World

“A strong majority of Iraqis want US-led military forces to immediately withdraw from the country, saying their swift departure would make Iraq more secure and decrease sectarian violence, according to new polls by the State Department and independent researchers”, the September 27 Washington Post reported.

Incumbent President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva came first in Brazil’s October 1 presidential elections, scoring 48.6% of the vote. His nearest rival, Geraldo Alkmin, the main right-wing candidate and a member of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB), scored 41.64%. Early polls suggested Lula could win an outright majority, however since no candidate won over 50% there will be a run-off election between Lula and Alkmin on October 29. Polls suggest that Lula is likely to win in the run-off.

Speaking at the United Nations General Assembly on September 19, Bolivia’s first indigenous president, Evo Morales, said that previous Bolivian governments had “massacred people that struggled for their economic demands, for their natural resources” and that “perpetrators of genocide, corrupt criminals, escape in order to live in the United States”.

Claire English, a former National Union of Students queer officer, attended the August 3-13 Queeruption convergence in Tel Aviv. Below is her account of some of her experiences.

Although still three years away, citing the need to prevent Indonesia’s 2009 general elections from becoming “overly fragmented” by a plethora of new political parties, legislators are seeking to limit the number of parties that can participate.

On September 12 Venezuela’s left-wing President Hugo Chavez announced the expansion of the Development Bank for Women — Banmujer — during a meeting in the Teresa Carreno Theatre to celebrate five years since the bank’s founding. Chavez offered another 100 billion bolivares (A$65 million) in resources to the bank.

The September 20 United Nations speech by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, in which he slammed US imperialism and referred to US President George Bush as the devil, has led to a fresh outburst of attacks on Venezuela from the US government and media.

In a report released on September 5, the Senlis Council, an international policy think tank with offices in Kabul, London, Paris and Brussels, said that Taliban forces fighting the US-led occupation of Afghanistan have regained control over the southern parts of the country.

On September 24, a Swiss referendum overwhelmingly validated two anti-immigration laws. The laws received 68% support.

As part of Canberra’s campaign against the government of Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare, on September 29 the Australian Federal Police had Solomons attorney-general Julian Moti arrested by Papua New Guinean police at the Port Moresby airport while he was flying back to the Solomons from Singapore. A PNG magistrate released Moti on bail that evening.

Last year the Chilean polling firm Latinobarometro published results from 20,000 face-to-face interviews in 18 Latin American countries. Venezuelans, more than any other nationality polled, described their government as “totally democratic” and expressed an optimism in their country’s future that outpaced any other. This response sits in stark contrast to what would have been found just a decade earlier if a similar poll had been conducted. To understand this phenomenon we must take a look at Venezuelan politics before President Hugo Chavez came on the scene.

On October 1, Alexander Ivanko, the chief spokesperson for the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), denied Israel’s assertions, made earlier that day, that all Israeli troops had been withdrawn from southern Lebanon. He told a Lebanese radio station that Israeli troops were still occupying Ghajar — a village with 1800 residents the UN recognised in 2000 as straddling the Lebanon-Syria border.