World

On October 15 Ecuador went to the polls. Having seen eight presidents in 10 years, three of whom were overthrown by a population frustrated by the corruption, ineptitude and nepotism that characterise Ecuador’s elite, the chances of any government lasting out its mandate seem pretty slim. However, the challenge could be in getting one of the pool of 13 presidential candidates even legitimately elected.

The United Nations Independent Special Commission of Inquiry released its report on October 17 into the violent conflict in April and May in East Timor. The 79-page report found that the “frailty of state institutions and the weakness of the rule of law” were to blame for the conflict that erupted following the sacking of almost 600 soldiers from the Timorese Defence Force.

The “What we think” column from the US Socialist Worker, newspaper of the US International Socialist Organization, argues that although the Republican Party stranglehold on the US Congress may end in the November 7 elections, the Democrats have an abysmal record of trying to “out-Bush” the Republicans.

In a further assault on the sovereignty of the Solomon Islands, its Australian-appointed police commissioner, Shane Castles, had Solomons immigration minister Peter Shanel arrested on October 17 over the alleged illegal entry of Fiji-born Australian lawyer Julian Moti.

On October 17, a US federal appeals court upheld the US State Department’s 2004 designation of Kahane Chai, an Israeli-based spin-off of US ultra-Zionist Rabbi Meir Kahane’s Jewish Defence League (JDL), as a “foreign terrorist organisation”.

On October 14, five days after North Korea announced that it had carried out its first nuclear weapons test, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution imposing a ban on trade with North Korea in “luxury” goods, some conventional armaments, and materials “related” to its nuclear weapons and ballistic missile programs.

On May 1, the day the Bolivian government announced the “nationalisation” of the country’s vast oil and gas reserves, I went out to witness the symbolic takeover of a former Bolivian refinery that was privatised in the late ’90s.

October 12 was marked in Venezuela as the “Day of Indigenous Resistance” to the arrival of Spanish colonisers. On October 12, 1492, Christopher Columbus first landed in South America, beginning more than 500 years of genocide and oppression of the continent’s indigenous inhabitants. The day is a national public holiday in Venezuela and was previously designated Christopher Columbus Day.

On October 16, the UN Office of Humanitarian Assistance’s IRIN news service reported that electricity and clean water are now “luxuries for most Iraqis”. For example, Baghdad, a city with 6 million residents, gets no more than four to six hours of electricity a day.

In a blow to Canberra’s campaign against the government of Solomon Islands Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, a no-confidence motion put by pro-Australian opposition leader Fred Fono was defeated on October 11 by 28 votes to 17 in the impoverished Pacific nation’s 50-member parliament.

Israel’s war on Gaza, its continued colonisation of the West Bank, and its construction of the apartheid wall represent the third wave of ethnic cleansing in Palestine since the establishment of Zionist state, Israeli academic Tanya Reinhart told 250-strong meeting in Melbourne on October 12.

The second Workers Charter conference, held at the Auckland Trades Hall on October 7, drew a broad cross-section of the New Zealand union movement and its supporters. The Workers Charter, launched 15 months ago, is a draft list of 10 demands aimed at guaranteeing workers’ rights. Its demands cover rights such as a living wage, affordable housing and the right to strike.