Aotearoa/New Zealand: Call for international solidarity with Burger King workers
By Joe Carolan
August 24, 2012 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- Workers employed by the Burger King fast-food chain, organised by the Unite Union in Aotearoa/New Zealand, are suffering a sustained union-busting campaign, and are now fighting back.
Burger King workers are the lowest-paid fast food workers in Aotearoa/New Zealand. Most are on the minimum wage, even some who have worked there for 15 years. Managers on salary are forced to work extra hours, and sometimes work for less than the minimum wage per hour. Many workers in Burger King are migrant workers, mostly from the Indian subcontinent. They face a bonded labour system. They are terrified of speaking out about mistreatment in case the company revokes their visa sponsorship .
Now the company has tried to bust their union, and is seeking an injunction stopping them from speaking to the media and conducting teach-ins in the community. Unite has taken the company to the Employment Authority, detailing the company's illegal anti-union activities, in a battle that is now shaping up to be the McLibel case of the South Pacific.
Unite union appeals to workers in other countries to organise pickets outside Burger King outlets in all the great cities of the world in solidarity with our fight.
Our fight is for the low-paid precarious workers.
South Africa: The massacre of our illusions … and the seeds of something new
By Leonard Gentle, director of the International Labour Research and Information Group (South Africa)
Venezuelan communist talks about struggle for socialism
GreenLeftTV -- Venezuelan revolutionary Carolus Wimmer speaking in Perth on August 16, 2012, part of a national tour organised by the Communist Party of Australia.
By Jim McIlroy
August 14, 2012 -- Green Left Weekly -- Carolus Wimmer, a longstanding member of the Latin American Parliament and international relations secretary of the Communist Party of Venezuela, spoke at a Sydney forum on Latin America in revolt on August 11, part of a national speaking tour sponsored by the Communist Party of Australia. During his Australian tour, he also addressed meetings in Brisbane, Perth and Adelaide.
At the Sydney forum, Wimmer took up the question, “What progress has been made toward socialism by the Bolivarian Revolution in Venezuela?” He said Latin America is still dominated by US imperialism, supported by Britain and Europe. He described the Bolivarian Revolution, which began in Venezuela in 1999, as “an anti-imperialist struggle, with the goal of anti-capitalism and socialism”.
He said:
Revolutionary democracy in the economy? Venezuela’s workers' control movement
The workers at Grafitos del Orinico are proud of their collectively run factory. Photo by Ewan Robertson.
Tariq Ali: Why Ecuador supports Wikileaks and Assange's rights
August 20, 2012 -- GreenLeftTV/Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- "Why is it that an Australian, facing prosecution from a European country, decides to appeal for asylum to a South American republic?" Tariq Ali asked and eloquently answered this important question when he spoke outside the embassy of Ecuador in London on August 19, 2012. Ali spoke just before Wikileaks founder Julian Assange addressed the press and supporters from the balcony of the embassy, where he has been granted political asylum by the progressive government of Ecuador.
Ricardo Patiño Aroca: Why Ecuador granted Julian Assange political asylum
Telesur English, August 16, 2012 – The Ecuadorian community in London gathered outside their embas
Zimbabwe: Corporate collaboration lets Mugabe continue abuses
Corporate cash continues to feed Mugabe's rule.
By
Patrick Bond, Zimbabwe
Adam Hanieh on Egypt: The Muslim Brotherhood, the military and the continuing revolution
Thousands of Egyptian protesters cross the Kasr al-Nile bridge to attend a rally in Cairo on January 27, 2012, to demand democratic change, a year after the uprising that toppled Hosni Mubarak.
[For more analysis and discussion on Egypt, click HERE.]
By Adam Hanieh
August 12, 2012 -- Socialist Resistance -- Eighteen months after mass protests and strikes ousted dictator Hosni Mubarak from power, the basic aspirations that drove Egypt’s uprising remain largely unfulfilled. The vast majority of the population has seen little substantive improvement in living conditions. Political decision making continues to be dominated by a military junta closely tied to the United States.
Syria: Assad regime near end amid rising violence
[Click HERE for more analysis of the situation in Syria.]
By Tony Iltis
August 12, 2012 -- Green Left Weekly -- The 50-year rule of the Ba’ath Party in Syria looks to be effectively over. In the past month armed clashes have spread to the Syrian capital, Damascus, and the largest city, Aleppo. Armed opposition forces have taken control of several border points. On August 6, Prime Minister Riad Hijab defected to the opposition.
The regime of Bashar al-Assad — who inherited the presidency in 2000 from his father, Hafez al-Assad, who seized power in a 1970 military coup — no longer controls the country.
However, an end to the violence, which has claimed 20,000 lives since the uprising that broke out in March last year against Assad, looks far away. So, too, does the realisation of the uprising’s original aims: democratic rights and economic justice.
The regime has indicated it will cling to whatever power it can with counter-offensives in Damascus and Aleppo. Western demands that Assad face an international war crimes trial, and the nastier fate of Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi who was brutally murdered after his overthrow and capture by NATO-led forces, has given Assad no incentive to compromise.
