www.bloco.org.

[In English at http://links.org.au/node/3112.]

Por Dick Nichols, Lisboa, traducción para www.sinpermiso.info por Gustavo Buster

09/12/12 -- Un fantasma recorre Portugal: el fantasma de Grecia y de Syriza, el partido de su izquierda radical. Todos los poderes de la Europa neoliberal, encabezados por la canciller alemana, Ángela Merkel, han entrado en una alianza impía para exorcizar ese fantasma.

Acompañada por los representantes de las grandes empresas alemana, Merkel no tuvo otro remedio que durante seis horas soportar el asedio de los manifestantes en Lisboa el 12 de noviembre. Felicitó al Primer Ministro de Portugal, Pedro Passos Coelho, por su "valentía" al aplicar los programas de austeridad (una "historia de éxito"), e instó al líder político más impopular del país a no ceder un ápice.

Delegate votes during the Left Bloc's eighth national convention. Photo from www.bloco.org.

By Dick Nichols, Lisbon

November 18, 2012 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- A spectre is haunting Portugal ― the spectre of Greece and of Syriza, its radical left party. All the powers of neoliberal Europe, led by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, have entered into an unholy alliance to exorcise this spectre.

Accompanied by representatives of German big business, Merkel ran the gauntlet of protesters in Lisbon for six hours on November 12. She congratulated Portugal’s Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho for his “courage” in applying austerity (a “success story”) and urged the country’s most unpopular political leader to stick to his guns.

By Ricardo Patiño Aroca, Ecuador's foreign minister; translated from the Spanish by WikiLeaks Press

August 16, 2012 -- On June 19, 2012, the Australian national Mr. Julian Assange appeared at the premises of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London to request that the Ecuadorean State provide him with diplomatic protection, thus invoking the existing Diplomatic Asylum rules.

The applicant had made his asylum request based on his fear of eventual political persecution by a third country, the same country whom could use his extradition to the Kingdom of Sweden to enable an expedited subsequent extradition.

July 27, 2012 -- GreenLeftTV -- Guillaume Legault is a leading member of Quebec's CLASSE, a radical student organisation at the forefront of a months-long student strike against tuition fee hikes. Legault toured Australia and New Zealand in July-August 2012 as a guest of the socialist youth organisation Resistance. Above is Legault's address to the Resistance national conference, held in Adelaide.

[August 3, 2012 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The following document is the manifesto of Quebec's militant student union, Coalition large de l’Association pour une solidarité syndicale (CLASSE). For more on the student struggle in Quebec, click HERE.]

June 18, 2012 -- http://www.e-socialists.net/node/8845 --  The signatories to this statement announce their complete rejection of the Supplementary Constitutional Declaration. The declaration completes the process of the military coup which began on February 12, 2011, after Hosni Mubarak’s rule had been ended, and put down roots through the Constitutional Declaration of March 2011 and the ludicrous and corrupt arrangements for the transitional period.

We therefore call on the Egyptian people to reject the Supplementary Declaration and to show their rejection by participating a mass mobilisation against it as an expression of their insistence that the revolution must continue and meet its objectives. We affirm that resistance to the coup demands the following:

“Against Amazonian Genocide. Xingu (Afro-Brazilian freedom fighter) Lives Forever.” Photo by Anne Petermann/Global Justice Ecology Project. This photo was taken during the People's March through Rio on June 20, 2012, and first appeared at Climate Connections.

For more coverage of the Rio+20, click HERE.

Introduction and notes by Chris Lang

June 19, 2012 -- REDD-Monitor -- Last week, the Global Alliance of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities on Climate Change against REDD and for Life held a press conference denouncing REDD and the green economy. The press conference was part of the People’s Summit, a nine-day event taking place in parallel to the UN Rio+20 conference.

May 27, 2012 -- The following is translated from the daily bulletin of Italy’s Communist Refoundation Party, which has published the official program of the Greek coalition of the radical  left, SYRIZA. The text was first translated by and posted at The Greanville Post. It is posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal in the interests of informing the discussion on the left response to the Greek crisis. For more discussion and analysis on the political crisis in Greece, click HERE.

* * *

1. Audit of the public debt and renegotiation of interest due and suspension of payments until the economy has revived and growth and employment return.

