World

Hundreds of thousands of workers answered the call of the European Trade Union Confederation with protests on May 16. The protests were in support of the ETUC’s “Fight the Crisis: Put People First” campaign and its efforts to win the adoption to win a “new social deal” for Europe.

The most popular leader among the Arab population in the Middle East, the May 20 Christian Science Monitor said, isn’t even from the region: it is Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

After the military defeat of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which waged an armed struggle for independence for Sri Lanka’s Tamil minority, the extent of the killings of Tamil civilians by the Sri Lankan army (SLA) has begun to emerge.

The US government has nuclear weapons pointed at North Korea, a fleet of Navy vessels permanently positioned off its coast, and close to 100,000 soldiers stationed in South Korea and Japan.

On May 13, the Nigerian military began a military assault, including land, naval and air bombardments, on the oil-rich Niger Delta. Thousands of people are reported to have died, with entire villages destroyed.

Pakistan’s workers and peasants continue to be caught between the brutal military conflict waged between the Pakistani military, backed by the US, and the Islamic fundamentalist Taliban.

“Our motherland has been completely liberated from separatist terrorism”, Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa said in a May 19 “victory speech” to parliament. He was referring to the military defeat of the pro-independence Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) by the Sri Lankan Army.

British comedian and activist Mark Steel discusses the growing scandal about expenses claimed by British members of parliament in the article published below. The scandal is causing widespread outrage and forced the resignation of House of Commons speaker Michael Martin on May 19 — the first time in 300 years the speaker had been forced out. The scandal has engulfed MPs from the ruling Labour Party and the Conservative opposition. This article was originally published in the British Independent.

“I believe that we must reject torture without equivocation because it does not make us safe, it results in unreliable intelligence, it puts our troops at risk, and it contradicts core American values”, US President Barack Obama said while campaigning for the White House in March last year.

Malalai Joya is the youngest elected representative to Afghan’s parliament. In 2007, she was unjustly suspended for “insulting” other members of the parliament. Joya is an opponent of the US-led occupation and a strong supporter of women’s rights. She opposes the brutal, misogynistic polices of both the Taliban and the fundamentalist forces the US have installed. Her memoir, Raising My Voice: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice, is due to be released later this year.

On May 18, human rights activists rallied outside Australian foreign affairs minister Stephen Smith’s office in Perth to protest against the treatment of Burma’s democratically elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi.

\The article below is compiled from Prensa Latina reports on May 16 and 17.