On October 1st, green mesh fencing was put up again in Santa Cruz's Parking Lot #4 next to the downtown Farmer's Market. The market began at 2:30pm and by 3:00pm, many people were disappointed by the fencing around the trees and the absence of the sounds of drumming in the air. However, people eventually removed the fencing around the trees and a drum circle formed, playing music into the night.

Close friends report that the body of San Francisco activist Kirsten Brydum was found Saturday in New Orleans, where Kirsten had traveled as part of a popular education tour. Kirsten was known locally as an organizer of the monthly Really Really Free Market in Dolores Park. Kirsten's death follows closely after news of the murder of another young activist, Marcella "Sali" Grace Eiler, in Oaxaca.

Marcella "Sali" Grace Eiler, a solidarity activist with the struggle in Oaxaca and Chiapas, was found dead on September 24th in a deserted cabin twenty minutes from the village of San Jose del Pacifico, Oaxaca, Mexico. She was brutally raped and murdered. On different occasions and to different people, Sali mentioned that recently she had suffered political persecution and surveillance in Oaxaca. Many people believe that her murder is part of the widespread repression against the social movement and directed particularly at international observers.

The movie Battle in Seattle is based on real events that took place surrounding the demonstrations against the World Trade Organization Meeting in 1999. San Francisco Bay area activists were involved in the protest and contributed to the production of the film. Concerned for accurate portrayal of protesters, David Solnit worked with the film's director to give input for a more true-to-life depiction. An Indybay contributor's photos were also featured in the film.

In Santa Cruz last week, at least three individuals were visited by FBI agents and compelled to give DNA samples. The agents possessed court orders for their DNA in investigation of a "violation of the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act." Another individual was served with a subpoena for a federal grand jury hearing.

On Saturday. September 27th at 11 am, nearly a hundred workers from local UC campuses, including members of UPTE, converged in the Oakland hills to make pancakes for newly appointed president Mark Yudof at his Oakland Hills mansion on Woodmont Way. They demanded Yudof come out and explain how he intends to end poverty wages at the University of California.

On September 26th, San Francisco State students and members of the community marched and rallied outside and inside a campus career fair in order to oppose the presence of military recruiters and the Border Patrol.

On Thursday September 25th, protests took place around the United States to oppose the proposed $700 billion bailout of Wall Street firms. In the Bay Area, protests were held in San Francisco, San Mateo, Palo Alto, and San Jose. The SF Labor Council has also come out strongly against the bailout.

From September 26th - 28th, a 10th-anniversary national conference organized by Critical Resistance will take place at Laney College in Oakland. Critical Resistance is a group that has been fighting to raise awareness and abolish the prison industrial complex.

On Sept. 26th and 27th, members of United Healthcare Workers West (UHW) will protest in San Mateo against an attempt by the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) leadership to take over their local. SEIU President Andy Stern has called for a hearing at the San Mateo Events Center that could put the 150,000-member local under trusteeship. UHW supporters are condemning the move as an attempt to silence dissent and stifle union democracy.

A new movie called “Z32” started to play last week in selected theaters in Israel. The movie documents the testimony of a soldier who was ordered with his unit to kill innocent Palestinians as revenge for the killing of six Israeli soldiers. Although it contains no violence or sex scenes, the movie has been restricted by the Israeli censor to people over the age of 14. The movie was chosen to compete at the Venice Film Festival.

After 10 months of occupying in 100-foot high redwood trees, tree sitters at UCSC's Science Hill are ready for students to return for school. The tree sitters say that their presence is more important than ever since the Santa Cruz City Council settled their lawsuit with the University. The settlement gives the City Council's blessing for UCSC to begin the first phase of their construction plan that will eventually destroy 120 acres of forest and add at least 4,500 new students to the area.

On Sept. 18th, the San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation filed a lawsuit in federal court against the NSA on behalf of five AT&T customers to stop the ongoing surveillance of their telephone and internet communications. The plaintiffs are also suing the President, Vice President and other officials who ordered or participated in the warrantless wiretapping.

On September 17th, Jack and Wes were arrested at a gathering in Parking Lot #4 alongside the Santa Cruz Farmer's Market. According to reports published on Santa Cruz Indymedia, police initially went after and arrested Jack, a Food Not Bombs volunteer. Some people followed the police while drumming and demanding that Jack be released. Police reacted by arresting Wes, a drummer with Santa Cruz Trash Orchestra.

Following last month's raid of the venerable Long Haul Infoshop in Berkeley, UCPD is still holding the computers and data storage devices seized from the computer lab, Slingshot newspaper and other tenants for analysis by a forensics team. The San Francisco chapter of the National Lawyers Guild (NLG) says it is working with EFF on a legal response on behalf of the Long Haul.

