World

Kosova declared independence on February 17, greeted by massive celebrations involving thousands of people.

The Zimbabwe People’s Convention met in mid-February, attended by nearly 4000 delegates from civic groups, trade unions, the Zimbabwe Social Forum and the left.

“Four million Iraqis cannot guarantee they’re going to have food on their table tomorrow”, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator for Iraq, David Shearer, told Reuters news agency on February 12, adding that “humanitarian needs in Iraq have risen sharply over the last two years”.

“This is pure judicial terrorism”, Venezuelan energy minister Rafael Ramirez told reporters in Caracas on February 8, in response to court injunctions obtained by US-based ExxonMobil Corp. — the world’s largest oil corporation — in January.

The moves by US oil giant Exxon-Mobil to freeze more than US$12 billion in assets in Britain, the Netherlands, the Dutch Antilles and the United States belonging to Venezuelan state-owned oil company PDVSA is just the latest in a long line of attacks led by the US government on the government of President Hugo Chavez — which is seeking to construct a “socialism of the 21st Century”.

United States oil giant ExxonMobil Corporation has launched a major attack on the Venezuelan people's right to independence and self-determination. In January and February, ExxonMobil used the courts in Britain, the US and the Netherlands to get

Justice secretary Jack Straw has been forced to order an investigation into allegations that a senior Muslim MP was bugged while visiting a constituent in prison. The February 5 Morning Star reported that Labour MP and government whip Sadiq Khan was allegedly bugged while visiting his constituent Babar Ahmad in a prison in Milton Keynes.

Since January 12, more than 1600 delegates to the founding congress of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) — along with thousands of local socialist battalions (branches — have been discussing the new party’s program, principles and statutes, and in large part the future of the Bolivarian revolution.

Hollywood writers won gains following a 14-week strike against TV and film producers that ended with a new contract giving them a percentage of revenue for programs streamed on the internet — a demand that industry bosses had vowed to resist.

East Timorese President Jose Ramos Horta was rushed to Darwin to undergo emergency surgery after being shot three times in a February 11 attack on his residence by armed rebels. The apparent leader of the assailants, Major Alfredo Reinado, was killed in the incident.

Despite claims by Washington’s puppet government in Baghdad that “security” in Iraq has dramatically improved over the past six months, the latest figures compiled by the UN’s refugee agency show that many more Iraqis are continuing to flee their war-torn country to neighbouring Syria than are returning.

The pink slips are piling up, and jobs are getting a lot harder to find. That’s the unmistakable conclusion of the US government’s employment report for December.