World

  • Ireland: Status quo prevails after elections

    The Fianna Fail party of current Taoiseach (prime minister) Bertie Ahern won a resounding victory in the May 24 elections with 41% of the vote. FF, which has held power for 10 years, fell five seats short of an outright majority. Ahern will likely form a centre-right coalition with the right-wing Progressive Democrats (PD) and independents, although there are also reports of contact with the Greens about forming a coalition. There is a June 14 deadline for the formation of the incoming government.

  • Lebanon: Refugee camp devastated by army assault

    Sporadic fighting was reported to have erupted on May 29 on the edges of the Nahr al Bared Palestinian refugee camp in northern Lebanon between the Lebanese Army and a Sunni Arab Islamist group called Fatah al Islam. On May 21, the Lebanese Army had laid siege to the camp and its 45,000 residents after the pro-US government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora alleged that members of the little known Islamist group had carried out a bank robbery the previous day.

  • Iraq: US troops no longer believe in 'the mission'

    “We’re helping guys that are trying to kill us. We help them in the day. They turn around at night and try to kill us”, the May 27 New York Times reported being told by US Army Staff Sergeant David Safstrom, who was commenting on the US-recruited and trained Iraqi Army.

  • Britain: Blair proposes new terrorism laws

    The proposed “anti-terror” laws would allow police to demand people’s names and addresses and question them as to where they have been and where they are going. Those giving unsatisfactory answers could be arrested and fined up to £5000 (about A$12,000). Under current British laws, police already have powers to stop and search people, but not to demand answers to questions or to issue fines for non-compliance. “Stop and question” powers are already in place in Northern Ireland.

  • United States: Cindy Sheehan quits Democrats after war vote

    In the wake of the Democratic Party taking control of the US House of Representatives and Senate in the November 2006 elections, hopes were high among the more liberal layers of the anti-war movement that it spelled an end to President George Bush’s Iraq war. No-one seriously doubted that behind the Democrats’ electoral resurrection was anger about the war, by that stage over three-and-a-half years long.

  • What future for Palestine?

    June 5 marks the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War, during which Israel attacked and defeated the armies of Egypt, Jordan and Syria, seizing the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, the Golan Heights from Syria, and the West Bank from Jordan.

  • Israel promises to continue brutal offensive against Palestinians

    Israeli military death squads assassinated two members of the Fatah-aligned Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades in Ramallah and Jenin on May 29. The public executions, which resulted in at least seven Palestinian civilians injured in Ramallah, were part of Israel’s escalating campaign of assassinations and military assaults in the West Bank and Gaza.

  • Northern Ireland: Republican activists arrested

    The arrest of two prominent Republican activists has strained the new power-sharing government in Stormont (the Northern Ireland Assembly), established between Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party of Ian Paisley in May. In January, as a step towards a coalition with the DUP, SF agreed to recognise the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI); SF members took up positions on the Policing Board for the first time on May 31.

  • Corporate media outraged: Venezuela expands free speech

    Venezuela has been facing the most sustained campaign of destabilisation, including a barrage of media lies internationally and violent riots inside Venezuela, since the last serious attempt to overthrow the left-wing government of Hugo Chavez in 2004.

  • Left party makes breakthrough in the west

    On May 13, the Left party won 8.4 % of the votes in Germany’s smallest state, the adjoining north-western cities of Bremen and Bremerhaven. This was sufficient for the party to enter a west German state parliament for the first time, with seven MPs.

  • Venezuela: The case of RCTV and freedom of speech

    May 27 will be end of the 20-year concession granted by the Venezuelan government to the RCTV corporation — owned by multi-millionaire Marcel Granier — to use the state-owned Channel 2 broadcasting signal. The Venezuelan government has announced that the channel will become a public station, similar to a number of stations in Europe, based on programs made by independent producers

  • Aceh: Women activists declare new political party

    On May 20, a group of women activists in Indonesia’s northern-most province of Aceh declared the formation of a new local political party — the Acehnese People’s Alliance Party for Women’s Concern (PARAPP).