its information war against Islamic extremism, officials say."

"Start-up funding for the $3.5 million venture would come from President Bush's $81 billion supplemental budget request for military operations in Iraq."

On February 18, 2005 - in response to a rally called by the Montreal-based Indigenous Peoples' Solidarity Movement (IPSM) - a group of about ten individuals convened in front of the OMNI hotel, the location of a conference organized by the McGill Institute for the Study of Canada, entitled "Canada in the World". [...] In preparation for the rally, IPSM produced leaflets which contained information about the policies supported by some of the more odious invited speakers (Paul Cellucci, Pierre Pettigrew, Aileen Carroll, Benoit Pelletier, William Graham and Raymond Chretien) and our reasons for protesting them. [...] Initially, the group was able to get up to the second floor of the hotel and leaflet registrants just as they prepared to enter the conference room. Soon after, as conference organizers realized that our presence was aimed at expressing dissent, we were kicked out of the hotel by security personnel. The following is a more detailed account of the day's events.

"Having been thwarted repeatedly in its effort to open Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) to drilling for oil, the Bush Administration and its Congressional leadership have come up with a plan for a sneak attack on the issue.

Rather than holding a straightforward vote on the Senate floor, where strong public opposition halted drilling in the past few years, House and Senate members are quietly planning instead to attach the drilling measure to upcoming budget legislation, where it would be all but impossible to stop (budget bills are exempt from filibuster or extended debate)."

Haitians cry out for country in turmoil: Violence surging. A year after exile of Aristide, protest calls attention to nation's plight

"Give us liberty or death!" chanted members of Montreal and Ottawa's Haitian communities as they marched downtown yesterday, demanding peace
and democracy for Haiti.

Black Rose Books will be publishing at the end of March 2005 Volume One of Robert Graham's much anticipated anthology of anarchist writings, Anarchism: A Documentary History of Libertarian Ideas, From Anarchy to Anarchism (300 CE - 1939).

(contributors note: Is there no limit to U.S. imperial arrogance and sabre-rattling? Apparently not, even when dealing with a potential "enemy" which actually has the means to defend itself)

"...the long battle between those in the Republican Party who favor engagement with China has begun to tip in favor of those who advocate confrontation and encirclement...The confrontationist's goals are much the same as they were in the opening years of the Cold War: ring China with military bases, support Taiwanese independence and....'Work for the fall of the Communist Party oligarchy in China.'"

"New evidence suggests that Henry Kissinger gave the Argentine military 'a green light' in its 1970s-80s campaign against leftists."

On the 33rd day of the Tahltan Elders' sit in at the band offices in Telegraph Creek, B.C., Tahltan Elders have come to a consensus using a traditional decision-making process. The statement is named "Dena nenn Sogga neh 'ine" meaning, "Keepers of the Land" in the Tahltan Language. We are putting the Federal, Provincial and Indian Act Governments on notice that "the scam is over". The elders declare a moratorium on resource development within traditional Tahltan Territory.