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World

• Ecuador: 'Constituent revolution' begins

  Ecuador began to implement its “citizens’ revolution” called for by left-wing President Rafael Correa on November 29 with opening of the constituent assembly, made up of elected delegates tasked with reforming the state’s institutional framework and drawing up a new constitution.
• Breaking news on Venezuela's constitutional reform referendum

  @body intro = BREAKING NEWS — As 91������̳ Weekly goes to press, the Venezuelan government has released video evidence of a violent destabilisation campaign being planned by US-funded opponents of the Chavez government and the process of change. The campaign is based on rejected the outcome of the referendum being held on December 2. Speaking to up to a million supporters of the constitutional reforms and the revolution on November 30, President Hugo Chavez threatened to cut off oil supplies immediately to the US, in retaliation against any violent attacks.
• Philippines: Rebellion fails but dissatisfaction continues

  Over 50 military and civilian dissidents remain in custody following the storming of the Manila Peninsular luxury hotel on November 29 by troops loyal to President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo to dislodge a group of soldiers who had seized the hotel and used it to hold a press conference calling for a “people’s power” uprising against the unpopular president. Civil society and religious leaders joined the rebels at the press conference.
• Saudi Arabia: Vicious sentence exposes Western hypocrisy

  A 19-year-old Saudi Arabian woman has been sentenced to 200 lashes and 6 months in jail following an incident in 2006 in which she was kidnaped and gang-raped by seven men. When the kidnapping occurred, the woman was in a car in the company of a man who was not an immediate relative, a crime in the Saudi kingdom.
• End support to Afghan narco-regime: Bring the troops home now!

  In a new study, entitled Stumbling into Chaos: Afghanistan on the Brink, the Brussels-based Senlis Council international policy think-tank said that the Taliban is now the de facto governing authority in large portions of southern Afghanistan.
• History of the Comintern: Colonised peoples take the lead

  This year marks the 90th anniversary of the Russian Revolution. In the years following the revolution, its leaders initiated the formation of the Communist (Third) International (Comintern), an international grouping of communist parties. In Venezuela, the leadership of the country’s unfolding socialist revolution have issued a call for a new international of Latin American left parties. In this article, part of a series on the early years of the Comintern, John Riddell looks at the relationship between communist revolutionaries and colonised peoples.
• Iraq: Green Zone again hit by mortar rounds

  “More deadly violence occurred north and south of Baghdad as insurgents appeared intent on sending a message to US and Iraqi officials that their recent expressions of confidence in the nation’s security were premature”, the November 24 Los Angeles Times reported, adding that the attacks were “marked by hits on targets that lately had escaped attack”.
• Burma: 'Heading for a new crisis'

  Since the crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in October, there has been little in the mainstream media coverage of events in Burma. During the crackdown, many people were killed or disappeared by the military as society was placed under curfew.
• Public sector less than 40% of economy

  After more than one-and-a-half decades of constant erosion under Beijing’s pro-capitalist policies, China’s public sector has shrunk to less than 40% of the country’s economy, and an even smaller share of industry and services.
• Bolivia: Right-wing violence as draft constitution approved

  Sucre, the home of Bolivia’s constituent assembly, has been subjected to right-wing attacks campesinos (peasants) were violently attacked when they arrived to defend the besieged assembly.
• Palestine: The Annapolis charade0

  On November 27, as Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert met, with the backing of US President George Bush in Annapolis, Maryland, to discuss a possible peace treaty, Israeli troops invaded a number of West Bank cities and attacked the Gaza Strip, killing at least four people. Abbas’s US-trained Palestinian Security Forces attacked thousands of unarmed demonstrations against the conference in Ramallah, Bethlehem, Nablus, Tulkarem and Hebron.
• East Timor: For justice and human rights

  The following is an open letter to the United Nations Security Council calling for justice and human rights from its mission to Timor-Leste. To view the full list of signatories and sign the letter, visit < http://www.maximsnews.com/107mnunnovember26easttimorfulltextfuA href="mailto:lllistofsignershumanrightsgroupandunsecuritycouncil">.
• Reporting from the Australian-Venezuela solidarity brigade

  The Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network’s 7th solidarity brigade is underway in Venezuela. As usual, this brigade sounds like an informative and inspiring experience for the participants, who observed the final week of campaigning for a “Yes” vote in the Venezuela’s constitutional reforms referendum on December 2.
• Venezuela: Democracy or dictatorship?

  Much coverage of the Venezuelan revolution in the corporate-owned media presents a severely distorted picture of what is occurring in Venezuela and the nature and actions of the government of President Hugo Chavez. James Jordan, the emergency response coordinator for the US-based Venezuela Solidarity Network (), attempts to answer some of the key lies and distortions.
• Venezuela-Colombia dispute erupts as Uribe bans Chavez from seeking peace

  Heightened political tensions between Colombia and Venezuela over Colombian President Alvaro Uribe’s decision on November 21 to cancel the mediating role of his Venezuelan counterpart, President Hugo Chavez, in negotiations for the release of 45 high-profile hostages held by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), signifies more than just a war of words between two presidents, but a clash between the Latin American left and the right-wing aligned with US imperialism.
• Venezuela: Chavez — workers must be in the vanguard of constructing socialism

  Following the massive student protests in support of the constitutional reforms and the revolutionary process on November 21, Venezuela’s workers’ movement met the next day, with around 1500 representatives from workplaces gathering at the Teatro Teresa Carreno to plan the campaign to ensure a “Yes” vote in the referendum on constitutional reforms on December 2.