Due to his hospitalization to undergo a surgical procedure, Fidel Castro took a leave of absence from the presidency of the country and has provisionally been replaced in the presidency by his brother Raul Castro. Other subjects are the National Constitutional Assembly set up in Bolivia, Uribe’s inauguration in Colombia, presidential elections in Mexico, etc.


Fidel Castro takes a leave of absence from the presidency of Cuba
National Constitutional Assembly set up in Bolivia
Uribe’s inauguration in Colombia
Presidential Elections in Mexico
US presence in Latin America
Crisis in Middle East escalates
UN Security Council’s decision on Iran
Oil barrel nearing USD 80
Iraq on the brink of civil war
Japan’s problems with its neighboring countries
India bans soft drinks sales
Tense second round for historic elections in Congo
Primary elections in the US
AFL-CIO signs historic partnership

Fidel Castro takes a leave of absence from the presidency of Cuba

Due to his hospitalization to undergo a surgical procedure, Fidel Castro took a leave of absence from the presidency of the country. Neither the nature of his infirmity nor was the state of his health was made public, but a few days later he was photographed being paid a visit by the president of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez. Fidel has provisionally been replaced in the presidency by his brother Raul Castro.

The episode was celebrated by his enemies, particularly the American government and members of the Cuban community living in Miami, USA. The news was received as if they had succeeded in overthrowing the Cuban regime, which is what they have been trying to achieve for so many years, to no avail.

The press was filled with political “I think that” which verged on the absurd, with some stating that Raul Castro would coordinate a transition toward a radical overhaul of the Cuban political system.

The US immediately increased resources allocated to radio stations which, from abroad, broadcast propaganda against the Cuban government, announced preparations for the massive exodus of “balseros”(rafters) arriving at Florida’s beaches and that the country was willing to discuss the suspension of the blockade. Provided its demands were met, of course.

Here in Brazil, the attitude of the right was even more shameful, for besides supporting the American interventions, newspaper editorials began to ask which side the Brazilian government would take, if the US’s or the side of the Cuban Communist Party.

All these facts reveal that, for sectors of the right, the cold war has not ended. To them, the sovereignty and opinion of the Cuban people are not worth a penny. Yet many people all over the world were moved by Fidel’s sickness and cheer for his prompt recovery.

During this process, the government, the population and the Cuban institutions haven proved solid. Raul Castro has carried out his interim term of office discreetly and the different political and administrative instances of the country have functioned as they have always functioned.

Fidel himself, before this episode, had already “toyed” and announced that he did not intend to govern till the age of a hundred and that there were absolute tranquility and alternatives in the revolutionary institutions to overcome any absence.

The Cuban Revolution has already had its moments and it is just fair that those concerned with its future should debate it. Those who have been following the process know what the present challenge –which started with the demise of “real socialism” in Eastern Europe and the measures adopted by the Cuban government to keep the economy afloat in face of the new reality – entails.

The early years of the 1980s were particularly harsh in face of the scarcity of resources to import basic inputs to meet the needs of the country, like oil and food. Throughout this period widespread improvements are perceptible. All social policies, particularly those related to health and education, were upheld. If we should take the restoration of part of old Havana, progress is plain to see.

Yet there are both subjective and objective aspects in this process that call for consideration. For example, it is hard to assess the impact on the whole of the population, especially the youth, provoked by some of the important deficiencies experienced for so many years and which still persist, as well as the difference there is between those who manage to have access to “hard currencies” and, therefore, may purchase certain goods in accordance with the “free market”, and those who earn local currency and only buy what the official stores are able to offer.

At any rate, those who have a legitimate right to discuss these issues are the Cuban people, at the moment they consider it appropriate and without any foreign interference, particularly from those who would like Cuba to return to the pre-revolutionary situation.

More news about Cuba.

National Constitutional Assembly set up in Bolivia

This occurred on August 6. As mentioned in Periscope 5, the elections to compose the (Exclusive) National Constitutional Assembly of Bolivia reaffirmed the Movement toward Socialism (MAS) as the country’s hegemonic political party, despite the party’s failure to elect the two thirds of constitutional representatives required to pass the amendments it defends without having to negotiate with other political forces.

