VENEZUELA: Government expropriates paper company
On January 19, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez signed decree number 3438, expropriating the paper company Venepal. The National Assembly had previously passed a decree unanimously declaring the company to be of "public interest". The company will be co-managed by workers and the state. The Venepal factory was taken over by its workers on September 7 after its owners attempted to shut it down. The workers organised a campaign involving the local community and popular organisations demanding nationalisation under workers control. According to Jorge Martin, writing for Hands Off Venezuela on January 20, Chavez told those present his government would take over any company shut down or abandoned. The workers are planning to produce materials for the government-run social missions.
UNITED STATES: Hondurus troops to train Miami police
On January 20, Cuba's La Prensa news service reported that the Honduran security minister would send members of the armed forces to Miami to assist in training police to handle Hispanic gangs, at the request of the US government. Honduras is notorious for its endemic violence, mostly fed by the severe repression dished out by police and military officers to the roughly 100,000 juvenile gang members. Gang membership carries a 20-year prison sentence and in 2000, 1000 minors were killed by police in what human rights groups describe as "summary executions". The Miami police are often considered among the most violent in the US, and have been under fire recently for their use of stun guns on truanting children. Ironically, many Honduran military leaders were originally trained in the US School of the Americas, before being implicated in drug running and death squads in the 1980s.
SCOTLAND: Vanunu elected rector of Glasgow university
Students at the University of Glasgow have elected Mordechai Vanunu as rector of the university. Vanunu spent 18 years behind Israeli bars for blowing the whistle on Israel's program of nuclear weapons of mass destruction. Since his release last year, the Israeli authorities have placed severe restrictions on Vanunu's freedom of movement and speech and have barred him from leaving the country. Members of the Scottish Socialist Party were active in the campaign to have Vanunu elected. The December 17 British Guardian quoted Vanunu as saying: "I would like to thank the students very much for electing me and I hope to be able to serve them. I hope it spreads the message for a nuclear-free world."
FRANCE: 210,000 public servants protest
Protests against public-sector reform, job cuts and pay inadequacies are widening in France, with an estimated 210,000 workers taking to the streets in protest on January 20. The largest protest was in Paris, where 50,000 snaked through city streets. It was the culmination of three days of strike action, in which energy and postal workers struck on January 18, rail workers disrupted services on January 19 and teachers closed schools on January 20, while air traffic controllers grounded planes.
ISRAEL: Jails hit 30-year low
According to a January 2 report by the Palestinian Authority, 2004 was the worst year for Palestinians locked in Israel's jails in 30 years. In 2004, the number of Palestinians in jail for resisting the occupation jumped to 8000, 361 of them children, and 1000 with moderate to severe medical conditions (up from 700 last year). The number of people on "administrative detention", held without trial, increased to 2464, 434 of whom have been in jail for more than 10 years. Arrests increased, as did the number of multiple life sentences awarded (one prisoner received 67 life sentences). Conditions in prisons deteriorated: many jails banning family visits, increasing fines and the number of prisoner transfers increased. In several prisons, halal food was no longer served at prison expense. A new prison specifically for Palestinians was opened, and two prisons built new blocks for Palestinians.
BRITAIN: Asylum support to be halved
A document leaked to the Scotsman on January 2 revealed that the government intended to introduce "efficiency savings" in its program to provide vouchers and accommodation to asylum seekers, who are prevented from doing paid work until their applications are accepted, reducing its £1 billion bill by half over three years. Already, under a trial program, 600 rejected asylum seekers are being forced to do unpaid work for the government.
BRITAIN: Home Office says dissent is 'foolhardy'
On December 26, the British Sunday Herald revealed that the British Home Office had sent letters to asylum seekers rejecting their applications on scandalously spurious grounds, including: it was "foolhardy" for a Zimbabwean activist to oppose the regime, and therefore his problems were his own fault; it was suspicious that a Somalian woman did not mention her gang rape in her initial asylum interview (this contradicts the Home Office's own guidelines on dealing with sexual assault); and it was "impossible" that an Egyptian man could have been threatened by his wife's Christian family because "killing is against the Christian faith". In a statement, the Home Office said it would review the first case, and said it "encouraged asylum stakeholders to draw attention to any decisions they consider to be of poor quality".
From Green Left Weekly, January 26, 2005.
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