A San Mateo County Superior Court Judge ruled on September 5th that East Palo Alto is entitled to crucial evidence they need in their fight against Page Mill Properties. This win for renters comes on top of a Rent Stabilization Board Hearing on August 27 that found in favor of the tenants.

On September 2nd, tenants supported by rent control activists from Youth United for Community Action and the Raging Grannies demonstrated their displeasure with Page Mill's continued legal attempts to flout the Rent Stabilization Ordinance, staging a sit-in and street demonstration at the landlord's office.

Starting on Friday September 6th, U.C. Berkeley's Memorial Oak Grove started being cut down. As of Sunday, all of the trees that the University plans to cut were down except for a redwood that still has four tree sitters in it. Five people were arrested as they peacefully pleaded with arborists not to destroy the trees.

During protests at the Republican National Convention in Minnesota, performance artists from the San Francisco Bay Area rolled around in "Oily Dollars" symbolizing the dirty connection between Big Oil and elected officials. Not all convention attendees were amused. Ed Matthews, Republican candidate for Minnesota's 4th Congressional district, took after Jeff Grubler of the performance group Ronald Reagan Home for the Criminally Insane and grabbed Grubler's McCain mask. When Grubler tugged on Matthews' credentials, he was thrown to the ground by a uniformed officer who cuffed him while keeping his knee on the back of his neck. Grubler was then arrested and released after being detained for close to an hour.

On September 4th, nearly 300 hotel workers of the labor union Unite Here! Local 19 rallied in front of the San Jose McEnery Convention Center to draw public attention to the daily struggles of hotel service employees. They then marched to three downtown hotels that are currently undergoing contract negotiations - the Marriott, the Hilton and Towers, and the Crowne Plaza.

On Saturday, September 6, thousands of members of United Healthcare Workers and allies marched through the streets of San Jose to maintain a strong, member-controlled union and a labor movement accountable to the rank-and-file. The march, held after UHW's annual Leadership Conference, denounced the threatened trusteeship of UHW by SEIU International President Andy Stern and Secretary-Treasurer Anna Burger.

Tens of thousands of people gathered in Golden Gate Park's Speedway Meadows for the 10th Annual Power to the Peaceful Festival on Saturday, September 6th. The Festival, which was founded in 1998 by musician and activist Michael Franti in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal, is dedicated to educating attendees on issues of social justice, non violence, coexistence and environmental sustainability. The day's events included yoga at 9am, speakers and performers beginning at 11am, social and environmental justice info tables, a food drive, and more.

The 2008 Republican National Convention was held in St. Paul, Minnesota, September 1st through September 4th. In the Twin Cities, the RNC Welcoming Committee and a number of ad hoc regional activist groups made plans to demonstrate on the first day of the convention, September 1st. Twin Cities and Federal authorities moved hard against the activists by pre-emptively raiding a convergence space and numerous houses, confiscating equipment, and making arrests. After the convention began, police used tear gas, pepper spray, beanbag projectiles, and other weapons against demonstrators throughout St. Paul.

On Tuesday, September 2nd, Palestinian professor and activist Sami Al-Arian was released from prison after more than five-and-a-half years behind bars. Immigration authorities released him on bail after they failed to explain his continued detention pending a trial for refusing to testify before a grand jury about a cluster of Muslim organizations in northern Virginia. But while he is out of prison, Sami Al-Arian is not free. He must remain under house detention at his daughter Laila's residence in Virginia, pending trial.

On August 29th, more than two-hundred Bay Area residents demonstrated outside of developer Lennar Corp.'s Headquarters in San Francisco and then headed to Oakland to rally in front of the Oakland Police Department (OPD). The local chapter of the Right to the City Alliance, a national coalition of more than 35 social justice organizations, along with allies and supporters, aimed to bring attention to rogue developers, gentrification and criminalization of communities of color from the Bay Area to New Orleans.

On On August 25th, Sahar Vardi was sentenced to seven days in jail for refusing to join the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Vardi is the first women among a group of Israeli high school seniors who are refusing to join the occupying Israeli military. The group has published and sent a letter to Israel’s Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, saying, “Our refusal comes first and foremost as a protest on the separation, control, oppression and killing policy held by the state of Israel in the occupied territories, as we understand that this oppression, killing and routing of hatred will never lead us to peace, and they are all contradictory to the basic values a society that pretends to be democratic should have.”

On August 29th at approximately 2:00pm, an FBI agent posing as a neighbor knocked at the door of a home in Oceanside, CA, lured Nathan Pope/Knoerl from his mother's house, and arrested him. The only known charge at this point is felony perjury. He is being held on $100,000 bond. Nathan is a resident of the house on Riverside Avenue in Santa Cruz that has been raided twice in the past six months.