Imperialism & war

Erdoğan’s electioneering: aftermath of October 10 bombing in Ankara. In Turkey’s November 1 election, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) increased its votes from 41% to 49% in the five months (143 days) from the election in June. The AKP won a majority of seats — 317 out of 550. The governing party gained 5 million extra votes. It adopted very risky policies to get this result, but was determined to win the elections — no matter how many lives were lost.

Israeli occupation forces executed an injured Palestinian in Hebron on October 29, an eyewitness told Electronic Intifada on October 30. Video corroborates this clear case of extra-judicial execution, a war crime and part of a pattern of such killings of Palestinians by Israeli forces. Last month, 71 Palestinians had been killed according to the Palestinian Authority health ministry on October 30. This number includes five Palestinians who died as a possible result of tear gas inhalation, delayed medical treatment due to checkpoints and medical neglect by prison authorities.

Peter Boyle speaking at World Kobanê Day rally, Sydney, November 1. Peter Boyle gave this speech on behalf of Socialist Alliance at the Sydney rally for World Kobanê Day on November 1. * * * I am here to bring you greetings from the Socialist Alliance and the progressive newspaper Green Left Weekly.

An internal report produced by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said a US warplane shot at survivors attempting to escape the group’s hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, after the building was bombed by the US last month, Gawker.com reported on November 11.

Tens of thousands of people have rallied worldwide to demand greater international support for Kurds battling the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in the largely Kurdish territory of Rojava in northern Syria. Kobane is a Rojavan town that was the scene of prolonged and devastating conflict between the Rojavan revolutionary forces and ISIS, before finally being liberated in January. The battle for Kobane became symbolic of the Rojavan struggle against ISIS and its allies, such as the Turkish state.

Tens of thousands of people rallied around the world on November 1 to demand greater international support for Kurds battling the ISIS in Syria. Last year on the same date, hundreds of rallies, demonstrations and actions took place across dozens of countries to show support for Kobane and its people at a time when major players in the region, including Turkey and Iraq, were doing little to help its people cope with the Islamic State siege.

Melbourne-based author and community radio presenter Iain McIntyre has been documenting and celebrating Australian radical history since the 1990s. A series of zines he created entitled How To Make Trouble And Influence People were compiled into an expanded edition by Breakdown Press in 2009 with a second edition released in conjunction with US publisher PM Press in 2013.

Hundreds of university professors in Britain have declared a boycott of Israeli schools in an effort to draw attention to the Israeli government's many human rights offenses against Palestinians and violations of international law, TeleSUR English said on October 28. The petition, titled “A Commitment by U.K. Scholars to the Rights of Palestinians”, was printed as a full-page advertisement in the October 27 Guardian.

İlham Ehmed is a member of the Executive Committee of the Movement For A Democratic Society (TEV-DEM), the leading political movement in the self-governing cantons in Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan). She was interviewed by Günay Aksoy and Zana Kaya for Özgür Gündem on October 26.

Members of an Australia Palestine Advocacy Network study tour in front of the Apartheid Wall in the West Bank in January last year. Photo from APAN.org.au.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has confirmed that Turkish forces attacked Kurdish militia in northern Syria on October 25, Morning Star said on October 28. The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) said the next day that its forces in the border town of Tal Abyad had come under machine-gun fire from across the frontier in Akcakale.

Aftermath of Saudi bombing of MSF hospital. The Saudi-led coalition bombed a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) clinic in Yemen, the charity’s mission head said. The Morning Star said that Hassan Boucenine said two air raids hit the facility in northern Saada province at about 11pm on October 26. “It’s completely destroyed,” he said.