World

  • Neuquen follows Oaxaca's example

    In actions that have echos of the struggle in the southern Mexican state of Oaxaca, teachers and their union have installed themselves outside the governor’s office in the southern province of Neuquen, calling for better salaries and governor Jorge Omar Sobisch’s resignation.

  • 3.8 million British children in poverty

    Official British government figures released on March 27 revealed that in the past year, the number of children in Britain living in relative poverty increased by 200,000. According to the March 27 BBC News, in 2005-06 the total number of children who satisfied the official definition of relative poverty — living in households with incomes equalling less than 60% of the national average when housing costs are included — rose from 3.6 million to a staggering 3.8 million.

  • Massive rally calls for end to US occupation of Iraq

    “Wrapped in the Iraqi flag and chanting anti-American slogans, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Shia snaked into the holy city of Najaf yesterday for a protest rally to mark the fourth anniversary of the toppling of Saddam Hussein and to demand the ejection from Iraq of US and British troops”, the April 10 British Guardian reported.

  • Philippines: Unionists confront repression, build unity

    Organisers from the Philippines’ biggest left trade union centre, Bukluran ng Manggagawang Pilipino (BMP — Solidarity of Filipino Workers) spoke to Green Left Weekly’s Sue Bolton about the repression that they encounter from the state and their efforts to unify left-wing trade unions.

  • 'Crisis for the regime is very deep' in Pakistan

    In late March, Green Left Weekly’s Jim McIlroy spoke to Farooq Tariq, general secretary of the Labour Party Pakistan, in Lahore. The LPP is a revolutionary socialist organisation working with other forces to end the dictatorship of General Pervez Musharraf, and seeking to unite workers, peasants, women and youth in the struggle to bring about socialism in Pakistan. The interview took place amidst the campaign by lawyers and their supporters to reinstate the suspended Chief Justice of the Pakistan High Court, Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry.

  • Venezuela: Coalmines on indigenous lands stopped

    An April 4 Survival International article reported that a decree by Venezuela’s socialist president, Hugo Chavez, had banned the planned construction of new coalmines on the land of the Wayuu, Yukpa and Bari indigenous people in the state of Zulia, which is governed by a leader of the pro-capitalist opposition.

  • Iraq: the (black) gold rush

    Four years ago, I walked through Melbourne’s CBD holding a placard that read: “No blood for oil”. I was an idealistic university student, intent on letting my government know that it’s not okay to launch an invasion in pursuit of so-called “black gold” in a country that was no threat to mine.

  • Impoverished and oppressed look to Venezuela

    “How did it happen that the President of Venezuela reached out to help the poor and the indigenous people of the United States?”, Tim Giago asked in a March 19 Indianz.com article. He was referring to the provision of cheap heating oil to the US poor, including a number of Native American tribes, by the government of Venezuela’s socialist president, Hugo Chavez.

  • Support for Agent Orange victims

    Nearly 700,000 people have signed an international online petition in solidarity with Vietnam’s victims of Agent Orange, which was sprayed extensively by the US military during the Vietnam War. The petition, which was launched in 2004, will be presented to the judges of the US Court of Appeal on the eve of an expected June ruling on a victims’ lawsuit against the nearly 40 chemical companies that produced the deadly chemical for the US military.

  • West Bengal killings denounced

    On March 23, hundreds of thousands of people from all over India converged in Delhi to express their anger at the killing of peasant protesters on March 14 by police and thugs aligned with the West Bengal Left Front (LF) government. Those killed were resisting eviction from their land in Nandigram. Similar killings also happened on January 7. The mass rally was preceded by two days of cultural protests.

  • Left party, historians under attack in Indonesia

    On March 28 and 29, a series of rightist mobilisations took place in Jakarta, including a 500-strong mobilisation aimed at disrupting a march and rally organised by the National Liberation Party of Unity (Papernas). The Papernas rally was protesting foreign domination of the Indonesian minerals sector and demanding its nationalisation. The right-wing thugs were armed with scythes, knives and canes. This was the fourth time in the last six months that Papernas has been targeted.

  • Zimbabwe's two dictatorships

    Munya Gwisai, a member of the national coordinating committee of the International Socialist Organisation (Zimbabwe) as well as the deputy chairperson of the Zimbabwe Social Forum considers issues facing the democratic movement. He writes in a personal capacity.