World

The statement published below was released by Burma Campaign Australia on February 9.

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.

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.

“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.

The letter published below was sent by Cuban first deputy environment minister Fernando Gonzalez to Yvo de Boer, who is the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, The December UN climate summit in Copenhagen ended in a farce with an “agreement” drawn up behind close doors by a select group of rich nations, which tried to force it on the rest of the world.

Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution, led by President Hugo Chavez, has set “socialism of hte 21st century” as its goal. The process of change faces big challenges from outside and within. William I. Robinson, from the Latin American and Iberian Studies Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara, spoke to Chronis Polychroniou, the editor of Greek daily Eleftherotypia. The interview is abridged from Znet.

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.