Workers, youth and oppressed people around the world – unite in support of the Palestinian and Lebanese resistance! Israel has declared war on Lebanon. The entire Middle East trembles on the brink of another war, fomented by the aggressively expansionist state of Israel and backed as usual by he United Sates and its European allies. The League for the Fifth International appeals to the international anti-war and labour movement not to stand aside but to rally the maximum forces to oppose this barbaric aggression and to actively support the legitimate and heroic resistance of the Palestinian and Lebanese people. Read more...

George W Bush, US president and commander-in-chief, visited Baghdad for five hours on 13 June. During that time, 36 Iraqis were killed. Meanwhile, 2,000 supporters of Moqtada al-Sadr took to the streets, chanting, “”Iraq is for the Iraqis!” Read more...

Those who thought that the dismantling of the Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip in 2005 by Sharon was a sign that the Israelis were willing to make sacrifices on behalf of the Peace Process must be scratching their heads by now. The supposed peace process which in reality was merely an attempt to maintain the status quo of a powerful Israeli state and a weak Palestinian ‘authority’ has solved nothing for the ordinary Palestinians still living in misery and poverty in the region. Read more...

Eight Palestinians lay dead on the beach in Gaza last Friday.

Families, who had been denied access to the seaside for years by Israeli settlements, have only just started to enjoy picnics and swimming trips: one of the few ways to get away from the squalor and enforced boredom of life in the open air prison camp that is the Gaza strip. Now one family, including children aged two and four, has been exterminated. Others are scarred for life, with 30 seriously wounded. Read more...

The League for the Fifth International has received the following press
release and appeal from the MLKP, a prominent participant in the
anti-imperialist space at the Athens European Social Forum. The MLKP have been extremely active in opposing Turkey’s support for the US-Israeli atrocities in Lebanon and Palestine. These courageous actions have brought down the wrath of the Turkish state with 23 activists taken into custody on the 8th - 9th September. Read more...

Iraq

After three years of occupation, life has deteriorated for the vast majority of Iraqis. A recent report by the IMF and United Nations said that living standards have declined since the invasion in 2003. A fifth of the population subsists below the poverty line, on less than a dollar a day. Half the population is unemployed and 60 per cent are dependent on government subsidised rations. Read more...

The publication of racist cartoons, depicting the prophet of Islam, Muhammad, by the Danish paper Jyllands-Posten, sparked a series of protests across the Middle East and into central and south-east Asia.

One cartoon depicts Muhammad wearing a turban, which contains a bomb; another shows Muhammad welcoming a queue of suicide bombers to heaven, but telling them that there are no virgins left. Others depict Muslims as stereotypical terrorists. Accompanying the Danish cartoons was an article by Flemming Rose, Jyllands-Posten’s culture editor, claiming, “Modern, secular society is rejected by some Muslims." Read more...

"The United States does not support a political party that wants to destroy our ally Israel. People must renounce that part of their platform."

Thus George Bush greeted the latest result of his administration’s declared policy of spreading democracy throughout the Middle East. The people have spoken; rewrite the manifesto they voted for. Read more...

Today Iraqis go to the polls to elect a 275 member parliamet, which will in turn choose government under the new constitution. Unlike the semi-boycotted January elections, mass participation in all parts of the population is widely expected. But who should the workers vote for? Read more...

"A difficult day in Basra, but we have to put this behind us and move on." These were the words of Brigadier John Lorimer, one of the commanding officers of the British occupation forces in Basra, southern Iraq.

20th September was very, very difficult for the British forces - as they were forced to explain why two of their soldiers were found disguised as Iraqis carrying explosives in their car, and why the British Army felt it necessary that they had to destroy an Iraqi police station to rescue their two men. Read more...

On 7 September Egypt held its first multi-candidate presidential vote. To no one's surprise, president Hosni Mubarak won his fifth six-year term in office. Also no surprise that the US was the first country to endorse the ballot, claiming it was “a historic departure". Read more...

The Gaza pull out of Israeli citizens and the dismantling of four settlements in the West Bank has been hailed as a victory for the Palestinians by many Middle East commentators. Even Hamas said it was a step forward. But the facts behind the recent events in Gaza paint a darker picture for the future of the Palestinians. Read more...

The Gaza pull out of Israeli citizens and the dismantling of four settlements in the West Bank has been hailed as a victory for the Palestinians by many Middle East commentators. Even Hamas said it was a step forward. But the facts behind the recent events in Gaza paint a darker picture for the future of the Palestinians. Read more...

Leading Sunni representative in the negotiations, Soha Allawi, said, “We will campaign among Sunnis and Shias to reject the constitution which has elements that will lead to the break-up of Iraq and civil war,” while his Shi’ite opposite number, Jalal al-Din Sagheer, rejoined, “The only possible change now is that the Sunnis become federalist.” Read more...

