World

  • SOUTH AFRICA: Expect more global apartheid in 2006

    Patrick Bond, Johannesburg Unless political elites change strategy and tactics in 2006, North-South relations will continue to degenerate. By the end of last year, opportunities ranging from rock concerts to summits and trade negotiations were

  • LEBANON: Palestinians walled in everywhere

    Rihab Charida, Saida Ain El Helweh is the largest Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon. In this tightly packed camp the only playgrounds available for children are the narrow alleys where dirty water flows. The only place for the elderly to gather

  • SOUTH AFRICA: General strike reveals growing anger

    Leo Zeilig, Johannesburg On May 18, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) led a general strike to protest against low pay, job losses and casualisation. There is growing working-class anger at the levels of poverty and unemployment in

  • CHINA: Workers demand wages, security

    Eva Cheng Some 2000 workers and their retired counterparts from the Tieshu textile factory in Suizhou, Hubei province, staged an angry protest on February 8 denouncing the now-defunct plant's management for cheating workers of savings and benefits.

  • LEBANON: Scale of Israeli artillery bombardment revealed

    The September 9 Haaretz reported that during Israel's 34-day war against Lebanon, the Israel Defense Forces fired 1800 cluster bombs containing at least 1.2 million bomblets into Lebanese towns and villages. Haaretz reported that soldiers in IDF

  • GERMANY: Iraq war role exposed

    Tania Roth On January 13, the ARD public television's magazine Panorama and the national newspaper Die Sueddeutsche Zeitung (SD) broke the news that in 2003, two agents of the German secret service (BND) stayed in Iraq and worked as informants for

  • SUDAN: Darfur's 'human-made' disaster

    Peter Verney At last, the catastrophe in the western Sudanese region of Darfur, a quarter of whose 6 million people are now displaced by war and whose lives are at serious risk as the rainy season begins, has gained international attention. For

  • EGYPT: Crackdown continues

    On May 11, 10,000 riot police attempted to prevent a pro-democracy demonstration in Cairo in support of two judges facing disciplinary hearings for exposing corruption in the November elections. Dozens of protesters, as well as media reporters, were

  • UNITED STATES: Military spending to hit $482bn next year

    Doug Lorimer On February 2, US President George Bush submitted to Congress a budget for the next fiscal year (October 1, 2004- September 30, 2005) that envisages spending US$427 billion on the US war machine. The Bush administration puts its

  • VENEZUELA: Uniting the revolutionary forces

    Jim McIlroy & Coral Wynter, Caracas Spokespeople for the main Venezuelan left parties that are campaigning for the re-election of socialist President Hugo Chavez on December 3 have generally supported Chavez's September 9 call for the formation of a

  • VENEZUELA: Chavez outlines vision for public transport

    Jim McIlroy& Coral Wynter, Caracas Opening the new Line 4 of the Caracas Metro system on July 18, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez declared a vision for a "new Caracas", with major developments in the rail, road and urban planning areas. Chavez was

  • VENEZUELA: Defending our independence

    As Venezuela's elected president faces a recall referendum pushed for by Venezuela's US-backed corporate elite, Leonel Vivas, that country's ambassador in Australia, released the following statement on July 5. On the July 5, 1811, the people of