International

While the Sept. 19 round of the six-party talks aimed at resolving the nuclear issue on the Korean peninsula ended successfully after the U.S. government agreed on paper to respect the sovereignty of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea), November’s round was unsuccessful. Further talks do not seem to be in the cards anytime soon, mainly, many say, because of a series of provocative moves made by the Bush administration.

Zimbabwe: Child labor on farms
Indonesia: Labor leaders imprisoned
Germany: Public sector workers strike
Panama: New energy policy demanded
Britain: Church issues apology

MAYAGÜEZ, Puerto Rico — Voices from almost all sectors of Puerto Rican society have been raised, once again, in protest against imperial arrogance and violations of people’s rights in this colony by U.S. authorities, following FBI raids of homes of pro-independence leaders on the morning of Feb. 10 in which a number of journalists were attacked with pepper spray. All the video footage shot by different news agencies showed the FBI attacks were unprovoked.

CARACAS, Venezuela — The sixth World Social Forum concluded here Jan. 29 with a rally of tens of thousands at the Poliedro Stadium, where just two days prior delegates from 160 countries gathered to hear Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.

WASHINGTON — Grisly details of torture of detainees at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, are revealed in a new UN report, not yet released. The torture includes jamming feeding tubes up the nostrils of hunger strikers twice daily and force-feeding them Ex-Lax so they lose control of their bowels.

A storm is raging in Mexico over extraterritorial rights claimed by the United States.

Comenzando el 16 de enero, una cartelera electrónica puesto muy alto en el lado del edificio de la Sección de Intereses Norteamericanos en La Habana ha estado exhibiendo las palabras de Abraham Lincoln, la Declaración Universal de Derechos Humanos, Martín Luther King, y disidentes europeos antisoviéticos como Vaclav Havel, en letras rojas de un metro y medio de altura. Su propósito es eel de calumniar la democracia cubana y desbaratar a su revolución.

Tributes from around the world flooded in to the Frente Farabundo Martí para la Liberación Nacional (FMLN) last week on the death of Schafik Jorge Handal, a distinguished revolutionary leader in El Salvador.

India: Airport workers on strike
Iraq: Trade unionist killed
Colombia: Coca-Cola FEMSA investigation
South Africa: Local elections ahead
Cuba: Chávez wins UNESCO Marti prize

Mexican voters will elect a new president July 2. The constitution gives presidents one six-year term and forbids re-election, so the current president, Vicente Fox Quezada of the right-wing National Action Party (PAN), must go.