15/5/8 -- The May 2008 elections in Serbia were hailed as a victory for Europe, a defeat for the "ultra- nationalist" Tomislav Nikolic and his Radical Party. But the "For a European Serbia" alliance of President Boris Tadic's Democratic Party, the G17-Plus and three smaller liberal parties,
The thought police are haunting Europe, says Eric Walberg
17/4/8 -- A French civil servant was sacked in late March for publishing what has been widely reported as a "violent anti-Israeli diatribe" on the oumma.com website, a crime that was investigated by no less than Interior Minister Michele Alliot- Marie. Bruno Guigue, deputy prefect of Saintes, wrote that Israel was "the only state where snipers shoot down little girls outside their school gates." The author of several books on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Guigue also wrote of "Israeli jails where -- thanks to religious law -- they stop torturing on the Sabbath."
NATO moved eastward, upping the ante yet again with Russia, warns Eric Walberg
10/4/8 -- The big news at the recent NATO meeting in Romania (April 2008) is that Croatia and Albania are now happy members of the family of peace-loving nations conducting a brutal war in Afghanistan. The bad news is that Ukraine, Georgia and Macedonia didn't get the green light, with Russian and Greek revanchism the culprit -- clearly a great setback to the cause of world peace.
3/4/8 -- This year's sixth international Cairo Conference against imperialism and Zionism continued the same themes as last year: dialogue between the left and Muslims, the struggle against Islamophobia, press censorship, torture and dictatorship, and the chance for Western peace groups to network on Middle East issues. The most inspiring project was the growing campaign to boycott Israel in the West and plans to coordinate this on an international level with the long- standing Arab and Muslim boycott campaign.
Otherwise, there was little to gladden activists, for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue apace, not to mention the increased brutality of Israel against the Palestinian people. There are changes going on in Western countries, with increased activism of students and trade unionists. But the political scene is dismal, despite the overwhelming unpopularity of US-NATO/Israeli wars, as governments continue to bow to Zionist pressures -- both internal and external.
A case in point is Canada, which was unofficially represented at the conference by 14 members of the Canadian Peace Alliance (CPA) and others from student organisations. Delegates to last year's conference were attacked in the right-wing National Post and Ottawa Citizen for consorting with "terrorists"
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