Our Life and Times
By Kevin A. Barry and Mitch Weerth
In recent weeks, negotiations have taken place between Israel and Syria, the Palestinians, and possibly Lebanon as well. Syria and Israel are discussing a full peace agreement, mediated by Turkey, in which Israel would finally return the Golan Heights, seized in 1973. In addition, Israel and the Palestinian fundamentalist group Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, have announced a six-month truce. All of this reflects the weakened position of the U.S. and Israel after the catastrophic war in Iraq and Israel’s disastrous war in Lebanon in 2006.
Our Life and Times
By Kevin A. Barry and Mitch Weerth
In June, resurgent Taliban forces attacked the major prison in Kandahar, the country’s second-largest city and the center of the predominantly Pashtun South. They blew up the prison’s wall, killed 15 guards, and freed all 1,200 prisoners, 400 of whom were Taliban members.
Our Life and Times
By Kevin A. Barry and Mitch Weerth
Despite polls showing a closer race, the right won a decisive victory in April’s national elections. Since then, it has launched unprecedented attacks on immigrants, especially Roma. Billionaire Silvio Berlusconi, a strong supporter of the Iraq war, will head the new government. His coalition includes the anti-immigrant Northern League and with the National Alliance, a party with roots in neo-fascism.
Our Life and Times
By Kevin A. Barry and Mitch Weerth
In recent months, Turkey has been gripped by what amounts to a slow-motion coup on the part of the secular and military establishment. The moderate Islamist Justice and Development Party (AKP) is facing a ban by the Constitutional Court, even though the AKP controls both the executive and the legislative branches of the government.
Our Life and Times
By Kevin A. Barry and Mitch Weerth
Four months after a nationwide uprising that left 17 dead, the banana-producing region around the town of Njombe Pena remains on lockdown. Mayor Paul-Eric Kingue is still in jail, charged with incitement. His real crime: exposing how French-dominated multinational banana companies exploit the local population while paying no real local taxes.
Our Life and Times
By Kevin A. Barry and Mitch Weerth
Since December, when the secular political leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated, the people of Pakistan have shown their growing revulsion at both their U.S.-backed military rulers and the fundamentalists. In the February elections, a landslide victory went to the two main secular parties, which have been marginalized under military rule.
Our Life and Times
By Kevin A. Barry and Mitch Weerth
German labor took the offensive in March. A series of strikes by Ver.di, the large public sector union, shut down airports and subways on March 5. The Union of Railway Conductors (GDL), which shut down large sectors of the economy last year, is threatening another strike, one that could again paralyze commerce and industry as well as public transport. In February, metalworkers and Berlin’s subway workers also staged brief strikes.
Our Life and Times
By Kevin A. Barry and Mitch Weerth
In March, as China prepared for the August Olympics, mass protests broke out in Tibet. On March 10, Buddhist monks began a nonviolent street demonstration against ethno-religious restrictions and were met by arrests and beatings. On March 14, as the protests continued, Chinese police started to beat up protesting monks in the Barkhor Market in the old city of Lhasa, this in broad daylight. Witnessing this atrocity, long-abused area residents rose up, stoning police, attacking and burning Chinese-owned shops, and then setting fire to police cars and fire trucks, all the while waving Tibetan flags. It is now being reported that at least 80 people have died, the greatest toll in a social conflict since 1989.
Our Life and Times
By Kevin A. Barry and Mitch Weerth
As the Iraq war entered its fifth year, with no end in sight, the World Health Organization estimated that about 150,000 civilians had been killed, in a study that covered only the first three years of the war. The true figure may therefore be twice as high. The total U.S. military deaths have just surpassed 4,000. Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz estimates that the overall cost of the war will reach $ trillion, nearly a quarter of the annual GDP of the United States.
Our Life and Times
By Kevin A. Barry and Mitch Weerth
In the last few months, Israel’s attempts to crush the Palestinians of Gaza have come up short. In late 2007, it intensified its economic blockade by cutting off or restricting supplies of gasoline and electricity, crucial for all basic services, including hospitals. This is all part of an attempt to crush the fundamentalist Hamas movement, which took control of Gaza last year. Such collective punishments of civilians violate international law, and this one is taking place on a massive scale.