World

“Turkish fighter jets, helicopters and hundreds of commandos streamed across the border into northern Iraq Wednesday despite Iraqi and American calls to swiftly end an operation to root out Kurdish insurgents”, Associated Press reported on February 27.

This article originally appeared in the February edition of Progressive Magazine. Since it was published, the “anonymous” US student in Bolivia on a Fulbright scholarship has gone public about being asked by the US Embassy in Bolivia to spy on Cuban and Venezuelan doctors, causing a major scandal. It has been revealed that US Peace Corp participants (who volunteer overseas) were also asked by the embassy to provide information while in Bolivia. This breach of Bolivian law has caused major embarrassment to the US, whose ambassador was hauled in by the Bolivian government, which demanded an explanation. * * *

Following the announcement by Fidel Castro on February 19 that he would not stand in the election by Cuba’s National Assembly (AN) for the position of president, the Western media coverage has ranged from grudging acknowledgement of Cuba’s social gains in the face of 50 years of US aggression, to outrageous claims of “dictatorship” and US government plans for a “transition” in Cuba.

Below is a statement from Solidarity Committee with Iranian Workers — Australia

The Reuters news agency reported on February 22 that the “UN nuclear watchdog said on Friday it confronted Iran for the first time with Western intelligence reports showing work linked to making atomic bombs and that Tehran had failed to provide satisfactory answers”.

Should poor people be given pit latrines and other devices to limit their consumption of water? A resounding yes was heard at the Africa Sanitation conference held during February at the Luthuli International Conference Centre in Durban.

Visibly overcome with emotion, four former Colombian legislators — Gloria Polanco, Luis Eladio Perez, Orlando Beltran and Jorge Eduardo Gechem — held prisoner by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) for years, were reunited with their families in the Simon Bolivar International airport near Caracas on February 27 after a successful Venezuelan-led humanitarian mission.

Uruguayan author Eduardo Galeano once stated about US domination of Latin America: “Marines shouldered bats next to their rifles when they imposed imperial order in a region by blood and fire. Baseball then became for the people of the Caribbean what baseball is to [them].”

The following is abridged from an interview with Haiti solidarity activist Roger Annis for the Norwegian left daily newspaper Klassenkampens.

On February 24, the left-wing party Die Linke extended its recent run of breakthroughs in German regional elections, winning eight seats in the Hamburg state parliament.

The National Student League for Democracy (LMND) held an action at the office of Exxon-Mobil in Jakarta on February 25 to demand the nationalisation of the Indonesian mining sector.

Tens of thousands of Gazans attempted to form a human chain thelength of the Gaza Strip on February 25. The action was a protest against Israel’s illegal collective punishment of the 1.5 million residents of Gaza.