World

  • King Hussein and the end of an era

    On February 7, King Hussein of Jordan was pronounced dead and removed from his life support system. Hussein ruled Jordan for 47 years after inheriting the crown from his father, who abdicated in 1953. Judging by the mainstream media

  • The struggle for gay and lesbian rights in Indonesia

    DEDE OETOMO is coordinator of Gaya Nusantara, a national gay rights group in Indonesia. He is currently visiting Australia and will address the Indonesian Solidarity Dinner at the Resistance Centre in Sydney on February 19 (details below). Last

  • Russian teachers stage national protests

    MOSCOW — For the head of administration in the Bykovsky region of Volgograd province on January 28, there could be no doubt that local teachers were angry at having been denied their pay since August. The teachers barricaded him

  • New patents for terminator seeds

    New patents for terminator seeds The Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI) has announced that it has uncovered 36 new patents describing a wide range of techniques that can be used for genetic sterilisation of plants and seeds. The

  • US has another kind of drug problem

    A report in the Journal of the American Medical Association in April 1998 estimated that adverse reactions to prescription drugs kill about 106,000 people in the USA each year — roughly three times as many as are killed by

  • Scotland's new socialist party

    Scotland's new socialist party ALAN McCOMBES is editor of Scottish Socialist Voice and an executive committee member of the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP). He spoke to Green Left Weekly about Scottish politics and the formation of the SSP.

  • Critical new evidence in Mumia Abu-Jamal case

    Critical new evidence in Mumia Abu-Jamal caseSAN FRANCISCO — Speaking at a January 23 national leadership conference in New York City, held to prepare the April 24 mass demonstrations demanding a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal,

  • Nigerian military kills 19 near Shell terminal

    Nigerian newspapers reported on February 1 that as many as 19 young people opposed to the operations of western oil companies in the Niger River delta, in Nigeria's south, were killed by federal troops in the preceding days. Troops

  • Sri Lankan elections 'a fraud'

    Sri Lankan elections 'a fraud' The January 25 Wayamba provincial elections in Sri Lanka have been condemned as a "fraud beyond all imagination orchestrated by the PA [People's Alliance] government". Speaking on the day of the poll, the New Left

  • German left debates its orientation to social democracy

    COLOGNE — The Social Democratic Party's (SPD) September victory, coming to government in alliance with the Greens, ended 16 years of rule of the conservative Christian Democratic Party and raised hopes that it might turn its back on

  • East Timor: now!

    East Timor: independence now!The announcement by the Habibie regime on January 27 that it is prepared to "relinquish" East Timor as part of Indonesia marks a new turn in the struggle for independence. For the first time in the

  • Oil giants, military attack Niger delta communities

    While the west is lauding the Nigerian military dictatorship's "transition to democracy", the regime has launched a campaign of murder and rape to crush an uprising by the peoples of the Niger River delta in the south.