December 19, 2011 -- The proposals developed by the Plurinational State of Bolivia bring together and build upon the progress made in the World Charter for Nature  (1982), the Rio Declaration (1992), the Earth Charter (2000) and the World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth (2010).

[The United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) is scheduled for June 20-22, 2012, in Brazil. It marks the 20th anniversary of the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED), in Rio de Janeiro, and the 10th anniversary of the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) in Johannesburg.]

I. A DEEPER COMMITMENT TO SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN THE 21ST CENTURY

Photo by Orin Langelle/GJEP.

[For more on the COP17 Durban climate talks, click HERE.]

By the Civil Society Committee for COP 17

December 8, 2011 -- Civil Society Committee for COP 17 (C17) -- As African civil society, global South movements and international allies, we reject the call of many developed countries for a so-called “Durban mandate” to launch new negotiations for a future climate framework.

A new mandate for a new treaty in place of the Kyoto Protocol should be understood for what it really is – rich countries backtracking and reneging on “inconvenient” obligations, at the expense of the poor and the planet. While developed countries may appear progressive by asking for a mandate to negotiate a new legally binding treaty, the truth is that this is nothing but a veiled attempt to kill the Kyoto Protocol and escape from their further mitigation obligations under the already existing mandate in the protocol itself, and the agreement in 2005 for negotiating further emission cuts. A political declaration to continue the Kyoto Protocol or anything less than a full amendment and ratification process is, in practice, another nail in its coffin.

By Abohoraira Ali

November 29, 2011 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/Green Left Weekly -- On November 23, Sudan lost an invaluable activist, writer and leader.

Al Tijani Al Tayeb was one of the founders of the Sudanese Communist Party and the editor of the SCP's newspaper Al Midan. He dedicated his entire life to the movements against colonialism, dictatorship and capitalism in Sudan and against imperialist exploitation of Africa and the Middle East.

Al Tijani was born in 1926 in a poor village near the town of Shendi in north Sudan. His father was heavily involved in the Sudanese independence movement, fighting against the British occupation. Al Tijani learned much from his father’s ideas.

His family moved to Omdurman in Khartoum when Al Tijani was young. He attended school there and studied at Gordon College, which later became Khartoum University.

Al Tijani then went to Egypt to study, where he became involved with Egyptian communists and other leftists. After one year, he was arrested for helping the Egyptian people fight against the British, capitalism and the caste system.

Al Tijani was deported to Sudan where he continued to fight the British occupiers.

By Fred Leplat

October 3, 2011 -- Socialist Resistance -- The Europe Against Austerity conference, held in London on October 1, was attended by 681 people including 150 from outside Britain. This happened the same weekend that two big demonstrations took place. In Glasgow, there was the "People First" demonstration of 15,000 called by the Scottish TUC on October 1. On October 2, 35,000 joined a demonstration in Manchester on outside the Conservative Party conference, called by the Trades Union Congress and backed by the Coalition of Resistance and the Right to Work Campaign.

[For more on Occupy Wall Street, click HERE.]

This declaration was unanimously passed by all members of Occupy Wall Street on September 29, 2011. It is the first official document for release. Receive an official press copy of the latest version by emailing c2anycga@gmail.com.

The following statement was adopted by the anti-capitalist left organisations meeting together in London on June 11-12, 2011, on the call of the SWP (Britain) and the NPA (France) as a follow-up to the previous conferences held in Paris in June 2008 [1], December 2009 [2], and May [3] and December [4] 2010. Text from International Viewpoint.

May 27, 2011 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Below is the political perspectives document of the newly formed Egyptian Socialist Party -- one of a number of new pro-democracy parties formed in Egypt since the January 25, 2011, revolution that overthrew the dictator Hosni Mubarak. The party will be officially inaugurated on June 18, in Cairo.

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By the Egyptian Socialist Party

Cuba's President Raul Castro presents the central report to the sixth congress of the Communist Party.

By Raul Castro

April 16, 2011 -- Comrades all, the opening of the 6th Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba this afternoon marks a date of extraordinary significance in our history, the 50th anniversary of the proclamation of the socialist nature of our Revolution by its Commander in Chief, Fidel Castro Ruz, on April 16, 1961, as we paid our last respects to those killed the day before during the bombings of the air bases.

This action, which was the prelude to the Playa Girón (Bay of Pigs) mercenary invasion organized and funded by the United States government, was part of its plans to destroy the Revolution and restore its domination over Cuba in league with the Organization of American States (OAS).