Now the party will have to face the challenge of discussing arduous and thorny issues, especially those involving the economic power and the more conservative sectors of Bolivia. These are the regulation of subsoil ownership and natural resources, land reform and the decentralization and administrative autonomy of provinces and municipalities.

Additionally, there are historical issues pending such as Bolivia’s passage to the Pacific Ocean, lost in the late 19th century to Peru and Chile, which do not depend on a Constitutional Assembly but on the Bolivian foreign policy ultimately being able to negotiate some form of agreement with its neighbors.

Anyhow, the Constitutional Assembly will constitute a key exercise that may help the country to take a new road along which the country would develop and leave the condition of being South America’s poorest country.

At the moment, constitutional representatives are still debating the rules and how the proceedings will take place, particularly the votes necessary to approve the paragraphs of the new Constitution. The minority parties are of the understanding that the terms according to which the Constitutional Assembly election was called already set out that an absolute majority would be two thirds, while there are other interpretations sustaining that this majority may be 50% of the votes plus one vote.

Uribe’s inauguration in Colombia

Sworn in on August 7 and, as predicted, Uribe began to take measures designed to further the neoliberal adjustment in Colombia in a statement announcing a series of privatizations, alterations to the labor law and the implementation of a Free Trade Agreement which had already been signed with the USA during his first term of office.

His neoliberal policy is being propelled by the fact that his political coalition has a majority of representatives in the Colombian congress. Yet he has been facing opposition from the social movement, from the Unitarian Central of Workers (CUT) and from parliamentarians of the Alternative Democratic Pole, which today represents the country’s second political force (Read more in Periscope 4).

One measure that caused surprise, however logical it may be, was that Uribe started to get rid of old supporters who either belonged to or were quite close to the right-wing military groups. A deal was struck for the deposition of arms of the so-called United Self-defenses of Colombia (AUC), also negotiated during Uribe’s first term. The agreement established that there would be no punishment for those involved in human rights violations, which for obvious reasons cannot be guaranteed given the autonomy of the country’s Judiciary branch on the matter.

For the time being, the only thing Uribe can guarantee is that none of them will be extradited to the United States. He has also stated that those ex-paramilitary who are found guilty must surrender themselves to Justice.

One of the drivers of such posture, which might even lead to a negotiation with the leftist guerrillas, is that foreign investors need a more peaceful environment to secure their financial returns.

The Colombian population couldn’t be more thankful.

For more: “Uribe’s main government pledges” and “Fin de la luna de miel, an account of the episodes leading to Uribe’s order to detain the paramilitary leaders“

Presidential Elections in Mexico

With the refusal of the TRIFE (the Federation’s Judiciary Branch Electoral Court) to recount all the votes of the Mexican presidential election, held last July 2, PRD militants and supporters of Andrés Manuel López Obrador, himself included, occupied the Zócalo and the Paseo de la Reforma as a way to pressure for the recount.

The authorities have till September 6 to announce a winner, annul the election or call a new one which is to take place one year from now. López Obrador challenges the official result and demands a full recount of all the votes in the wake of a series of irregularities which took place during the July 2 election. A partial recount was approved and carried out, with results having been announced on August 22. According to the presidency’s spokesperson, the winner of the elections was Felipe Calderón. This, however, is not the official result.

The TRIFE ordered the recount of the votes of nearly 12,000 electoral districts, which collected some 4 million ballots. This figure represents less than 10% of the total 132,000 ballot boxes. Though the districts chosen were in areas where Calderón had gained a telltale majority, the number of votes is insignificant to guarantee a fair recount.

In the meantime, Obrador’s supporters closed the Stock Exchange, the National Congress and oil-rigging platforms. Some militants even proposed a general strike and threatened to take Mexico City’s international airport.

Supporting the allegations of electoral fraud is a very narrow margin of only 243,000 votes, or 0.58% of the 42 million votes cast in the boxes, after two shady counting processes, in which not only are votes and electoral records manually handled, but also data transfers to the Federal Electoral Institute (IFE).

To the decision made by the TRIFE of only recounting 10% of the votes, the López Obrador camp responded by demanding “100% of Democracy”. And warn that they won’t make things easy for the new president, if he is sworn in, and will continue to demand that the Mexican electoral process be clean and that the recount of the votes be done.

