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Why NARAL Pro-Choice America Endorsed Barack Obama

Sen. Obama has been a strong advocate for a woman's right to choose throughout his career in public service. Since joining the Senate in 2005, he has worked to unite Americans on both sides of this debate behind commonsense, common-ground ways to prevent unintended pregnancy. He supports legislation to provide our teens with comprehensive sex education, prevent pharmacies from denying women access to their legal birth-control prescriptions, and increase access for family-planning services.

Kimala Price on Hip-Hop Feminism and Choice

During discussions with other women of color about reproductive rights, sometimes I am confronted by a sista who insists that women of color have not been actively involved in the contemporary women's movement or the reproductive rights movement, much less have been leaders in these movements. That is simply not true.

Vancouver's Bed Bug Plague

At least once a week in Vancouver, bug exterminator Mark Amery enters a private home, lifts a mattress and watches the box spring move with blood-sucking vermin. It's an optical illusion caused by up to a thousand twitching bed bugs, each no larger than a lentil, which are infesting more houses, rental apartments and hotel rooms in Vancouver today than at any point in the city's modern history.

Vancouver Olympics security cameras raise privacy concerns

The RCMP plans to install hundreds of closed-circuit television cameras for security during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, CBC News has learned. Under the plan, cameras would be placed at approximately 100 Olympic sites, including both athletic and public celebration venues.

We Hood! We Votin'--and Throwin' It Up!

Whether it's the Vote Different ad that kicked off the primary season's viral warfare, or a completely loopy set of videos called Barack in 74 that imagine a man who may well be our next president as a resolutely nerdy stoner at Occidental College, this has been the best campaign ever for ads and videos.

Reinforcing Negative Images At Dulles

Those who had been selected for security checks endured a level of disdain that is impossible to describe: men and women, some of them in their 80s, and several children, humiliated. The Saudi students who had arrived at 2 p.m. were still there; the last of them left about eight hours later in what was a shameful and saddening scene. An elderly Egyptian man asked me, "What is a man my age supposed to do?" He laughed and added, "And then they ask, 'Why do they hate us?' "

When Racial Profiling Goes Wrong

Oh, NYPD. What are we going to do with you. Right on the heels of a racial profiling lawsuit from a NY Post reporter (although his paper doesn't believe racial profiling exists), the Sean Bell disaster, and a report questioning the racial imbalance of the police force's stop-and-search technique, two white, plain-clothes officers are in deep trouble after ordering an off-duty black officer, who happens to be the highest-ranking black officer in the NYPD, out of his car. Needless to say, they didn't recognize him.

Racism alarms Obama backers

Candidate's foot soldiers encounter name-calling, vandalism, bomb threats

Selling Out for a Losing Cause

Hillary Clinton's 'white Americans' strategy is too cynical and too late.

Sex Work vs. Trafficking: Understanding the Difference

Even those who mean well sometimes confuse the human rights abuse of trafficking in persons with the human occupation of prostitution, or sex work. It's understandable because of the history of the two fields, but it creates rather than solves problems. Let me try to sort it out here.

Juan Crow in Georgia

Justeen Mancha's dream of becoming a psychologist was born of the tropical heat and exploitation that have shaped farmworker life around Reidsville, Georgia, for centuries. The wiry, freckle-faced 17-year-old high school junior has toiled in drought-dry onion fields to help her mother, Maria Christina Martinez. But early one September morning in 2006, Mancha's dream was abruptly deferred.

Acting Locally: Will Chicago Push Back Against Iran Warmongering?

A resolution introduced into the council by one of its members, Alderman Joe Moore, would put the city on record as opposing a preemptive strike against Iran by the US. The resolution urges all congressional representatives whose districts include parts of the city to "clearly express the will of the people of Chicago in opposing any attack on Iran, and urging the Bush administration to pursue diplomatic engagement with that nation."

Iranian Exiles Aren’t Terrorist Group, British Court Says

After a seven-year legal battle, Britain's Court of Appeal ruled Wednesday that the British government was wrong to include an Iranian resistance group, the People's Mujahedeen of Iran, on its list of banned terrorist groups.

Green Party staple opts for new Vision

For years, Andrea Reimer and the civic Green Party were inextricably linked in Vancouver politics. Not anymore. The 36-year-old activist left the party in March to co-chair NDP MLA Gregor Robertson's Vision Vancouver mayoral nomination campaign.

Critics of Old Guard Take Black Activism Online

A growing cadre of young black activists is using the Internet in an attempt to eclipse traditional civil rights organizations such as the NAACP and hit the refresh button on the civil rights movement. Bloggers with names such as the Cruel Secretary, and blogs called What About Our Daughters? and the African American Political Pundit, have railed against groups in the "black-o-sphere," saying they do not understand young black Americans, are behind the times and react too slowly to incidents involving the younger generation.

Essential Reading - Home Girls Make Some Noise: Hip Hop Feminism Anthology

So, I grabbed Home Girls Make Some Noise: Hip Hop Feminism Anthology over the weekend and I cannot put it down. Seriously y'all - every spare minute I spend pouring over the pages. While this one is more intellectual than Chickenheads (which makes it a little less accessible) Gwendolyn D. Pough, Elaine Richardson, Aisha Durham, and Rachel Raimist brought it in this collection.

Britons fear race violence - poll

Almost two-thirds of people in Britain fear race relations are so poor tensions are likely to spill over into violence, a BBC poll has suggested.

