Around the world

On Jan. 11 the case of Victor Toro for political asylum will be heard in Federal Court in New York. Supporters are urged to attend the hearing from 12 noon to 1 p.m. at 26 Federal Plaza.... Posted Dec 23, 2009

Ever since the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, which the United States never ratified, the capitalist political establishment in Washington has focused on one thing: trying to put the onus on China for the lack of any binding world agreement that could prevent catastrophic climate change.... Posted Dec 23, 2009

The International Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, which was two years in the planning, ended in a train wreck. Nothing was arrived at: no treaty, no deadlines, no binding agreement of any sort.... Posted Dec 23, 2009

Excerpts are from a Nov. 27 talk entitled “The structure of reactionary violence and human rights violations in the Philippines” written by Professor Jose Maria Sison, chairperson of the International League of Peoples’ Struggle.... Posted Dec 23, 2009

Excerpts from a talk given by Carmen Godinez from the Confederation of Cuban Workers (CTC) International Department explaining the history and significance of ALBA, the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of America.... Posted Dec 23, 2009

In the Miami courtroom where they were unjustly convicted, extreme prison terms for three of the Cuban Five -- including two with life-plus-years – were reduced to the sentencing guideline minimums. To protect their homeland, the Cuban Five conducted observations of Florida-based paramilitary organizations planning attacks on Cuba.... Posted Dec 23, 2009

Where in the world today is unemployment only 1.8 percent, and every 2009 student graduate found a job? “In Cuba,” reported Raymundo Navarro.... Posted Dec 23, 2009

Twenty years have passed since the bleak midnight of Dec. 19-20, 1989. A fifth of a century haspassed and the Panamanian people are still unaware how much damage was done. As with many other crimes, the facts remain unclear, without any judicial inquiry, without any trial and without punishment.... Posted Dec 23, 2009

An update on the success Workers World is having in spreading a Marxist outlook from “inside the belly of the beast” around the world and in many languages... Posted Dec 23, 2009

After a 32-day hunger strike that brought her to the threshold of death at Tenerife Airport in the Canary Islands, Western Sahara leader Aminatu Haidar won the right to return to her homeland, which is still under Moroccan control.... Posted Dec 23, 2009

Last Dec. 27, the U.S.-funded Israel war machine unleashed a 23-day blizzard of U.S.-made weapons of mass destruction on the towns and refugee camps of Gaza, the most densely populated place on earth.... Posted Dec 23, 2009

The United States had 167 unmanned aerial vehicles, or drones, in 2002 and more than 6,000 in 2008.... Posted Dec 23, 2009

The Sixth Cuba/Venezuela/Mexico/North America Labor Conference opened here on Dec. 4 with an evening of solidarity with the Cuban Five, defenders of Cuba who are serving long sentences in U.S. jails. The weekend conference, which brought together union militants and social justice activists from Latin America, the Philippines, Canada and the U.S., focused on how the international capitalist crisis is affecting workers, including those forced to migrate to imperialist countries for survival after their local economies are destroyed.... Posted Dec 19, 2009

BOLIVIA: Morales triumphs | URUGUAY | VENEZUELA: Controlling the banks | HONDURAS: Human rights abused | ALBA meets in Havana... Posted Dec 19, 2009

Inside the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel on Dec. 3, a Goldman Sachs investors’ conference was presenting Roger Agnelli, CEO of the giant mining transnational Vale SA, with a “Dwight D. Eisenhower Global Citizenship” award. Outside, miners from several countries were holding a noisy and militant demonstration protesting Vale’s brutal anti-labor practices.... Posted Dec 19, 2009

While a group of workers held an 18-day occupation at Vestas wind turbine plant on Great Britain’s Isle of Wight in July, other Vestas workers and their supporters erected an encampment outside the plant. On Nov. 27 this tent community — which after four months included such comforts as a kitchen, showers, furniture and a solar-powered laptop/cell phone charging station! — was disbanded when Vestas obtained a court eviction order. Campers, however, were hardly demoralized.... Posted Dec 19, 2009

In evaluating the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen — with more than 15,000 participants from 192 countries, including more than 100 heads of state, as well as 100,000 demonstrators in the streets — it is important to ask: How is it possible that the worst polluter of carbon dioxide and other toxic emissions on the planet is not a focus of any conference discussion or proposed restrictions? By every measure, the Pentagon is the largest institutional user of petroleum products and energy in general. Yet the Pentagon has a blanket exemption in all international climate agreements.... Posted Dec 16, 2009

African countries at the COP-15 climate change summit in Copenhagen led a walkout for several hours on Dec. 14 to protest the efforts of the United States, Britain and other imperialist countries and their allies to sidestep responsibility for the worsening impact of carbon dioxide emissions. The increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has caused climate change that threatens the total collapse of agricultural production on the African continent.... Posted Dec 16, 2009

After a barrage of propaganda emanating from Washington and the big business media, most people in the U.S. have been led to believe that any failure to reach an agreement at the Copenhagen summit on climate change will be China’s fault. Nothing could be further from the truth.... Posted Dec 16, 2009

It was a great feeling to be one of the 100,000 people from all corners of the world at the Palace Square in front of the Danish Parliament on Dec. 12, the fifth day of the climate negotiations in Copenhagen. It was reported that 57 nations were represented by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), groups like Greenpeace and Vegans, and political parties like the Anti-Capitalist Party from France and the Danish Communist Party.... Posted Dec 16, 2009

Ever since 1990 when the people of Haiti turned an election into a movement and voted en masse for Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the Haitian bourgeoisie and its imperialist backers have been leery of elections.... Posted Dec 11, 2009

The Sixth Cuba/Venezuela/Mexico/North America Labor Conference met Dec. 4-6. The gathering was comprised of labor organizers, political activists, youth and students from all across Latin America, the U.S., Canada, the Philippines and other countries.... Posted Dec 10, 2009

On Dec. 1 a statement began to be circulated entitled “A Declaration of African-American Support for the Civil Rights Struggle in Cuba.” The statement has 60 signatories—well-respected Black intellectuals, cultural performers and political activists, many of whom were leaders during the Civil Rights era and continue to be today. The statement alleges not only racism in Cuban society but systemic racism. It insinuates that racism is a policy of the Cuban government, not merely a lasting vestige of the neo-colonial government before the 1959 socialist revolution. To anyone who has ever been to Cuba or is in the movement to defend the Cuban Revolution, such a statement seems odd. It seems rather ironic coming from the U.S., despite the existence of the first Black president.... Posted Dec 10, 2009

A bomb blast at the Shamo Hotel in Mogadishu on Dec. 3 has further destabilized the unpopular and fragile Transitional Federal Government of Somalia. It clings to power due to the deployment of 4,500 troops under the auspices of the African Union Mission to Somalia (AMISOM), a move engineered by the U.S. government through the U.N. Security Council.... Posted Dec 10, 2009

Washington has already begun to send more troops to occupy Afghanistan following President Barack Obama’s Dec. 1 speech at West Point. In Afghanistan as in Iraq, the U.S. occupation will bring death to more Afghan civilians and more U.S. troops. It threatens to open a civil war in Pakistan, while the occupation of Iraq continues.... Posted Dec 9, 2009

It’s not often that a commercial publication in the United States allows an Afghan to speak freely about the benefits of life under the progressive government overthrown by Washington two decades ago. However, the Queens Chronicle broke the silence when it published “View from Afghanistan—A Queens man’s view of living in wartorn country” on Oct. 29.... Posted Dec 9, 2009



The voice of the people of Honduras was heard in its absence at the polls. While corporate media outlets repeat “official” government figures of 61.86 percent participation, the resistance movement says that 65 percent to 70 percent of the population boycotted the fraudulent elections, with many polling stations almost empty. This is confirmed by Lisa Sullivan, Latin America coordinator of School of the Americas Watch, who says, “Our delegation visited dozens of polling stations, finding them almost empty, in most places counting more electoral monitors and caretakers than voters.”... Posted Dec 9, 2009

It took almost 60 years, but the government of south Korea has finally admitted what many in the younger generation had already found out through the progressive movement there: Thousands of civilians were massacred by the south Korean regime at the beginning of the 1950-53 war, for no other reason than that they were considered sympathizers with the communist revolutionaries who had liberated the north of Korea from Japanese rule during World War II and were now battling U.S. imperialism.... Posted Dec 6, 2009

Two recent conferences held on the African continent reaffirmed the determination of women to achieve genuine equality and political empowerment.... Posted Dec 6, 2009

Protests mount as Morocco expels Western Saharan human rights activist | 250,000 public workers strike in Ireland | U.S.-built flying gas tank crashes in Pisa, Italy... Posted Dec 6, 2009

The Dubai government announced Nov. 25 that it was “requesting” that its investment company, Dubai World, be allowed to stop making interest payments for six months.... Posted Dec 5, 2009

Following months of Pentagon and ruling class pressure to expand the U.S. war in Central Asia, President Barack Obama formally announced he had already issued orders to send some 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan when he addressed West Point Army officers and the country on Dec. 1. His task was to sell the war’s escalation to the population at home and to Washington’s NATO allies abroad.... Posted Dec 2, 2009

Although the Los Angeles Times estimates that 40,000 Hondurans live in Los Angeles, only a few hundred participated in the Honduran presidential elections on Nov. 29. They were met with a barrage of chants, banners, placards and music urging them not to participate in an “election” run by a military coup government.... Posted Dec 2, 2009

Workers from the Canadian Auto Workers Local 195 and their allies blockaded two plants by forming a human chain on Nov. 16 in Windsor, Ontario, to prevent the viewing of machines by potential buyers. The next day the workers physically shut down a scheduled auction for the machines at a local hotel by taking over the auction room. Windsor is right across the border from Detroit.... Posted Nov 29, 2009

On Nov. 29, the illegal “government” of Honduras will hold national elections in total violation of all norms by which democratic and legal elections are held.... Posted Nov 25, 2009

Recently, at three General Motors and Ford plants in the U.S. and Canada, production was temporarily brought to a standstill. This time, however, the cause was not sagging car sales but an event halfway around the world.... Posted Nov 25, 2009

Nearly five months into a strike of 3,500 nickel workers at the Vale operations in Sudbury, Ontario, Canada, the struggle is moving to New York City. The United Steelworkers is asking for everyone to join a busload of striking miners at a protest at the Waldorf Astoria, Park Avenue and 50th Street, on Dec. 3.... Posted Nov 25, 2009

A national tour organized to highlight the use of administrative detention, an inhumane punishment aimed at Palestinian political prisoners, visited a number of U.S. cities from Nov. 3 to Nov. 20. Administrative detention is a cruel form of arrest that offers the accused man, woman or even child no charges to dispute, no trial and no limit to their maximum sentence.... Posted Nov 25, 2009

Dr. Adel Samara, editor-in-chief of the quarterly magazine Kanaan, veteran writer and leading Arab-Palestinian thinker, spoke to meetings at the Solidarity Center in New York on Nov. 19 to address the question: “A Year After the Gaza Massacre: Where Is the Struggle For Palestine Heading?”... Posted Nov 25, 2009

Excerpts are from a talk by Bill Cecil at the WWP National Conference, Nov. 14.... Posted Nov 24, 2009

Talk given by WWP Secretariat member Deirdre Griswold at the WWP National Conference Nov. 14.... Posted Nov 24, 2009

Excerpts from a talk by Abayomi Azikiwe from Detroit at the WWP National Conference, Nov. 14.... Posted Nov 24, 2009

