Two Egyptian high court judges, Mahmud Mekki and Hisham Bastawisi, have become unlikely heroes of the country’s movement for democracy.
About 50 people picketed the Egyptian embassy in London last Saturday against the continuing arrests and beatings of democracy activists in the cities of Cairo and Alexandria.
The fourth European Social Forum (ESF) met in Athens at a crucial point following the victory of the French movement against new labour laws and as the US threat of military attack against Iran gathers pace.
Anger at Britain’s occupation of southern Iraq is growing, with Iraqis demanding that British troops halt all low level flights over neighbourhoods and withdraw all troops from the cities.
Egyptian state security forces have arrested 11 democracy activists as part of a crackdown on the opposition Kifaya movement.
Egyptian security forces last week seized leading members of the Kifaya movement – Enough in Arabic – during an attack on a sit-in held in support of a protest by 80 judges in the capital, Cairo.
Activists from all over Europe and the Middle East will arrive in Athens this week to participate in the 4th European Social Forum (ESF).
Evo Morales, Bolivia’s radical president, addressed crowds of supporters on Monday to announce he had ordered troops into the country’s gas fields. "The time has come – a historic day on which Bolivia retakes absolute control of our natural resources," he said. "The looting by foreign companies has ended." The mass movement that brought Morales to power has long demanded nationalisation of the gas fields.
It was a May Day to remember in the US. Well over a million immigrants and their supporters marched in towns and cities across the country on Monday. Workers struck in order to show what a "day without immigrants" would be like, and school students walked out of classes.
Hundreds of thousands marched through New York City (NYC) last Saturday in a demonstration for peace, justice, and democracy. Marchers demanded that the US pull its troops out of Iraq and protested against the possibility of a war in Iran.
The indefinite general strike in Nepal demanding democracy and an end to rule by the king was entering its third week as Socialist Worker went to press.
The Italian general election result revealed one basic truth about parliamentary politics – the people who generally run society are not elected.