Coherently, the PRD candidate proposed that the recount be extended to the government of the state of Chiapas, where his party won by an even narrower margin: 0.1% of the votes. (For more, read México: voto por voto at ALAINET.).

According to opinion polls conducted, a third of the population believes there was fraud and almost half agrees to the recounting of all the votes. In face of that, the tribunal’s strategy to favor the PAN, with the support of the PRI from the outset, is to toy with small new facts and gain time. First it was the recount of a tenth of the votes for president, then the announcement of the new congress’s composition and on August 29 the announcement that no irregularities were found in the votes recounted.

Of a total of 500 seats in the chamber of deputies, the PAN got 206, the PRD, 126, the PRI, 104, and the smaller parties, 64. Of the senate’s 128 seats, the PAN will occupy 52, the PRI, 33, the PRD, 29 and the other parties, the remaining 14. This result confirms the decadence of the PRI, the PRD’s growth –which will polarize politically with the right– and, finally, that no one has an absolute majority in either legislative houses.

That is, there is an attempt to push for a return to normalcy in order to announce Calderón’s victory within the timeframe set by the legislation. It remains to be seen whether the PRD mobilization will succeed in avoiding that.

For more on the Mexican elections, read and article and interview with Manoel López Obrador in the Financial Times of August 21, 2006 and Fumes of a Fraudulent Election – Class War Amid Mexico City’s Gridlock.

US presence in Latin America

With a careless statement, the new US commander of the Forward Operating Location at the Manta Air Base, Javier Delucca, sparked the discussion regarding the installation of military bases in Latin America.

Saying that the location of the base, in the west of Ecuador, was very important within Plan Colombia in the battle against drug dealing, Delucca raised strong reactions from the Ecuadorian government, who denied having any relation with the cooperation program between the US and Colombia.

Since 1999, North-American military launch drug war operations from the base in Manta, but their presence has been strongly criticized by political and social groups, and human rights advocacy groups who consider that the existence of such apparatus directly involves Ecuador in Plan Colombia.

The pressure for more transparent US government positions brings to memory the process involving another military base being readied for operations in Latin America, the Mariscal Estigarribia in Paraguay.

Paraguay’s and the US’s closeness resulted in the signing of an agreement that was enacted into Law 2594/05, by which North-American troops are allowed to enter the country for a period of 18 months, from July 2005 through December 2006.

Today Paraguay plays a strategic role in the positioning of the United States in the southern part of the continent. It became the threshold to the Mercosul and may become an obstacle to the regional integration project.

In order to minimize the North-American military presence in the region, the Brazilian government announced the creation of a Triple Border Intelligence Center to be jointly operated with Argentina and Paraguay.

The initiative, which will be based in Foz do Iguaçu, is intended to fight money laundering and control smuggling along the common borders of the three countries, which are a source of constant concern for the American government due to the strong presence of Arab immigrants.

Crisis in Middle East escalates

Long-lasting as it is, it seems the Middle East conflict never stops making the news. Yet the local temperature rose again during the month of July as a result of Israeli strikes against Lebanon. Land, air and sea bombardments lasting more than 30 days destroyed the greater part of the country’s infrastructure and caused the deaths of approximately 1500 people, 80% of whom were children, women and disabled persons. Also among the victims are Red Cross and United Nations staff members.

The justification presented by the Israeli government to adopt such measures was an incursion by the Hezbollah into its territory in early July that led to the death of some of its soldiers and the kidnapping of two others. Nonetheless, this would hardly be regarded by international law as an act of invasion that would justify the absolutely non commensurate response launched by Israel. The promptness and intensity of the reaction indicate the plans for the bombardments and attacks against southern Lebanon had been previously defined and could be deployed at any moment.

The Israelis, however, did not accomplish their objectives. They were met with fierce resistance, lost soldiers and equipment, were unable to free the two soldiers, were incapable of defeating Hezbollah and of occupying the 20-kilometer stretch they intended to in southern Lebanon, in order to neutralize missile launchings into their territory. As captioned by The Economist on its cover, “Nasrallah wins the war”.

This is also the perception in Lebanon and the Middle East. In addition to not being able to accomplish the military targets mentioned and isolate the Hezbollah politically, Israel’s tactic of indiscriminate bombings against civilian targets alienated the world’s public opinion in favor of the Lebanese resistance.

