One of Africa’s most brutal dictators died last week. The population he had repressed for over four decades first rejoiced and then burst into protest for change and democracy. Gnassingbe Eyadema’s death brought to an end 38 years of his rule in Togo. The military then announced that his son, Faure Gnassingbe, would be taking over immediately as president.
TUBE WORKERS in Buenos Aires, capital of Argentina, have won a 19 percent wage increase after a strike. They struck for five days, after being offered a rise of just 7 percent by their employers, which will barely keep pace with spiralling inflation.
THE RECENT grenade attack on a political rally in Bangladesh (Socialist Worker, 12 February) was not an isolated event. That attack killed the former finance minister Shah AMS Kibria and several other members of the Awami League (Bangladesh's biggest opposition party), sparking a wave of strikes.
The decision of the king of Nepal to dismiss his prime minister, declare a state of emergency and take over all executive powers at the beginning of February shocked many Nepalis and external commentators alike.
A three-day strike across Bangladesh came to an end on Monday of this week, as police and strikers fought pitched battles across the country. The strike was called by the main opposition party, the Awami League, after a grenade attack on a party rally in the Sylhet region. The attack on 27 January killed five people — including the former finance minister Shah AMS Kirbria.
The arrest of one of the most prominent Kurdish officials by Germany, at the request of Turkey, signals a new era of co-operation between Turkey and the EU, within a framework set by the US.
The Italian authorities are manoeuvring to stop the truth about their savage attacks on protesters at the Genoa G8 protests from coming out. They hope to use new laws, designed to protect president Berlusconi’s allies from being prosecuted, to prevent senior police officers from going to prison for attacking people demonstrating against the 2001 summit meeting.
Out of deference to the more than 160,000 victims of the tsunami tragedy that engulfed South Asia on 26 December 2004, we in Focus on the Global South (Focus) have refrained until now from pointing to an alarming development bearing on the security and well being of our executive director, Walden Bello.
A recent meeting of activists met and decided to officially launch a new left wing political party called Arbeit & Soziale Gerechtigkeit—Die Wahlalternative (The Work & Social Justice Election Alternative).
Is something changing on the front line of social movements and workers’ struggles in France?
A popular left wing leader in the assembly of the Indian state of Jharkhand was assassinated by gunmen on 16 January. Mahendra Singh, a leading member of the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), was killed as he prepared to run for his fourth successive term in office.
WHAT CHANCE is there of a gay, communist poet winning an election in a deeply Catholic country?
