World

  • Refugee deaths rise as Europe hardens stance

    Despite the public outcry over the death of three-year-old asylum seeker from Syria, Alan Kurdi, in the Mediterranean last year, Oxfam said refugee deaths have risen since then.

  • India cracks down as Kashmir demands freedom

    Since the extra-judicial killing of Burhan Wani, a Kashmiri independence fighter, by Indian security forces in a village in south Kashmir on July 8, hundreds of thousands of Kashmiris have once again taken to the streets in protest. Kashmir is occupied by India and the territory is also claimed by Pakistan. Many Kashmiris, however, are struggling for independence.

  • Turkey declares war on Syria's democratic hope

    The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) says 4475 people were killed in the nation's horrific civil war during July. Of these, 1289 were civilians, including 263 children. Almost three quarters of these civilian casualties were killed in airstrikes by the government or its ally, Russia, and other attacks by the pro-government side, SOHR said. Since the Syrian Civil War began in 2011, more than 400,000 people have been killed, between 4-to-5 million people have left Syria as refugees and about 8 million have been internally displaced.

  • Bolivia: Extreme poverty more than halved over past decade

    More than 2 million Bolivians have been lifted out of extreme poverty in the past decade since President Evo Morales's government came to power. Bolivia's economy is on course to grow by 5% this year, placing it among the top performers in Latin America. It is one sign of Bolivia's rapid economic transformation. Another indicator is falling poverty rates. When Morales took office in 2006, the rate of extreme poverty was 38.2%. This year, the figure is 16.8%.

  • India: Huge strike challenges Modi

    Tens of millions of public sector workers in India went on strike to protest Prime Minister Narendra Modi's push for privatisation and other right-wing economic policies.

  • Behind the deadly Bolivian miner cooperative protests

    The Bolivian mining cooperative protests and the August 25 killing of the Bolivian Vice-Minister of the Interior Rodolfo Illanes by cooperative miners requires us to question our assumptions about the cooperatives.

  • Thailand: The West no allies of democracy

    It can be said that any “international bad press” about Thailand’s military junta generated by the comments from Western governments is welcome — especially when they demand the release of political prisoners.

  • Venezuela's people and government need international solidarity

    The statement below was released by the Philippines-Venezuela Solidarity Network (PhilVenSol) on August 31. It comes after calls from Venezuela for international solidarity against new US-backed destabilisation against the elected government and revolutionary movement.

  • US backs Brazil coup, LA left gov'ts protest

    United States State Department spokesperson John Kirby said on August 31 that Brazil's democratic institutions had acted within the country's constitutional framework when the Senate voted to oust elected president Dilma Rousseff and install Michel Temer as the new leader. The US defence of the process that removed Brazil's elected president stands in contrast to many critics, including several Latin American governments, who have labelled it an institutional coup.