The USA and its eternal ally, England, obstructed from the outset any resolution by the UN Security Council designed to interrupt the attack, claiming that they would only support a “workable cease-fire”. In the end, in light of the Israeli disastrous military campaign, they had to take part in putting together the Security Council’s Resolution 1,701. The accord is extremely fragile and can crumble at any moment, but was negotiated to stop further damaging the American and Israeli images, as well as preventing an even more significant victory of the resistance, which would further hinder the implementation of the “new map for the Middle East” advocated by Bush.

A noteworthy aspect was that the Israeli pacifist movement was allowed, though timidly, to resume its initiatives, after having lost its clout in the political arena as a result of the suicide blasts that caused many deaths among Israel’s civilian population in the recent past. Although nearly 80% of the country’s public opinion had given their support to the Olmert administration’s decision to strike against Lebanon in mid-July, today the prime minister’s popularity plummeted to 40%, with the current parliamentarian composition even under the threat of not being able to sustain itself for very long.

If the resumption of the peace campaign is positive news, the events in Lebanon, on the other hand, eclipsed the news about Palestine, where the Israeli offensive also hardened, particularly with the imprisonment of many Palestinian Parliament members and government officials, as well as by systematic strikes against the Gaza Strip.

For now, the US tactic, with the support of Israel and to a lesser extent of the European Union and ‘moderate’ Arab countries (Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia), is to neutralize the Hezbollah and the Hamas, rein in Iran and Syria and strengthen the incumbent government in Iraq.

This, however, is not proving to be easy and the recent episode in Lebanon was definitely a setback, which, as a matter of fact, boosted sympathy for the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance worldwide.

Read more in Washington’s interests in Israel’s war by Seymour M. Hersh, What Israel Gained – Or Lost by Peter Hirschberg and LEBANON: UN Human Rights Council Condemns Israel by Gustavo Capdevila.

UN Security Council’s decision on Iran

Last June, China, France, Russia, the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany (a group known as the P5+1) offered an incentives package to encourage Iran’s adherence to negotiations designed to convince the latter party to abandon its uranium-enrichment program.

Among the measures offered to Iran are the support to civilian initiatives to produce nuclear energy, the end of sales restrictions imposed on Iran of aircraft parts manufactured in the USA, technical cooperation by the US for the farming sector and support for Iran’s entrance in the WTO. The condition for this offer to be effected was the suspension of the uranium-enrichment program.

The US and its allies expected to receive an answer before the G8 meeting in Moscow in late June. However, before the Iranian answer the Security Council was called in order to examine what sanctions should be applied in case the program was not halted before the end of August.

Despite some reluctance by Russia and China, a UN resolution was approved on July 31 hinting to the possibility that Iran would suffer economic and political embargoes should it not suspend its program’s activities.

Iran claims that its nuclear program enriches uranium by 3.5% only, a level insufficient for the production of nuclear weapons, which require 90% enrichment levels, though high enough to be used as fuel for reactors generating electricity. Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, publicly rejected the resolution and qualified it as a threat with no legal foundations since the Iranian nuclear program is peaceful.

In response, Iran announced that it may interrupt its oil supply to the United States and the EU should they persist in confronting the activities developed by the country’s nuclear program. This, however, may prove not to be in the country’s interests since Iran receives more than USD 5 billion a month from the oil trade.

Iran also announced in mid-August that it is open to a serious negotiation with the USA and the remaining members of the Security Council, but only if the UN resolution establishing the end of August for Iran to suspend its uranium activities is not applied.

The refusal to allow Iran to develop a nuclear program prompted massive support of the population to the Iranian government. The nuclear question has become a matter of national pride and the way western countries have tackled the issue is viewed as a re-edition of the colonial past, when they were denied the possibility of any technological development.

Iran also complains about the use of double standards when it comes to condemning nuclear programs in general since its neighbors, Israel, Pakistan, India and Russia, who possess nuclear weapons, were never bothered for that.

Yet what stands out as the chief concern of the West regarding Iran is the strengthening of the country after the major military operations led by the USA in Asia and the Middle East. With the offensives against the Saddam Hussein regime in 1991 and 2001, and against the Taliban in Afghanistan also in 2001, there was the elimination of two governments that at times rivaled with Tehran, which was after all the main beneficiary of North-American actions.

