World

  • PALESTINE: Why all the fuss about the Bush-Sharon meeting?

    Ali Abunimah The April 14 meeting between US President George Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in Washington sent Palestinian leaders into a flying panic. But their response reeks of desperation and self-interest rather than any real

  • World Trade Organisation: Framework will hurt Third World

    Eva Cheng If you believe the corporate media's spin, on July 31 the World Trade Organisation's 147 members agreed democratically on a "framework" that will help revive negotiations on world trade rules that were scuttled last September. Poor

  • VENEZUELA: 'Battle to save the human race'

    Coral Wynter & Jim McIlroy, Caracas Maria Rosa Jimenez is a leader of the Frente Francisco de Miranda (FFM), the major organisation mobilising young people in support of Venezuela's Bolivarian revolution. She will shortly be touring Australia to

  • The anti-war movement in a military town

    Lou Plummer, Fayetteville, North Carolina On the day after his 19th birthday in 1966, my father received his commission as an officer in the same North Carolina National Guard unit that took his father to Europe in World War Two. By 1969, having

  • In brief

    SOUTH AFRICA: Car workers put solidarity before jobs South Africa's National Union of Metalworkers (NUMSA) is opposed to the proposed relocation of DaimlerChrysler's C-Class Mercedes production to plants in the Eastern Cape in response to trade

  • IRAN: Bus drivers demand union rights

    Merhdad Valipour Up to 500 bus drivers in Iran's capital were arrested on January 27 in an attempt by the Iranian authorities to pre-empt strike action called for January 28 by the 9000-member Union of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Bus Company.

  • UNITED STATES: Sexually abused soldier arrested

    On June 11, Suzanne Swift was arrested at her mother's house in Eugene, Oregon. Swift, a soldier in the military police, had refused to return to Iraq. The Register-Guard reported on June 15 that Swift says she will not redeploy because "she was

  • SCOTLAND: Sheridan faction announces split from SSP

    Alex Miller In an August 29 statement, former Scottish Socialist Party leader Tommy Sheridan confirmed his plan to set up a rival breakaway group to the SSP. The group, "Solidarity — A new movement for socialism in Scotland", will be launched at a

  • ISRAEL: Washington backs Middle East's nuclear outlaw'

    Norm Dixon "Every civilised nation has a stake in preventing the spread of weapons of mass destruction... We're determined to confront those threats at the source", US President George Bush declared in a February 11 speech. "We will stop these

  • AFGHANISTAN: US delays elections again

    Eric Ruder With the meltdown of the US occupation of Iraq grabbing the headlines, the Bush administration has been reduced to trumpeting Afghanistan as a model for Iraq. But if Afghanistan represents a victory to the Bush administration, that only

  • VENEZUELA: Chavez warns US against attack on Iran

    Jim McIlroy, Caracas In a series of fiery speeches on the closing day of the World Social Forum, January 29, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez warned the US government that a US attack on Iran would be "10 times worse than Iraq". "Enough already

  • Report details suppression of union rights

    An annual survey of trade union rights violations published on June 7 by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions found that 115 trade unionists were murdered in 2005 for defending workers' rights, more than 1600 were violently assaulted,