World

Socialist Vietnam and Venezuela, led by socialist President Hugo Chavez, have agreed to build a "strategic relationship" and to bring their economic relationships on a par with their already strong political links. The countries' two-way trade in

Joyce Semaan Palestinians have hailed a decision handed down on July 9 by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that declared the apartheid wall that Israel is constructing in the West Bank illegal. The decision came after five months of

Doug Lorimer Undeterred by the erosion of public support for the war in Iraq, in an update of its September 2002 US National Security Strategy document, US President George Bush reaffirmed his policy of "pre-emptive" attacks — what used to be

Ghali Hassan "Today you are free. The torture chambers and rape rooms have been shut down" — US Secretary of State Colin Powell, told Iraqi women on March 8, International Women's Day. In one of the most secular countries in the Arab world,

Kali Mercier "The government has cut off everything that enables us to survive, but we won't move because we were born here." Two years after Botswana's government evicted hundreds of Gana and Gwi "Bushmen" from their ancestral land, the

Roberto Jorquera Venezuela's National Electoral Council (CNE) announced on June 4 that opponents of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez had managed to collect enough valid signatures to demand a recall referendum for the presidency. Martin Sanchez

Alex Miller Prime Minister Tony Blair's government has announced that nearly 900 additional troops are to be sent to Afghanistan, bringing the total number of British troops there to around 4500. The July 11 British Guardian reported that an

Leo Zeilig, Johannesburg The March 1 municipal elections in South Africa have again triggered questioning of the future of the Tripartite Alliance, the coalition led by the governing African National Congress (ANC) that includes the South African

Doug Lorimer On May 18, at least 40 Iraqis, most of them women and children, were massacred in a US military assault on a wedding party in the village of Mogr el Deeb, near the border with Syria. Residents said 31 members of a single family were

Tim Anderson "We did not expect that the elected leader of a party with an overwhelming mandate could be forced to stand down in this way in a democracy." — Fretilin press release, June 26, 2006. Backed by a foreign army, and with his country's

The February 19 British Sunday Times featured a new Green Audit report indicating that depleted uranium from the 2003 bombing of Iraq spread across Europe and reached Britain within nine days. Radiation detectors in Britain recorded a quadrupling of

Norman Brewer, Wellington In a spectacular, colourful and noisy display of Maori solidarity, about 20,000 protesters besieged the NZ Parliament in Wellington on May 5. The protest was on an unprecedented scale for the country of 4 million