A new chapter in relations between the People’s Republic of China and the African continent began during the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the China-Africa Cooperation Forum (FOCAC), which was held Nov. 6-9 in the Egyptian Red Sea resort city of Sharm el-Sheikh. Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao announced eight new measures to enhance partnerships with 53 African states in the areas of agriculture, debt relief, market access expansion, climate change, medical affairs, education, environmental protection and promotion of investment.... Posted Nov 22, 2009

The Berlin Wall–so maligned and condemned by war-making imperialists and hand-wringing liberals alike–was nothing but a picket line on a much larger scale.... Posted Nov 20, 2009

Three Marxist “think tanks” met in Brussels from Oct. 28 to Nov. 1 for an international conference called “The Crisis and Beyond.”... Posted Nov 20, 2009

During the last three decades, Oct. 28 has been the day to celebrate creole languages throughout the world. Creole is a stable language that has grown from a mixture of other languages, where the words come from the parent languages but the syntax is generally specific to the particular language.... Posted Nov 20, 2009

From a talk by Berta Joubert-Ceci of Philadelphia to the WWP National Conference, Nov. 14: I want to ask you to please stand up. Let us give homage to the courageous people of Honduras. That resistance that today, for 140 days, has been in the streets, demanding the restitution of their president, José Manuel Zelaya Rosales, and the celebration of a Constitutional Assembly that will end injustice and inequality.... Posted Nov 19, 2009

Just how powerful is the U.S. military today? Why is the largest military machine on the planet unable to defeat the resistance in Afghanistan, in a war that has lasted longer than World War II or Vietnam?... Posted Nov 15, 2009

The U.S. military maneuvers and exploitation of resources in Africa have not provided any relief to the hundreds of millions of people suffering from unemployment, poverty and food deficits on the continent. In conjunction with the workers, farmers and their organizations in Africa, the progressive forces in the United States must oppose all efforts aimed at the further exploitation of the continent’s resources as well as the occupation of its lands by the international capitalists and their military forces.... Posted Nov 15, 2009

At the time this article is being written, no resolution to the dangerous crisis in Honduras has been attained. The illegal usurper government of Roberto Micheletti continues holding on to power at all costs—in spite of having signed, on Oct. 30, the Tegucigalpa-San Jose Accord, which would have restored the legitimate president, Zelaya, to office before the elections.... Posted Nov 13, 2009

In the crisis now unfolding, a revitalized workers’ movement, in order to be effective, will have to draw in all the sectors that have either been left out or marginalized.... Posted Nov 13, 2009

Wesam Ahmad, program officer from Al Haq—an independent legal and human rights organization based in Ramallah—addressed a packed meeting at the Solidarity Center in New York City Nov. 4.... Posted Nov 12, 2009

Recent events in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan have again put the spotlight on U.S. imperialist designs to continue to subjugate and dominate these south-central Asian countries. They have also shown that the besieged peoples of these nations will not bow down to what the belligerent occupation forces have in store for them.... Posted Nov 8, 2009

Cuba solidarity activists were invited to the Cuban Mission to the United Nations on Oct. 29 to hear from Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, who was in New York to attend the annual vote on a U.N. General Assembly resolution condemning the U.S. blockade of Cuba.... Posted Nov 8, 2009

After 125 days on the streets protesting the military coup that had deposed their elected president, the people of Honduras have finally seen a positive sign that could lead to the reinstatement of President José Manuel Zelaya Rosales.... Posted Nov 4, 2009

The Honduran ambassador to the United Nations, the Hon. Jorge Arturo Reina, and former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark participated in an event here on Oct. 27 in solidarity with the resistance in Honduras.... Posted Nov 4, 2009

It is 92 years since the Bolshevik Revolution stunned the ruling classes of the world. For more than 70 years, until the pulling down of the Soviet Union in 1991, the impact of that great upheaval of the workers and peasants could not be ignored by those in the imperialist countries whose preoccupation was to weigh how far they could go in squeezing every last cent out of the workers and every last resource out of the oppressed countries of the world. The specter of provoking similar revolutionary uprisings was always before them to temper their greed and arrogance.... Posted Nov 4, 2009

This report was written before the announcement of a possible agreement restoring Honduran President Manuel Zelaya. A new report on this and other developments will appear in the next issue of Workers World. The repression against the people of Honduras and their democratically elected president increases. At the Brazilian Embassy, where Zelaya has sought refuge since returning to Honduras on Sept. 21, the military has increased its tactics of physical and psychological torture.... Posted Nov 1, 2009

It is dangerous to be a teacher in Honduras. In an interview with members of the U.S. delegation to Honduras on Oct. 7, Berta Oliva, director of Cofadeh, the Committee of Relatives of Disappeared Detainees in Tegucigalpa, said that the military coup has revived the army’s death squad, Battalion 3-16, the paramilitary group responsible for torture, assassination and disappearances in the 1980s. ... Posted Nov 1, 2009

Some 2,000 demonstrators from all over Lebanon gathered in downtown Beirut Oct. 12 to demand that the Lebanese government rebuild the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp destroyed by the Lebanese Army in 2007. A master plan for reconstruction was approved by the Lebanese government in 2008, but reconstruction has been postponed repeatedly.... Posted Nov 1, 2009

Many leaders of the movements for change will come together Dec. 4-6 at the Sixth U.S./Cuba/Venezuela/North America Labor Conference in Tijuana, Mexico, just 15 minutes from San Diego. A special “Nothing Less than Freedom for the Cuban Five” dinner and program will greet family members of the anti-terrorist heroes unjustly imprisoned in the U.S. The Dec. 4 program will include a video of Alice Walker, noted author of “The Color Purple,” speaking at a Berkeley, Calif., gallery display of paintings by Antonio Guerrero, one of the Cuban Five.... Posted Nov 1, 2009

The current situation in Ethiopia must be viewed within the broader regional political and social dilemma facing Africa, as well as the overall world economic crisis, which has thrust hundreds of millions of people further into poverty and uncertainty. The Ethiopian government’s close relationship with successive U.S. administrations has served to place the country as a military outpost for imperialism in the Horn of Africa.... Posted Nov 1, 2009

Striking Canadian miners rallied at the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 21. Travelling in vans for 14 hours, 30 members and staff of the United Steelworkers union came to confront Vale executives as they rang the bell at the Exchange. Vale is the second-largest mining company in the world.... Posted Oct 30, 2009

Athens, Greece, will be the setting Nov. 1-4 for the Second International Assembly of Migrants and Refugees. Migrants and refugees from grassroots organizations around the world will speak out on the horrific conditions facing workers who have to leave their homelands.... Posted Oct 30, 2009

An International Action Center meeting on Oct. 25 featured dynamic eyewitness reports from three epicenters of struggle—Honduras, Pittsburgh and Gaza.... Posted Oct 29, 2009

A decade ago on Oct. 14, 1999, Mwalimu Julius Kambarage Nyerere passed away in his East African nation of Tanzania. Nyerere was one of the leading political figures to emerge during the post-World War II era of anti-colonial and anti-imperialist struggles that swept through Africa, Asia and Latin America.... Posted Oct 29, 2009

The war to subjugate Afghanistan and use it as a launching pad for Anglo-U.S.  domination of the whole region is in big trouble. Even though they face more than 100,000 foreign troops equipped with the highest-tech weapons of death available, the Afghan resistance has been growing.... Posted Oct 25, 2009

In the high Spanish court called the Audiencia Nacional, charges for international crimes had already been lodged against Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and other nefarious world leaders. On Oct. 6, new charges were brought charging Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, Margaret Thatcher, George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, Gordon Brown and Barack Obama with crimes against humanity for their responsibility for harming the people of Iraq.... Posted Oct 25, 2009

In massive national protests, tens of thousands of campesinos, union workers, students and Indigenous people blocked roads and bridges on Oct. 12—
El Día de la Raza—effectively paralyzing many parts of Guatemala.....
Posted Oct 25, 2009

Denouncing a viciously racist antiimmigrant law passed by the government of scandal-ridden billionaire media magnate Silvio Berlusconi, as many as 200,000 people marched from the Piazza della Repubblica to the Roman forum on Oct. 17. The CGIL labor confederation played a major role in the march along with immigrants from Africa, the Balkans, the Middle East and South Asia.... Posted Oct 25, 2009

Hundreds of thousands of workers marched from the Independence Column through the streets of downtown Mexico City to the Zócalo central square to demonstrate their support for the SME electrical workers union and to oppose the rightist government’s plan to privatize the public electrical company, Light and Power, and eliminate tens of thousands of jobs.... Posted Oct 23, 2009

This report is written on the 113th day of resistance by the Honduran people against the illegal military coup that ousted democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya.... Posted Oct 23, 2009

Youth and students are an important sector participating in the struggle against the illegal coup d’etat in Honduras. Video after video of the resistance actions that have taken place since the July 28 coup have shown youth in the streets and facing repression as well.... Posted Oct 23, 2009

A general strike called to protest the Sept. 28 killings of over 150 people and the wounding of over 1,200 took place in Guinea on Oct. 12-13.... Posted Oct 23, 2009

The masses in Puerto Rico sent a strong message to the pro-statehood administration of Gov. Luis Fortuño and his capitalist allies when more than 100,000 people came out on Oct. 15 in San Juan and Hato Rey to protest the current government’s neoliberal policies, including more than 20,000 layoffs in the public sector.... Posted Oct 21, 2009

Zimbabwe’s inclusive government was thrown into crisis in the aftermath of the arrest of the Western-backed Movement for Democratic Change-Tsvangirai Treasurer Roy Bennett on Oct. 14. Bennett, who has been charged with possessing arms for the purpose of criminal activity, terrorism and inciting acts of insurgency, had been out on bail since March.... Posted Oct 21, 2009

Let’s put the fierce debate taking place over the war in Afghanistan in the proper historical and class context—from a Marxist point of view, a Leninist, anti-imperialist point of view. The war to make Afghanistan a U.S. satellite in Central Asia, just like the war against Iraq and the threats to Iran, is part of an historic effort to re-conquer that part of the world.... Posted Oct 18, 2009

After a major address before the Columbus Council on World Affairs, the U.S.-backed president of the Transitional Federal Government of Somalia, Sheik Sherif Sheikh Ahmed, told journalists that his fragile regime could not prevent the seizure of power by the two main resistance groups in the Horn of Africa nation.... Posted Oct 18, 2009

Since July, when 600 workers at a wind turbine plant on the Isle of Wight in Britain were laid off, their ongoing struggle has united labor and environmental activists in a movement to save so-called “green jobs.”... Posted Oct 18, 2009

Outrage swept through the Palestinian communities worldwide following Palestinian Authority head Mahmoud Abbas’ decision Oct. 8 not to pursue the Goldstone Report, which accuses Israel of committing war crimes when it waged war on Gaza in January. Abbas made this decision at the urging of Hillary Clinton.... Posted Oct 16, 2009

When cameras are running, Washington officials sometimes express “concern” for the plight of the Palestinian people. But even this phony caring doesn’t extend to the 4.5 million Palestinians who for 61 years have remained stateless, without official nationality, stranded in Arab countries.The right to return has never been raised in the so-called Palestinian-Israeli peace talks that Washington brokers. The U.S. government sidesteps the right of Palestinians to return to their original towns and villages because it opposes this right... Posted Oct 16, 2009

From Alaska to southern Chile, Indigenous people all over the Western Hemisphere demonstrated in protest on Oct. 12—the anniversary of the day Christopher Columbus’ ships landed on a Caribbean island and began to introduce all the evils of European early capitalist colonial society to this half of the world.... Posted Oct 16, 2009