Little by little Iran’s role and importance as a regional power grew, not only from the point of view of its military might, but also from an economic perspective. Take for example the fact that it is the only country in the region to have its own automotive industry, which has just formed a joint venture with Syria to meet that country’s demand.

A regional power, an oil-and-gas exporter, with a flourishing industry, mastering nuclear energy (even if only for peaceful purposes) and not controlled by the West is something unbearable for the great powers.

Read more in Iran Says Peaceful Programme No Threat, Council’s Consideration Unwarranted and IAEA and Iran – Chronology of Events (January-July 2006).

Oil barrel nearing USD 80

On July 14, two days after the beginning of the conflict between Israel and Lebanon, the oil price hit its highest mark since 1980: USD 78.40 a barrel.

Aside from the conflict, other factors were pointed out as crucial to determining the price hikes: the nuclear tests performed by North Korea and violence and instability in Nigeria, a major African producer and currently supplying 25% of the oil China consumes, as discussed in Periscope 5.

The dispute between Iran and the West over the use of nuclear technology has also influenced prices, as well as a drop in both the US’s oil reserves and production caused by technical flaws in Alaska and the destruction by Hurricane Katrina of the infrastructure in the Gulf of Mexico.

In consequence, Brazil’s acclaimed biofuels program has received even more attention. The international press has published several articles in which it highlights as an alternative to fossil fuels the biodiesel made from castor and soy beans and other vegetables, not to mention Brazil’s program’s social component, which links the production to the family farming segment.

Iraq on the brink of civil war

This is the assessment made by British and American military in Iraq in very discreet reports. The month of July was the deadliest ever since the war began. Approximately 3,500 civilians were killed, an average of 110 fatal casualties a day, despite the unveiling of a new security plan by the incumbent government.

These figures have risen by 10% in relation to June and account for twice the number of occurrences of this year’s first months. The counting is done based on records kept by hospitals and funeral homes. Baghdad is pointed as the place with the highest concentration of deaths and has, therefore, become an extremely dangerous place.

Yet there are versions stating that the imbalance is caused by the precarious information infrastructure in other parts and cities of the country and thus, the actual number of deaths per month would be much higher and, therefore, Baghdad’s share smaller.

The deaths, mainly of civilians, are being caused by an insurgency which is resisting against the foreign occupation by the armed forces of the US and the other coalition member countries, especially by means of terrorist blasts. The attacks are mainly targeting the Shiahs, who in Iraq have allied with the Americans and are taking part in the government.

Apparently, the only ones who have been able to protect themselves in the conflict, in spite of their participation in the government too, are the Kurds. In the past they were constantly persecuted by Saddam Hussein, whose army promoted atrocities and genocide actions, but now they have some level of autonomy. Though mostly Muslim, they are a separate ethnicity and live, in their vast majority, in the northern part of the country, along the borders with Syria and Turkey, also a very oil rich region. Having acquired this relative autonomy, economic as well, they are not directly involved in the conflicts between Sunnis and Shiahs or in the fight against the occupation.

Kurds represent a greater threat to Turkey, where most of their population lives and where they have been fighting for the independence and autonomy of Kurdistan for a long time. Their territorial base and the freedom of movement Kurds enjoy today in Iraq give hope for such an outcome in the medium term.

For more information, read Iraq: To Many, Lebanon Appears as a Mirror Image by Brian Conley and Isam Rasheed.

Japan’s problems with its neighboring countries

On the 61st anniversary of the Japanese surrender to the allies in World War II, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi paid homage to the dead by visiting the Yasukuni Shrine, viewed by China and Korea as a symbol of Japanese militarism.

Fourteen top brass military leaders, condemned by an allied tribunal as Class A war criminals, are worshipped in this shrine side by side with 2.5 million Japanese killed in the war. The visit was seen by neighboring countries as a provocation by a popular prime minister, whose act symbolizes the country’s growing confidence and a swaying away from the post-war pacifist policies.

The South Korean government released the following note in reference to Koizumi’s visit: “Japan should look at history in a straightforward manner and earn the confidence of its neighbors if it intends to act responsibly and contribute to the region’s peace and co-prosperity”.

