“In other countries, the country has a military. In Pakistan, the military has a country.”

I arrived in Pakistan on May 4^th, traveling with Kathy Kelly and Josh Brollier from Voices for Creative Nonviolence, based in Chicago. After traveling through Pakistan for about two weeks, I surely can’t claim to fully understand the country, but these words from I.A Rehman, Secretary General of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, seemed to summarize what I learned.

I learned that most of the combat troops in the pre-1948 Indian Army were Muslims. So the army “got a country” when East and West Pakistan were formed in 1947 from the former British colony of India.

One difficulty is that democracy and the military don’t mix well: the military is not a democratic institution. When it comes to running a country, this mis-fit becomes even more problematic. Kathy and Josh had been to Pakistan last year, and this year, as we went from place to place and interviewed person after person, we kept hearing about how the government was not representative of the people. Instead, we learned that a small ruling elite runs the country for its own benefit.

Here in the US, corporations are increasingly influencing US warmaking policy to fuel their consumption of resources. In Pakistan, however, the military actually owns profit-making corporations. As Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa, writes in her book Military Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy: “The military’s two business groups – the Fauji Foundation and the Army Welfare Trust – are the largest business conglomerates in the country.” And the military’s investment in their own corporations leads them to use more and more government influence so as to stifle, or even take over, rival corporations.  That, in turn, entails an increasingly militarized and hence an increasingly undemocratic state.

Modeled by the federal government, this non-representation of the people’s interests extends down even to local police and courts, creating an “enfranchisement gap” between the people and their “leaders,” with the people of Afghanistan feeling more like subjects than citizens, as one professor told us.

When the people realize that the government is not guaranteeing their civil rights, sooner or later they will begin to act to secure those rights.

In Pakistan, that action by the people takes several forms. The first is in the growing number of civil rights demonstrations scattered across the country. Dr. Mubashar Hassan, a long-time and astute political activist and observer told us he believed that a some point, those isolated demonstrations will coalesce and form a national movement that will compel the ruling elite to change.

We can get glimpses of that movement toward unity among the demonstrators from the social media. For example, check out the newly formed Amn Tehrik (Peace Movement) out of Peshawar, or Voice for Peace out of Khar.

Another dimension of the resistance is the rise of armed resistance groups, in general called “the Taliban” by the people, or “militants” by the government.  I’m sure someone knows, but everyone to whom I spoke said that no one knows where they come from. What is known is that they are well armed and very well financed. That leads people to believe that they are financed by a country with “deep pockets,” such as the US, or Iran, or perhaps Saudi Arabia.

In general, the strategy of these groups seems to be that they first approach a town or village or urban area, presenting themselves as the “true Islam.” There is a prima facie appeal to that. “True Islam” would not allow such injustice and inequity to exist among the believers.  Care and uplift of the poor is a pillar of the Islamic faith.  That fundamental religious appeal is bolstered by an economic and political appeal. “Someone,” the Taliban seems to say to the people, “has to represent your rights. The government isn’t. WE will.” That message gains an audience among the poor and disenfranchised, but also among young middle- and upper-class youth, appealing to their ideal of a more just world.

Once the local Taliban become entrenched, tremendous difficulties surface. Their claims of having the “truth” morph into “if you’re not with us, you’re against us.” Then, despite the Qur’an’s clear injunction against compulsion in religion, the Taliban begin to attack those who disagree with them. They also attack rich landowners and destroy or seize their properties. The reign of fear deepens. Claiming all the while to “protect the people,” they demand “tribute” for their “services.” And if, for example, a family cannot afford the 40,000 rupees in tribute, “Then, give us one of your sons to serve with us.” An extremely complex situation ensues: the people perceive a political and economic need for the Taliban, and yet experience a growing fear of their methods and control. Even those families who have turned against the Taliban and their tactics may be in deep conflict because their sons have been conscripted into their number. How can you call for the Taliban’s destruction when it would mean the killing of your own child? Further, both the Pakistani military and the Taliban claim to be fighting for the true Islam.

