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Bolivian gas nationalisation under threat

For the fourth time during his 14-month government, Bolivian President Evo Morales swore in a new president to run state petroleum company YPFB on March 23. This followed the eruption of a scandal that has cast doubts on the government’s most popular measure to date — the nationalisation of the country’s gas resources.

Socialist campaign mobilises in East Timor's districts

East Timor’s presidential election campaign is now officially underway. Voting will be held on April 9. Max Lane spoke by phone with presidential candidate Avelino Coelho, secretary-general of the Socialist Party of Timor (PST).

On the box

The Chaser's War on Everything — Australian political satire. ABC, Friday, April 6, 10.15pm. The Murder of Emmett Till — In the United States in August 1955, Till's murder and trial horrified the nation and lit a spark that helped mobilise the

Beijing-anointed candidate challenged in Hong Kong

To no-one’s surprise, the Beijing-anointed incumbent Donald Tsang was returned in Hong Kong’s March 25 “election” for the territory’s chief executive — the third such election since the territory’s reversion to Chinese rule in 1997. What was surprising was that the rival candidate, lawyer Alan Leong — billed as representing the politically moderate middle-class democratic camp and the first ever challenger in this highly managed ballot — secured a respectable 123 votes compared to Tsang’s 649.

A history of the Wobblies in New Zealand

Industrial Unionism
by Peter Steiner and Frank Hanlon
Rebel Press, 2007
28 pages, $2
http://www.rebelpress.org.nz

Palestine: Occupation and resistance

Hanan Aruri, a Palestinian woman from Ramallah, became involved in the fight against the Israeli occupation as a teenager during the 1987 intifada (uprising). Today she is an activist in the international campaign to boycott Israel, and is also involved in campaigns for women’s rights. She was a guest at the Socialist Alternative’s March 30-April 1 Marxism Today conference. Aruri spoke to Green Left Weekly’s Emma Clancy about the current dynamics in Palestinian politics and the struggle against the Israeli occupation.

Why it's necessary to lose the war in Iraq

Future: Tense — The coming world order
By Gwynne Dyer
Scribe, 2006
256 pages, $27.95