According to pundits, Koizumi represents a new generation of Japanese who did not take part in the war and who believes the pacifist effort made by old conservative politicians has been apologetic enough about the country’s colonial policies and now it’s time to look forward.

Koizumi’s effort to create a new role for Japan in international politics is fueling discontent in other Asian countries, which may interfere negatively in Japanese aspirations. For instance, China has already declared its strong opposition to Japan’s intention of becoming a UN Security Council member on account of its war record.

As the prime minister’s term approaches its end in September, the key to solving this crisis, or its escalating, lies with Shinzo Abe, who should succeed Koizumi in office. However, while other candidates to the post try to distance themselves from any association with the shrine, Abe has stated that, once he is elected, he will visit Yasukuni, and hopes to have the understanding of China and South Korea.

Read news on the Japanese elections and for data on the Japanese government, log on to Japan Information Network.

India bans soft drinks sales

Six Indian provinces – Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh and Chattisgarh– have decided to ban the sales of Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola in schools and their environs, as well as in public offices, under the allegation that they contain high levels of pesticides in their composition.

The province of Kerala, where India’s Communist-Marxist Party reassumed the government in the last elections, even banned the industrialization of the two beverages.

The so-called “Green Revolution”, which was mainly carried out in India’s Northern provinces in the 1960s, did indeed, regardless of its acknowledged contribution to the development of Indian agriculture, resort to excessive use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides, contaminating important water sources.

Protests by the two American companies were loud, with claims that their products are of good quality and that the Indian left in fact seeks to restrict foreign investments in the country and hamper relations between the Indian national government and the USA.

There is a scarcity of water in India, and the water sources are used to supply the whole of the population, whether contaminated or not; therefore, the core question that prompted these provinces’ decisions is not that. Yet the incident does raise very interesting questions regarding the domestic regulation of investments and whether governments should interfere to stimulate the population to consume healthier beverages and food, as for example, fruit juices, which would have the additional advantage of boosting the local agricultural production, the packing industry and the food processing industry, rather than benefiting artificial refreshments multinationals.

India’s GDP growth rate is one of the highest in the world thanks mainly to a burgeoning services sector; still it is insufficient to ensure an employment rate growth in line with the country’s necessities. Hence, the importance of supporting family farming to spur jobs and income.

Read more in the Financial Times of August 11, 2006.

Tense second round for historic elections in Congo

The president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (formerly Zaire), Joseph Kabila, obtained 44.8% of the votes in the first round of the presidential and parliamentarian elections held last July 30. The incumbent vice-president and former rebel leader, Jean-Pierre Bemba, appears in the second place, with 20.3% of votes. The other four candidates together have 34.9% of the votes and the second round is due, at least for now, on October 29.

This is the first multi-partisan election since independence from Belgium in 1960 and General Mobutu Sese-Seko’s military coup. Mobutu ruled the country until 1997, when he was overthrown by Laurent Kabila, Joseph’s father.

The latter led a guerrilla group with which Che Guevara was personally involved in the 1960s. The disturbances and genocide that happened in Rwanda in 1995 spilled over the border into Congo, with the involvement of the army to fight guerrilla groups, making things easier for Kabila’s group to assume power. He was questioned, though, by other opposition armed groups, as the Movement for the Liberation of the Congo, led by Jean Pierre Bemba.

In 2001, Laurent Kabila was assassinated by one of his bodyguards. Congo was under the intervention of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) due to conflicts involving different armed groups fighting for the government. The OAU succeeded in bringing together the most important groups to rule the country. Thus, Joseph became the president replacing his father and Bemba, the vice-president.

Although this is the first multi-partisan election in 45 years, the result ignited existing tensions between the two main candidates, which were taken to the streets of the capital city Kinshasa. Kabila’s presidential guard and Bemba’s bodyguards clashed. The disturbances, according to analysts, may hamper the electoral process. After three days of fighting, the two candidates, under pressure of the United Nations, ordered the end of the conflicts.

Actually, the electoral results of the first round confirmed the seemingly insurmountable division of the country in east and west. The direct confrontation of the two main candidates, whose rhetoric had already been hostile throughout the campaign, will make the second-round campaign extremely tense.