The conspiracy that Jeremy Keenan’s book “The Dark Sahara” examines grew out of the kidnapping of 32 European tourists in seven separate parties in early 2003, a few weeks before the United States invaded Iraq. The tourists, all German speaking, vanished in an area of southern Algeria called the “Graveyard Trail,” a well-known tourist destination in the German-speaking world. Keenan shows U.S. collusion in the conspiracy with the goal of opening Africa to further U.S. intervention.... Posted Oct 15, 2009

After a week of showing solidarity with the people of Honduras on the streets and gaining insightful information on what has transpired during the 105 days since a right-wing coup, the 12 people composing the U.S. Delegation in Solidarity with the Honduran Resistance returned to the U.S. in the wee hours of Oct. 12. Delegation members met with members of various sectors—teachers, youth and students, women, human rights organizations, churches, artists and more—that have come together in a united front against the coup and for constitutional reform. Representatives expressed pride and determination to continue in the struggle, while also acknowledging that the situation is grave.... Posted Oct 14, 2009

“Rethink Afghanistan,” a documentary directed by Robert Greenwald, is available as a DVD or online in six parts at rethinkafghanistan.com. It opened Oct. 1 in a limited number of U.S. theaters.... Posted Oct 12, 2009

A summit of African and South American leaders convened on the Venezuelan-Caribbean island of Margarita Sept. 26-27. The gathering was a follow-up to the first Africa-South America Summit held in Abuja, Nigeria, in November 2006.... Posted Oct 12, 2009

Ignacio Meneses represented the U.S./Cuba Labor Exchange at the Second Nuestra Americas labor conference held in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Sept. 22-24. Since 1991 the Labor Exchange has built international ties between working people in the U.S. and workers throughout Latin America, particularly in Cuba.... Posted Oct 8, 2009

A delegation of human rights activists from the United States is on a fact-finding mission in Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras.... Posted Oct 7, 2009

An emergency demonstration supporting the Honduran people’s resistance and the reinstatement of illegally deposed President Manuel Zelaya was held in Buffalo, N.Y., on Sept. 29.... Posted Oct 7, 2009

The San Francisco Labor Council supports the immediate and unconditional return of President Manuel Zelaya to his position as head of state of Honduras and supports the restoration of all democratic rights there, while demanding that those responsible for the coup be brought to justice and that the U.S. government suspend all aid until Zelaya is restored to his position.... Posted Oct 7, 2009

The National Women’s Fightback Network stands in solidarity with all of our Honduran sisters who are in the resistance movement in opposition to the illegal Micheletti government.... Posted Oct 7, 2009

Internal struggles in Nkrumah’s Convention Peoples Party broke into the open, once even resulting in an August 1962 attempt to assassinate the president with a bomb attack.... Posted Oct 7, 2009

A trial aimed at repressing job actions by the workers at a private processing plant in the city of Krasny Luch of the Lugansk region, Ukraine, will reopen on Oct. 9. The workers ask for letters of solidarity and that people and organizations send protests of the trial to the Ukranian authorities.... Posted Oct 7, 2009

The G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh gathered the finance ministers, top bankers and political leaders of the world’s largest economies, ostensibly to take up the most serious economic collapse of capitalism in three generations. Instead, they attacked Iran.... Posted Oct 4, 2009

Since the G-20 meeting the world has once again had to witness a saber-rattling attempt to force Iran to abandon its right to develop nuclear power. It is orchestrated by the great imperialist powers of the world in Washington, London, Berlin and Paris, who themselves are armed to the teeth with thousands of nuclear weapons. In the course of this campaign these powers, along with their client state of Israel, have resumed their attacks on President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad regarding the Holocaust.... Posted Oct 4, 2009

Gen. Stanley McChrystal has submitted his report asking for as many as 40,000 additional troops for the war on Afghanistan, arguing that they are needed for a U.S. “victory.” President Barack Obama has said he wants time for the administration to examine its strategy regarding Afghanistan.... Posted Oct 4, 2009

According to the history books, 100 years ago on Sept. 21, 1909, Kwame Nkrumah, the founder and leader of the African independence movement and the foremost advocate of Pan-Africanism during his time, was born in the western Nzima region of the Gold Coast, later known as the independent state of Ghana.... Posted Oct 4, 2009

It has been 27 years since the massacre of at least 2,000 unarmed Palestinians and poor Lebanese in the Sabra and Shatila refugees camps here in Beirut.... Posted Oct 4, 2009

Aggression by right-wing forces that can accurately be described as acts of war continues in Honduras. A vicious fascist coup may be in the making as the de facto illegal government of Roberto Micheletti carries out a reign of terror against the people and Manuel Zelaya, the democratically elected president. The coup plotters—golpistas in Spanish—have denied rights guaranteed in the Constitution and banned gatherings.... Posted Oct 1, 2009



Juan Almeida Bosque, who recently died in Cuba at the age of 82, was one of the original band of revolutionary heroes who stormed the heavens and brought down the brutal dictatorship of U.S. lackey Fulgencio Batista on Jan. 1, 1959. ... Posted Sep 23, 2009

Since 2007 U.S. foreign policy has deeply injured Somalia.... Posted Sep 23, 2009

The Iraqi people celebrated on Sept. 15 when Muntadhar al-Zaidi was released from a Baghdad jail after nine months in prison.... Posted Sep 23, 2009

On Sept. 17, when President Barack Obama and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announced that the U.S. was canceling plans to station 10 ground-based interceptor missiles in Poland and a missile radar installation in the Czech Republic, it was no cause for elation. The NATO presence in Eastern Europe is continuing to expand to protect imperial ambitions and military profits.... Posted Sep 23, 2009

On its Web site, the Danish firm Vestas boasts of being “number one in modern energy.” The manufacturer of wind turbines has 20 percent of the world market share. Until recently, many might have assumed the company was in the laudable business of saving the environment and creating “green jobs”—the jobs of the future.... Posted Sep 23, 2009

Libyan leader Mummar Qaddafi will attend the annual United Nations General Assembly in New York City later this month amid a corporate-media provoked racist campaign to prevent him from staying in Englewood, N.J., on a plot of land owned by Libya’s U.N. Mission. Libya’s government announced on Aug. 31 that Qaddafi, who is also chairperson of the continental African Union, would not stay in Englewood but remain in New York City during the General Assembly gathering of over 150 heads of state from around the globe.... Posted Sep 21, 2009

Political activists of the 1960s and 1970s witnessed some of the most revolutionary developments in history. Consciousness was profoundly shaped by the historic events sweeping the world, from the triumph of the Cuban Revolution to the national liberation struggles in Africa to the French general strike and to the speeches of Che Guevara and Fidel Castro.... Posted Sep 21, 2009

“Please tell President Obama that if he wants you to believe in his promise of change, then he must free the Cuban Five!” Ricardo Alarcón, president of the Cuban Parliament, told members of the 20th Pastors for Peace Friendshipment Caravan when they arrived in Havana this summer from the U.S.... Posted Sep 21, 2009

In an attempt to permanently destroy southern Lebanon’s farming-based economy, Israel dropped more than a million cluster bombs there in the last 72 hours of the war, after the cease-fire had been negotiated.... Posted Sep 21, 2009

With Defense Secretary Robert Gates expected to ask for 45,000 more U.S. troops for Afghanistan, it looks like a U.S. escalation of that ugly war will be the next big issue to be fought out in Congress, with most opposition coming from Democrats. Will the administration rely on support from the most rightist forces in Congress to continue to promote the war against the Afghans, sending many thousands of U.S. youth and contract mercenaries to kill and die occupying that Central Asian land... Posted Sep 18, 2009

The 1959 Cuban Revolution overturned the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. The revolution ended Cuba’s status as a U.S. neocolony and made possible a complete overhaul and rebuilding of the medical system in that country along socialist lines. In 1960 revolutionary physician Che Guevara formally addressed the Cuban Militia. His speech has since been published as an essay titled “On Revolutionary Medicine,” which outlines the socialist view of the relationship between revolution, private property and medicine.... Posted Sep 13, 2009

Now that the documents recording the systematic torture of thousands of prisoners in secret U.S. prisons have been released to the world media in U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder’s Aug. 24 report, the secret documents on the imprisonment and torture of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui must also be released.... Posted Sep 13, 2009

Dahia was the area hardest hit by Israel in 2006. It suffered 934 bombing raids, according to the Lebanese army. Much of the neighborhood was reduced to rubble.... Posted Sep 13, 2009

Two disasters. One a natural disaster, Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans in 2005. The other a human-made disaster, the carpet bombing of Lebanon in 2006. Both inflicted widespread death and destruction. What is the situation several years later? Which group would you trust to rebuild if you lost your home?... Posted Sep 13, 2009

As the decision day for escalating the U.S.-led occupation of Afghanistan grows closer, a mass slaughter of Afghans in northern Kunduz province has put the war on center stage worldwide and sharpened popular opposition within the NATO countries, including inside the U.S. itself.... Posted Sep 11, 2009

Since the beginning of August, the struggle of oppressed workers and youth in New Caledonia has brought tensions to heights not seen since this South Pacific island had an armed rebellion against France in the late 1980s... Posted Sep 10, 2009

It was an unprecedented event for a head of state. While he was in Washington, D.C., Honduran legitimate President Mel Zelaya spoke on the evening of Sept. 2 with 26 anti-coup activists based in the United States.... Posted Sep 9, 2009

Mokgadi Caster Semenya is a South African runner who won the women’s 800-meter gold medal at the 2009 World Championships. She was subsequently challenged by competitors to prove her gender and subjected to sex tests by the International Association of Athletics Federations. South African gender and political analyst Nomboniso Gasa responds.... Posted Sep 9, 2009

Like the Gulf Coast of the United States, the island nation of Cuba was hit hard by hurricanes Gustav and Ike in the fall of 2008. However, in Cuba, no one, not a single person, was left to their own luck to survive the hurricanes.... Posted Sep 4, 2009

In the 2006 war, in retaliation for its failed invasion, Israel bombed virtually every one of Lebanon’s southern villages and towns. Roads and bridges were destroyed, with mosques and churches smashed and Red Cross ambulances, schools, government emergency centers, factories, power and water networks blown apart. And then, in the last days of the war, after getting a rush weapons’ delivery from the Pentagon, Israel dropped 1.2 million cluster bombs on the South.... Posted Sep 4, 2009

Demonstrators marched in solidarity with the Honduran people in at least 10 U.S. cities on Aug. 28, the two-month anniversary of the June 28 military coup d’état in Honduras which ousted President Manuel Zelaya. The right-wing coup replaced the legally and constitutionally elected Zelaya with Roberto Micheletti, representing the 13-family ruling oligarchy.... Posted Sep 3, 2009

“They’d made an announcement ... that we were going to have our jobs for years to come. So people went out and got mortgages and cars and all that. ... Then they came and said it’s not happening. They turned around and said, ‘Actually, we’re sacking you all.’ It was a big shock.” ... Posted Sep 3, 2009

Tens of thousands of men, women and children gathered in this poor neighborhood south of Beirut on Aug. 14 to stand firm against a new round of Israeli threats to Lebanon. They also marked the anniversary of the Lebanese people’s victory over the U.S.-backed Israeli invasion, siege and bombardment of their country in 2006.... Posted Aug 28, 2009



The Gaza Strip, populated by 1.5 million Palestinians, is virtually an open-air prison—a place of punishment and exile for Palestinians. No one can officially get in or out of Gaza unless given permission at border checkpoints that are opened at the whim of Israel and Egypt. If your name is not on a pre-existing list, you can’t get into Gaza or leave it.... Posted Aug 27, 2009

The fraud-filled and inconclusive Afghan presidential election exposed the weakness of the U.S.-NATO occupation regime. President Barack Obama’s defense of the phony election and of the U.S. intervention failed to cover this up at a time when the people in the U.S. are growing increasingly unhappy with the Afghan war.... Posted Aug 26, 2009

