World

  • Venezuela: Dodgy dossier’s terror claims questioned

    No sooner had the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) released its dossier The FARC Files: Venezuela, Ecuador and the Secret Archive of Raul Reyes on May 10, that the international media was once again claiming more proof that Venezuelan government links to terrorism had been uncovered.

  • South Korea: Workers take to the streets

    Despite years of anti-labour laws, government attacks on unions, workplace restructuring and labour “flexibility”, the huge turnout for 2011 May Day celebrations shows that South Korean organised labour is still a force to be reckoned with. On May 1, huge numbers of workers took to the streets for May Day protests across Seoul. Police estimated the crowd at more than 58,000 — making it the largest 2011 May Day rally in Asia. The main demands of the rally were for better workplace security and an end to the casualisation of labour.

  • Most young Afghan men never heard of 9/11

    The pretext for the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan, now the longest war in US history, was the September 11, 2001 attacks. But the vast majority of Afghans being carpet bombed, eviscerated by Predator drones and shot dead in night raids don’t even know what the 9/11 attacks were. A public opinion poll in Kandahar and Helmand provinces — the focus of the troop surge and the scene of the great majority of bloodshed in the country — found that only 8% of young men know about the September 11 attacks in the United States.

  • BP oil disaster: Stress and anger could linger for decades

    On April 20, 2010, BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, triggering a months-long disaster that would end only after at least 4.9 million barrels of oil, and at least 1.9 million gallons of toxic chemical dispersants, had been injected into the Gulf of Mexico. One year on, the environmental destruction, while huge, is still only in the beginning stages. Experts warn that it will take decades to see the full consequences.

  • Bin Laden’s death: No excuse for more war

    Osama Bin Laden, the mastermind behind the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the United States that killed about 3000 people, will not be mourned by many people around the world. But his killers used Bin Laden’s crimes to justify wars on Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq that have killed many thousands more. These wars are continuing. The May 3 US Socialist Worker article abridged below says bin Laden’s death should not be used to justify further killings in the name of the “war on terror”. * * *

  • Ireland: The Armagh women's hunger strike remembered

    This year marks the 30th anniversary of the hunger strikes by republican prisoners in the H-Blocks of the British-run Long Kesh prison in Northern Ireland. These hunger strikes, in which ten men died demanding "political" status, were preceded by hunger strikes in the last part of 1980 that ended with the British authorities promising a compromise, only to then betray the prisoners.

  • Fidel Castro on Irish hunger strikes: 'One of the most heroic chapters in history'

    This year marks the 30th anniversary of the hunger strikes by Irish republican prisoners n the British-run Long Kesh concentration camp — an event that shook the world. The British government of Margaret Thatcher let ten men starve themselves to death rather than negotiate with them over their demand to be recognised as political prisoners. The first prisoner to begin the hunger strike was 27-year old Bobby Sands. He died on May 5, 1981 after 66 days of starvation.

  • Bahrain: Tensions rising despite repression

    Despite appearing calm on the surface, tensions are escalating within Bahrain, which has been the scene of anti-government protests that began on February 14. There still remains a strong police presence within the country. Armoured tanks and vehicles man the streets and highways. Blockades are on major intersections, forces have set up camp temporarily within the city and are on a state of permanent standby for civil unrest.

  • Bin Laden dead, but US wars continue

    A billionaire, mass murdering criminal is dead, but the symbiotic processes of empire and terrorism that breed inequality, war, occupation, torture and dispossession are alive and well.