The Pakistani government’s schizophrenic response to the Taliban puzzled me for most of my visit. One response was to pursue, destroy and drive them out, a policy that the government pursued remorselessly in the Swat Valley where we visited. Though I stand opposed to violence, I at least could understand that this would be the “natural response” of a militaristic government’s perception of a threat to its power. But the other course of action puzzled me the more I learned of it. The Pakistani government also seemed at the same time to be siding with, even promoting the Taliban. A certain Pakistani General Imam boasted that he had “raised up” that Taliban. Retired generals were known to go to the Taliban camps and train the Taliban in warfare.

What was going on? When I spoke to several Pakistanis, their usual response was, “We know there’s double-dealing going on.” But why?

I found what seemed to me to be a satisfactory answer in my discussions with Jesuits. (Yes, we’re there, too.) The reasons are geopolitical, rather than local. First, Pakistan is quite aware of history. No country, no empire has EVER conquered Afghanistan. It is, as the saying goes, “where empires go to die.” So the Pakistan government knows that inevitably, the US will lose in Afghanistan and when it does, the Taliban will move right back in. So the Pakistani government wants to keep at least some degree of “good relations” with the Taliban so that when they re-take Afghanistan, the Pakistani military/government will have bona fides with the ruling authority of Afghanistan. Second, the Pakistani military has to be concerned about the Kashmir, an area over which it is in conflict with India for control. Pakistan knows that the Indian army far outnumbers its own, so they wish to “keep” the Taliban as a sort of “Pakistani militia” in case of an Indian military incursion into Kashmir.

The US government’s solution to these complex internal and geopolitical problems is to bomb the Pakistani people, mostly in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Northwest Pakistan. As of this writing, these strikes have caused 1813 casualties among the Pakistani people. A lot of these casualties are “first responders” to the initial strike. That is, it is customary for the US to send a second missile, minutes after the first missile, so that family members, neighbors, and medical and clergy personnel who seek to help – or even to observe – are also wounded or killed.

We asked some of the surviving medical personnel about the efficacy of the strikes, whether they were eliminating the Taliban leadership and therefore removing a threat. They answered our questions with some of their own: “How does the US determine who is a ‘leader?’ Who gives them this information? Could it not be a man who simply wants his rival removed?” “If the US had good intelligence and they hit their targets with the first strike, why would the second one be necessary? If you already hit the supposed militant target, then why fire again?” “Even if you had reliable information, that is still not proof: who has given the license to kill and in what court?  Who has declared that they can hit anyone they like?” “After so many strikes, how many ‘high level targets’ could there possibly be?” And a man named Safdar concluded: “What kind of democracy is America, where people do not ask these questions?”

It is important, too, to recognize that families and tribes straddle both sides of the Pakistan – Afghanistan border, and that the family bonds transcend nationalities. Whatever benefit the US government thinks it might be gaining from these strikes (figures show that about 3 “leaders” are killed for every 100 casualties in an air strike), they must be far outweighed by the growing antipathy as family members, friends and neighbors are maimed, crippled or killed.

I asked every Pakistani I met to tell me the one thing they would want me to say to Americans when I returned. And every single one of them said the same thing. “Tell them to leave us alone. We can work out our own problems if you just leave us alone.” “If you continue, these attacks,” said Dr. Mubashar Hassan, “you are only prolonging our agony.”

• On Thursday, activists with Rainforest Action Network staged a sit-in  at EPA Headquarters in Washington, where they occupied the lobby and used metal lock boxes to lock themselves together.  The action was to bring attention to EPA’s newly approved Pine Creek mountaintop removal permit in Logan County, West Virginia.

• Newsstands were mostly empty, Internet sites weren’t updated and the airwaves were practically news-free in Italy on Friday as journalists went on strike to protest Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s bid to restrict wiretaps, a move he says is to protect the privacy of everyday Italians while journalists claim it’s a gag law aimed at protecting him and corrupt officials.

