World

  • ACEH: With 300,000 dead: 'We must have a cease fire'

    Max Lane "The death toll in Aceh from the tsunami is closer to 300,000 people", Thamrin Ananda, chairperson of the Aceh People's Democratic Struggle Front (FPDRA), told Green Left Weekly by phone from Jakarta on January 27. The FPDRA has been

  • EL SALVADOR: Budget sparks protest

    Lara Pullin Within hours of the federal budget being passed on January 28, outraged students and staff occupied the University of El Salvador, vowing to lead national mass actions to overturn it. They have called for mass protests at the national

  • BRAZIL: 150,000 attend World Social Forum

    According to police estimates, more than 200,000 people participated in the January 26 rally to mark the beginning of the fifth World Social Forum. Finishing on January 31, the WSF brought together 150,000 activists from more than 100 countries,

  • Central American unions slam CAFTA as racist

    The leaders of the more-than-30 unions that make up the Central American Common Union met on January 18 in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, to establish the next moves in their campaign against the US-Central America Free Trade Agreement. They slammed CAFTA

  • IRAQ: Tortured policy

    Doug Lorimer On January 15, US Army soldier Charles Graner was sentenced by a court martial to 10 years' imprisonment for his role in physically abusing and sexually humiliating Iraqis held at the US-run Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad in 2003. A few

  • PERU: New broad front formed

    The member organisations from the National Left Committee (CNI) and the Peruvian Progressive Parties (PPP) announced on January 27 through a written document the formation of a "Broad Front" (FA) with the purpose of building a real alternative to the

  • BRITAIN: Proposed 'control orders' to attack civil liberties

    On January 26, British Home Secretary Charles Clarke outlined planned "control orders", which would enable the government to subject those suspected of terrorism to house arrest, curfews or tagging, without needing to try them. The announcement

  • UNITED STATES: Army reservists refuse Iraq duty

    Dustin Langley, New York "I am ashamed to be associated with this mess, and I certainly did not join the army to kill women, children and old men. I just don't see how these innocent people could be a threat to the constitution of the United

  • ARGENTINA: Locking up the activists

    Raul Bassi When Nestor Kirchner was elected president of Argentina in 2003, many both inside and outside Argentina viewed him as a progressive alternative to the rampant neoliberalism of the Carlos Menem years. Menem had governed the country

  • UNITED STATES: Antiwar protest at Bush inauguration

    At least 10,000 protesters from around the country converged on John Marshall Park in Washington, DC, on January 20 bringing a powerful antiwar message to the presidential inauguration of George Bush. The first thing that Bush saw as the presidential

  • ACEH: Military abuses aid effort

    James Balowski, Jakarta The US has given its clearest signal yet that it may consider lifting a 23-year-old arms embargo imposed on the Indonesian armed forces (TNI). A partial lifting of the embargo came soon after the tsunami hit Aceh on December