World

The attack on Sri Lankan cricket team at Liberty Chouck, Lahore on March 3 left eight policemen dead and six Sri Lankan cricket players injured in firing that lasted 25 minutes.

Polls on the March 15 presidential vote show the election will likely open a new progressive chapter in El Salvador’s long, violent history of war and dictatorships with a victory by the left-wing Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation (FMLN), which is promising to build a people-centred government.

The Israeli apartheid state, seemingly unconcerned by worldwide outrage and condemnation of its latest attacks on Gaza, has set about extending its domination over the occupied territories.

According to a February 25 AAP report by Ravi Nessman, conditions in Sri Lanka’s overcrowded war zone have “rapidly deteriorated”. The Sri Lankan government is attempting to crush the Tamil Tigers (LTTE), a group that has fought for self-determination for Tamils since 1976.

As the global economic crisis worsens, a February 17 Counterpunch.org opinion piece by Mike Whitney argued that as much as 40% of global wealth has been destroyed by the current global economic crisis. Governments in Eastern Europe have faced mass riots and demonstrations in the face of their attempts to foist the costs of the crisis onto the poor.

After seven-and-a-half years of unjust imprisonment, on February 16, the brothers Hector and Antonio Cerezo were released.

Renowned Marxist economist Michael A. Lebowitz is a director at the Centro Internacional Miranda in Caracas, Venezuela. He is the author of Build it Now: 21st Century Socialism and Beyond Capital: Marx’s Political Economy of the Working Class, which won the Isaac Deutscher memorial prize in 2004. Lebowitz will be a keynote speaker at the World At A Crossroads conference in Sydney, April 10-12. Visit http://www.worldatacrossroads.org for the full conference agenda and registrations details.

Kavita Krishnan is a Central Committee member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist Leninist) and an editor of the Marxist magazine Liberation. Krishnan will be a keynote speaker at the World At A Crossroads conference in Sydney, April 10-12. Visit http://www.worldatacrossroads.org.

Irish unions are threatening to escalate protests against proposals that would result in workers bearing the burden of paying for overcoming the financial crisis that has hammered the Irish economy while protecting business profits.

At my hotel in Phnom Penh, the women and children sat on one side of the room, palais-style, the men on the other. It was a disco night and a lot of fun; then suddenly people walked to the windows and wept.

A half century ago, a young doctor and Cuban guerilla sought to bring revolution to Bolivia and was brutally murdered for his efforts. Forty years after the death of Che Guevara, hundreds of Cuban doctors have been welcomed to assist Bolivians in establishing a fair and just society.

Most media commentary, for and against the process of change and deep-going transformation that the government of President Hugo Chavez is leading, focuses on Venezuela’s cities.