Abdel Basset al-Megrahi returned home to Libya Aug. 21 to a hero’s welcome. He had been held in a Scottish prison for eight years in connection with the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, on Dec. 21, 1988. This political prisoner’s release created the conditions for a renewal of attacks on the North African state of Libya.... Posted Aug 26, 2009

After two days of a general strike, the people of Lascahobas, Haiti, held a peaceful rally Aug. 6 and set up blockades on the road to the Dominican Republic.... Posted Aug 23, 2009

More than 100,000 troops from the Pentagon and its NATO allies now occupy Afghanistan. They are inflicting more deaths and terror on the Afghans. They are also dying in record numbers now, nearly eight years after the initial U.S. invasion. The occupation forces imposed a presidential election on that suffering country on Aug. 20.... Posted Aug 20, 2009

Developments indicate clearly that the interest in African affairs by the current U.S. administration means a continuation of promoting and advancing the economic and political priorities of the U.S. ruling class.... Posted Aug 20, 2009

Hondurans continue the struggle in the streets. Defying criminal police and military who repress, arrest and shoot tear and pepper gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition at them, the people have protested the military coup regime every day for seven long weeks.... Posted Aug 20, 2009

Imprisoned Palestinian national leader Ahmad Sa’adat, the general secretary of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was transferred on Aug. 11 to Ramon prison in the Naqab desert from Asqalan prison, where he had been held for a number of months. He remains in isolation; prior to his transfer from Asqalan, he had been held since Aug. 1 in a tiny isolation cell of 140 cm. by 240 cm. after being penalized for communicating with another prisoner in the isolation unit.... Posted Aug 20, 2009

When a man dropped his gun at a town hall forum in Arizona, it was a sign that the town hall disruptions around the country were about much more than health care reform. Just a few days after the Arizona incident, a man bearing a sidearm appeared outside President Barack Obama’s Aug. 11 town hall meeting in Portsmouth, N.H. He was holding a sign stating, “It is time to water the tree of liberty.” It was a reference to Thomas Jefferson’s famous statement, “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” It represented a clear threat to the life of President Obama.... Posted Aug 19, 2009

Since last December when the sit-down at Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago drew international attention, workers around the world have been employing that same militant tactic. In early August, police forcibly ended job occupations in three different countries.... Posted Aug 17, 2009

Over 700 people have been reportedly killed and hundreds of others were arrested in a police and military crackdown on the Boko Haram religious group based in several Northern states in the West African nation of Nigeria. Western and domestic media reports have characterized the operations by the security forces as another anti-terrorism effort modeled on the United States occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet the underlying crisis in Nigeria, one of Africa’s largest oil producers, is closely related to the present state of the world capitalist system and the subordinate role of countries that rely heavily on foreign exchange earnings from exports to the industrialized countries.... Posted Aug 13, 2009

The old adage, “Actions speak louder than words,” underlines a dangerous reality regarding any alleged change in U.S. relations with Latin America, and especially regarding Honduras and Colombia.... Posted Aug 12, 2009

The failure of capitalist methods of production and distribution is clearly illustrated by the way the collapse of the financial and industrial centers in Western Europe and the United States has devastated former colonial countries. Since late 2007 tens of millions of workers and farmers in several regions of the African continent have been severely affected by unemployment, rising commodities prices, food deficits and the decline in material aid from the industrialized states.... Posted Aug 9, 2009

Some 300 people who traveled to Cuba on a trip with the Venceremos Brigade, Pastors for Peace, U.S./Cuba Labor Exchange and Africa Awareness struck a blow against the U.S. blockade of Cuba when they crossed back into the U.S. via both New York and Texas on Aug. 3.... Posted Aug 9, 2009

Two hundred Haitians on July 26 crammed themselves into a small sailing vessel, according to news reports. They were seeking to escape from a country that continues to be occupied by foreign troops and whose people suffer from massive poverty and starvation.... Posted Aug 9, 2009

On July 29 the House of the Lord Church in Brooklyn hosted a standing-room-only report-back meeting led by several participants of the Viva Palestina historic U.S. convoy who returned July 17 and 18 from Gaza City in Palestine. The audience was majority Black.... Posted Aug 8, 2009

Honduran workers and farmers have protested every day since a military coup d’état overthrew that country’s democratically elected President Manuel Zelaya on June 28. Voices of that resistance movement spoke in Philadelphia July 31 stressing the urgency that Zelaya be returned to power and the coup d’état overturned.... Posted Aug 6, 2009

Filipino students and others demonstrated in front of the new Federal Building on 7th Street in San Francisco on July 27 to demand no U.S. tax money for the tortures carried out under the dictatorship of President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.... Posted Aug 6, 2009

Even a country that possesses arms as powerful as those of the United States cannot conquer through military might alone. That is the lesson of this period of seemingly endless U.S. imperialist invasions and occupations that began with the assault on Korea in 1950 and continues to the present.... Posted Aug 5, 2009

A meeting of the San Francisco Labor Council on July 27 unanimously adopted a resolution to support striking workers in South Korea.... Posted Aug 5, 2009

Collectively the countries which participate in the Group of Twenty comprise 85 percent of the global gross national product, 80 percent of world trade and two-thirds of the world’s population. What many G-20 countries lack, however, is sufficient arable land to meet the needs of growing urban populations.... Posted Aug 3, 2009

In a visit to four African states, Cuban President Raul Castro continued the decades-long legacy of international solidarity with the peoples of the continent. Castro, who recently stepped down as chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement at its summit in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, was hailed at the gathering in July for Cuba’s contributions to the liberation and development of Africa.... Posted Jul 31, 2009

A spirited celebration of Fidel Castro’s legendary July 26 attack on the Moncada Barracks, which launched Cuba’s revolutionary movement, took place July 25 at Service Employees Local 1199 headquarters. A broad cross-section of New York’s Cuba solidarity movement took part in the celebration.... Posted Jul 31, 2009

On July 27, 1953, U.S. imperialism and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK or north Korea) signed an armistice agreement that halted the Korean War. Fifty-six years later, not only does the U.S. still refuse to sign a peace treaty, but it still occupies south Korea with 28,500 troops, stationed there to prop up a puppet government.... Posted Jul 31, 2009

A Viva Palestina organizer writes: we took a guided bus tour and witnessed Gaza’s devastation. It was clear the Israeli bombing and invasion of Gaza were a deliberate campaign to inflict punishment on the civilian population.
Apartment buildings had been shelled, leaving huge holes in the walls. Many homes in Gaza had been reduced to rubble....
Posted Jul 31, 2009

The casualties among the U.S.-led occupation forces in Afghanistan are headed toward a new high this year, reaching 67 killed in July alone. The step-up in deaths—mostly from the large U.S. and British contingents on an offensive in Helmand Province—signals the new U.S. administration’s focus on this Central Asian country of just 29 million people.... Posted Jul 30, 2009

At least 10,000 people marched in Port-au-Prince July 15 to demand the return of former President Jean Bertrand Aristide on his birthday. Aristide has been in forced exile since the coup, mostly living in South Africa.... Posted Jul 30, 2009

Those resisting the coup inside Honduras have been carrying out constant actions for three weeks—strikes, demonstrations and other protests. ... Posted Jul 29, 2009

The Stop War on Iran coalition, in alliance with the International Action Center and other anti-war organizations that work to bring understanding about developments in Iran to the U.S. public, has organized a forum for Aug. 1 at 4 p.m. at the Solidarity Center in New York. ... Posted Jul 29, 2009

The 15th Non-Aligned Movement summit was held July 15-16 in Sharm El-Sheikh, Egypt, with the theme of “International Solidarity for Peace and Development.” The NAM, founded in 1961, has a membership of 118 nations throughout the developing world.... Posted Jul 27, 2009

Ignored in the worldwide corporate media is the power of the growing and vibrant movement of the Honduran people, the workers and farmers, who are carrying out heroic resistance to the coup. Resistance leaders tell that side to Workers World.... Posted Jul 24, 2009

Pfc. Bowe Bergdahl’s capture in Afghanistan has brought that war into living rooms across the United States. The heavy media coverage should lead to the U.S. population rethinking Washington’s arguments for invading and occupying Afghanistan and now escalating the war there.... Posted Jul 24, 2009

We in the anti-war movement need to be especially careful not to jump on the bandwagon when the entire capitalist class, their media, the entire U.S. Congress, and numerous organizations that received direct U.S. funding from the so-called National Endowment for Democracy all speak with one voice in sudden defense of a cause... Posted Jul 24, 2009

SsangYong Motor is not exactly a household name, even among autoworkers here. Smaller than Hyundai, Kia and GM-Daewoo, this Korean auto firm only produces vehicles for the domestic market. Members of the United Auto Workers, however, need to pay close attention to a fierce battle taking place at a SsangYong plant in Pyeongtaek, South Korea.... Posted Jul 24, 2009

The largest U.S. humanitarian aid convoy to Palestine in history went over the Rafah border crossing into Gaza in the late evening of July 15. The 218-person contingent of activists brought more than $1 million in wheelchairs, walkers and medical supplies to the people of Gaza.... Posted Jul 23, 2009

Tarek Abedrabb, a young Syrian man in the Viva Palestina delegation, and a young Egyptian health care worker on the convoy write about Gaza.... Posted Jul 23, 2009

A new publication by the group Breaking the Silence was announced on July 15. The group is composed of veteran Israeli soldiers who “demand accountability regarding Israel’s military actions in the Occupied territories perpetrated by us and in our name.” Interviews and testimony by 30 Israeli soldiers regarding their experiences in “Operation Cast Lead” confirm that war crimes were specific policy in last winter’s Gaza massacre.... Posted Jul 23, 2009

The conflict in Iran that opened up with the June presidential elections there has had an impact on the progressive and anti-imperialist movement worldwide, including in the United States. Misunderstanding the events has created some confusion in anti-war ranks. This is especially dangerous after Vice President Joe Biden on July 5 gave a virtual green light to an Israeli attack on Iran. The anti-war movement must stay alert to protest any move in that direction.... Posted Jul 20, 2009

This year’s Group of 8 Summit in L’Aquila, Italy, once again demonstrated the failure of capitalist economic policies to bring genuine development to the African continent. The summit’s final day discussed the G-8 providing aid to Africa for agricultural programs. The fact that previous pledges of $50 billion made at the 2005 meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland, have not been met, however, made African leaders even more skeptical about the role of Europe and the United States in the future of the continent.... Posted Jul 20, 2009

Residents of L’Aquila in Italy united with labor unions and anti-capitalist activists from around Italy and Europe for a 10,000-strong march through the earthquake-stricken town on July 10, the final day of the Group of 8 summit meeting. Through the march and other actions, they overcame Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s attempts to turn the groups against each other with violence-baiting.... Posted Jul 20, 2009

South Africa is in a frenzy of construction in order to host the 2010 World Cup soccer competition. Complaining of low wages, the 70,000 construction workers hired for the project walked off the job July 8.... Posted Jul 20, 2009

Reflections by Comrade Fidel Castro... Posted Jul 20, 2009

A court in India’s capital has made a historic decision in overturning a law that banned sex between people of the same gender. The law, section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, was imposed on the Indian people by the British when they colonized the country. It declared “carnal intercourse” to be “against the order of nature,” with penalties of up to 10 years in prison. While few were criminally prosecuted under the law, many lesbian, gay, bi and trans people were persecuted and harassed because of it.... Posted Jul 20, 2009

