World

The death toll for US troops in Iraq in September — 66 — was the lowest monthly total since August last year when 65 US troops were killed. However, by the end of last month, a total of 804 US soldiers had died this year in Iraq — 301 more than in the first nine months of 2006.

Bolivia’s right-wing continues to wage its campaign of opposition to the Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) government, led by the country’s first indigenous President Evo Morales. With the right having succeeded in forcing the temporary closure of the Constituent Assembly, entrusted with the task of drafting a constitution to “refound” Bolivia, the country finds itself on the verge of the definitive closure of this historic space, conquered by the indigenous and campesino movements through years of struggle.

About 10 stalls with banners, photos, information and signature books filled Cochabamba’s Plaza 14 de Septiembre on October 2 as Bolivians continued their campaign for Evo Morales, the country’s first indigenous president, to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

It has been a year of political tours and counter-tours for Latin America, principally by the two figures who dominate the regional political landscape: Venezuela’s socialist President Hugo Chavez and US President George W. Bush. While Bush embarked on a tour in March of Brazil, Uruguay, Colombia, El Salvador and Mexico, Chavez made his move by visiting Argentina, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Haiti. At each stop, the warmonger who presides over the US empire was met with mass protests; the firebrand revolutionary proclaiming the need for a new socialism of the 21st century was met with mass outpourings of support.

“The Venezuelan economy in the Chavez years”, a study released in July by the Centre for Economic and Policy Research, reveals massive social gains for the poor and working people in Venezuela as a result of the pro-people polices promoted by the government of socialist President Hugo Chavez. The study, by Mark Weisbrot and Luis Sandoval, also provides a detailed look at the state of the Venezuelan economy, which has experienced significant economic growth. The authors argue that, contrary to suggestions widely made in the corporate media (which the authors refer to as “conventional wisdom”), this growth is unlikely to end any time soon.

Human rights activists from East Timor and Indonesia have slammed the latest round of the Indonesia-East Timor Truth and Friendship Commission (CTF), which began hearings in Dili on September 24. The CTF was established with the support of the Indonesian and East Timorese governments in 2005, with the aim of establishing the truth of the events of 1999 in East Timor, when a reign of terror by Indonesian military-backed militias occurred before and after a vote in favour of independence in the UN-supervised referendum. To achieve this, amnesty is offered to perpetrators of human rights abuses in exchange for their testimonies.

What began on August 15 as protests against escalating fuel and transport prices and deteriorating economic conditions has developed into a mass uprising in Burma. From September 17, mobilisations by Buddhist monks and nuns emboldened thousands of Burmese to take to the streets in the largest protests since the pro-democracy uprising in 1988 that was brutally crushed, with over 3000 people killed, by the military regime that has ruled Burma since 1962.

If lawyers are coming to the street, then something is very wrong, Ambiga Sreenevasan, the Malaysian Bar Council’s president, said on September 26 when she addressed bar members gathered at the Palace of Justice.

Eleven Palestinians were killed and 20 others were wounded on September 27 when Israel resumed bombing the Gaza Strip. The bombings are widely seen as a precursor to a wide-scale invasion of the Gaza Strip promised by Israeli defence minister Ehud Barak earlier in September and came in the wake of Israel declaring the Gaza Strip an “enemy entity” on September 19.

Farooq Tariq, the general secretary of Labour Party Pakistan — along with 10 other LPP members — was arrested for the third time in three months on September 27.

Diego Montoya, who was arrested in La Paila, Valle del Cauca, on September 10, ranked second on the FBI’s 10 most-wanted fugitives list. He will shortly be extradited to the US to stand trial for cocaine-related racketeering offences. Predictably, the US State Department and much of the corporate media have hailed his arrest as a victory in the so-called “war on drugs”. Yet, despite this official posturing, it is undeniable that Montoya, like many other significant figures associated with Colombia’s multibillion-dollar cocaine industry, was a product of US Colombia policy.

On September 21, the UN General Assembly supported by consensus a decision by the 22-member General Committee not to put Taiwan’s bid for UN membership on the assembly’s agenda. It was the island’s 15th application for UN membership in as many years. This year was the first time that the application was made in the name of Taiwan rather than the “Republic of China” (ROC), signalling a more aggressive independence push by President Chen Shui-bian’s government.