• On Saturday, calling it a Day of Action for Civil Liberties, some 1,200 protestors marched from Queen’s Park to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre to protest how police and governments are handling the G20 summit aftermath.

• Guillermo Fariñas, an opposition activist in Cuba, ended a 134-day hunger strike on Thursday, after indications that the government would make good on its promise to release 52 political prisoners.

• Defying curfew, thousands of people protested across the Valley in Kashmir for the fifth consecutive day Friday against the killing of unarmed civilians. he protesters staged a sit-in on the Cement Bridge for nearly 30 minutes.

• The National Health Service in Britain said they would immediately reinstate round-the-clock care to Angela Caviill-Burch’s quadriplegic husband after she went on hunger strike last week.

• In a protest against the unofficial ban imposed by the Sindh Government in Pakistan on the movement of wheat, flour mills across Punjab continued to observe a complete strike for the fifth continuous day on Monday.

• On Thursday four members of a group from Dalga Youth Organization were arrested as they held a flash-mob action of protest in front of the Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan. The youth activists were marking the one year anniversary of the arrest of the bloggers Adnan Hajizade and Emin Milli.

• In Pakistan, a shutter-down strike was observed in Quetta and southern districts of Balochistan on Thursday to protest against the rationing of electricity and increasing cases of kidnapping for ransom.

• At least 15,000 protesting garment factory workers blocked key roads in the Bangladeshi capital Dhaka Wednesday, the latest in a string of protests over poor conditions and low wages, which now average $25 a month to sewing clothes for major Western brands such as Wal-Mart and H & M.

• Clashes erupted at the Puerto Rico Capitol in San Juan on Wednesday after police forcibly prevented protesters from attending a legislative session on the State budget. Officers used batons, physical force and pepper spray to block a large group that included many students seeking a voice in the Puerto Rican budget. Student organizers say over two dozen protesters were treated for injuries.

• Transport chaos again hit Madrid Wednesday as a strike by 7,500 metro workers protesting a wage cut of around 5 percent decided by the right-wing regional government entered a third day with the system totally shut down.

• A Salvadoran-born clergyman has set up a camping tent in a Chicago public park where he intends to continue the hunger strike he began 16 days ago to demand immigration reform. The protest is part of a series of fasts, hunger strikes and acts of civil disobedience organized in Illinois by groups defending undocumented immigrants to pressure Congress to enact immigration reform.

• A protest shutdown has paralysed normal life for a fourth successive day in Indian-administered Kashmir. The strike has been called in protest at the recent killing of unarmed civilians by police and paramilitary troops.

• A strike at Tianjin Mitsumi Electric Co., a Japanese-owned electronics factory in north China, crippled production on Thursday, extending the industrial unrest that has put manufacturers at odds with increasingly assertive workers.

• On Monday, four parents occupied the Dunster Fine Arts Elementary School in British Columbia to protest its impending closure.

• A large number of people in Karachi held a sit-in on the main Abdullah Haroon Road on Sunday in protest against the murder of a brother of a gang-rape victim.

• Three former detainees from Guantanamo Bay who were transferred to Slovakia in January will continue their hunger-strike in protest against the allegedly bad treatment they are receiving from Slovak authorities at a detention facility in Medvedov.

Just about everyone we have spoken with, Pashtuns included, has little to no sympathy for the Taliban or their tactics. Many people have lost limbs, homes and loved ones to the brutal assaults of suicide bombers or the indiscriminate violence of IEDs. Yet, people expressed frustrated confusion over uncertainties regarding U.S. government goals in relation to the Taliban. Some believe that the United States might be working with the ISI (Pakistani Intelligence Services) or at least not working against them, to enable continued Taliban resistance. If there is no resistance, according to this view, a military presence in the region cannot be justified. Nor can a so-called humanitarian presence further flood the Pakistani and Afghan economies with millions of dollars in aid that most often lines the pockets of the politicians, elite bureaucrats, and United States corporations involved in construction and security.