Kyrgyzstan’s June 22 decision to keep the U.S./NATO military base open at Manas will enhance the U.S. government’s ability to wage its brutal war on Afghanistan. Seventeen miles from Kyrgyzstan’s capital Bishkek, the Manas base houses over a thousand U.S. military personnel and hosts transport aircraft and mid-air fuelling vehicles.... Posted Jul 17, 2009

July 15—The largest humanitarian aid convoy in history to travel from the U.S. to Palestine succeeded in crossing the Rafah border into Gaza late today. After days of delay, the 218-person contingent of activists, buoyed by telegrams, emails and protests from many parts of the world, was finally allowed to pass into the besieged Palestinian enclave with more than $1 million in wheelchairs, walkers and medical supplies for the people of Gaza.... Posted Jul 15, 2009

During the day it had appeared that the Egyptian government was going to deny passage into Gaza. The 218-person contingent of activists plans to bring wheelchairs, walkers and medical supplies to the people of Gaza. A genocidal attack on Gaza in December and January, on top of a two-year Israeli siege and blockade of the area, makes this aid essential for the people there. The fact that the caravan hails from the U.S. gives the convoy added resonance, as Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. government aid in the world. And Israel uses U.S. weapons and missiles against the Palestinian people on a daily basis.... Posted Jul 15, 2009

Former U.S. Congressperson Cynthia McKinney has been released and deported from Israel, after being imprisoned there since June 30 along with other members of the Free Gaza Movement.... Posted Jul 8, 2009

Louis Fignole Saint-Cyr of the Autonomous Confederation of Haitian Workers (CATH) spoke at a meeting at the Brecht Forum in New York City on July 5.... Posted Jul 8, 2009

Honduran popular leader Juan Barahona told Workers World that the resistance to the illegal June 28 coup that deposed President Manual Zelaya grows daily despite the fierce repression and constant attacks by the coup regime and the corporate media.... Posted Jul 8, 2009



Sirte, Libya, was host to the 13th African Union Summit held July 1-3. The AU, an organization representing all 53 independent states in Africa, held extensive discussions on how to build unity and cooperation on the continent.... Posted Jul 8, 2009

Some 100,000 people poured into Kim Il Sung Square in Pyongyang, capital city of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, on June 25. This massive crowd in a country of only 22 million people gathered at a rally and commemoration entitled “June 25, The Day of Struggle Against U.S. Imperialism.” The event marked the anniversary of the day in 1950 when the U.S. started the war which killed millions of Korean people.... Posted Jul 5, 2009

Over the last two years Africa has been severely affected by the downturn in the world economy, resulting in 53 million more people being thrust into poverty. As a result of the legacy of colonialism and neocolonialism, the prices of exports from the continent have gone down while the cost of food, fuel and other commodities imported into Africa has increased drastically.... Posted Jul 5, 2009

In just eight months, over 20,000 South African autoworkers have been “retrenched.” In response to these and other layoffs in manufacturing, the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa has launched a “fight for jobs” campaign. NUMSA won a major victory on June 17 in the Johannesburg Labor Court against General Motors South Africa.... Posted Jul 3, 2009

Apparently the wave, which Commandante Ernesto Che Guevara spoke of at the General Assembly meeting at the United Nations in 1964, arrived at the borders of the Salvadoran Sea, when on June 1, Mauricio Funes took office as the head of the smallest country in the Americas.... Posted Jul 2, 2009

The blatant military coup in Honduras has thrown down a challenge to all of progressive Latin America. It aroused immediate mass resistance from Honduran mass organizations and active hostility from progressive governments throughout Latin America and progressive organizations worldwide. It has received no open diplomatic support anywhere in the world, even from reactionary imperialist powers. According to a Cuban press agency report from Honduras, “The main trade unions, farmers, youth and social organizations in Honduras are on the second day of a strike against the dictatorial government in the country.”... Posted Jul 1, 2009

Units of the Israeli navy blockading Gaza attacked and boarded the Free Gaza Movement boat, the Spirit of Humanity, abducting 21 human rights workers from 11 countries. The passengers and crew, including Noble laureate Mairead Maguire and former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney, are being forcibly dragged toward Israel. The boat is carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza with an international delegation that set sail from Lanarca, Cyprus.... Posted Jul 1, 2009

Much news coverage has centered on Obama’s hard line on the Israelis, as in his Cairo address when he called for a freeze in settlements. So slanted is U.S. policy toward Israel that a halt in construction in illegal settlements is seen as somehow “hard line.”... Posted Jul 1, 2009

On June 16, 1976, the apartheid regime of South Africa faced the heroic Soweto Uprising.... Posted Jun 29, 2009

When mourners gathered June 18 in Port-au-Prince’s cathedral to celebrate the life and leadership of Father Gérard Jean-Juste, a hero in the Haitian people’s struggle in both the United States and Haiti, the mood was clearly anti-occupation.... Posted Jun 29, 2009

The confrontation among Iran’s ruling politicians that has brought large crowds into the streets of Tehran is not taking place in isolation. It is happening in a country still facing U.S. sanctions and warships, hostility from every imperialist capital and venom from the West’s corporate media. This confrontation follows 30 years of a concerted effort by the U.S. and other imperialists to turn back the enormously popular revolution that took place in 1979. That revolution stopped short of moving Iran toward socialism. But it broke the grip of the imperialist overseers and their puppet shah over a country that now has 71 million people in an area three times the size of France.... Posted Jun 24, 2009

In Cuba the campaign against homophobia has access to all the mass media and is an ongoing educational effort, not just a one-day affair. This information may surprise many people in the United States, who get very little news from the corporate media here about the great social progress that has been made in Cuba as a result of its revolution. However, readers of Workers World newspaper were fortunate enough to learn a great deal about Cuba’s campaign to rectify old prejudices through the series of articles called Lavender & Red. ... Posted Jun 24, 2009

The worsening security situation in Somalia has prompted the U.S.-backed Transitional Federal Government to declare a state of emergency and issue a call for outside military intervention to prop it up against the popular resistance.... Posted Jun 24, 2009

U.S. imperialism and its Middle East client states carried out heavy-handed interventions in the June 7 Lebanese elections and Hezbollah’s electoral ally in the Christian community there suffered some setbacks.... Posted Jun 21, 2009

On June 5, Peruvian President Alan Garcia unleashed his heavily armed repressive forces against Indigenous people in that country’s Amazonian region. They had been defending that enormous source of natural wealth against the voraciousness of transnational corporations. Ironically, that same day had been designated by the United Nations as World Environment Day to motivate awareness of environmental issues and encourage political action.... Posted Jun 21, 2009

Indigenous peoples, solidarity movement activists and environmentalists filled the sidewalks outside the Peruvian Consulate in New York June 10. Around the corner, three activists chained shut the doors to the building housing Sen. Chuck Schumer’s office.... Posted Jun 21, 2009

In Britain and Ireland it’s called a redundancy and in South Africa it’s called a retrenchment, but a layoff by any other name is still a layoff. On June 11 the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa issued a statement announcing a court action and possible strike over what they call a “jobs bloodbath.” “General Motors South Africa (GMSA) destroyed over 1,300 jobs since 2007,” the union charged,... Posted Jun 19, 2009

Thousands of Haitians from all over North America traveled to Miami June 5 and 6 to spend hours paying tribute to Rev. Gérard Jean-Juste. They came from Orlando, Fla., Boston, New York, Washington, Chicago, Atlanta and Montreal. ... Posted Jun 19, 2009

What distinguishes the contemporary economic crisis within global capitalism from other downturns over the last three decades is that the rapid deterioration of the social conditions of working people and the oppressed is taking place simultaneously all over the planet. Considering that development within the imperialist countries is based largely upon the super-exploitation of the labor and natural resources of people in the colonial and neocolonial countries, it is not surprising that the economic crisis is having a far more dramatic impact on the masses of workers and farmers in Africa.... Posted Jun 18, 2009

Here’s how Koreans in the north look at the current situation between the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the United States, based on conversations with a member of that country’s leading party, the Workers Party of Korea.... Posted Jun 18, 2009

The Mohawks of Akwesasne are defending the sovereignty of their territory by protesting a Canadian government plan to arm border guards at Akwesasne with guns as of June 1. On June 8 Mohawks at Tyendinaga in eastern Ontario blockaded the Skyway Bridge to show their solidarity with Akwesasne.... Posted Jun 14, 2009

Grenada’s international airport was renamed after Maurice Bishop on May 29. It would have been the late revolutionary leader’s 65th birthday.... Posted Jun 14, 2009

Sudan is one of Africa’s major oil-producing countries, and has therefore been targeted for destabilization and domination by the Western imperialist states led by the U.S. The country has maintained an independent domestic and foreign policy over the last two decades and has refused to cooperate with the U.S. on a number of its initiatives related to the Iraq war and relations with Iran and Palestine.... Posted Jun 14, 2009

More than 150 people rallied June 6 in San Francisco to demand an end to the U.S.-Israeli war on Gaza. The demonstration was part of a national day of solidarity with the people of Gaza.... Posted Jun 14, 2009

Supporters of the beleaguered Palestinian people plan to leave from New York City on July 4 with medical supplies they will deliver to hospitals in Gaza.... Posted Jun 13, 2009

On June 4 U.S. President Barack Hussein Obama gave a much-heralded speech addressed to the Muslim world in Cairo, Egypt.... Posted Jun 13, 2009

What makes Puerto Rico different is that our country is still the only formal colony of the United States in this hemisphere, subject to U.S. rule in all our spheres of life. U.S. rule is what has marked the political life of the Boricua people—the Taíno Indigenous name of the island is Boriquén—since 1898, both on the island and in the U.S. According to international law, that our country is a colony is itself a crime.... Posted Jun 10, 2009

An ongoing struggle between Nigeria’s federal government and the people of the Niger Delta has reached a new level in the aftermath of the May 13 military operation in the West African oil-producing region. The root of the current repression in Nigeria is the role of U.S. and European-based multinational oil firms that have looted the resources of the people of the oil-producing areas inside the country for decades.... Posted Jun 7, 2009

“You’re sitting on a gold mine” is supposed to mean you have a great opportunity to become really wealthy. The Indigenous Ipili people of the highland Enga Province of Papua New Guinea have literally been sitting on a gold mine for millennia. But instead of bringing wealth, the mine in the Porgera River region has been a curse.... Posted Jun 6, 2009

Economic indicators released in late May show that Japan may be heading toward an official depression as its economy contracts at a record rate. Growth in worker class-consciousness and combativeness has accompanied the economic news.... Posted Jun 6, 2009

Nepal swore in a new prime minister on May 25, three weeks after the resignation of Maoist leader Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda from the post. Prachanda’s resignation followed attempts by the armed forces, the Nepali Congress, and India to topple the revolutionary government.... Posted Jun 4, 2009

FIST calls for the immediate end to the U.S.-supported campaign against the Tamil population of Sri Lanka and stands in solidarity with the struggle of the Tamil people for liberation.... Posted Jun 4, 2009

Coming to Cuba from the U.S., where youth mortgage their future wages for a college education and health insurance fails to guarantee coverage for catastrophic illnesses, the notion that health care and education can be free really caught our attention.... Posted Jun 3, 2009

The largest 2009 May Day celebration held anywhere in the world, according to CNN, took place at the Plaza de la Revolución in Havana, Cuba. Past ILWU international president David Arian and former Local 10 secretary-treasurer and Million Worker March leader Clarence Thomas were part of a U.S. delegation, which also included International Longshore Association members.... Posted Jun 3, 2009

General strike shuts southern Basque Country | Autoworkers on the move | European workers demand jobs | Portugal–85,000 march in Lisbon | Spain: Anti-imperialist party restored to ballot... Posted May 31, 2009