The release of a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on Tuesday 23 August found no evidence that Iran has been working on a secret nuclear weapons programme. The report was commissioned after traces of enriched uranium were found in equipment at Iran’s nuclear facilities two years ago. Iran’s claim that the uranium samples came form contaminated equipment bought second-hand from Pakistan has been vindicated. Read more...

Many people in the West have seen the film “Apocalypse Now". Only very few Iraqis probably have. However, they are experiencing “Apocalypse Now” in real life, with horrific consequences.

Contrary to the ridiculous claims of Bush and his generals that security in Iraq is improving (it has permanently improved since May 2003, hasn’t it?), hundreds have died in the last few weeks alone. According to the official figures of the pro-American Iraqi Interior Ministry, the death rate of Iraqi civilians and police officers has averaged over 800 a month between August 2004 and May 2005. In other words, Iraq is officially experiencing every month 16 times what London suffered on 7th July! Read more...

It has been compared it to last year’s “Orange Revolution” in the Ukraine. That may be about right. Neither side in the crisis that has erupted since the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, widely attributed to Syria’s security forces, has anything to offer the Lebanese masses. Read more...

Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese - maybe over a million according to Al Jazeera- flowed through the streets of Beirut to protest against the attempt by the United States, backed by France and Israel, to force the withdrawal of Syrian troops and install a regime subservient to their interests. Read more...

Since the death of PLO leader and Palestine Authority leader Yasser Arafat last November, political and diplomatic events have moved swiftly. On 9 January Abu Mazen was elected President of the PA in a popular vote inside the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Early in February a formal ceasefire between the PLO and Israel was announced at a summit between Abu Mazen and Israel’s Prime Minster Ariel Sharon at Sharm al-Sheik. Read more...

The recent attack by the Israel Air Force against a so-called terrorist camp in Syria marked a significant escalation of Israel's aggressive foreign policy. But as significant as this attack was the official reaction of the US administration was of no less importance. Read more...

The European Social Forum 2004 Preparatory Assembly gathered on 16-18 April in Istanbul. A “programme workgroup” held on the afternoon of Friday 15 April was effectively an assembly session too. Of the several hundred activists present, naturally a far larger proportion came from Turkey, Greece, Hungary and the Balkans. Read more...

L5I members present at the Istanbul Preparatory Assembly of the 2004 European Social Forum during the weekend 16-18 April proposed a number of measures to try and ensure the ESF in London in October is a success. Read more...

The supreme leader of the Iranian Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has declared last week's parliamentary elections a great success for the existing regime and a blow to blow to Iran's enemies, namely George Bush. Read more...

This Friday – 20 February – elections to Iran's parliament will take place. But most Iranians entitled to vote won't take part. Perhaps one in three across the country will go to the polls – but it could be as low as one in ten in the capital Tehran. Read more...

Nothing better symbolises the failure of US imperialism to stabilise its rule in Iraq than George Bush’s 153 minute visit to the country in the final days of last month. So unsure of the security arrangements, Bush left the White House in disguise to be secreted onto a plane and flown half way around the world to serve Thanksgiving dinner to US troops. Read more...

The death of six British soldiers near Al-Amarah at the end of June represents a key deepening of the resistance to the US and UK occupation of Iraq. Almost all the attacks in the previous ten weeks since the war was officially described as over have been in the so-called “Sunni triangle” north-west of Baghdad. Read more...

The war against Iraq ended in swift battlefield victory for the United States – hardly a surprise given the shattered character of Iraq both economically and militarily. Given too the enormous global military preponderance of the USA, the open terrain of Iraq, the hatred of a majority of the Iraqi people for Saddam’s dictatorship, any other outcome was impossible. Impossible that is unless Saddam had actually possessed any usable weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Of course, he did not have such weapons and Bush and Blair knew that very well, as investigations in both the USA and Britain have revealed. Had they had any serious doubts on this they would not have launched their attack. Read more...

Among the many reasons for the start of the second Palestinian intifada in September 2000, the massive expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza must count as the most important. Read more...

On 28 February, Israeli tanks invaded Balata refugee camp in Nablus. This was swiftly followed by similar attacks on Tulkarem Nur al Shams, Jenin, Aaza, Aida and Deheisha, Arrob, Khan Younis, Rafah and Jabalya refugee camps. Read more...

The recent re-awakening of the Israeli peace movement, with large demonstrations in Tel-Aviv called under the slogan “The Occupation Is Killing Us All”, and the emergence of a “refusenik” movement of Israeli reservists refusing military service in the Occupied Territories, has put the Israeli left back in the spotlight. This has happened after a year of complete silence in the wake of the Palestinian uprising and the election of right-wing Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon. Read more...