World

Nearly 40,000 Verizon Communications workers walked off the job on April 13. Joined by US Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, they protested a lack of progress in contract talks more than eight months after their agreements with the company expired.

There is a so-called “Refugee Hunter” called Dinko Valev who has become infamous within Bulgaria and the EU for assaulting and illegally detaining asylum seekers who he finds have entered Bulgaria from the Turkish border.

Supporters of Ecuadorean President Rafael Correa rallied on April 7 in defence of his proposed tax reforms, the same day opposition-led protests were staged against them in the capital, Quito. Thousands of government supporters gathered in Independence Plaza in front of the presidential palace to demonstrate their support for the government in light of provocations from the country's right-wing opposition.

Brazilian House Speaker Eduardo Cunha, who is leading a fierce attempt to impeach President Dilma Rousseff, has been implicated in the Panama Papers for receiving bribes linked to offshore companies involved in the country’s Petrobras state oil scandal, TeleSUR English said on April 4. Cunha was paid bribes allegedly funded by Portuguese business mogul Idalecio de Castro Rodrigues de Oliveira. According to the leaks, Oliveira owned a conglomerate of 14 companies registered in the British Virgin Islands from 2003 to 2011.

Protest in Buenos Aires against Macri government's public sector layoffs, January 29, 2016. Phot: TeleSUR.

The Spanish parliament was the scene of a sharp clash on April 6 over the March 18 European Union-Turkey “pact of shame” that will return up to 50,000 asylum seekers from Greece to Turkey. The asylum seekers — most fleeing from the Syrian civil war — will then be placed in an archipelago of detention centres. Acting Spanish prime minister Mariano Rajoy, of the conservative People's Party (PP), defended the agreement, saying “things are getting better, we have a procedure”.

Thousands of protesters marched on Downing Street on April 9 to demand British Prime Minister David Cameron resign after revelations about his tax affairs emerged in preceding days in fall out from the huge Panama Papers tax haven leaks.

Sanders addresses rally outside his childhood home in Brooklyn, New York. April 8. A McClatchy-Marist poll, conducted at the end of March, puts self-described democratic socialist Bernie Sanders ahead of establishment favourite Hillary Clinton by two percentage points in the Democratic presidential race, TeleSUR English said on April 5.

Members of the Oromo community in Melbourne protest against the Ethiopian regime, January 3. Photos: Ali Bakhtiarvandi. “This government is at least better than previous ones,” remarked a 74-year-old Eritrean man to me last month in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababa, his longtime residence.

The 100th anniversary of Ireland’s Easter Rising against British rule was commemorated over the Easter weekend in Ireland and across the world. Although the rebellion failed, it spurred the Irish liberation struggle amid widespread anger at savage British repression.

Ian Angus is a Canadian ecosocialist activist and author. The editor of Climateandcapitalism.com, Angus is also the co-author of Too Many People? Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis with former Green Left Weekly editor Simon Butler (Haymarket, 2011). Melbourne-based community radio 3CR spoke with Angus ahead of his Australian tour.

On April 1, police opened fire on indigenous and rural poor protesters who were blocking the highway into Kidapawan in the landlocked province of Cotabato on the island of Mindanao, killing three protesters and injuring at least 116. While no investigation of the police action has yet taken place, 71 protesters remain detained. On April 4 a police spokesperson announced that Cotabato police chief Alexander Tagum would be suspended pending an investigation.