World

  • INDONESIA: People's congress call gains support

    BY MAX LANE  JAKARTA — The Peoples Democratic Party (PRD) launched its new newspaper, Pembebasan (Liberation) at a public meeting held at the Jakarta Media Centre on July 11. Almost 400 people packed the auditorium for a lively

  • UNITED STATES: George Bush's corporate crime ring

    As US corporate crime scandals spread by the day, even US President George Bush and vice-president Dick Cheney have been implicated in the shady practices that have triggered panic on stockmarkets around the world. The US Securities

  • Ralph Nader: 'US should let Cubans breathe'

    During a tour of Cuba, Ralph Nader, Green Party US presidential candidate in 2000, on July 9 stated that he was opposed his government's economic blockade of Cuba, which he said doesn't give Cubans "a chance to breathe".

  • RUSSIA: Capitalism loses its shine

    MOSCOW — For 10 years now, a chorus of politicians, journalists and sociologists has been telling the Russian people a story as simple and appealing as Little Red Riding Hood. It goes like this: society was deformed by

  • UNITED STATES: Bosses increase pressure on dockworkers

    Dockworkers' union leaders on the US west coast continue to negotiate with management for a new contract. The existing contract, which expired on July 1, is being extended on a day-to-day basis. In 1999, when the International

  • Sun, sand and socialism Tommy Sheridan's Cuban diary

    VARADERO, Cuba — "The most beautiful land the human eye has beheld" was how Christopher Columbus described Cuba when he "discovered" it on behalf of the Spanish royals in October 1492. Despite several hundred years of Spanish colonisation and US

  • MEXICO: Farmers win first round in airport fight

    MEXICO CITY — The first major conflict between the mass movement and Mexico's President Vicente Fox's administration has ended in a qualified victory for those opposed to the construction of a new international airport for the

  • UNITED STATES: Should we blame the 'Israel lobby'?

    The United States is the most powerful and important backer of the state of Israel. A common explanation for this support is that the "Israel lobby" within the US exercises huge influence over Washington. There is a powerful network of Zionist

  • INDONESIA: Megawati betrayal may split PDIP

    JAKARTA — President Megawati Sukarnoputri's support within her Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDIP) is falling as she increasingly associates with the political figures from the era of the Suharto dictatorship. Almost

  • IRAQ: 'Tyrants and oppressors' line up for Saddam's job

    When Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, in a July 17 speech to mark the 34 years of rule by his Baath party, attacked "evil tyrants and oppressors" — referring to US-backed Iraqi opposition forces, primarily former Iraqi military

  • BOLIVIA: US opposes selection of a socialist president

    BY JIMMY LANGMAN  On June 30, Bolivians went to the polls to choose their next president and elect a new congress. No candidate gained the “50% plus one” margin required for outright victory. Bolivia's congress will decide in early

  • The hypocrisy of an 'imperial democracy'

    BY MUMIA ABU-JAMAL "Somoza may be a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch!" — US President Franklin D. Roosevelt on Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza. There is something surreal about George W. Bush crowing to the world on May 20 about