World

When Rafael Correa was elected president of Ecuador in 2006, campaigning on a strong anti-neoliberal platform to bring about a “citizen’s revolution”, one key social force seemed notably absent from his campaign — the country’s powerful indigenous movement.

About 1400 nurses in Fiji, who began a strike on July 25, were joined on August 2 by thousands of teachers and other public servants, resulting in at least half of Fiji’s 20,000 public sector workers being on strike.

As part of the expansion of the pro-poor social programs — known as “missions” — promoted by the government of socialist President Hugo Chavez, Venezuelanalysis.com reported on July 26 that Chavez had announced plans for the construction of 15 new hospitals. The article reports that building new hospitals, along with the transformation of run-down existing public hospitals, make up the third and fourth stage of one of the government’s best known and most successful missions — Barrio Adentro (“Into the Neighbourhood”).

On July 27-28, 200 trade unionists from the higher education, electricity, telecommunications, finance, municipal services, pharmaceutical and health-care sectors in the Israeli-occupied West Bank attended a conference to set up the Coalition of Independent and Democratic Trade Unions and Workers’ Committees.

As the European Union, the US and big business vie with each other to be recognised as taking serious action on climate change, Larry Lohmann wonders whether the real leadership is not to be found elsewhere.

Venezuelan private television station RCTV, owned by multi-millionaire Marcel Granier, began broadcasting via cable and satellite television inside Venezuela on July 16, according to a July 31 Wall Street Journal article. RCTV had previously been broadcasting via the government-owned Channel 2 airwaves, however the station’s 20-year concession to use Channel 2 expired on May 27. The government decided not to renew the concession, citing the role played by RCTV in helping to organise the 2002 US-backed military coup that briefly overthrew the elected government, as well as more than 600 violations of Venezuela’s broadcasting law.

The following is abridged from the August 3 edition of US Socialist Worker.

Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution, and in particular its experiments with workers’ co-management and in some instances workers’ control, is at the cutting edge of the global movement against capitalism. With the bosses’ lockout in 2002-03, which shut down much of the Venezuelan economy for a period of two months, hundreds of factories were closed down and workers turned out onto the streets to fend for themselves.

Five months into a Baghdad-centred “security crackdown”, US officials continue to claim that the 160,000 US troops occupying Iraq are making “progress” in reducing “sectarian violence” in the war-ravaged country. But, according to a July 26 Associated Press tally, at least 1759 Iraqis were killed in war-related violence in July — a 7% increase on the 1640 who were reported killed in June.

One of the leaders of demonstrations in Gaza calling for the release of the BBC reporter Alan Johnston was a Palestinian news cameraman, Imad Ghanem. On July 5, he was shot by Israeli soldiers as he filmed them invading Gaza. A Reuters video shows bullets hitting his body as he lay on the ground. An ambulance trying to reach him was also attacked.

This appeal was issued on July 30 by Public Services International (PSI) following the assassination of Miguel Angel Vasquez Argueta, finance secretary for PSI’s affiliate STSEL in the electricity sector. PSI is calling for a full and independent investigation into the matter.

In a July 26 media statement, the Institute for Papuan Advocacy and Human Rights (IPAHR) in Australia expressed its concern at threats by the Indonesian military (TNI) to use militia groups against “separatists” in West Papua.