This May 25 is the 46th anniversary of the founding of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Over 30 member-states formed the continental body in 1963 amid a groundswell of independence struggles. Every year this date is celebrated on the continent and in the world as “Africa Day” or “Africa Liberation Day.”... Posted May 31, 2009

A United Nations Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Development, originally planned for June 1-3, has been postponed until June 24-26.... Posted May 27, 2009

In solidarity with an international conference called by formerly colonized countries at the United Nations here in New York, the Bail Out the People Movement has called for a People’s Economic Summit on May 31.... Posted May 25, 2009

By outlawing a new political party from an upcoming June 7 ballot, ruling circles in the Spanish regime are exposing their links to the 36-year-long fascist reign of Francisco Franco. Their latest anti-democratic step involved fraudulent charges to prevent the newly formed International Initiative—Solidarity among the Peoples (II-SP) organization from competing in elections to the European Parliament... Posted May 25, 2009

Utilizing the pretext of fighting “terrorism” on land and “piracy” at sea, the U.S. administration under Obama is maintaining the same foreign policy as the previous government headed by George Bush, which targeted Somalia and the region of east Africa for regime change and the establishment of a permanent military presence in this area of the African continent.... Posted May 22, 2009

On May 6, six Puerto Rican activists/artists were arrested in the U.S. House of Representatives for demanding that the United States grant independence to Puerto Rico.... Posted May 22, 2009

A group of demonstrators, about half of them young students, gathered in New York’s Times Square on May 17 to commemorate the Naqba, or calamity, wreaked upon the Palestinian people. It was on that same date in 1948 that Israel began its occupation of Palestine.... Posted May 22, 2009

There are 30,000 Haitians under deportation orders in the United States.... Posted May 22, 2009

U.S. Army Sgt. John Russell shot to death five U.S. troops on May 11 at Camp Liberty, one of the largest U.S. installations in Iraq. This act put into focus the relationship of the personal to the political in a war zone.... Posted May 21, 2009

In the crisis now unfolding, a revitalized workers’ movement, in order to be effective, will have to draw in all the sectors that have either been left out or marginalized.... Posted May 20, 2009

There is not a shred of doubt about it: The terrible humanitarian crisis now occurring in the area of northwest Pakistan bordering Afghanistan—described by the U.N. High Commission for Refugees as the worst refugee crisis since Rwanda in 1994—was caused directly by the U.S. government and the Pentagon.... Posted May 20, 2009

One of the most celebrated pianists of our time recently carried out an unexpected and courageous act of political activism. Before performing the final piece of his recital at Disney Hall in Los Angeles on April 26, the Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman addressed the audience, saying that he could no longer play in a country whose military wants to control the whole world.... Posted May 17, 2009

Ecuador, with a population of more than 14 million, re-elected President Rafael Correa on April 26 and Panama, with 3 million, elected as president businessperson Ricardo Martinelli on May 3. Both these Latin American countries have “dollarized” economies, that is, they use the U.S. dollar as their official currency. The aspiration of both peoples, as well as those all over the world, is to have a better life. Will these elections help attain that goal?... Posted May 17, 2009

A flare-up in tensions between Chad and Sudan during the week of May 4 has exposed the continuing efforts of French and U.S. imperialism to dominate the political and economic future of North and Central Africa. ... Posted May 17, 2009

Inside the Roosevelt Hotel in busy midtown Manhattan on May 10, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari was trying to reassure some 300 members of the expatriate community that his just-completed visit to Washington was not a capitulation to U.S. pressure. But outside, a vigorous demonstration denounced the bloody government offensive in the Swat Valley that has caused more than half a million Pakistanis to flee their homes.... Posted May 16, 2009

After a 36-day occupation of the Visteon plant in Belfast, members of the union Unite voted May 5 to accept a settlement.... Posted May 14, 2009

First-time visitors from the U.S. were unsure what the day would hold as they watched dawn break in Revolution Square on May Day morning. The international delegations—more than 2,000 in all from 70 countries, including union leaders and revolutionaries, often both in the same person, and representing 200 union and solidarity organizations—streamed off buses and into the reviewing area at the foot of the José Martí statue.... Posted May 13, 2009

The April 22 national elections in South Africa showed widespread continued political support for the ruling African National Congress. The ANC won close to a two-thirds majority in the elections, securing victories in all the provinces with the exception of the Cape, where the opposition Democratic Alliance won out over the ruling party... Posted May 13, 2009

International Workers’ Day brought out millions this year. “We want jobs!” rang out from Jakarta to New Delhi to San Juan. Millions of workers worldwide focused on the spiraling economic crisis as they took to the streets on this historic day.... Posted May 7, 2009

Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda announced his resignation from his post as head of the Maoist-led coalition government on May 4, just over a year after his Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) placed first in the country’s Constituent Assembly (CA) elections.... Posted May 6, 2009

The government of Sri Lanka, with U.S. arms and military aid from Israel and Pakistan, is waging a brutal war against the Tamil people of Sri Lanka.... Posted May 6, 2009

Within a week after security forces foiled an assassination plot against President Evo Morales inside Bolivia, the United Nations General Assembly approved on April 22 the president’s initiative to create International Mother Earth Day to protect the rights of Mother Earth and of all living beings.... Posted May 6, 2009

Visteon, the auto parts maker spun off by Ford in 2000, may have set a record last month. On March 31 in Belfast, 210 workers were given six minutes’ notice that they were being terminated. Yet the workers, who were members of the union Unite, refused to leave. “We have been left with no choice but to occupy the factory to save our jobs and to defend jobs for the people of Belfast,” stated Unite representative John Maguire.... Posted May 3, 2009

There are some pirates who don’t use firearms to seize vessels on the high seas. There are certain pirates who commit their acts of oceanic theft from thousands of miles away, in cool office buildings in Chicago and London.... Posted May 3, 2009

Fight Imperialism, Stand Together calls for the release of Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse—the young teen from Somalia who was brought to New York and arraigned in a federal court—and that he be allowed to return to his family in Somalia.... Posted May 3, 2009

FRANCE: Toyota workers win demands | Electric workers cut prices, cut power | FRANCE-GERMANY: Continental workers unite for protest | PORTUGAL—April 25 sizzles |... Posted May 1, 2009

An international movement has been established to protest the already seven-year-long imprisonment of Dragoljub Milanovic, a target of NATO’s effort to blame the victim following its U.S.-led bombing campaign against Yugoslav civilians 10 years ago.... Posted May 1, 2009

During the anti-G20 protests in London, as tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest a secluded meeting on the global economic crisis held by the richest capitalist countries, Ian Tomlinson, a 47-year-old newspaper seller, was walking home from work. He had to pass a gauntlet of menacing barricades and shielded police with dogs and batons. Tomlinson never made it home on April 1. He was beaten severely by police and died that same day from internal hemorrhaging.... Posted Apr 24, 2009

In the aftermath of the April 12 sniper killings of three Somali teenagers by the U.S. Navy, several U.S. agencies met on April 17 to conduct a review of military and foreign policy toward this Horn of Africa nation. The State Department, Pentagon and Justice Department have outlined a series of options to ostensibly fight “piracy” in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.... Posted Apr 23, 2009

At a Harlem, N.Y., rally, the Dec. 12th Movement delegation said they’re going to Geneva to reaffirm the entitlement of the descendants of slavery to reparations, based on the 2001 U.N. Declaration that “slavery and the slave trade are a crime against humanity and should always have been so, especially the trans-Atlantic slave trade.” As such, there is no statute of limitations regarding reparations.... Posted Apr 23, 2009

On April 21, when President Ahmadinejad of Iran spoke denouncing the racist actions of the Israeli state against Palestinians, most of the U.N. delegates applauded the speech. It had been only three months since the 22-day-long Israeli slaughter of Palestinian civilians in Gaza.... Posted Apr 23, 2009

An open letter entitled “U.S. Refusal to Participate in Durban Review Conference: African Americans and People of Color Speak for Ourselves!” ... Posted Apr 23, 2009

Hundreds of angry Afghan women demonstrated in Kabul on April 15. Led by young activists, they marched to Parliament to demand the repeal of a new law denying women basic rights.... Posted Apr 23, 2009

The Obama administration has begun to roll out its strategy toward Cuba and its allies in Latin America. In response, Cuban leader Fidel Castro, retired from his posts but still very active, published a statement in which he recounted the devastating humanitarian impact of the almost half-century-old U.S. blockade of Cuba.... Posted Apr 22, 2009

Bolivian President Evo Morales is scheduled to speak at the Salem United Methodist Church in Harlem when he visits the U.N. in New York on April 22. On April 14, Morales and his supporters ended a five-day hunger strike in victory after Bolivia’s congress passed a law guaranteeing 14 congressional seats for Indigenous candidates and allowing expatriates the right to vote.... Posted Apr 19, 2009

When almost 200 delegates representing 80 organizations and political parties from 40 countries, primarily from Latin America, met in the Federal District of Mexico last March 19-21 for the XIII Seminar on “Political Parties and the New Society,” hosted by Mexico’s Workers Party (PT), it was a tremendous opportunity to learn more about the host country, meet new political friends and renew old contacts, and in the process learn from those who are in the midst of work and struggles in their own countries.... Posted Apr 19, 2009

The U.S. government has a new strategy to stop Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his Fanmi Lavalas party from winning elections in Haiti. Keeping Aristide in exile and Fanmi Lavalas off the ballot in Haiti is easier than arranging another coup, like the two Washington administrations previously pulled off against Aristide.... Posted Apr 19, 2009

Members of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of south Korea have recently toured the U.S. and Canada, speaking out about how bloody repression by the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Syngman Rhee accompanied the political partitioning of Korea in 1948.... Posted Apr 19, 2009

The decision by the Obama administration to boycott the Durban Review Conference Against Racism has raised a torrent of petitions, protests and criticism. An actual boycott of the upcoming April 20-24 meeting would be the first time that the United States has refused to participate in a United Nations conference. This has come as a shock to many who expected a fundamentally different attitude toward an international conference on racism from the Obama administration.... Posted Apr 18, 2009

Congressional Black Caucus says: ‘Talk to Cuba’ * Hotel bombings finally tied to Posada * Smash the U.S. blockade... Posted Apr 18, 2009

Eighty days into the new U.S. administration and Iraq is still with us. That is, U.S. troops are still occupying Iraq. And the Barack Obama administration has asked Congress for another $83.4 billion to carry out the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.... Posted Apr 18, 2009

Wal-Mart finally ran out of delays and stalls. Following provincial labor law, a mediator awarded workers a first union contract April 10 in St. Hyacinthe, Quebec, east of Montreal.... Posted Apr 16, 2009

After the execution of three Somalis and the wounding and capturing of another in the Indian Ocean on April 12, a leader of the so-called pirates vowed to avenge the deaths of these youth who held the U.S. captain of a cargo vessel known as the Maersk Alabama for five days. The Pentagon’s version of events has been disputed by the Somalis who support the vessel seizures. They contend that the three young men were killed after they agreed to end the standoff and release Phillips.... Posted Apr 13, 2009

On April 5, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea announced it had launched a communications satellite into orbit. It was a remarkable first for this small socialist country in the north of Korea, which has been struggling to develop a modern economy in the face of great hostility from Washington.... Posted Apr 12, 2009

Sequestration is the French word for making the bosses bargain when they instead want to lay off workers to make more money. Rather than sitting in to seize the plant, French workers sit around their bosses and insist they bargain. This happened four times in March.... Posted Apr 12, 2009

Hundreds of thousands of angry Greek workers shut down government offices, closed the banks and disrupted transportation for 24 hours on April 2.... Posted Apr 12, 2009

