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World

• Britain: Travel company says carbon offsets don't work

  A British travel agent has said it will no longer offer its customers carbon offsets because they are a diversion from dealing with climate change.
• United States: The making of the Fort Hood tragedy

  People across the world were shocked at the news that a US Army psychiatrist went on a shooting rampage on November 5 at Fort Hood army base in Texas, killing 13 people and injuring dozens.
• Chris Harman: 1942-2009

  Chris Harman, a leading British socialist and author of dozens of books and pamphlets on politics, economics, history and the Marxist tradition, died of a heart attack on November 6 at the age of 67.
• Germany: Twenty years since the fall of the Wall

  Here in Berlin, radio and TV are celebrating the fall of the Berlin Wall 20 years ago so intensively there’s hardly a moment for the weather report, which, unfortunately for all the planned events, turned out nasty and rainy.
• Gov't takes over coffee firms

  The government has taken over Venezuela’s two largest coffee makers, Fama de America and Cafe Madrid. FdA has been nationalised and CM turned into a partially state-owned mixed-enterprise.
• Venezuela: Chavez denounces war threat as unions organise

  Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez declared on November 8 that his country is prepared to defend itself against a possible act of aggression from Colombia or the United States.
• Iraq: Government pushes oil privatisation

  Before and after the invasion of Iraq, the war’s goal of privatising Iraq’s oil to the benefit of Western oil corporations was highlighted not just by the war’s opponents, but also by many of its supporters.
• El Salvador: Appeal for donations for victims of floods and mudslides

  Rains have caused 176 mudslides and 13 large floods in El Salvador. The town of San Vicente, was buried in mud and stones from the slopes of the Chinchontepec volcano.
• Sri Lanka: The campaign for justice for political prisoners

  Thirty years ago, the Prevention of Terrorism Act (PTA) was enacted in the Sri Lankan parliament. It was meant to be merely a “temporary” provision, to stamp out the encroaching terrorist menace.
• El Salvador: Twenty years since radical priests murdered

  At about 2am on November 16, 1989, Salvadoran soldiers burst into the home of six Jesuit priests teaching at the University of Central America. They proceeded to slaughter them.
• Sri Lanka: Australian complicity in genocide

  National Party leader Senator Barnaby Joyce has sought political capital by promoting an even harder line than the Rudd government on Tamil refugees. “Send the Oceanic Viking to Colombo and you will have made a strong statement”, Joyce told the Nine Network on November 8 about the 78 Tamil people refusing to leave the Australian custom ship to be imprisoned in Indonesia’s Tanjung Pinang Detention Centre.
• We kid you not

  Nearly a third of Egyptian kids malnourished "Egypt has a hunger problem: Nearly a third of all children are malnourished, according to a new report compiled by the Ministry of Health and the UN Development Programme (UNDP). "The Egyptian
• Honduras: 'The elections are fraudulent'

  “On November 29, we are not going to have time to vote”, Juan Barahona, a leader of the National Resistance Front Against the Coup on Honduras (FNRG) told the media in front of the Honduran Congress on November 12, said that day.
• United States: Why Muhammad's execution is wrong

  John Allen Muhammad, who was accused of killing 10 people over a three-week period in sniper attacks around the Washington D.C. area in 2002, was put to death by the state of Virginia on November 11.
• Palestine: Abbas to not stand again as way forward questioned

  President of the West Bank-based Palestinian Authority (PA), Mahmoud Abbas, said on November 5 that he would not run in the presidential election scheduled for January 24.
• Don't forget the men of Guantanamo

  When United States President Barack Obama issued an executive order in January to close down the military-run prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, a collective sigh of relief spread across the world.
• UN vote: Australia backs Israeli war crimes

  Australia was one of 18 countries to vote against the United Nations Goldstone report into Israel’s December-January war on Gaza at the UN General Assembly in New York on November 5.
• Regional left groups: 'Support Tamil refugees'

  The article below is slightly abridged from a joint statement released on November 5 by the Socialist Alliance (Australia); the Socialist Party (Australia); the Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM); the Network of the Oppressed People (JERIT — Malaysia); CWI Malaysia; the Confederation Congress of Indonesian Union Alliance (KASBI); the Working Peoples Association (PRP — Indonesia); the National Liberation Party of Unity (PAPERNAS — Indonesia); the Indonesian National Front for Labor Struggle (FNPBI); Socialist Alternative (Australia); Socialist Worker New Zealand; Partido Lakas ng Masa, Philippines; Transform Asia; Labour Party Pakistan; Resistance (Australia); Militan-Indonesia; H. Mahadevan, Asia-Pacific Regional Bureau of World Federation of Trade Unions; Solidarity (Australia); Socialist Appeal (New Zealand: and Partido ng Manggagawa Philippines To add your organisation’s name, email .