World

  • Honduras: The hour of the grass roots

    Three weeks after the June 28 military coup that expelled Honduran President Manuel “Mel” Zelaya, the Central American country remains shaken by a profound and dynamic popular upsurge demanding Zelaya’s return and the restoration of democracy.

  • Zimbabwe: The struggle for a people-driven constitution

    The first All-Stakeholders’ Conference aimed at drafting a new constitution in Zimbabwe was held in Harare on July 13-14. The constitutional reform process is the result of the agreement reached between President Robert Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party and the Movement for Democratic Change, when they formed a power-sharing government in February.

  • Israel's illegal settlements expanded

    An East Jerusalem community has called on US President Barack Obama to pressure Israel to stop its illegal “Jewish-only” settlement program that will evict them from their homes.

  • Peru: Justice for Santiago Manuin

    The article below is an abridged open letter to Peruvian President Alan Garcia from the Peruvian Association for Human Rights (Aprodeh). Peru has been shaken in recent months by the struggle between indigenous communities in the Amazon and the Garcia government, which passed decrees opening the Amazon to greater exploitation by oil and gas corporations. The indigenous uprising forced the decrees to be overturned, but not before security forces massacred indigenous protesters in Bagua on June 5.

  • Britain: Tackling the fascist cancer of the BNP

    The election of two European parliamentarians from the far-right, racist British National Party in June has removed the cover on a political sewer that should have been sealed for all time.

  • Obama should free the Cuban Five

    On July 15, the US State Department once again refused a visa for Adriana Perez to visit her husband Gerardo Hernandez who is imprisoned in the US.

  • Cuba: How the workers and peasants made the revolution

    July 26 also marks the anniversary of the attack on the Moncada military barracks by revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro in 1953, viewed by Cubans as the start of the revolution. Chris Slee looks at how the revolution was made and defended by

  • Sri Lanka: Tamil oppression worsens despite war's end

    The Sri Lankan government claims that, after its military victory against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, which was fighting for an independent homeland in the island’s north-east for the Tamil minority, Tamil “terrorism” has been crushed, and that the outlook for the country is rosy.

  • Greece: Police flatten refugee camp

    On July 12, Greek police demolished a refugee camp in the port of Patras, home to about 150 people who were applying for asylum. The action was part of a “clean sweep” operation to discourage refugees and migrants from entering Greece.

  • The spectre of 'Chavismo'

    The article below is abridged from a July 12 column by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. In it, Chavez takes up an allegation of the Honduran coup plotters that overthrew the elected President Manuel Zelaya on June 28. They claim their action was justified because Chavez was seeking to control their country. This allegation has been used by right-wing forces across Latin America.