Eleven mineworkers were killed in a March 7 explosion caused by the accumulation of gas in a coal mine located on the outskirts of Quetta, Pakistan, and run by Pakistan Mineral Development Corporation. All the dead workers were from Shangla, a district adjacent to Swat Valley.... Posted Apr 12, 2009

In the aftermath of the issuance of warrants for the arrest and prosecution of President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan, the imperialists and their allies are escalating political, diplomatic and military attacks on that African country.... Posted Apr 9, 2009

More than 35,000 protesters marched in London on March 28 in advance of the G20 Summit held in that city on April 2. The G20 meeting brought together leaders of the world’s largest capitalist countries to discuss the global economic crisis. The “Put People First” march was organized by the Trades Union Council and 120 other groups to demand “jobs, justice and climate.”... Posted Apr 9, 2009

The heads of state and governments celebrating NATO’s 60-year role as an international police force of world imperialism needed to impose a virtual state of siege in the region on the French-German border near Strasbourg to keep anti-war protesters away from their summit.... Posted Apr 9, 2009

Right-fielder and batting-champion Magglio Ordóñez is arguably the most popular and well-respected member of the Detroit Tigers Major League Baseball team. Ordóñez, along with fellow Tigers Carlos Guillén, Miguel Cabrera and Armando Galarraga, played for the Venezuelan national team during the World Baseball Classic tournament.... Posted Apr 5, 2009

When Czech Prime Minister Mirek Topolanek resigned, opponents of the U.S. anti-missile radar base cheered.... Posted Apr 5, 2009

Those planning demonstrations April 3-5 in Strasbourg, France, to counter the 60th anniversary celebrations of NATO, also oppose the use of NATO troops in Afghanistan and the U.S. attempt to expand the war. They point out in their call, “Proponents and opponents of NATO both view the war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, to which the U.S. is committing significantly more troops, as a key test” for allowing NATO to intervene worldwide.... Posted Apr 4, 2009

The focus of the XIII International Seminar in Mexico City was Latin America, where the movement against “neoliberal” imperialist penetration has reinvigorated the worldwide debate about a socialist future. Participants mirrored the differences and debates among Latin American political tendencies.... Posted Apr 2, 2009

Following his successful completion of a solidarity convoy to Gaza, former British Member of Parliament George Galloway was swept by a tidal wave of love March 24 at Rutgers University’s Newark, N.J., campus on his first stop in the United States.... Posted Apr 2, 2009

A letter and petition initiated by Nord Sud XXI (nordsud21.ch) and the International Action Center to demand that the Obama administration fully participate in the U.N. Durban Review Conference Against Racism in Geneva, Switzerland, April 20-24... Posted Apr 1, 2009

Thousands of people gathered in Belgrade’s Republic Square on March 24 to mark the 10th anniversary of the beginning of the 78-day U.S.-NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. This attack, mainly concentrated on Serbia, destroyed Yugoslavia’s infrastructure and killed 3,000 people in the 1999 war President Bill Clinton called “humanitarian.”... Posted Apr 1, 2009

Hundreds of representatives are met in Belgrade on March 23-24 to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the U.S.-led 78-day bombing of Yugoslavia and the heroic resistance of its people and military during NATO’s aggressive and illegal war.... Posted Mar 29, 2009

In testimony reminiscent of the Winter Soldier hearings that featured U.S. Iraq War veterans, Israeli Defense Forces soldiers who took part in “Operation Cast Lead” described their experiences and observations in February at the Oranim Academic College in Kiryat Tivon, where they had all attended a pre-military preparatory program as teenagers.... Posted Mar 29, 2009

Protesters rallied in front of the Israeli Consulate in San Francisco on March 16. They were demonstrating solidarity with Palestine and support for Tristan Anderson, a local union worker and longtime activist who was critically injured March 13 in the village of Ni’lin, close to Ramallah, Palestine.... Posted Mar 29, 2009

With the situation reaching critical proportions in the U.S. and other industrialized states, the impact of the economic crisis is becoming more apparent in the so-called developing countries, particularly the African continent. Even though some Western analysts consider the African continent to be a marginal region, this area has been thoroughly integrated into the world capitalist system since the 19th century.... Posted Mar 27, 2009

Workers in huge numbers took to the streets on March 19 in 219 cities and towns throughout France. The unions that called this one-day strike/protest counted more than 3 million workers who participated. Many small towns and cities, where protests are rare, saw record turnouts.... Posted Mar 26, 2009

An article by Somini Sengupta, titled “As Indian Growth Soars, Child Hunger Persists,” recently examined the divergent results economic growth has had in India and China. Even after a decade of spectacular economic growth, Indian child malnutrition rates are worse than in many sub-Saharan African countries. Indicators such as these begin to paint a picture of growth in India that is strikingly different than that of neighboring China... Posted Mar 26, 2009

Inspiring workers internationally, about 80 Canadian Auto Workers from Local 195 in Windsor, Ontario, ended their 24-hour plant occupation at parts supplier Aradco on March 18.... Posted Mar 25, 2009

Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zaidi received a 3-year prison sentence on March 12 for hurling his shoes at George W. Bush in a courageous act of contempt that reverberated around the world. ... Posted Mar 22, 2009

Many diverse political forces seem to be applauding the dramatic victory in Pakistan of a movement that has forced the government of President Asif Ali Zardari to reinstate the head of the country’s Supreme Court.... Posted Mar 22, 2009

Lisbon * West Bengal * France * Martinique... Posted Mar 22, 2009

“If the government belongs to the people and we’re the government, then why is the government going after my pastor?” This question was put to attorneys for the Special Commissioner for Investigation (SCI) for the NYC Department of Education, which wants the New York State Supreme Court to hold IFCO/Pastors for Peace in contempt of court.... Posted Mar 21, 2009

On International Women’s Day this year, we express our solidarity with our heroic sisters in Gaza who have endured the horrific U.S.-backed Israeli siege and who are standing up with courage and resilience. We hail our Palestinian sisters in the occupied West Bank who face the Israeli Defense Forces and hostile settlements daily. We hail our sisters in Iraq, Afghanistan and everywhere who face U.S. war and occupation.... Posted Mar 19, 2009

Celebrations, commemorations and protests were held worldwide on International Women’s Day (IWD) this year from Lima, Peru, to Lahore, Pakistan.... Posted Mar 19, 2009

To mass celebrations and fireworks, Mauricio Funes, candidate of the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), declared himself the winner of the presidential elections in El Salvador on March 15.... Posted Mar 18, 2009

Despite claims of concern from the U.S., France and the U.N., it is these entities that were responsible for the removal of the Aristide government on Feb. 29, 2004. Thousands of U.S. troops landed inside the country, kidnapped President Aristide and sent him to the Central African Republic.... Posted Mar 18, 2009

Capitalism can kill you. This is what a recent study by sociologists and professors from Oxford, Cambridge and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine found. The study, published in The Lancet, details the devastating effect capitalist counterrevolution has had on the health of workers in former socialist bloc countries.... Posted Mar 18, 2009

Considering how much money Washington spends on its covert and overt war against Cuba, it must be quite embarrassing that its predictions almost always turn out to be false. To judge by the statements of U.S. officials and their parrots in the corporate media, the Cuban Revolution should have been overthrown decades ago.... Posted Mar 15, 2009

The Collective Against Exploitation (LKP) signed an agreement with employers on March 4 ending a 43-day general strike in the French-controlled Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. Class struggles continue in the nearby island of Martinique and in La Reunion, an island in the Indian Ocean. All three islands and French Guiana are held by France as “overseas departments.”... Posted Mar 15, 2009

The International Action Center is distributing a petition to stop the racist U.S. policy of illegally targeting 30,000 Haitian refugees for deportation.... Posted Mar 15, 2009

The government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela ordered the seizure of a rice processing plant owned by U.S agribusiness giant Cargill on March 4, after the company defied new price-control regulations on rice.... Posted Mar 15, 2009

Miguel D’Escoto, current president of the U.N. General Assembly, gave an unusually frank speech to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on March 4 in which he addressed many issues, like U.S. war crimes in Iraq, that no one in such a high position had dared raise before.... Posted Mar 14, 2009



A divestment teach-in at Temple University on March 5 put technology to use for Palestine as students here spoke directly with students from the Hampshire College divestment movement in Massachusetts.... Posted Mar 12, 2009

Protesters from the Gaza Committee in Dearborn, Mich., picketed Starbucks on March 7 over its connections to Israel.... Posted Mar 12, 2009

The Palestinian Unified Call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel is taking hold and growing in unions, universities and among political forces on many continents.... Posted Mar 7, 2009

In a stunning display of strength that would have made James Connolly—the martyred Irish working class hero from the early 20th century—proud, more than 150,000 demonstrators surged into the streets of Dublin on Feb. 21 to voice working-class demands.... Posted Mar 5, 2009

A general strike on the French-controlled island of Guadeloupe has spread to other French possessions and has rebounded back to France. The strike that began Jan. 26 continued into its sixth week after signs that an agreement might be reached proved false.... Posted Mar 4, 2009

The U.S. government is threatening to expel 30,000 Haitians living inside its borders. Among the millions of undocumented workers in the U.S. who live each day with the fearful possibility of deportation, the Department of Homeland Security has made undocumented Haitians a special focus.... Posted Mar 4, 2009

The New York branch of Workers World Party held a special Black History Month forum Feb. 27 entitled, “From Zimbabwe to the U.S., National Liberation and Class Struggle.”... Posted Mar 4, 2009

The U.S. occupation of Afghanistan has expanded so definitively into Pakistan that some media like the Financial Times have renamed it the “AfPak conflict.”... Posted Mar 2, 2009

With the Latvian economy in free fall and the population angry and in motion, the Latvian government, a four-party, center-right coalition, resigned Feb. 20.... Posted Feb 28, 2009

Amidst the cataclysmic capitalist crisis, the U.S. and Western European governments are pressing for an expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. ... Posted Feb 28, 2009

Guadeloupean trade unionist Jacques Bino was eulogized on Feb. 21 in Pointe-à-Pitre, Guadeloupe, as a general strike continued in this French-controlled territory in the Caribbean. Bino was shot dead on Feb. 16 when French riot police opened fire on strikers who have been engaged in a struggle on the islands for more than a month.... Posted Feb 25, 2009

Furious at Israel’s horrific siege of Gaza and inspired by the courageous people of Gaza, workers, students and progressive activists are organizing sit-ins, demonstrations and other acts of solidarity with the Palestinian people.... Posted Feb 23, 2009

‘We, the Palestine Solidarity Committee, believe the action by South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU) members in Durban [by refusing to unload an Israeli ship--WW] indicates a new phase in Palestinian solidarity in South Africa.’... Posted Feb 23, 2009

The U.S. government’s hostile laws against Cuba make it hard to send money there even if you have some.... Posted Feb 23, 2009

U.S. war resister Cliff Cornell surrendered to U.S. border police on Feb. 4 after being ordered to leave Canada.... Posted Feb 23, 2009

Several hundred Irish workers have occupied the world famous Waterford Crystal glass factory. The sit-down began Jan. 30 when the shop stewards in the plant learned that it would close and 480 of the 650 workers would be immediately out of a job.... Posted Feb 22, 2009

U.S. policy towards Afghanistan is undergoing a major re-evaluation, since its major local ally and its occupation forces are both showing glaring weaknesses.... Posted Feb 22, 2009

The same day that a unity government took office in Zimbabwe, Feb. 13, opponents of Western colonialism protested before the British and U.S. missions to the United Nations in New York City demanding an end to the economic sanctions imposed on this southern African country and the right to self-determination.... Posted Feb 19, 2009

The struggle amongst the Venezuelan people for a socialist revolution has far from died as the media would have you believe.... Posted Feb 18, 2009