The fact that very little aid money has reached the impoverished and war weary people who need it most has been confirmed to us by members of the Afghan and Pakistani governments, human rights organizations, Non-Governmental Organizations and several very unfortunate families forced to live as refugees. As Hyder Akbar, a Pashtun working on NGO assessments in Afghanistan, said to us, “If you are pouring 100 million dollars into a tiny and impoverished province like Kunar and seeing no results, you’re obviously doing something wrong.” But, several seasoned analysts agree that money alone can’t solve problems faced by impoverished people in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Both Dr. Mubashir Hassan, former finance minister of the Peoples Party of Pakistan, and Nur Agha Akbari, from the Ministry of Agriculture in Afghanistan, strongly believe that efforts to bring people out of poverty in South Asia must be initiated, at district and village levels, through consultation with grass roots, indigenous community groups. Mr. Akbari stressed that there is still an opportunity for the United States government and people to play a positive role in Afghanistan, but that role will not be possible until the United States stops giving orders and starts listening to community groups living in Afghanistan.

It’s also time that the United States drop the facade of humanitarianism that guides our national discourse concerning Afghanistan and Pakistan. For too long, most people in the United States couldn’t find Pakistani areas such as North Waziristan or Orakzai on the map. They had no idea where Helmand or Kandahar were located. Now, with our newspapers less preoccupied by Iraq, we learn to be worried for Afghan and Pakistani women if there is a Taliban take-over in the area. This isn’t to say that the United States should not care about the rights of women in both countries or the implications of a spread in extremist ideology. But, military intervention is not curbing the growth of Islamic militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and U.S. “strategic interests” in the area certainly guide most U.S. policy makers more than altruistic concern for women. For instance, the United States government seldom mentions the rights of women who are forced to live, as a result of U.S. policy, in refugee camps just outside of the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan. Women and children almost always have less physical and food security in refugee camps, and they are easier targets for sexual violence.

One doesn’t have to spend much time in South Asia to find many people who feel that tactics like the U.S. offensive in Kandahar, torture and indefinite detention at Bagram, and the drone strikes in Pakistan are fanning the flames of resistance and increasing the ranks of violent groups that manipulate Islam for their own purposes.

Muslims in both Pakistan and Afghanistan have asked that we tell people in the United States that Islam is a religion of peace. “A man who uses violence has no religion,” says Abbas, a young man from Islamabad.

Students, professors, and human rights advocates in both countries affirmed that relationships, independent of military force, could be built between the people of the U.S. and South Asia. Those who’ve told us that military force is necessary to confront extremism have invariably added that the timing and control of military action should be in the hands of those who live in the region and know the society.

The United States bears a huge responsibility to make reparations to people of Afghanistan and Pakistan after pursuing nearly 10 years of destructive warfare that has destabilized both countries. There is a looming fear that, in Afghanistan, the United States is going to abandon the country and its people, returning Afghanistan to a Taliban or pre-Taliban era. But the withdrawal of troops does not require the U.S. to abandon Afghanistan. There are models for securing development efforts, in conflict zones, that do not require hundreds of thousands of troops, networks of military bases, and the overwhelming force of aerial surveillance and bombing.

Mr. Abdul Rahman Hotaki, a lawyer and director of the Afghan Organization of Human Rights & Environmental Protection (AOHREP), points out that only roughly 20 percent of the funds given the U.S. Army Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) ever reach the stage of investment in an actual project. Even when PRTs effectively build a road or a school, gaining the trust of a community is problematic because the lines between military and humanitarian work become blurred. Schools, roads and other projects are often sabotaged under the suspicion that the projects are built more to serve U.S. imperialistic interests than to help Afghans.

