At its first conference to be held since Tommy Sheridan and his supporters split from the Scottish Socialist Party to set up a rival organisation, SSP national convenor Colin Fox said that the party had been through a 鈥渞eal-life horror movie, a nightmare so acute that it would have broken other parties completely鈥, but 鈥渨ith every passing week, more and more people are overheard saying that it was the SSP that was telling the truth all along鈥.
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President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is coming under increasing pressure to release a report implicating security forces in the murder two years ago of Munir, Indonesia鈥檚 most prominent human rights activist.
On October 9, North Korea announced it had successfully carried out its first nuclear-weapons test, six days after announcing it intended to conduct such a test. The test was the culmination of nearly two years of hostility and provocation by the United States.
Moments after hearing about North Korea聮s nuclear test, I thought of Albert Einstein聮s statement that 聯there is no secret and there is no defence; there is no possibility of control except through the aroused understanding and insistence of the peoples of the world聰.
The popular movement in the southern state of Oaxaca has called for solidarity, fearing a massive wave of repression because of a recent step-up in numbers of police and military in the state. Since a strike by Local 22 of the National Teachers Union began in May, the conflict has escalated to a national issue. At its centre is governor Ulises Ruiz Ortiz, whose repressive methods have sparked a movement to remove him.
For two days in early October, the sides of the barren Posokoni Hill above the mining town of Huanuni, 150 kilometres southeast of Bolivia鈥檚 capital La Paz, were transformed into a war zone in the two most violent days since leftist Evo Morales was elected the country鈥檚 president last December.
To judge by the coverage in the corporate media, the main opposition candidate in the December 3 presidential elections, Zulia state governor Manuel Rosales, is on the march and making ground against socialist President Hugo Chavez. This is despite pro-Chavez forces winning every national election since 1998, and most polls suggesting Chavez
is certain to win the presidential vote.
In a September 25 appeal to the international community to act to end the humanitarian disaster in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the UN envoy on Palestinians聮 human rights, John Dugard, pointed out: 聯In effect, the Palestinian people have been subjected to economic sanctions 聴 the first time an occupied people has been so treated.聰
George Bush聮s administration claims it is waging a 聯war against terrorism聰. But since April 2005 Luis Posada Carriles, who worked for the CIA and engaged in brutal terrorist acts including the bombing of a Cuban airliner, has resided in the US, and Washington has resisted pressure to deport him to Venezuela, where he escaped from jail, to face justice. Posada Carriles is currently in 聯immigration detention聰 for entering the US illegally. Even a court filing by the US Justice Department described him as 聯the admitted mastermind of terrorist plots and attacks聰. The following letter, among the signatories of which are four Nobel laureates, was issued on October 6.
On October 11, a team of Iraqi physicians, whose work was overseen by US epidemiologists at the Johns Hopkins University聮s Bloomberg School of Public Health, published a study in The Lancet, a prestigious British medical journal, estimating that the US-led occupation of Iraq has cost the lives of 655,000 Iraqis.
On October 4, Jim Gilchrist, a leader of the racist anti-immigrant Minutemen group, came to speak at Columbia University. Gilchrist聮s hate speech was met with a peaceful demonstration in which students came on the stage unfurling banners reading 聯No human being is illegal聰 and 聯No to racism聰. The Minutemen responded with force, punching and kicking protesters. Footage of the assaults can be seen at <.
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