World

  • SAUDI ARABIA: How secure is the 'House of Saud'?

    The strains on Washington's close, seven-decade relationship with Saudi Arabia burst into the open last August when the Washington Post revealed that US war secretary Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board (DPB) on July 10 had

  • CUBA: Dissidents funded by US government

    At an April 8 press conference in Havana, Cuban foreign minister Felipe Perez Roque presented vouchers, bank receipts and photos demonstrating the truth behind the charges against 75 dissidents found guilty of conspiring with

  • CANADA: Chief plans police state in Ontario

    TORONTO — The Canadian state, at all levels, has responded to anti-war demonstrations and direct actions with an escalation of its campaign of harassment and criminalisation of activists. In Toronto, two large anti-war actions

  • PALESTINE: US, Australia defend Israel's 'mass killing'

    The United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) on April 15 condemned Israel for its “mass killing” of Palestinians and its construction of illegal settlements in the occupied territories. The United States government was the only

  • AFRICA: Rich countries loot poor's medical resourses

    Conservative estimates by Wilma Meeus and David Sanders at the University of the Western Cape's School of Public Health show that rich Western countries have saved billions by enticing African medical professionals to leave their

  • SYRIA: What's behind US threats?

    After several weeks of accusations from the White House and the Pentagon against the Syrian government of President Bashar al Assad — ominously similar to those used by Washington to justify its invasion of Iraq — on April 17 US

  • SOUTH AFRICA: Resistance to privatisation continues

    The rift between the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) over privatisation has deepened substantially since January, when Pretoria launched the full sale of the

  • UNITED STATES: Belafonte addresses 10,000 anti-war marchers

    OAKLAND, California — More than 10,000 people marched through downtown Oakland on April 6 to protest against the US invasion of Iraq. Many participated in contingents of people of colour, labour and students. At the end of the march, singer

  • ACEH: ceasefire near collapse

    The Ceasefire of Hostilities Agreement (COHA) between the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the Indonesian government, which was signed on December 9, is near collapse. This follows a series of major violations by the Indonesian military

  • VENEZUELA: New workers' federation formed

    There was a lot of confusion outside Venezuela during the last year about what has been happening there. Some people have asked, "How could progressives and trade unionists support the Venezuelan government of President Hugo Chavez

  • EGYPT: Mubarak struggles to control anti-war protests

    CAIRO — On March 28, for the second consecutive Friday, thousands of Egyptians gathered at the al Azhar mosque to voice their opposition to the US-led invasion of Iraq. But it was immediately apparent that the demonstration would

  • IRAQ: US deliberately killed reporters

    The international journalists' rights group Reporters Without Borders on April 8 called on US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld to provide evidence that the offices of the pan-Arab TV station al Jazeera and the Palestine Hotel in