In Afghanistan, it’s helpful to evaluate the construction of schools by Community Development Councils (CDCs) which, from start to finish, included participation of people living in the locale where the school was being built. In the CDC model, communities start by putting put up some funds or guarantees in advance of the project and then provide their own security throughout the process. Ashraf Ghani, former finance minister of Afghanistan, initiated the setup of these CDCs under the National Solidarity Project, which was loosely based on a model proposed by Nur Agha Akbari and Ahmad Shah Massoud. Not a single school built by the CDCs has been attacked by Taliban or other forces. Hyder Akbar attributes this to the sense of ownership by the community which creates security for the schools. USAID and other international donors have lauded such models but then revoked funding before projects could get off the ground. Both Mr. Nura Agha Akbari and Mr. Abdul Rehman Hotaki expressed frustration about having been involved in extensive preparation for CDC modeled projects, only to see their communities let down when donors from the U.S. and Canada decided they had other priorities.

The Italian NGO, Emergency, provides another solid example of dedication to Afghanistan that both philosophically and practically surpasses the United States’ policy of continued warfare as a means to achieve security. Emergency’s goal is providing health care and medical treatment to civilian victims of war and poverty. And they do it well. Their involvement in Afghanistan first began in 1999 through construction of a Surgical Centre in Anabah, a village in the Panjshir Valley. Emergency has since developed three major hospitals and 28 first aid posts and medical centers, treating over 2.5 million people. They treat all sides in a conflict without discrimination and they charge nothing to their patients. Although they operate on a modest budget and can’t afford to pay the higher salaries offered by other NGOs, they attract and keep employees who admire Emergency’s work. Their employment rosters steadily show staffing that is half Afghan and half international. Most employees we met told us they are motivated by principle rather than profit. “Utopia? No,” says Emergency’s founder, Dr. Gino Strada, M.D., “We are convinced that the abolition of war is a political project to realize, with great urgency. For this we cannot be silent in the face of war, any war. We are guilty of proposing the abolition of war.”

Altruistic principles are evidently not driving the continued presence of the defense corporations operating in Afghanistan. As Bill Quigley, legal director of New York City’s Center for Constitutional Rights points out, executives for the three largest U.S. defense corporations, Northrup Grumman, Lockheed Martin and Boeing, have received a combined 177 million dollars in personal compensation over the past three years. With profits rolling in at this rate, there is not much incentive for weapons suppliers to encourage the Obama administration to enact a speedy withdrawal of U.S. forces and their weapons from Afghanistan.

Even the NGOs and aid organizations have something to gain from a continued war economy. Peter Marsden, author of Afghanistan: Aid, Armies and Empires, worked with British NGOs in Afghanistan from 1989 to 2005. His book describes the way in which the United States has provided money for its own NGOs instead of directing money to the Afghan government. This policy causes a flood of overpaid charity workers from all over the world, most of whom buy supplies from their own countries. Not only do they spend their money elsewhere, but these aid workers usually draw a salary as large as 150 to 300 times the average Afghan income, which sits around $200, per person, per year.

Though the United States constantly threatens and carries out drone strikes in Pakistan, the Obama Administration insists that it has goodwill towards Pakistan and that the U.S. economic and military presence in the country is intended to be mutually beneficial.

In its most recent National Security Strategy outline, the White House proposes to build cooperation with its international partners through “governance reform of the IMF and the World Bank.” The administration also says it is renewing U.S. leadership in the IMF, leveraging its engagement and investments, to “strengthen the global economy” and “lift people out of poverty.”

This rhetoric falls short of reality in Pakistan where the IMF, under U.S. leadership, is pushing through an aid package of US$ 7.27 billion for the Pakistani economy. On the surface, $7.27 billion dollars sounds quite generous, but the deal will subordinate Pakistan to U.S. military and strategic interests and comes with another string attached, the Value Added Tax (VAT). Quite contrary to “lifting people out of poverty,” the VAT amounts to an additional 15% sales tax on Pakistani products throughout every step of production. Practically, it amounts to a tax on the poor in a country that already has 60 million persons living below the poverty line and inflation reaching 40%. There have been demonstrations against the VAT and U.S. interference in Pakistan nearly every day throughout the past month that we have been in the country.

