IV380 - July-August 2006

Mexico has witnessed bitter struggles over the summer culminating in the electoral fraud which robbed the centre-left PRD of the presidency. The material for further social explosions is everywhere.

Slobodan Milosevic died during his trial at the UN’s International War Crimes Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague - just after he was refused permission to go to Moscow for treatment. He was 64. He stood accused of war crimes in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia and Kosovo. Whatever the legitimacy of the victors justice represented by the Tribunal - it is a poor substitute for a true international court - there is no doubt of his guilt. The evidence is overwhelming. He was indeed the butcher of the Balkans.

At the end of July, the Italian government led by Romano Prodi asked the Italian parliament to vote the continuation of the Italian military mission in Afghanistan. Dissenting parliamentarians led by the Sinistra Critica (Critical Left) representatives waged a campaign against the decision of the Party of Communist Refoundation (PRC) to support this governmental move.

Written at the time of the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon, in May 2000 in News from Within, a publication of the Alternative Information Center in Jerusalem, published an interview with Gilbert Achcar which provides useful background.

Hezbollah is undoubtedly the real political victor and Israel the real loser in the 33-day war that erupted on July 12, and no speech by Ehud Olmert or George W. Bush can alter this obvious truth.

The second Russian Social Forum has just come to an end in
St.Petersburg. Despite various obstacles put by the state authorities
(including arbitrary detention of activists and other forms of police
repression), more than a thousand people from different regions of
Russia, and also from many other countries, attended the gathering.

Everyday that passes shows more of those who enthusiastically supported the Bush administration’s imperial drive in the Middle East leaving its sinking ship. There can be no doubt any longer that what many had forecast long ago is proving absolutely true: the Bush administration will definitely go down in history as the clumsiest crew that ever stood at the helm of the American Empire.

More than 20 years of neoliberalism have had important effects on the trade union movement in Europe. Thadeus Pato unravels the pluses and minuses in the current phase of trade union evolution.

Israel is fighting to destroy Hizbollah and is also acting as the US proxy in the fight against the Iranian-led regional alliance.

The USA and Britain have been steadfast in providing unconditional and uncritical support for Israel. This support for the deliberate mass murder of civilians has been transparently obvious to the whole world despite the paper-thin attempt to hide it behind the diplomatic nicety of “opposing an immediate ceasefire” or “the necessity of laying out the basis for a lasting peace”