World

As tensions rise and threat of war seems to be grow on the Korean Peninsula, most media portrayals can make it seem be entirely the fault of an out-of-control militarist North Korean regime. Missing from the story are the actions of the United States in militarising the region and repeatedly threatening the North.

United States President Barack Obama’s trip to Israel and stopover in the West Bank was designed to emphasise Washington’s approval of the status quo, and to reassure Israelis of his firm support for their policies. His vague statements in favour of a Palestinian state were cynical in the face of ongoing Israeli actions on the ground, and his own silence on any proposals to achieve a Palestinian state.

The results of Venezuela's presidential elections in a few weeks may well predictable, with polls showing socialist candidate Nicolas Maduro well ahead of his right-wing opponent. But we are going through a fragile, vulnerable period, with a future that is less predictable. These elections, as the start of the era of the Bolivarian revolution without its historic leader Hugo Chavez, have special characteristics and factors that go beyond the vote. Unity and leadership

US International Socialist Organisation member Brian Jones speaking at the opening night of Marxism 2013. This snippet from his speech deals with the hypocrisy and current contradictions in US capitalism including the fights by teachers for justice in education.

Palestinian prisoner Ayman Sharawna, freed from Israeli prison in a deal that denies him the right to return to his West Bank home for a decade, was given a hero's welcome in the Gaza Strip on March 17. The Morning Star said on March 19 that 36-year-old Sharawna ended his hunger strike in an Israeli jail and agreed to a plea bargain that will confine him to Gaza ― rather than his Hebron home ― for the next 10 years.

Former chairperson of the US National Intelligence Council, Thomas Fingar, received the 2013 Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence on January 23 for his role overseeing the 2007 US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran. The NIE report’s finding that Iran had no active nuclear weapons program gave lie to years of US-Israeli anti-Iran rhetoric, and has been credited with preventing a pre-emptive war against Iran.

The Real News looks at the gains made by Palestinian prisoners' hunger strikes against Israel.

US NGO Just Foreign Policy estimates that more than 1,450,000 Iraqis have died since the US-led invasion 10 years ago. In the 2004 US offensive on Fallujah, a stronghold of anti-occupation resistance, the large majority of buildings were destroyed or damaged. US soldiers were also victims, used as cannon fodder by their rulers in an illegal war for corporate power. More than 4000 US soldiers were killed in Iraq, but even more have killed themselves after returning from the war zone. Thousands more have been wounded and/or suffer serious mental trauma.

Greece's Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA) came close last year to winning national elections standing on a program of rejecting brutal anti-austerity measures and pushing polices in favour of working people. SYRIZA leader Alexis Tsipras spoke to a large public meeting in London on March 15 on the need for radical, democratic changes across Europe. His speech is reprinted from Left.gr. * * *

Not a single politician in Cyrpus's parliament voted for a brutal austerity deal that would see the government receive bailout funds in return for direct taxes on ordinary people's savings when it was put to legislators on March 19. After days of angry protests on the streets and furious negotiations behind closed doors between the "troika" of the European Union, European Central Bank and International Monetary and Cyprus's government, a new deal for a 10 billion euro bailout was finally secured on March 24.

Washington has simultaneously called for cooperation from Venezuela and worked to undermine the oil-rich nation's interim government. Shortly after the death of socialist president Hugo Chavez on March 5, the White House issued a statement expressing an “interest in developing a constructive relationship with the Venezuelan government”.

At the most highly contaminated US nuclear site, redundancy notices went out on March 18 to nearly 250 workers. More than 2500 others were notified they faced temporary layoffs of several weeks. About 9000 people work at Washington State's Hanford Nuclear Reservation, which produced plutonium for US nuclear weapons during World War II and the Cold War. Contractors are cleaning up the highly contaminated site and removing millions of gallons of radioactive waste for treatment at a plant now under construction.