World

We are on the brink of celebrating the 90th anniversary of Russia’s October Revolution, that beautiful, cherished uprising which asked for nobody’s permission to turn the hopes that the world might one day belong to those who work on it into a reality.

On November 3, Pakistani military dictator General Pervez Musharraf initiated an intensified crackdown against all opposition to his increasingly unstable regime, with the decleration of a state of emergency. While the military’s spin doctors have attempted to make a distinction between this state of emergency and martial law, it has seen thousands of people put into “preventative detention”, mobile phones jammed, all non-government broadcasting stations taken off air and the abandonment of what pretence of rule of law still remained under Musharraf, who seized power in a coup in 1999.

The following statement was issued by the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network (AVSN) on November 8.

Venezuela’s vice-minister of foreign affairs for Asia, the Middle East and Oceania, Vladimir Villegas, lead the Venezuelan delegation to the 38th Pacific Islands Forum (PIF — formerly the South Pacific Forum) meeting in Tonga on October 16-17. The PIF is the coordinated annual meeting, organised along a concensus model, of the heads of states of the 16 PIF members — Australia, the Cook Islands, Fiji, Nauru, NZ, Tonga, Samoa, the Federated States of Micronesia, Kiribati, Niue, Republic of the Marshall Islands, Palau, PNG, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu and Vanuatu, with New Caledonia and French Polynesia being associated members, and Tokelau, Wallis, Futuna, the Commonwealth and the Asia Development Bank having official observor status. East Timor has had “special observer” status since 2002. With 33% of the world’s total surface and 46% of its ocean area, the 25000 Pacific Islands comprise 17 independent nations – all of whom have a vote and representation in the United Nations (11 have achieved this status only since 1960). Green Left Weekly’s Lara Pullin spoke with Villegas during the forum about Venezuela’s plans to increase cooperation, on the basis of solidarity, with the region.

Over the last few weeks, thousands of intellectuals from different political, philosophical, and religious backgrounds from around the world have mobilised to speak up in defence of Cuba.

“Taliban insurgents have captured a third district in western Afghanistan, local officials said on Monday [November 5], defying Western assertions the rebels are unable to mount large military offensives”, Reuters reported that same day.

General Pervez Musharraf would have not expected the political scenario that has emerged after five days of martial law, imposed on November 3. His hopes for achieving normality have been dashed, despite using the most vicious repression against the advocates (lawyers) and political activists. More unpleasant surprises are still to come for the military regime, which was used to relatively stable political control until now.

The November 2 British Independent reported that US- NATO ally Turkey “has started to impose economic sanctions on Iraqi Kurdistan by stopping flights between Istanbul” and Irbil, capital of the Kurdistan autonomous region in northern Iraq.

November 7, 2007 -- On the third day of my underground period, I escaped arrest by seconds. It was because of inexperience. We live in a society full of high-tech methods to find a person.

Today is my second day in underground life. On November 3, when General Musharaf declared a state of emergency and suspended the constitution, I was in Toba Tek Singh, a city around four hours from Lahore. This was to attend a meeting to prepare for the Labour Party Pakistan’s fourth national conference. The conference is scheduled to be held on November 9-11 in the city. Posters welcoming the delegates were printed and an invitation card to supporters for the open session of the conference was ready as well.

The US launched its first assault in the “war on terror” in Afghanistan six years ago. Today, the country remains one of the poorest places on Earth, ruled by a corrupt warlord elite. Tariq Ali, a veteran of the anti-war struggle for four decades, spoke to Sherry Wolf about the disastrous consequences of the US-led war — and what the future holds.

In 1975, when Indonesia invaded East Timor, beginning a 24-year occupation that cost over 200,000 Timorese lives (over a third of the population), Australia’s support for this genocidal occupation was predicated on a policy outlined in the infamous “Woolcott telegram”: that Australia’s interest in East Timor was derived from the oil and gas resources in the Timor Sea.