World

This is a statement by the National Liberation Party of Unity (Papernas). One of the main organisations that founded Papernas is the People’s Democratic Party (PRD), which played a leading role in the mass movement that overthrew Suharto in 1998. The PRD is building Papernas to continue the struggle against the neoliberal anti-poor policies that have been continued by post-Suharto governments.

On January 27, Germany’s newest and third-largest party, Die Linke (The Left), scored historic victories in two important state elections, as anger grows at the failure of the economic boom to close the gap between rich and poor.

The following is an abridged from a January 29 International Trade Union Confederation statement. Visit <http://www.ituc-csi.org> for more details.

The following is an abridged statement released by Left Radical of Afghanistan (LRA) on January 25.

On January 23, a series of explosions ripped open the concrete and steel barrier that had sealed off the Gaza Strip from the outside world. The breach in the barrier allowed hundreds of thousands of desperate Palestinians, perhaps a third of Gaza’s 1.5 million residents, to surge into the Egyptian cross-border town of Rafah to buy some of life’s basic necessities — denied them by Israel’s siege of the 10 kilometre wide, 40-kilometre long Palestinian enclave.

Hundreds of people took protest action in North Sumatra, East Kalimantan, Central Sulewesi, East and West Java and Jogjakarta on January 15-17 to demand cancellation of Indonesia’s foreign debt, nationalisation of the mining industries and for strengthening the economy through a nationwide industrialisation.

After starting contract negotiations on January 12, the Directors’ Guild of America reached a tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on January 17. It was expected that the DGA and AMPTP would come to an agreement, but the swiftness of the deal was a surprise, especially because there were six months remaining on the existing contract.

On January 20, 8.4 million Cubans — 95% of those eligible — voted to elect their People Power National Assembly (NA), according to a January 21 Inter Press Services (IPS) article. The election comes amid an unprecedentedly widespread and open public discussion of the countries challenges and way forward.

Although the corporate media present an image of Venezuelans suffering under would-be dictator President Hugo Chavez, whose supposedly irresponsible and populist policies are ruining the country, a new poll released by non-profit NGO Latinobarometro reveals that Venezuelans have the most positive view in Latin America about the state of their country and the direction it’s heading in.

“General [David] Petraeus has warned that too fast a drawdown [of US troops] could result in the disintegration of the Iraqi security forces”, US President George Bush declared in his January 28 “state of the union” speech to the US Congress.

Genocidal mass murderer and former Indonesian dictator Suharto died in hospital in Jakarta on January 27, aged 86, never having faced justice for the millions of people he killed or the billions of dollars he stole during his three decades in power. While Suharto may be gone, the hypocrisy of his rich-country supporters — especially Australia — lives on.

Labour rights groups around the world are calling for the immediate release of Mehedi Hasan, a Bangladeshi field investigator for the US-based Workers Rights Consortium.