World

“Once they got their wages, [the workers] occupied the installations and demanded that the company go, then they occupied the offices and demanded that the administration of Sincreba [Merida Waste Incineration and Recycling System] retire”, Simon Rodriguez told Green Left Weekly on the peaceful take-over by its workers of the Solid Waste Processing Plant in Merida in September last year.

I cannot say that I ever liked Ehud Olmert. But now I almost feel sorry for him.

The Colombian government appeared on June 3 in Geneva before the Committee on the Application of Standards at the ILO’s annual session of the International Labour Conference.

The Bolivian government nationalised on June 2 the TR-Holdings company, which owns 50% of the stocks of the Transredes company, consolidating the process of nationalising Bolivia’s gas industry begun on May 1, 2006, the Bolivian News Agency (ABI) reported.

Abridged from a June 2 report on http://electronicintifada.net.

“The announcement by the Prime Minister of increasing the price of fuel by 78 sen and increasing diesel by RM1 added with the increase in electricity as well lifting the cap on chicken prices tantamounts to a declaration of war against the ordinary people of Malaysia”, S.Arutchelvan, the secretary general of the Malaysian Socialist Party (PSM) declared in a June 5 statement.

On June 1, the eastern Bolivian provinces of Beni and Pando followed the May 4 referendum in Santa Cruz, holding referendums for “autonomy” from the national government. Together with Tarija, whose “autonomy” referendum is scheduled for June 21, these four eastern provinces, known as the “half moon”, are a stronghold of the right-wing oligarchy that is attempting to destablise the government of President Evo Morales.

There is a trial currently taking place in Belfast that seems to explain plainly how nothing makes any sense.

According to a June 5 Prensa Latina report, Cuba condemned the Declaration of the Rome Summit on Food Security, describing it as "the result of the lack of political will of the countries of the North" to promote a fair, lasting solution to the

Hector Antonio Ventura and 13 others, now known as the Suchitoto 14, were arrested in July last year for their participation in an anti-water privatisation forum in the town of Suchitoto.

On June 4, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in the US issued its ruling upholding the convictions of the five Cuban nationals being held in US jails, including the espionage and murder conspiracy convictions. The “Cuban Five” had infiltrated right-wing Cuban exile groups in Miami to help prevent terrorist attacks. At the same time, the US government has refused demands from the Cuban and Venezuelan governments to extradite convicted terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, responsible for blowing up a Cuban airliner in 1976 that killed all passengers, to Venezuela where he escaped from jail. Below, is an abridged statement at a May 20 press conference by Gloria La Riva on behalf of the US National Committee to Free the Cuban Five. For more information, visit http://freethefive.org.

The below appeal for solidarity was posted on < htt. Please send messages of support to [email protected].