Translation by Marce Cameron (Australia-Cuba Friendship Society), corrections by Paul Greene.

Please note that this is an unofficial translation. This English translation first appeared here and is posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with the translator's permission. This document forms the basis of a discussion about Cuba's economic reforms that is taking place throughout the country. The Spanish original is available at http://www.cubadebate.cu/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/proyecto-lineamientos-pcc.pdf.

[For more analysis and discussion on the economic reforms in Cuba, click HERE.]

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Statement initiated by Working People Association (Indonesia) and Network of Progressive Youth Burma

[If your organisation would like to sign, please email:international@prp-indonesia.org.]

September 16, 2010 -- We, the undersigned organisations, strongly condemn the military junta of Burma for its new decree to curb workers’ right to form trade unions and its harsh punishments against any industrial action.

The military junta of Burma -- the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) -- decreed a new regulation on August 20, 2010, at a meeting in Rangoon attended by industry employers, government ministers and Burmese military officials, including Lt-Gen Myint Swe of the ministry of defence. It stated that, whoever launches or participates in industrial protests demanding better rights or conditions will be fired and blacklisted. The reason for the decree, labour activists in Burma believe, is that the junta wants to prevent further industrial action and employers don’t want their workers taking action to demand better wages, so now they can fire those who protest and stop them from getting jobs elsewhere.

03 de agosto 2010

Nosotros, las organizaciones abajo firmantes, vemos con gran preocupación la posibilidad de una agresión militar contra el pueblo de Venezuela por el Gobierno colombiano, que podría ser apoyada por los EE.UU. desde sus siete bases militares instaladas recientemente en Colombia.

El 22 de julio de 2010 la República Bolivariana de Venezuela fue acusada en una Sessión Extraordinaria de la Organización de Estados Americanos en Washington por el Gobierno colombiano, de promover, apoyar y mantener relaciónes con las organizaciones armadas de Colombia, como por ejemplo las Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia (FARC) y el Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN). Las acusaciones se basaron sólo en imágenes que nunca han sido comprobadas o sometidas a verificación.

Estas maniobras actuales por el Gobierno colombiano de derecha son un claro intento respaldado por los EE.UU. para justificar un ataque preventivo contra Venezuela y su pueblo. Ha habido una series de denuncias falsas contra el gobierno de Hugo Chávez en los últimos recientes años como parte de la campaña respaldada por EE.UU. para desmantelar el proceso revolucionario que tiene lugar en Venezuela.

By Marea Socialista, tranlation by International Viewpoint

July 28, 2010 -- Following the provocations of the Colombian regime, which threatens an armed intervention on Venezuelan territory under the false pretext that the latter was sheltering FARC guerrilla bases, President Hugo Chavez has decided to suspend all diplomatic relations with Colombia. It is clear that once again the Colombian regime is acting as a perfect satellite of the United States which is moreover currently dramatically increasing militarist manoeuvres and tensions all around the globe. We publish below a statement by the Venezuelan revolutionary Marxist organisation Marea Socialista, with which the Fourth International has fraternal relations.

The provocation from Uribe and the drugs traffickers who dominate the Colombian regime stretches to a limit of extreme tension relations between Colombia and Bolivarian Venezuela. The right, the oligarchy and the Venezuelan pro-Yankees present the attitude of President Chavez as an electoral manoeuvre or a problem exploited by the government out of propaganda concerns and chauvinism.

Joint statement initiated by Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM), Working People’s Association (PRP), Indonesia, and Socialist Alliance, Australia. See below for latest signatures.

[If your organisation would like to sign this statement, please email int.psm@gmail.com.]

August 1, 2010 -- We, the undersigned organisations, view with serious concern the possibility of military aggression towards the people of Venezuela by the Colombian government, which could be supported by the United State of America using its seven military bases recently installed in Colombia.

This matter has arisen from the recent events when the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela was accused on July 22, 2010, at the extraordinary session of the Organization of American States in Washington by the Colombian government of promoting, supporting and maintaining a relationship with armed organisations from Colombia, such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN). The accusations were only based on images which have never been substantiated or subjected to verification.

By Socialist Resistance (Britain)

July 26, 2010 -- Throughout Europe there is a growing movement that seeks to ban Muslim women who chose to do so from wearing the veil. In Britain today this demand comes mainly from the far-right British National Party (BNP), UK Independence Party (UKIP) and some individuals on the Conservative Party (Tory) right. Things though may change for the worse, already the Tory tabloids are stirring on this question.

