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South Africa: Strike ends, COSATU declares 'victory'

After several days of intensive, sometimes heated, discussions and membership consultations, public-service unions voted on June 28 to end their national strike and accept the South African government’s “settlement offer”. The strike, which began on June 1, was the longest and largest public-sector strike in South Africa’s history, with more than 700,000 workers on strike and another 300,000, for whom it was illegal to strike, taking part in militant marches, pickets and other forms of protest.

Iraq: Washington's 'meaningless' offensive

“One week after American forces mounted their assault on insurgent strongholds in western Baquba, at least half of the estimated 300 to 500 fighters who were there have escaped or are still at large, the colonel who is leading the attack said Monday”, the June 26 New York Times reported.

Torture in the service of empire

A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, From the Cold War to the War on Terror
By Alfred W. McCoy
Metropolitan Books, 2006

290 pages, $38.95 (hb)
American Torture: From the Cold War to Abu Ghraib & Beyond
By Michael Otterman
Melbourne University Press, 2007
285 pages, $24.95 (pb)

3CR goes 'beyond the bars' for NAIDOC Week

For the sixth year, Melbourne’s community radio station 3CR (855AM) will conduct live radio broadcasts with Indigenous prisoners during NAIDOC (National Aboriginal and Islander Day Observance Committee) Week. But 3CR Indigenous broadcaster and musician Kutcha Edwards, who has been part of these unique broadcasts since they began in 2002, would rather they weren’t necessary.

Why boycott Israeli universities?

Why Boycott Israeli Universities?
British Committee for the Universities of Palestine 2007
35 pages, £2.50
Visit <http://www.bricup.org.uk>

Nigeria: General strike forces retreat on fuel prices, tax

Nigeria’s combative working-class movement has shown its strength and militancy. An overwhelmingly observed four-day nationwide general strike, which began on June 20, succeeded in rapidly forcing the country’s new president to back down on an announced doubling of value-added tax and increased fuel prices. The degree of popular support for the strike revealed that the 23-day-old regime of President Umaru Yar’Adua is already thoroughly discredited and despised.

Interview with Eva Golinger: US continues destabilisation push in Venezuela

In the wake of widely covered opposition protests against the Venezuelan government’s decision not to renew Radio Caracas Televison’s (RCTV) broadcasting licence following its countless violations of the law and its role in the 2002 coup attempt against the democratically elected government, Green Left Weekly’s Sam King spoke with lawyer and writer Eva Golinger in Caracas. Golinger is the author of The Chavez Code and Bush Versus Chavez, which expose US intervention into Venezuela aiming to overthrow Chavez.

Morocco committing 'all kinds of atrocities' in Western Sahara

Secretary general of the Saharawi Union of Journalists and Writers (UPES) Malainin Lakhal, currently on a speaking tour of Australia, spoke to Green Left Weekly's Tony Iltis about the human rights situation in Western Sahara and the Saharawi people's long struggle for democracy and self-determination.