There is no simple answer or brilliant conspiracy theory that sums up exactly why the United States is at war in Afghanistan and Pakistan. War profiteering, energy resources, the Trans-Afghan pipeline, strategic geo-political positioning and even the narcotics trade may all play a part. But whatever the case, it is clear that the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan have become a football to be kicked about by the powerful players in world politics. If the United States truly wants to move away from this sort of selfish strategy and be appreciated as a genuine partner in the region, it should move towards an approach that values the lives and input of those most vulnerable in Afghan and Pakistani society.

• At their commencement ceremony last week, University of Maryland graduates held signs above their caps to protest the BP oil spill and demanded clean energy now.

• Thousands of French workers marched yesterday in Paris and other cities to protest planned pension reforms.

• Dozens of teachers rallied in Karachi, Pakistan yesterday to protest delays in certain allowances.  After police charged at them with batons, they held a sit-in.

• Last week, art activists entered the London Tate Museum and filled an exhibit with oil and dead fish to protest BP sponsorship as they labeled the Gulf oil spill “the largest oil painting in the world.”  The exhibit had to be closed for cleanup.

• A hundred people protested outside the courthouse in El Paso, Texas against Obama’s plan to deploy the National Guard to the US/Mexico border there.

• Several dozen people gathered in front of the Chevron building in Houston on Wednesday to protest the connections between oil and war.  A few were arrested for trespassing on private property.

• 400 employees of the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Chicago walked out on Wednesday to protest poor working conditions.

• A hundred people protested at a Toronto Gay Pride conference on Tuesday against the decision to ban the term “Israeli apartheid” from upcoming pride events.

• Activists mass-purchased an acre of land in Scotland near Donald Trump’s planned golf resort to prevent and protest the development of the land.

• Workers gathered and made traditional Chinese funeral offerings yesterday at Foxconn headquarters in China after a series of suicides and suicide attempts.  Protesters say the company, which makes Apple’s iPad, has unhealthy working conditions.

• Members of the Fishermen Cooperative Society in coastal Pakistan gathered yesterday to protest recent police actions against villagers protesting the occupation of an ancient graveyard.

• On Monday off the Louisiana coast, seven Greenpeace members boarded an offshore drilling support ship and painted anti-drilling messages in oil on the side of the ship.  They have since been arrested and charged with unauthorized entry.

• Thousands of people marched in Switzerland on Monday to protest the building of nuclear power stations in the country.

• Members of the group Manchester Plane Stupid chained themselves to the wheels of a plane on Monday to protest the expansion of the World Freight Centre at Manchester Airport, which they say will be an environmental disaster.

• The Kayapo indigenous group in Brazil continues their month-long blockade of an Amazon highway to protest the building of a dam they say will destroy their communities and livelihoods.

• Hundreds of public sector workers marched to protest right-wing President Sebastián Piñera’s first state of the union address in Valparaíso, Chile, where the national Congress is located.

• An estimated of 30,000 to 35,000 people gathered Saturday near New Jersey’s Statehouse to protest Gov. Chris Christie’s proposed budget cuts.

• Environmental activists gathered in California yesterday to protest the removal of a moratorium on whaling.

• Warehouse workers marched through Boston yesterday to protest unfair contract practices at Shaw’s supermarkets.

• 70 employees at a Fabco plant in Windsor, Canada walked off the job in a wildcat strike last Wednesday to support a colleague who was abruptly suspended the week before.

• Victims of landslides by Attabad Lake in Pakistan ended their sit-in on Saturday after reaching a relief-package compromise with the government.

• A hundred Greeks living in Brussels demonstrated outside the EU and IMF last week to oppose the proposed rescue plan of Greece’s economy.

