Speaking at a news conference on May 5, Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, “The main effort in our strategic focus from a military perspective must now shift to Afghanistan.”

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following statement about the case of Ahmad Sa'adat.

Every progressive person should condemn the arrest of Professor Jose Maria Sison by authorities in the Netherlands. Sison’s arrest by Dutch police on trumped-up murder charges is an attempt to criminalize the liberation movement of the Philippines and to silence the voice of the Philippines’s most important revolutionary. Professor Sison has lived as a political refugee in the Netherlands for 20 years. It is the hidden hand of the Bush administration that is pressuring the Netherlands to take actions against Sison, including freezing his bank account and stripping him of his right to work. This arrest is political, not criminal.

Recently the media has been abuzz with talk of the possible ‘nationalization’ of ailing big banks such as Citigroup. Both Democrat and Republican senators, as well as the former chair of the Federal Reserve, Alan Greenspan, have raised the possibility of a temporary ‘nationalization’ or government takeover of big banks.

Israel has added another offense to its long roster of crimes by attacking Lebanon. It is conducting an air war that intentionally targets civilians; even refugees fleeing in their cars are killed. Israel is systematically destroying the infrastructure of southern Lebanon by targeting people's basic needs – apartment buildings, warehouses full of food, gas stations, powers plants, bridges and roads. Almost a million people have been driven from their homes. Now Israeli ground troops have crossed the border into Lebanon.

The U.S. should close down its bases and withdraw the troops from Korea. For more than 50 years, the U.S. has occupied southern Korea. It is time for that occupation to end.

The Bush administration is still threatening Iran, and a wider war in the Middle East. The U.S. government has made much of Iran’s nuclear energy program. Iran says it is developing nuclear energy for peaceful purposes and now U.S. intelligence agencies agree with that characterization. But this makes little difference to Bush and Cheney. They are still talking about turning up the heat on Iran and looking to impose more sanctions – which are in and of themselves a form of war, and as we saw with Yugoslavia and Iraq, a buildup to open military action.

There's not any doubt that executives at corporate giant WorldCom are guilty of fraud. By claiming that $3.8 billion in expenses were “investments,” they were able to tell investors that they had an extra $3.8 billion in profits. But games with accounting were the least of their crimes. 17,000 workers are losing their jobs. For the laid off, more than a few homes and dreams will be casualties of WorldCom's callousness. WorldCom employs about 80,000 people. More job cuts will take place in coming months. Pensions are gone. Families are left without health care. Life savings are wiped out.

On May 1, International Workers Day, millions upon millions will be marching against the capitalist economic crisis that has engulfed most of the world. Working people in Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East and North America will hit the streets to protest the soaring unemployment, shorter hours and cuts in pay that are sweeping the world.

The tens of thousands of RNC protesters who hit the streets of Saint Paul Sept. 1 – 4 did something that was truly great. The demonstrations sent a powerful message that was heard around the world: The people of the United States reject the war on Iraq and the Republican agenda. We insist on peace, justice and equality. This message was heard by the rich and powerful, who responded with repression. And it was heard by hundreds of millions of people. Reports of the protests were carried by thousands of media outlets ranging from network TV in the U.S. to Al Jazeera to the New China News Agency. The Sept. 1 rally against the war was carried live on C-SPAN.

We condemn Israel's murderous bombings and attacks in Gaza. Each and every Palestinian killed or wounded by Israel is an outrage to the peoples of the world. The Israeli state is punishing Palestinians and their leaders for demanding democracy and power in their own country. Israel is a colonial settler state ruled by war criminals. Israel exists on stolen land and borrowed time.