This is but one part of a growing Islamophobic trend which has seen Muslim minorities become even more marginalised and demonised in Western Europe than they were previously. Though this demand originated on the far right it is now increasingly taken up by the mainstream bourgeois parties culminating in the recent decision of the French parliament to make wearing the veil a criminal offence. In France what is equally shameful is the failure of most of the French left to oppose it in any meaningful way, members of the Greens, the Socialist Party and the Communist Party having abstained on this law in the French parliament.

A statement from the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network

July 24, 2010 -- Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network -- On July 22, Venezuela broke off all diplomatic relations with Colombia and placed its national borders on high alert. This follows accusations made by the Colombian government that Venezuela is harbouring “terrorists” from the Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN), and hosting several “terrorist training camps” near the border region that divides the two countries.

At an extraordinary meeting of the Organization of American States in Washington on July 22, called for by Colombia, Colombia’s ambassador to the OAS, Luis Alfonso Hoyos, presented television and video images allegedly taken from computers confiscated during the Colombian military’s illegal invasion of Ecuadorian territory in March 2008, as well as some computer-generated maps and photographs of alleged members of the FARC, which he said were taken inside Venezuela. Hoyos called for “international intervention” in Venezuela, and gave a “30-day ultimatum”.

By the Socialist Alliance (Australia)

July 2010 -- For years, climate scientists have warned us that we need to act on climate change. Now, science is saying that climate change is taking place more rapidly than everyone previously thought.

The warning signs are obvious. April and May were the world’s hottest months since records began. This year’s Arctic ice sheet melt is taking place at a pace never seen before.

Scientists say carbon pollution has made the world’s oceans more acidic than they have been for at least 20 million years.

There is already too much carbon in the atmosphere. The warming already in the system risks the crossing of various natural “tipping points” that would raise temperatures further and faster.

If these points are crossed, it would bring average temperatures to levels that have not existed for millions of years, and to which today’s nature is simply not adapted.

Statement by Asian left organisations

[To add your organisation’s endorsement, please email: international@socialist-alliance.org.]

June 25, 2010 -- As Israel stands increasingly isolated following its manufactured confrontation on May 31, 2010, with the peace flotilla in which nine Turkish activists on the Mavi Marmara were murdered, now is the time to increase the pressure on Israel to lift the siege of Gaza.

Israel’s criminal blockade of Gaza is aimed to collectively punish 1.5 million Gazans for their choice of government.

The attack on the flotilla was aimed at demoralising Palestinians and their supporters. But, as we've seen from the global protests – particularly in Turkey and the Arab world – it has backfired on the Netanyahu government. Turkey, once a close political and military ally, has now distanced itself from Israel and supports attempts to break the Gaza blockade.

“The response to global warming is global democracy for life and for the Mother Earth.… we have two paths: to save capitalism, or to save life and Mother Earth.” — Speech by Evo Morales, president of  Bolivia, to the G77 + China at the United Nations, May 7, 2010.

By Evo Morales, president of Bolivia

[Text from Climate and Capitalism.]

May 7, 2010 -- I have come here to share the conclusions of the First World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, held last April 20 to 22 in Cochabamba, Bolivia. I convened this conference because in Copenhagen the voice of the peoples of the world was not listened to or attended to, nor were established procedures respected by all states.

The conference attracted 35,352 participants, and of those, 9254 were foreign delegates, representing movements and social organisations from 140 countries and five continents. The event also benefited from the participation of delegations from 56 governments.

Geneva, April 28, 2010  -- The Bolivian government forwarded a submission on April 26 to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Secretariat containing the outcome of the "World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth" held in Cochabamba, Bolivia, from 19-22 April. [Read the full document at http://www.scribd.com/doc/30720894/null.]

The Cochabamba conference was convened by Bolivia's President Evo Morales and was attended by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and other Latin American political leaders.

According to the Bolivian submission to the UNFCCC, more than 35,000 delegates from social movements and organisations from 140 countries had participated in the conference.

The Bolivian submission incorporates the main content of the "People's Agreement" and the draft proposal for a "Universal Declaration of Mother Earth's Rights" that were adopted at the Cochabamba conference to facilitate the inclusion of proposals for the draft negotiating text to be prepared by the chair of the Ad-hoc Working Group on Long-term Cooperative Action (AWG-LCA) for the working group's next session in June.