World

The National Emissions Trading Taskforce is due to present some sort of design scheme for an Australian national emissions trading scheme in the second half of 2007, and PM John Howard has announced a task group to look at how Australia could participate in the global market.

In the May 3 elections to the Scottish parliament, the Scottish National Party (SNP) won 47 seats out of a total of 129 — a rise of 20 seats compared to the 2003 election. Labour lost four seats, emerging with a total of 46; the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats lost one seat apiece, winning 17 and 16 seats respectively. The results mean that for the first time in Scottish political history, the SNP won more seats that any other party, although not enough to command a working majority in parliament.

Some 100,000 protesters flooded Tel Aviv’s Rabin Square on May 3 to call for the ouster of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. But after surviving three no-confidence votes in parliament a few days later, it appeared that Olmert would hang on.

On April 29, the Indonesian National Liberation Party of Unity (Papernas) again suffered intimidation and disruption of a planned meeting in Sukoharjo, on the outskirts of Solo in Central Java. Members of the Islamic Community Militia prevented the meeting from going ahead by blockading surrounding roads and occupying the venue of the meeting. The district chief of Sukoharjo, Bambang Riyanto, asked Papernas to cancel its meeting, even though the party had obtained the necessary permits.

Iraq's 28,000 oil workers are due to stop work on May 14 to protest against a draft oil law that would pave the way for Iraq's nationalised oil industry to be taken over by US and British oil corporations.

On April 29, eight solidarity groups from across Europe adopted a Public Appeal of International Lawyers issued in December that calls on the US government to honour its responsibility towards the Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange. Used during the Vietnam War, this dioxin-rich defoliant is still seriously contaminating pockets of Vietnam’s environment and food chain, with devastating human consequences.

In early May, Green Left Weekly’s Emma Clancy spoke to Ciaran Quinn from Sinn Fein about the new power-sharing agreement between Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), which restores power to the Northern Ireland Assembly, ending London’s direct rule of the six counties. From 2003-06, Quinn was Sinn Fein’s deputy general-secretary, and he is a member of the party’s Ard Chomhairle (national executive). He is currently living in Sydney, where he is coordinating Friends of Sinn Fein Australia.

“Venezuela’s community health program Barrio Adentro made important strides yesterday with the graduation of the first group of Venezuelan doctors” trained in the Cuban-developed system of “general integral medicine” (GMI), according to an April 11 article on Venezuelanalysis.com.

Air attacks by US and NATO forces that killed dozens of villagers in Afghanistan’s western Herat province on April 28-29 sparked angry protests by thousands of residents of the province’s Shindand district. The Inter Press Service news agency reported that on April 30 protesters torched the district headquarters of the US-installed Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai.

Venezuela’s socialist President Hugo Chavez threatened a round of new nationalisations when he announced fresh plans on May 3 to develop Venezuela’s economy along pro-people lines. This followed the May 1 nationalisations of oil projects in the Orinoco Belt, believed to be home to the world’s largest oil reserves, which gave the state-owned oil company PDVSA at least 60% controlling share of existing ventures owned by five oil multinationals, worth US$17 billion.

On the afternoon of May 4, a contingent of police arrested Farooq Tariq, the general secretary of the Labour Party Pakistan, in his Lahore office. LPP members in Lahore and Karachi held demonstrations protesting Tariq’s arrest. The party has been targeted for its pro-democracy activities, particularly its role in the ongoing movement for the restoration of the chief justice of Pakistan’s High Court, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

Police clashed with protesters in a May Day demonstration in the Chinese territory of Macau. Around 2000 protesters demonstrated against state corruption and lack of jobs for local workers, which they blame on the use of foreign labour. They were