With Jon Sobrino at the SOA Protest

Thousands of us gathered this weekend for the annual funeral procession at Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia, there to call for the close of the notorious "School of Assassins," where the U.S. trains the Latin American death squads that, over the past few decades, have killed hundreds of thousands. We gather there each year around November 16^th -- it's the anniversary of the massacre of the Jesuits in El Salvador. This year, the sole Jesuit to have survived the attack, liberation theologian Jon Sobrino, was our guest of honor.

Bailouts Dwarf Spending on Climate and Poverty Crises

The financial crisis is only one of multiple crises that will affect every country, rich and poor alike.

There's also the global poverty crisis. Tens of millions of people across the developing world are expected to fall into extreme poverty and joblessness as a result of an economic mess originating in the United States. This is bad news for workers everywhere, as it means even more brutal competition in the globalized labor pool.

And then there's the climate crisis. If we don't do something about that one, we could find out what a real meltdown feels like.

Ending Poverty: Moving Beyond More Aid and Fair Trade

As the United Nations seeks increased financial assistance from donor countries to help meet the flagging Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the inadequacy of international aid and fairer trade agreements has never been so clear.  In 2007 alone, aid to developing countries fell by 8.4%, leaving huge challenges ahead to meet the Gleneagles G-8 target of doubling aid to Africa by 2010.

Anger and Hope: Haitian Families Furious Over School Collapse

"No one cares about the children, living or dead," one furious father of children in the collapsed school outside of Port au Prince, Haiti swore Sunday in an interview. "No one has come to provide any counseling to the children and families who survived. Nothing has been done for the families whose children died. The children now have no school and no books. They are sick and have nightmares. Government officials and people from all the NGOs, they all come, take pictures, make speeches and they leave us with nothing. We need action!"