World

  • BRITAIN: Protesters' T-shirts 'offensive'

    On October 15, 25 Survival International members were removed from the Oxford Union for "wearing offensive T-shirts" and "asking offensive questions" during a visit by Botswana's President Festus Mogae. The protesters wore shirts reading "Botswana

  • GERMANY: Protests challenge ruling elite

    Wolfgang Pomrehn, Berlin Despite the predictions of one of Germany's biggest trade union newspapers, Europe was not on the move on April 3, the first European action day against social cuts. But in Germany the turnout was overwhelming. More then

  • PALESTINE: Death of the roadmap?

    Michael Shaik Deepening the rift between the United States and Europe, the US government led by President George Bush is supporting Israel's plans to build a further 533 settlement homes in THE West Bank on top of the 1000 construction tenders

  • VENEZUELA: WSF — visions for a new world

    Green Left Weekly's Walter Yoia from Resistance and Cameron Durnsford from the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network spoke to participants at the World Social Forum — held in Caracas on January 24-29 — about their impressions of the gathering.

  • INDONESIA: Bureaucratic delays hinder quake relief

    James Balowski, Jakarta The official death toll from the massive earthquake that struck densely populated Yogyakarta and parts of Central Java on May 27 now stands at more than 6200, with more than 46,000 people injured — 33,000 seriously.

  • TAIWAN: DPP and KMT - tweedledum and tweedledee?

    Eva Cheng After five decades of mostly military rule by the Nationalist Party (KMT), a former lawyer and member of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) — Chen Shui-bian — won Taiwan's second ever presidential election by

  • CHINA: Capitalist 'reforms' worsen rural poverty

    Eva Cheng In January 1994, China's State Council announced a plan to lift 80 million households in 592 rural counties out of poverty within seven years. Dubbed the "Eight-seven plan", the scheme targeted counties with an annual per capita income of

  • 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

  • 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

  • IRAQ: Kurds, Shiites criticise US-imposed constitution

    Doug Lorimer While Washington is scrambling to keep Spain from withdrawing its contingent of 1300 troops from Iraq, it is threatened by a serious rift with another NATO ally, Turkey. Turkey is objecting to the interim constitution that the US has

  • UNITED STATES: Democrats sabotage Nader-Camejo campaign

    Barry Sheppard, San Francisco "The Democratic Party's campaign of dirty tricks to keep [independent left candidates] Ralph Nader and Peter Camejo off the presidential ballot constitutes the most serious threat to voting rights in the US since the

  • 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