鈥淭he internal situation will intensify over the next months, more contradictions will emerge, simply because we have no plans to hold back the march of the revolution鈥, said Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on March 24, speaking to more than 2000 promoters of the new socialist party being constructed in Venezuela. 鈥淭hese contradictions鈥, he said, would 鈥渋ntensify, because we are dealing with the economic issue, and there is nothing that hurts a capitalist more than his pocket, but we have to enter into this issue, we cannot avoid it鈥.
723
Whenever a socialist from the generation whose political ideas were shaped by involvement in the global movement against the US-led Vietnam War pay their first visit to Vietnam, it is a bit like a pilgrimage. It is an encounter with a symbolic home of our political hopes and convictions.
A leaked document outlining PM John Howard聮s climate action plan for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit 聴 to be held in Sydney on September 8 and 9 聴 once again confirms the Coalition聮s dangerously cavalier approach to global warming.
A new assessment by the CIA and 15 other US spy agencies of Washington聮s counterinsurgency war in Iraq, released on August 23, argued that the addition since early February of 28,500 US troops to the 134,000-strong US occupation force has brought 聯measurable, but uneven improvements in security聰. However the report provided no statistics to support this claim.
Climate change
We're on the fast track to climate meltdown unless greenhouse gases are slashed 60% by 2050. We teeter on the edge of ghastly feedback loops, as the Arctic soils melt and threaten to spew trillions of tons of methane into the air.
During a 24 hour visit in Haiti聮s Plateau-Central, human rights organisation AUMOHD (Association of University Graduates Motivated for a Haiti with Rights), headed by lawyer Evel Fanfan, recorded interviews with hundreds of victims from the 2001-04 attacks by former soldiers in the area. During this period, three of the most heavily targeted Lavalas communities were Mirebalais, Lascahobas, and Belladeres. (Fanmi Lavalas is the party of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the Haitian president ousted in a 2004 coup.) Human rights investigators visited all of these communities and held discussions with groups of the victims.
The lead singer of rock band U2, 聯Sir聰 Bono, was awarded his honourary Knighthood Commander of the Order of the British Empire in March. In an example of the power of the corporate media to paint black as white, the multi-millionaire Bono has somehow gotten a reputation as a progressive social activist, standing up for the downtrodden of the world.
Michael Barker鈥檚 reply (鈥淧romoting 鈥檇emocracy鈥 through civil disobedience鈥, GLW #722) to a letter-to-the-editor by Jack DuVall (GLW #718, online edition) contains some serious factual errors and misleading comments regarding the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict (ICNC), for which I serve as chair of the board of academic advisers.
Sixty Thousand Barrels 鈥 The residents of Sydney's Botany are attempting to fight a dire environmental threat 60,000 barrels of highly toxic waste in their midst. SBS, Friday, September 7, 2.30pm.
Robert F Kennedy: The Garish Sun 鈥 Examines
Victorian Trades Hall Council secretary Brian Boyd spoke to 麻豆传媒 Weekly鈥檚 Sue Bolton on August 20 about some Victorian unions鈥 plans for another mass mobilisation against the Work Choices legislation.
On August 30, the Tasmanian parliament approved an operating permit for Gunns Ltd聮s proposed $2 billion Tamar Valley pulp mill. The independents-dominated upper house voted by 10 votes to four to allow the mill to go ahead.
I walked with Roberto Navarrete into the national stadium in Santiago, Chile. With the southern winter鈥檚 wind skating down from the Andes, it was empty and ghostly. Little had changed, he said: the chicken wire, the broken seats, the tunnel to the changing rooms from which the screams echoed. We stopped at a large number 28. 鈥淭his is where I was, facing the scoreboard. This is where I was called to be tortured.鈥
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