World

The Australian Tamil Congress (ATC) has welcomed a September 16 report released by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, which "identified patterns of grave violations in Sri Lanka between 2002 and 2011, strongly indicating that war crimes and crimes against humanity were most likely committed by both sides to the conflict".

There are sprawling industries and self-proclaimed career “terrorism experts” in the US that profit greatly by deliberately exaggerating the threat of terrorism and keeping Americans in a state of abject fear of “radical Islam”. All sorts of polemicists build their public platforms by demonising Muslims and scoffing at concerns over “Islamophobia”. The most toxic ones insist that such a thing does not even exist, even as the mere presence of mosques is opposed across the country and are physically attacked.

I come from the same generation as Jeremy Corbyn. We were all born into families who had lived through the war. My dad joined up as soon as he could and was in the navy for five years. My mum was in a reserved occupation. Her first boyfriend was a rear gunner who was shot down over Berlin in 1943, aged 19. One of my uncles lost his leg at Niemagen. My primary school had air raid shelters. Most of the dads of my friends had been in the services.

The Turkish right wing takes winning elections seriously. The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan is so serious about achieving the result it wants in parliamentary elections on November 1, it is pushing the country to civil war.

When veteran left-wing activist and MP Jeremy Corbyn entered the race for British Labour Party leader, sparked by former leader Ed Miliban's resignation in May, he did so reluctantly on grounds it was “his turn” to be the “token socialist”.

The city council in Iceland's capital, Reykjavík, has voted to boycott Israeli goods as long as the nation continues its illegal occupation of Palestine. The Israeli government responded by claiming it was victim of a “volcano of hatred” after the capital of Iceland decided to boycott Israeli products due to the Israeli occupation of Palestine and the ongoing atrocities committed against the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank.

British Greens member of parliament for Brighton, Caroline Lucas, has welcomed the election of socialist MP Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Party leader. Lucas said: “Jeremy’s success in this contest is a real boost for progressive politics. For the first time in my memory Labour will be led by someone who stands up for the radical changes demanded by the challenges we face.

It is hard to imagine two election campaigns more different than that leading up to SYRIZA's triumph in Greece's January 25 elections and country's September 20 vote. In January, SYRIZA's winning slogan was “Hope is on the Way” — hope for a government that would end the six years of suffering inflicted on Greece by austerity measures in the first two memoranda of the “Troika” (European Commission, European Central Bank and International Monetary Fund).

An unusually grave political crisis rocking the power-sharing agreement in Northern Ireland was worsened by the arrest of three top republicans on September 9, Irish Republican News said that day. Those arrested included Bobby Storey, the chairperson of Sinn Fein in the six counties in Ireland's north still claimed by Britain.

The Bolivian government is organising a World People's Conference on Climate Change and Defence of Life to be held in Cochabamba on October 10-12. The conference was announced in August by Bolivian President Evo Morales, as well as leaders of the Bolivian Workers Central (COB) and the National Coalition for Change (CONALCAM).

Sometimes the fate of a child is written 100 years before they are born. Some will view this as a reductionist approach or fatalistic, but here we are not talking of a divine fate, we are talking of historical forces, politics, power, hegemony, economic exploitation and colonialism.

Land reforms are essential to achieving a long-standing peace after half a century of conflict, said Colombian academic Alejandro Reyes on September 10 during a forum on agrarian issues in Bogota.