2. Demand the European Union to change the role of the European Central Bank so that it finances states and programs of public investment.

3. Raise income tax to 75% for all incomes over 500,000 euros.

4. Change the election laws to a proportional system.

5. Increase taxes on big companies to that of the European average.

6. Adoption of a tax on financial transactions and a special tax on luxury goods.

7. Prohibition of speculative financial derivatives.

By Socialist Resistance (Britain)

This statement was agreed to at a meeting of the Socialist Resistance National Committee on May 26, 2012. Socialist Resistance is affiliated to the Fourth International. It is posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal to promote left discussion. For more discussion and analysis on the political crisis in Greece, click HERE.]

May 28, 2012 -- Socialist Resistance -- Syriza’s stunning vote in the recent elections has shaken the Greek and European ruling classes to their foundations. It was a total rejection of the austerity package, on a progressive basis, by 60% of the electorate and has created not only the biggest crisis, but the most significant class confrontation in Europe since the Portuguese revolution of 1974.

May 23, 2012 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Below is the full text of Germany's radical left Die Linke party's program in English. It can also be downloaded HERE. At the time of publication, this document was unavailable anywhere else on the web.Germany: Die Linke's program in English

May 5, 2012 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The following document,Towards a Socialist Australia, was adopted as a discussion draft by the 8th national conference of the Socialist Alliance, held in Sydney, January 20-22, 2012.

Socialist Alliance also voted to consult with members, supporters and allies in the social movements to improve the draft and deepen our collective understanding of the political climate and the nature of the economic and environmental crises.

We hope that by starting a broad discussion about socialism we will advance and further unite the socialist movement in Australia.

To comment or give feedback on this draft, visit the Towards a Socialist Australia website, or to attend one of the consultative discussions being organised in major cities and centres around the country. Contact your nearest Socialist Alliance branch for details here.

Text and transcription from the Marxist Internet Archive

Source: To the I.W.W., A Special Message from the Communist International;
First Published: by Guido Baracchi and Percy Laidler, Proletarian Publishing Association, Melbourne, 1920;
Transcribed: by Andy Blunden, 2003;
Proofed: and corrected by Nicole McKenzie, 2007.

By Simon Hardy

April 15, 2012 -- Posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with the author's permission, in the interests of left discussion in the wake of George Galloway's success in Bradford West -- I along with a number of other members of Workers Power in Britain, Austria and the Czech Republic have resigned from the organisation. The global capitalist crisis has posed tremendous questions for the radical left about how to go forward. We have increasingly drawn the conclusion that the historical legacy of the post-war left, in particular the Leninist-Trotskyist left, needs to be subjected to far-reaching critique and re-evaluation in light of the contemporary challenges.

The organised left is dogged by sectarianism and opportunism. There are quite literally hundreds of competing orthodoxies, with each sect promoting and defending its own, typically very narrow, conception of revolutionary theory and practice without subjecting their ideas to the critical re-evaluation which we believe is necessary if Marxism is to reach out to far wider layers.

Appeals from Japan

By the All Japan 3.11 Action Committee 

March 11, 2012 -- Soon it will be one year since the 3.11 [March 11, 2011] TEPCO Fukushima Daiichi nuclear reactor accident. Many people were forced to evacuate and still continue to live under hardship without sufficient compensation. Despite the fact that an increasing number of people (as high as 70%) in Japan now wish to put an end to nuclear power, the Japanese government is obsessively promoting nuclear power even after the Fukushima accident.

An unrealistic declaration made by Prime Minister Noda that the nuclear reactors had reached a state of cold shutdown and that this element of the power station accident had thus been brought to a conclusion; an inhuman policy which exposes children in Fukushima to the high level of 20mSV as a level for evacuation; the hiding of proceedings of initial government emergency meetings on handling the nuclear power accident; the ratification of the export of nuclear reactors through a majority vote by parliament members; and a strong push to restart nuclear power without any provision of appropriate safety measures ... Such policies are possible because “The Nuclear Village” is still holding power over nuclear policy in Japan, even after 3.11. What is at stake today is democracy in Japan.

Changed minds

March 8, 2012 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- On International Women's Day 2012 the Socialist Alliance in Australia released its latest A Charter for Women's Rights, updated in line with the decisions of the 8th national conference of the Socialist Alliance. Download a PDF version of the charter HERE.