World

There have been dramatic developments in Malaysia since the ruling National Front (BN) government had its majority in parliament reduced sharply in the March 8 general elections. Opposition parties, which won five out of 13 state governments, formed

More than 20,000 people marched on April 22 through the streets of Santiago to demonstrate their rejection of the Constitutional Court’s ruling, which last week banned the distribution of the morning-after pill through the public health care system.

In the Worldwide Fund for Nature’s 2007 report, Cuba was the only country listed as having an ecologically sustainable economy. Cuban permaculturalist Roberto Perez recently completed an Australian tour, speaking to over 5000 people, describing how Cuba carried out a “green revolution” to deal with the dire consequences of the collapse of its main trading partner, the Soviet Union, in the 1990s.

“Clashes with Shiite militiamen flared in two cities Wednesday as a US drone fired two missiles in Basra and US-backed Iraqi troops battled in Baghdad’s sprawling Sadr City slum”, Associated Press reported on April 16.

Union members and labour activists attending the Labor Notes conference dinner on April 12 were attacked by bus loads of staff and members of the Service Employees Industrial Union (SEIU) — wearing purple SEIU t-shirts — who forced their way into the conference venue in Dearborn, Michigan. In the ensuing melee a number of people were injured.

Denouncing the “coloniser attitude” and “barbarous exploitation” of workers by the management of the Sidor steel company, Venezuelan Vice President Ramon Carrizalez announced at 1.30am on April 9 that President Hugo Chavez had decided to nationalise the company.

“Now, to producing Venezuelan steel at the service of the revolution and socialism!”, proclaimed Jose Melendez, referring to the victory obtained after 15 months of struggle at the steel factory Sidor, located in the heartland of Venezuela’s basic industry in Guayana.

As the British parliament is discussing proposals to extend its “anti-terrorism” laws even further, existing anti-terrorism laws have been used to conduct surveillance on a family wrongly suspected of lying on a school application form.

The government of Argentinean President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner had the first of a series of meetings on April 15 with the leaders of the agricultural sector.

A food crisis, caused largely by skyrocketing prices, has hit dozens of countries across the Third World, while an April 14 report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) argues that increasing production of “agrofuels” (the large-scale production of biofuels, using food crops to create fuels such as ethanol) further threatens the world’s poor with hunger.

ACT police have been given enhanced stop-and-search powers for dealing with protests planned for the Canberra leg of the global Olympic torch relay on April 24. This comes as protests by the Tibetan diaspora and their supporters have turned the torch’s world tour into a public relations disaster for the Beijing Olympics.

Below is abridged from an April 11 statement by the Zimbabwean International Socialist Organization (ISO). A much longer version can be read at http://links.org.au.