World

In a rambling 40-minute speech crafted to appeal to every Fox News devotee in the room, former Alaska governor and 2008 Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin told the February 6 National Tea Party convention held in Nashville, Tennessee that the US was “ready for another revolution”.

What I found most striking about President Barack Obama’s first “State of the Union” address before Congress on January 27 was what he didn’t say.

“Gay-rights campaigners and secularists called on Tuesday for protests during a visit to Britain by Pope Benedict XVI this year after he condemned equality legislation seen as friendly to gays”, AFP said on February 1.

A February 4 Daily Dispatch Online article said soil fertility expert Xolobeni said the proposed heavy minerals mining project at Xolobeni is located in South Africa’s Eastern Cape Province in one of the “most environmentally sensitive habitats” ever investigated for mining in the country.

On January 27, 1500 people marched in Timika demanding a referendum on the future status of West Papua, a former Dutch colony that has been occupied by Indonesia since 1962.

An historic gathering took place in Faisalabad, the third largest city in Pakistan, on January 29.

As a result of a joint decision taken by six union confederations in Turkey, millions of workers stopped work February 4 in support of workers from the closed-down Tekel leaf tobacco factory, a MRZine report that day said.

Pacific Rim are a Canadian multinational firm seeking to exploit the “El Dorado” gold deposits in El Salvador's rural north.

In the aftermath of Haiti’s January 12 earthquake, the dispatch of US and United Nations troops was given priority — even at the expense of rescue teams and medical aid.

Unite is the fastest growing private sector union in New Zealand. Since being formed in 2004, it has grown to 8000 members.

Simon Butler represented the Socialist Alliance at the Labour Party Pakistan’s January 27-28 conference. He also addressed the 10,000 strong rally of workers and peasants on January 29 on behalf of the Alliance. The article below is abridged from the Pakistani News on Sunday.

On February 12, the corporate sporting behemoth known as the 21st Winter Olympic Games will open to great fanfare here. In a time of economic hardship and government cuts to social programs across Canada, huge sums of public money have been spent to stage this uber spectacle.