• Hundreds protested the screening of a film at the Cannes Film Festival in France on Friday.  “Outside the Law” depicts French atrocities against Algerians and is alleged to be ‘anti-French.’

• 15,000 protesters were bused to the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield by labor unions and social service advocates on Wednesday in an attempt to pressure state lawmakers into raising the income tax to avoid more budget cuts.

• Global activists gathered this week for the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth in Cochabamba, Bolivia.  A few blocks away, more activists gathered to discuss ideas they said were too radical for the conference, specifically environmental destruction inside Bolivia.

• Wearing tie-dyed shirts and hoisting signs of love and acceptance, hundreds of high school students and community members rallied outside Boulder High on Thursday to counter a small group of protesters from the anti-gay Westboro Baptist Church.

• Villagers and students staged a sit-in today in Imphal, India to protest the recent murder of a man who tried to prevent a kidnapping.

• Labor unions around Greece organized a 24-hour walk-out Thursday to protest new austerity measures; at least 10,000 protesters gathered in Athens.

• Sixteen climate activists now face trespassing charges after camping out in Boston Common on Wednesday night, demonstrating for clean energy.

• Teachers in Lahore, Pakistan staged a demonstration, walk, and sit-in on Wednesday to protest the government’s refusal to raise teacher salaries as the cost of living increases.

• Around 500 Nigerian youth marched in Lagos yesterday to protest widespread government corruption and insecurity.  The marchers demanded a reduction in the amount of kidnappings and assassinations as well as electoral reform before next year’s elections.

• Police confronted protesters in Cairo at a protest against police violence that had occurred at on-going pro-democracy demonstrations.

• Somali radio stations played animal noises yesterday in response to a ban on music set by Islamic extremists.  The lighthearted appearance of the protest contrasts with the severe punishments radio hosts could expect if they broadcasted music.

• Hospital workers rallied in New York City on Tuesday after hearing an announcement that St. Vincent’s Hospital would close in the face of enormous debt.

• People in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province rallied earlier this week after the government announced it would change the province’s name. While demonstrators protested peacefully, saying a name change would polarize the area, police killed eight.

• Students in Long Island, New York marched and staged a sit-in on Monday in response to drastic cuts to the Southampton campus of Stony Brook University.

• On Sunday in Zhengzhou, China, zoo workers—and their animals—staged a sit-in in a cycling field protesting the use of zoo land for sports facilities.  Zoo officials say they need more space to best care for the animals.

• A protest by hundreds of students led organizers to cancel a Tuesday night speech by American conservative commentator Ann Coulter at the University of Ottawa.

• Hundreds of Argentine workers demanding a rise in salary occupied Buenos Aires province’s Department of Culture and Education building for six hours Tuesday. The protesters, all members of the Association of State Workers, said they would stage a strike on April 7.

• In Rockford, Illinois, hundreds of District 205 students walk out of class Wednesday to protest teacher layoffs. The protests are tied to the announcement that all “nontenured” teachers in the school district will be laid off.

• A bright red, 71-foot yacht will sail into Newcastle Harbour at midday tomorrow, arriving for Sunday’s People’s Blockade of the World’s Biggest Coal Port. The Amsterdam-registered Gaia’s Dream will moor at Carrington before joining a mass community protest on Sunday that aims to prevent the passage of coal ships in Newcastle Harbour.

• Two hundred union members occupying the basement of the Pearl Continental Karachi Hotel ended their 25-day sit-in on Saturday night, March 20 when a direct representative of the hotel’s owner directly intervened in the conflict for the first time ever in the more than 8-year history of the conflict.

• In the UK, civil servants in Cornwall and Devon have gone on strike for a third day in protest over redundancy pay packages. The action follows a two-day strike earlier in March which saw thousands of civil and public servants across the south west stay away from work. Courts, ports, job and tax centers are among venues being hit by the strike.