DOCKERS IN the US began their second week on the picket lines this week. This was in response to a lockout of over 10,000 dock workers. The dockers known as longshoremen are part of the powerful and progressive ILWU union on the West Coast of the US.
UP TO 80,000 workers marched through Paris last Thursday to protest against the French Tory government's plans to privatise key industries. The protest and strikes which accompanied it were the first major challenge to the Tories since they came to office earlier this year
LUIS INACIO "Lula" da Silva came within a hair's breadth of winning the Brazilian presidential election on Sunday. The former left wing socialist and strike leader got 47 percent of votes, almost double that of any other candidate. Lula fell just short of the 50 percent he needed to win outright, and will now face a run-off on 27 October against Jose Serra.
UP TO 500,000 workers demonstrated in Madrid in Spain last Saturday against the right wing government's attacks on workers' rights. The demonstration is a continuation of a struggle that included a general strike in June. Spanish leader Jose Maria Aznar is a key ally of Blair in Europe.
HUNDREDS OF thousands of workers went on strike across South Africa against the policies of the ANC government last week. Bosses and the government claimed the strike was a flop but the Cosatu union federation, which called the action, disputed their figures. Cosatu leaders said that up to 60 percent of their members had taken part in the strike.
German Social Democrat leader Gerhard Schröeder has edged ahead in the polls by opposing George Bush's war drive in the run-up to Germany's general election on Sunday. Three polls at the end of last week put Schröeder, leader of the German equivalent of the Labour Party, a couple of points ahead of his challenger Edmund Stoiber, a hard right Tory.
AUSTRIA IS heading for a general election in November following the collapse last week of the Tory/far right government. The coalition's collapse is the result of a deepening polarisation between left and right.
THE SPANISH government this week won a parliamentary vote to make the Basque nationalist political party Batasuna illegal. Batasuna is the political wing of the ETA armed group. We spoke to INAKI ORTIZ of Socialist Worker's sister paper in Spain, En Lucha.
NEW LABOUR, the Tories and the US government are all trying to blame Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, for famine in southern Africa. They use the same language of "regime change" that we hear used about Iraq. On Wednesday of last week George W Bush's top adviser on African affairs said that the US wants Mugabe out, and that he had "stolen an election". This is breathtaking hypocrisy from the people who are in the White House because they stole the Florida election for Bush.
WORKERS ACROSS Uruguay halted the Latin American country in a general strike on Thursday of last week in protest at the economic meltdown. There is a run on the country's currency, and the much vaunted financial sector is crippled.
THE FAR right in Turkey held a demonstration last weekend against the government's proposals to lift the death penalty and ease restrictions on Kurdish speakers. It is a sign of the deepening crisis inside the country. The prime minister, Bulent Ecevit, is putting the changes forward as part of Turkey's bid to join the European Union (EU).
POLICE IN the Philippines violently broke up protests against the government on Monday 22 July. Over 5,000 demonstrators took to the streets of Manila. They surrounded the government's legislature building as the president, Gloria Arroyo, was due to give a state of the nation address outlining her government's agenda. Protesters denounced US troops being deployed in the Philippines and training the army.
