Our April Exit Poll was: "Is the new healthcare bill a small step for social justice, or big one towards corporate totalitarianism?" We received the following two rather diametrically opposed responses:

Police clashed in Athens May 1 with thousands of protesters marching against new austerity measures the Greek government is to adopt under pressure from the EU and IMF. The plan, calling for wage cuts and tax hikes, has prompted plans for a nationwide general strike on May 5, led by the civil servants' union ADEDY and the General Confederation of Greek Labor (GSEE), togethering representing some 2.5 million workers, or half the Greek workforce. The walkout will be their third joint strike against the austerity plans since the start of the year. (Press TV, May 1; CNN, April 28)

Bird conservationists fear the spreading Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico will affect not only local birdlife but migratory bird populations as far north as Alaska, and as far south as South America. The spill, now 100 miles long by 48 miles wide, is being pushed onshore by the prevailing southeast winds and is expected to hit the Louisiana's Chandeleur Islands imminently.

Two people are dead and at least five missing after a paramilitary group ambushed a human rights caravan April 27 in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca. Beatriz Cariño Trujillo, a coordinator of the Mexican Network of People Affected by Mining (REMA) and a member of the Center for Community Support Working Together (CACTUS), and Tyri Antero Jaakkola, a Finnish human rights observer, were killed when gunmen believed to be linked to the Union for the Social Wellbeing of the Triqui Region (UBISORT) attacked the caravan, which was traveling towards the municipality of San Juan Copala.

On April 20 Uruguayan criminal judge Juan Carlos Fernández Lecchini handed down a 20-year prison sentence to Juan Carlos Blanco--foreign relations minister from 1973 to 1976, at the beginning of a 1973-1985 military dictatorship—for "especially aggravated homicide" in the case of the schoolteacher Elena Quinteros. With the judge's decision, all the principal figures accused of human rights violations during the dictatorship have received prison sentences, although some face additional charges. Former dictator Juan Bordaberry (1973-1976) has been sentenced to 30 years in prison, former dictator Gregorio ("Goyo") Alvarez (1981-1985) to 25 years, and eight other former officials to 20-25 years for homicides, kidnappings and forced disappearances.

The Haitian government decided on April 22 to declare a three-week moratorium on forced evictions of homeless Port-au-Prince residents from improvised encampments at schools and other private property where they have been living since a Jan. 12 earthquake devastated much of southern Haiti. The government made the decision because "there are a lot of tensions," Edmond Mulet, a Guatemalan diplomat and the acting head of the United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), said at a press conference later on April 22. "There are pupils who want to return to their schools to continue their studies; there are displaced people who are installed in the schools," Mulet explained. "Well, instead of having confrontations, a moratorium has been established." (Radio Métropole, Haiti, April 23 from AFP)

On April 22 the French nongovernmental organization Doctors of the World (MdM) released a report on the condition of women in Guatemalan maquiladoras in the apparel and food processing industries. "The job is unstable and badly paid, the work is dangerous for health, there is psychological and sexual harassment, insults, physical abuse, unjustified firings and interminable workdays," according to the report, based on interviews in 2006-2009 with 530 women working in 16 factories in Chimaltenango and Sacatepéquez departments in western Guatemala.

On April 9 Biddy Martin, the chancellor of the University of Wisconsin (UW) in Madison, announced that the institution was cancelling its sports apparel contract with Oregon-based Nike, Inc because of the company's failure to provide legally mandated back pay and severance packages worth some $2.1 million to more than 1,600 workers for two Nike contractors in Honduras. This was the first victory in a campaign started by students at various North American campuses last fall around the closing of two plants, Vision Tex and Hugger de Honduras, in January 2009. UW made some $49,000 in 2008 and 2009 for allowing Nike to use the university logo on its clothing and products.