91������̳

World

• G8 on track for 5 million deaths

  Two years ago we were assaulted with the spectacle of Bono and Bob Geldof promising to help “make poverty history”. The two pop stars, both well past their use-by date, played leading roles in organising the 2005 anti-poverty Live 8 concerts and as a result scored a much-reported invite to address the July 2005 G8 summit at Gleneagles, Scotland. That summit adopted a debt-relief and aid plan for Africa hailed by Bono as a “little piece of history”. Geldof declared the summit a “qualified triumph” for the world’s poor. The issue of global warming also featured at the Gleneagles meeting, with the G8 resolving to “act with resolve and urgency” to tackle climate change.
• Palestinians demand a 'just peace'

  More than 30 delegates from around the world attended the Jerusalem Initiative conference held in occupied East Jerusalem to call for an end to Israel’s illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. The three-day conference from June 2-4 was organised by the Palestinian People’s Party and the Communist Party of Israel and was attended by representatives from European, Scandanvian and Australian socialist parties as well as members of the international peace movement, trade unions and women’s organisations from around the world.
• Protests in Palestine mark anniversary

  On June 5, thousands of Palestinians and international solidarity activists throughout Palestine marked the 40th anniversary of al Naksa (the calamity), the beginning of the 1967 war and the illegal seizure of the Palestinian territories.
• New Zealand hospital lockout averted

  At midnight on June 4, around 2800 kitchen staff, orderlies and hospital cleaners were set to be locked out of their workplaces by four contracting companies — Spotless, OCS, ISS and Compass — in hospitals across New Zealand. However, last-minute negotiations between the Service and Food Workers Union Nga Ringa Tota (SFWU) and the District Health Board averted the lockout.
• 55,000 commemorate Tiananmen massacre

  Some 55,000 people demonstrated in Hong Kong on June 4 — the 18th anniversary of the Chinese army’s bloody 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy student protesters at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
• Pakistan: Farooq Tariq arrested again

  On June 5, Labour Party Pakistan general secretary Farooq Tariq was arrested from his home by a large contingent of police without a warrant. His detention is part of a recent wave of repression by the military regime of President Pervez Musharraf, in which hundreds of activists have been arrested. The LPP, which is pursuing legal action and organising protests against Tariq’s detention, believes he was arrested due to his role in the lawyers’ pro-democracy movement and in activities against the Pakistan electronic Media Regulatory Authority, and because of the LPP’s announcement that it would hold a Free Media Conference on June 6. Tariq had also been arrested on May 4 and detained for three days to prevent his participation in the public reception for suspended Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.
• Iraq: Stop Bush's killing spree!

  There is little mystery behind Iraqis' tenacious resistance to US President George Bush's war of occupation: over four years of war have left the country devastated and resulted in the deaths of over half a million Iraqis, according to a study published in the influential British medical journal The Lancet.
• South Africa: Striking public servants defy threats

  More than 1 million public servants across South Africa have embarked on the largest public sector industrial campaign in the country’s history. On June 1, more than 700,000 workers downed pens and clipboards for an indefinite stoppage, while another 300,000 “essential workers”, who are prohibited from striking, joined huge nationwide marches, pickets and other protest actions. While the immediate demand is for a significant pay increase, an important undercurrent of the mass action is working-class and poor people’s growing dissatisfaction with the pro-rich policies of the African National Congress (ANC) government.
• Venezuela: students mobilise to defend the revolution

  The corporate owned- and controlled-media’s accounts of recent events in Venezuela give the impression that a new student movement is fighting for their democratic rights against an increasingly autocratic government. This is testimony to the way the corporate media turns reality on its head — making the victim look like the aggressor and vice versa.
• Chavez calls for ALBA's expansion

  Cuban newspaper Granma reported on June 6 that Venezuela’s socialist president, Hugo Chavez, had called for an expansion of ALBA — the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, a solidarity-based alternative to US-backed bilateral “free trade” agreements and the Free Trade Area of the Americas. Chavez made the call during the closing of the first meeting of ALBA’s Council of Ministers in Venezuela’s capital, Caracas.
• Iraq: Parliament threatens US forces' mandate

  On June 5, the Iraqi parliament approved a law giving itself the formal authority to block the extension beyond December of the UN Security Council mandate under which US and allied foreign troops are deployed in Iraq.
• Freedom of expression in Venezuela today 'has no precedent'

  The Venezuelan government’s decision not to renew the expired free-to-air broadcasting licence of Radio Caracas Television (RCTV), while still allowing it to broadcast online or via cable, has created a sharp debate in Venezuela about democracy and freedom of speech.
• Protest halts chemical plant

  Concerned about the health effects of a chemical plant proposed to be built in the coastal city of Xiamen by a Taiwanese capitalist, up to 2000 protesters took to the city’s streets on June 1 and 2 seeking to have the project scrapped.
• East Timor: Deaths mark election campaign's start

  The start of the official campaign period for East Timor’s June 30 parliamentary elections has been marred by violence, including killings. The most serious incidents took place in Viqueque district, where two men were shot dead on June 3. An investigation by the Major Crime Investigation Unit and the National Investigation Unit is underway, focusing on a number of East Timorese police officers (PNTL).
• People march to support new channel in Venezuela

  On June 2, masses of people from different parts of the country descended on the streets of Caracas to march in support of the government of socialist President Hugo Chavez, and the new TV channel Venezuelan Social Television (TVes). TVes is broadcasting on Channel 2, previously used by RCTV — owned by multi-millionaire Marcel Granier — whose 20-year concession ran out on May 27. RCTV will continue on cable, but many Venezuelans feel that after helping organise the April 2002 coup against the elected government, RCTV is lucky to remain on air at all.
• US attack on Venezuela defeated at OAS

  The latest attempt by the US to isolate the revolutionary government of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez failed when the Organisation of American States general assembly meeting in Panama on June 4 refused the US demand to criticise and “investigate” Venezuela for supposed attacks on freedom of expression.
• Beijing announces climate-change 'action plan'

  On June 4, China’s National Development and Reform Commission issued a 62-page climate change “action plan” that seeks to reduce the country’s carbon dioxide emissions. The plan seeks to realise by 2010 three goals under the UN climate change convention — to reduce the country’s energy consumption per unit of GDP by 20%, to increase its renewable energy’s share in the country’s primary energy mix to 10% (up from its existing share of 7%, and to increase forest coverage to 20% (up from its existing 18%).
• East Timorese socialists set out campaign platform

  The Socialist Party of Timor (PST) is fielding 65 candidates in the June 30 parliamentary elections, and also has 25 candidates on the supplementary list (which comes into operation if candidates withdraw or die, or vacate their position after the election). Fourteen parties are contesting the elections. Topping the PST’s list of candidates is party secretary-general Avelino Coelho da Silva. PST president Nelson Correia is second on the list; two well-known women activists, Angela Fraga and Maria de Carvalho, are the third and fourth candidates.
• Venezuela: US fears spread of Chavez example

  Under the banner of “For freedom of speech and against imperialism”, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets of Caracas on June 2 in defence of their revolution, and as a direct response to the domestic and international campaign being whipped up by Washington in the wake of the non-renewal of Radio Caracas TV’s (RCTV) broadcasting concession, dwarfing all of the opposition marches that had occurred in preceding days. Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez announced: “If the Venezuelan oligarchy believe that they will stop us with their threats, with their manipulations or with their destabilisation plans, forget it!”