In the country’s west, including Kinshasa, Kabila is extremely unpopular. He speaks Swahili, the language of the east, and does not fully master Lingala, the main language of the country’s west. On the other hand, Bemba, his opponent, is a quite successful businessman of the telecommunications sector, who in the late 1990s was charged with war crimes. During the campaign, Bemba made a point of using the slogan “100% Congolese” in a clear allusion against Kabila.

The expectation for the second round is to find out what strategies will be used by the two candidates: divisional or conciliatory.

More information on the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Primary elections in the US

In spite of the high reelection rates of politicians who hold public offices in the United States and of his having spent USD 3 million more than his adversary in the campaign, Senator Joseph Lieberman, a Democrat representing the state of Connecticut, was defeated in his party’s primary last August 8.

He lost the chance of running again for the senate nomination from the Democratic Party to entrepreneur Ned Lamont, who resorted to a strong anti Iraq war speech during the campaign. Lieberman has already announced his intention to run in the upcoming November elections as an independent, in order to try to keep his seat in the US Senate.

Lieberman’s career in the Democratic Party reached its zenith when he ran for vice-president in Al Gore’s slate in the 2000 election. Since then the senator has become better known for supporting President George W. Bush’s policies, including the war in Iraq, and for criticizing the pacifist movement for its “anti-patriotic behavior” in times of war.

Apart from his positions with regard to Iraq, Lieberman was criticized by fellow Democrats and the American left for lending his support to Republican policies such as the privatization of the social security system, the appointment of two conservative male Justices to the Supreme Court and for increasing restrictions in insolvency cases. However, what enrages his critics the most is his closeness to Bush, symbolized by the pictures and video tapes of the kiss he received from Bush on the night of the 2005 “State of the Union” address.

Since he lost his party’s primary, Lieberman registered to run as an independent candidate while simultaneously registering his own political party, Connecticut for Lieberman. On the occasion of the senator’s defeat, Vice-President Dick Cheney declared that the Al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups should be very happy to see Lieberman lose. The Republican Party of Connecticut even discouraged its current candidate, Alan Schlesinger, to run for the nomination in hope that they might support Lieberman.

Even though the state of Connecticut is not particularly important for North-American politics, it was quite striking the fact that a senator was unable to withhold his nomination to run again. This was only the third time, in the last 25 years, that a senate seat holder does not have his nomination to a reelection confirmed.

The symbolic loss, seen as a referendum on the war in Iraq and not as a state nomination, was cheered by the opposition, which expects the Democratic Party to adopt stronger positions, a strategy that could translate into higher electoral gains in November.

Read more in the New York Times 2006 Election Guide and Neo-Conservatives’ “Favourite Democrat” Falls.

AFL-CIO signs historic partnership

In mid-August, the chairman of the USA’s largest labor federation, AFL-CIO’s John Sweeney, signed a partnership agreement with the “National Day Labor Organizing Network”.

This is a network with more than 140 centers that organize day laborers, that is, those who work in informality doing odd jobs of all sorts in exchange for, usually, daily payments.

In their majority they are immigrant workers who, traditionally, were viewed by the American labor movement as a factor contributing to the reduction of wages and benefits, since they tend to accept any kind of work and remuneration. It is estimated that on a typical day nearly 120,000 of these workers develop some form of activity in more than 500 different workplaces.

Highly exploited, half of them have undergone the experience of not being properly paid and 18% have reported violent attitudes on the part of employers.

The centers aim to support these workers by teaching them English, basic rights and also how to file their grievances with regard to wages not paid. They had a key role in the massive immigrant demonstrations in the US in the month of May that protested against the new immigration law, which in practice mandated their deportation.

The partnership formed will, on one hand, strengthen the cause of immigrant and informal laborers in search of regularization and permanent and decent jobs and, on the other, bring into the labor federation the stamina and renewal of this very combative sector.

Quoting Sweeney: “This exploitation is wrong and harms us all. When the rights of some are downsized, they are downsized for all workers”.

Much has been said about how important it is for unions to also organize informal workers, but little has been done so far. Today informal laborers usually come from countries where this kind of labor relation affects 90-95 percent of the economically active population, which is the case of most African countries.

The initiative that comes from a developed country should be an example to be followed in developing countries too, where informal labor rates are much higher.