China’s body image shifts from cultural revolution to sexual revolution

As the Olympic Games draw near, it is not ideology or collective yearning that asserts itself in the Middle Kingdom, but the physical self coming to full consciousness. The civilization known for Confucian morals, Taoist mysticism, acupuncture, tai chi, martial arts-radically different ways of looking at the self in relationship with the cosmos-has wholeheartedly embraced Western culture and mores. "Economic and educational opportunities, readily available telecommunications and the Internet have made the people of China highly mobile, and quite well informed," says Wang, but also "more individual-centered and therefore, less committed to traditional extended family and Confucian social ethics."

A Shout Out to Moms

We asked young detainees inside Bay Area juvenile halls to write about their relationships with their mothers in honor of Mother's Day and many of their responses reflected the issues that are breaking families apart today: violence, mental health issues, immigration problems, and drug and alcohol abuse. These authors write for The Beat Within, a weekly journal of art and writing from inside juvenile halls and prisons.

The Pope's Holy War Against Liberation Theology

The recent election of former Bishop Fernando Lugo as President of Paraguay poses a sticky dilemma for the Vatican and underscores the hostile political environment facing incoming Pope Benedict XVI in South America. Lugo, who was known to his constituents as the "Bishop of the Poor" for his support of landless peasants, advocates so-called Liberation Theology, a school of thought which took shape in Latin America in the 1960s.

Source of deceptive NC robo-calls exposed

Who's behind the mysterious "robo-calls" that have spread misleading voter information and sown confusion and frustration among North Carolina residents over the last week? Facing South has confirmed the source of the calls, and the mastermind is Women's Voices Women Vote, a D.C.-based nonprofit which aims to boost voting among "unmarried women voters." What's more, Facing South has learned that the firestorm Women's Voices has ignited in North Carolina isn't the group's first brush with controversy. Women's Voices' questionable tactics have spawned thousands of voter complaints in at least 11 states and brought harsh condemnation from some election officials for their secrecy, misleading nature and likely violations of election law.

911 tragedy in Calgary reveals perils of VoIP

An ambulance was dispatched in response to a 911 call about a toddler in distress, but the Internet phone service said paramedics went to the address it had on file - a home in Mississauga - not the new home in Calgary where the distraught family waited in vain for help. The child died before an ambulance sent to the right place could get him to hospital Tuesday night.

Al-Jazeera cameraman freed from Guantanamo after six years

An Al-Jazeera cameraman was released from U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay and returned home to Sudan early Friday after six years of imprisonment that drew worldwide protests. Sami al-Haj arrived at the airport in Sudan's capital, Khartoum, on a U.S. military plane along with two other Sudanese released from Guantanamo. Mr. al-Haj was the only journalist from a major international news organization held at Guantanamo and many of his supporters saw his detention as punishment for a network whose broadcasts angered U.S. officials. The military alleged he was a courier for a militant Muslim organization, an allegation his lawyers denied.

Wild salmon could disappear from Vancouver menus

One of Vancouver's top restaurants says it would consider taking wild salmon off its its menu if it proves to be unsustainable. Robert Clark, the executive chef of C restaurant, which overlooks Vancouver's False Creek, said the restaurant has made no decision yet, but wants to do its part to help protect dwindling salmon stocks. "At C, being a leader in the selling of sustainably harvested seafood, we are always considering and reconsidering and analyzing what's on our menu and should be there," Clarke told CBC Radio on Thursday morning.

eBay Sellers Relaunch Boycott

Back in February, we covered the first major seller strike on eBay, in which a large group of eBay's PowerSellers launched a week-long boycott of the site in an effort to have their voices heard. The sellers, who were unhappy with recent changes to listing prices and other policies, claimed some success and even USA Today reported a 13% drop in sales. However, eBay denied the boycott had any impact whatsoever on their business. This time the boycott will involve both eBay buyers and sellers, and, unlike the first, no end date has been set.

U.S. has Mandela on terrorist list

Nobel Peace Prize winner and international symbol of freedom Nelson Mandela is flagged on U.S. terrorist watch lists and needs special permission to visit the USA. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice calls the situation "embarrassing," and some members of Congress vow to fix it.

Thousands play dangerous game, survey finds

A new survey says some 79,000 Ontario students are also playing a lethal "choking game" that has killed at least 82 children in the United States. The survey by the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health found about 7 per cent of children in Grades 7 to 12 have been choked on purpose. The so-called "choking game" involves being throttled to the point of almost passing out and induces a brief high. Doctors at the centre say the game isn't new but shows that Ontario students are hurting themselves intentionally.

The rich, poor, and chasm between

The earnings gap between the rich and the poor is widening in Canada, with incomes among recent immigrants showing especially dramatic declines in recent years, according to sweeping new census data. Earnings among the richest fifth of Canadians grew 16.4 per cent between 1980 and 2005 while the poorest fifth of the population saw earnings tumble 20.6 per cent over the 25-year time period, Statistics Canada said in its 2006 census release on income and earnings. Earnings among people in the middle didn't budge.

The high cost to Alberta of 500 dead ducks

Five hundred dead ducks in the toxic sludge of a Syncrude Canada Ltd. tailings pond have dealt a major blow to Alberta's $25-million campaign to sell the booming oilsands as eco-friendly. Company and government officials confirmed Wednesday that only five ducks were saved after a flock of mallards landed Monday morning on the partially frozen pond filled with oilsands wastes.

Exactly Wright for Obama

Finally, the Cool One throws a little heat, shows a little fight. Here is a radical notion: this is exactly what Barack Obama needed. Clearly, he needed to stiff-arm Rev. Jeremiah Wright, but more than that he needed to show some outrage and maybe even a little bit of rage. He needed to show that he is capable of action when action is what is called for.