* Israel seizes aid ship bound for Gaza * Scottish students’ solidarity with Palestinians * Western Australia dockworkers to boycott Israeli ships * South African dockworkers refuse to unload Israeli goods * BDS movement salutes South African Transport and Allied Workers Union... Posted Feb 15, 2009

The U.S. and its NATO allies face an extremely difficult challenge in Afghanistan. How can they supply the troops they have there?... Posted Feb 15, 2009

The more a people’s leader is slandered, ridiculed and belittled by the racist capitalist press in this country, the more important it is to look beyond the propaganda to find out why the ruling class considers this leader and what he/she represents such a threat.... Posted Feb 14, 2009

The global financial crisis is forcing emerging and underdeveloped economies throughout Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia to take a double whammy. Economic instability and corresponding job losses at home are compounded by a severe decline in remittances from the migrant workers who serve as a super-exploited segment of the working class in the industrialized capitalist economies of the United States, Western Europe and Japan.... Posted Feb 12, 2009

An estimated 45,000 Tamils in Toronto, Canada, took to the streets in a huge show of force on Jan. 30. They were protesting atrocities by the Sri Lankan army against civilians.... Posted Feb 12, 2009

The Ethiopian government of Meles Zenawi had sent its army into Somalia, largely at the behest of the Bush administration. Fierce resistance to Ethiopia’s occupation over the last two years resulted in the formal withdrawal of Ethiopian forces in early January.... Posted Feb 11, 2009

A standing-room-only crowd of several hundred attended a Black History Month forum held at the National Black Theater in Harlem Feb. 8 entitled “Zimbabwe: Pan-Africanism or Imperialism.”... Posted Feb 11, 2009



Resistance takes as many forms as life itself dictates. Life in Gaza could not be more impossible. Its tunnels are a symbol of resistance.... Posted Feb 8, 2009

Thousands of demonstrators in Lithuania, Latvia and Bulgaria have attacked government buildings and called on their governments to resign as unemployment soars in Eastern Europe.... Posted Feb 8, 2009

More than 2.5 million people marched in more than 195 large and small cities in France on Jan. 29 demanding the government protect workers and not make the people pay the cost of a bailout of the financial establishment.... Posted Feb 5, 2009

A police attack Jan. 20 on tenants resisting eviction in Seoul, South Korea, led to the death of six people. In response to this atrocity, thousands marched on both Jan. 31 and Feb. 1 demanding that the police chief be fired for this unwarranted use of force to evict people from their homes.... Posted Feb 5, 2009

The former dictator of Pakistan, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, encountered demonstrators outside the Franklin Institute here on Jan. 26, where he was the guest of the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia. ... Posted Feb 5, 2009

Recent political developments surrounding the formation of a national unity government in the southern African nation of Zimbabwe provide greater impetus for the peoples of the continent and world to demand the immediate lifting of economic sanctions against the country.... Posted Feb 4, 2009

The struggle against Jim Crow and apartheid and for genuine national liberation of oppressed peoples in Africa and the United States would inevitably clash with efforts geared toward the building of support for the State of Israel as well as Zionist political aims and objectives.... Posted Feb 4, 2009

CIA-controlled drones attacked two Pakistani villages on Jan. 23, killing at least 22 people.... Posted Feb 1, 2009

The worldwide crisis of international finance capital has resulted in the collapse of the bourgeois coalition government ruling Iceland.... Posted Feb 1, 2009

Sara Flounders, co-director of the International Action Center and a contributor to Workers World newspaper, presented a 30-minute keynote talk at an important Rosa Luxemburg Conference in Berlin, Germany, on Jan. 10. Judging from both positive and negative comments in the German media about Flounders’ talk, her comments contributed to the controversial political discussion among the German left, especially regarding Palestine.... Posted Jan 31, 2009

Iraq war resisters Cliff Cornell and Chris Teske were deported from Canada last week. Teske crossed the British Columbia-Washington state border unassisted on Jan. 22 at an undisclosed location. Cornell planned to do the same on Jan. 23.... Posted Jan 31, 2009

Israel’s savage assault on the civilian population of Gaza has aroused the greatest worldwide outrage ever against the U.S.-backed settler state. Perhaps nothing symbolized this more than the report of veteran anti-apartheid fighter Dennis Brutus leading a protest in Durban, South Africa, against Israeli Ambassador Dov Segev-Steinberg. Brutus was instrumental in the cultural boycott campaign against apartheid South Africa in the 1980s and 1990s.... Posted Jan 29, 2009

A “reflection” by revolutionary leader and former Cuban President Fidel Castro.... Posted Jan 29, 2009

Since the invasion of Gaza began on Dec. 27, the idea of divestment and boycott against Israel has spread to college campuses all over the country. A group called Students for Justice in Palestine based at Hampshire College, a small liberal arts school in western Massachusetts, has been advocating for divestment at its school for the last two years.... Posted Jan 28, 2009

A statement by Mousa Abu Marzook, deputy chief of the Hamas political bureau.... Posted Jan 28, 2009

A message to the Palestinian people from the Cuban Five. These Cuban heroes have been falsely jailed in U.S. prisons for over 10 years for defending their homeland against U.S.-backed terrorist acts.... Posted Jan 28, 2009

The record wave of layoffs that seemed to peak in December is continuing into 2009. At the same time, hundreds of billions of dollars in aid are flowing from Washington to the banks and corporations, not to the unemployed. Reviving corporate profits has taken precedence over providing desperately needed jobs or calling for an immediate end to foreclosures and evictions.... Posted Jan 25, 2009

The day Vice President-elect Joseph Biden visited Kabul, the current capital, and Khandahar, the major city in southern Afghanistan, more than 600 Afghan resistance fighters left Afghanistan and attacked a Frontier Corps outpost in northwest Pakistan.... Posted Jan 25, 2009

Workers, farmers and students protested in mid-January in militant demonstrations in front of the parliament buildings and then fought with the cops in Riga, Latvia; Vilnius, Lithuania; and Sofia, Bulgaria.... Posted Jan 25, 2009

In a historic election in El Salvador, the FMLN Party has become the largest party in parliament. From 1980 to 1992, the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front was the leading guerrilla force in the El Salvadoran revolution.... Posted Jan 25, 2009

The Palestinian people, bloodied but unbowed, have won the most uneven of battles. The brutal scenario cooked up in the war rooms of the Israeli military and the Pentagon didn’t work.... Posted Jan 21, 2009

As the people of Gaza staved off yet another attempt by the U.S.-armed and -funded Israeli military to eradicate the cause of Palestine by murdering its people, delegates from around the world gathered in Beirut to build solidarity and practical support for their cause among secular leftist and Islamic anti-imperialist forces.... Posted Jan 21, 2009

From a talk by Sara Flounders, co-director of the International Action Center: “The United Nations just stands by, the European Union is in full support of the Zionist state and the whole war is paid for and equipped by U.S. imperialism.”... Posted Jan 21, 2009

Although many people within the United States, from various nationalities and cultures, have expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people since Israeli aerial bombardment of Gaza started on Dec. 27, the bourgeoisie stills refuses to allow an open debate around the question of an independent state for this oppressed people.... Posted Jan 21, 2009

As the world watched the continuing Israeli bombing and invasion of Gaza in horror, as angry protests continued around the globe, a group of Jewish people inside the U.S. took a public stand in support of the Palestinian people and against the Zionist settler state.... Posted Jan 21, 2009

Parallels exist between the establishments of the U.S. and Israel. The U.S. was founded by European settlers who stole the land of Indigenous people who had resided on it for thousands of years. Israel was established and carved out of Palestine, a land already occupied by people who had lived there for thousands of years.... Posted Jan 21, 2009



Eighteen days into the massive Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip, the death toll of Palestinians living in the densely populated area is nearing 1,000. In the same period, 13 Israelis have died—only three of them civilians. Despite such terrible odds, the will to resist of the Palestinian people continues, supported by growing demonstrations throughout the world.... Posted Jan 14, 2009

In the age of the Internet, sometimes it takes only two minutes to set an example for the world’s workers. That’s just what the Norwegian Locomotive Union did when they stopped all trains, trams and subways in Norway for 120 seconds on Jan. 8, telling passengers that they were staying in the station for that extra time in solidarity with the Palestinian people.... Posted Jan 14, 2009

In protest of the massacre of Palestinians in Gaza, Venezuela expelled the Israeli ambassador from its country on Jan. 6.... Posted Jan 14, 2009

When the Israeli basketball team, Bnei Hasharon, came on the court during a Eurocup game to play against Turk Telekom, hundreds of Turkish fans began to throw shoes at them, yelling “Israeli murderers, get out of Palestine!”... Posted Jan 14, 2009

The recent seizure of power by junior military officers reflects decades of underdevelopment amid abundant resources.... Posted Jan 11, 2009

The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was the very first country in the world to successfully repel an all-out U.S. invasion and war.... Posted Jan 11, 2009

An outspoken critic of imperialism, Harold Pinter spoke against the Gulf War, the invasion and breakup of Yugoslavia and the war on Iraq.... Posted Jan 11, 2009

A few days before the 50th anniversary of its victorious revolution, Cuba made a significant gesture of international solidarity to its nearest neighbor, Haiti.... Posted Jan 10, 2009

The hike in food prices was causing great pain in much of the Middle East even before the worldwide economic meltdown began. Prices skyrocketed not just due to inflation, but also due to the U.S. government policy of paying farmers not to grow wheat in order to raise prices and from U.S. agribusiness taking wheat off the international market and directing production toward biofuels.... Posted Jan 8, 2009

Mobilized on six continents—Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and North and South America—millions of people have demanded that Israel cease its attack and lift the siege on Gaza. [Includes slideshow of protests around the world.]... Posted Jan 7, 2009

The response of the world’s imperialist governments to Israel’s ferocious assault on the 1.5 million Palestinians packed into Gaza shows once again who is really calling the shots in Tel Aviv.... Posted Jan 7, 2009

Workers World Party extends our deepest congratulations and solidarity to the Communist Party of Cuba and the Cuban people, who are celebrating the 50th anniversary of the heroic triumph of the Cuban Revolution.... Posted Jan 7, 2009

Gaza is a strip of land, four-fifths the size of the New York borough of Queens, home to 1.5 million Palestinians, of whom 800,000 are children. By entering Gaza, Israel’s war machine, backed in full by U.S. imperialism, is writing a new chapter of war crimes in world history.... Posted Jan 5, 2009

Dec. 31—The genocidal U.S.-backed Israeli bombardment of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip has had at least one unintended consequence. It has mobilized the anti-imperialist movement and other anti-war forces around the world.... Posted Dec 31, 2008

The International Action Center condemns the criminal U.S.-backed Israeli bombing of Gaza that has led to the massacre of 200 Palestinians and the serious wounding of another 300.... Posted Dec 31, 2008

Statement by the youth organization FIST (Fight Imperialism, Stand Together) on the Israeli assault on Gaza.... Posted Dec 31, 2008

Sudanese President Omar Al-Bashir has refused to cooperate with the so-called International Criminal Court, which has indicted him and other leaders of Africa’s largest geographic nation-state.... Posted Dec 22, 2008





In coordination with worldwide protests in solidarity with the people of Greece, activists delivered a protest letter to the Greek Consul General in New York on Dec. 18... Posted Dec 22, 2008



When the U.S. corporate media report on the contemporary affairs on the African continent, the stories’ contents and direction never highlight the role of the multinational corporations and the military-industrial complex in initiating underdevelopment and fostering political instability. The claim that the United States was not involved in the colonization of the African continent is misleading and false.... Posted Dec 22, 2008


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