Experiments with truth: 12/4/09
More than 250 people held a candlelight vigil outside the U.S. Military Academy in West Point on Tuesday night to protest President Barack Obama's decision to escalate the 8-year-old war in Afghanistan.
- Other protests against the escalation of war in Afghanistan were held in New York, Minneapolis, and many other cities across the country.
- A peaceful Boston University counter-protest of more than 200 people faced six picketers Tuesday afternoon from the Westboro Baptist Church, who held signs with messages such as “The Jews killed Jesus,” “God hates fags” and “Thank God for AIDS,” outside the Hillel House.
- Six of 31 national museums in France were closed because of a strike on Wednesday over planned job cuts, including the Georges Pompidou Center, which began the strike 10 days ago.
- An undocumented Mexican immigrant, who has been living in the United States for 20 years, recently began a hunger strike in front of the White House, calling for President Obama to pass comprehensive immigration reform by the end of the year, as he’d promised.
- Finnair canceled more than 20 flights Wednesday as ground staff extended a walkout to protest outsourcing of cargo and baggage services and the transfer of hundreds of workers.
- Dozens of people have demonstrated outside the Canadian embassy in Mexico City against the killing of an anti-mining activist. The protesters blame the death of Mariano Abarca on a Canadian-owned mining company, Blackfire Exploration Ltd , which is operating in the southern Chiapas state.
- Daimler workers in Germany have walked out in protest at the company’s plans, announced on Wednesday, to assemble Mercedes C-Class models at its US plant in Alabama and shift German production from Sindelfingen to Bremen.
- Striking workers at a local supplier forced Fiat to halt production at its Termini Imerese plant in Sicily for a second day Thursday, to protest against the company’s decision to stop making cars at the plant after 2011.
