World

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

“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.

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.

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.

The following is abridged from a January 18 article by Richard Samuelson, the co-director of Britain’s Free West Papua Campaign ().

Politics, culture and sports take center stage in Cuba this February, beginning with a Chinese New Year celebration, a coast-to-coast cycling competition, international jazz festival, mammoth book fair and, yes, the election of the next Cuban president.

It was a victory long overdue. The corporate giant — plantation company Lion Group — could have resolved the issue a decade ago, but it chose the path of arrogance and sheer disregard for its toiling workers.

In what country does protesting against water privatisation — or better put, protesting against the removal of your only source of water — lead to the police killings of a protesting child, arrests and bashings of protesters and a threatened 60 year jail sentence under the “anti-terrorism” legislation?

In a world where the mainstream media riddles dumbed-down news reportage with inane sports metaphors, sometimes it takes sports to remind us of the gravity of the actual news.

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.