Australia: Labor government's carbon price is not a serious response to global warming
Protesters heckle climate denier Barnaby Joyce, a senator with the right-wing opposition National Party, as he sp
Marxism and ecology: World at a Crossroads conference background readings
July 22, 2011-- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/Climate and Capitalism -- The second World at a Crossroads; Climate Change, Social Change conference will be held in Melbourne Australia, September 30-October 3, 2011. Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal is proud to be one of the co-sponsors of the conference and urges all its readers to attend, if at all possible. Click here to register.
The conference aims to contribute towards understanding and collective action, in Australia and internationally, to urgently address the climate and social emergencies that we must overcome if humanity and the planet are to not only survive, but thrive.
Philippines: A challenge to the left in the Aquino government
President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III displays his first paycheque.
By the Partido Lakas ng Masa (Party of the Labouring Masses, Philippines)
July 21, 2011 -- The election of President Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III brought with it increased mass expectations. The president’s campaign slogan of ridding the country of corruption and the wanton displays of greed and abuses of power was welcomed with cheers and hope by a population sick and tired of the graft-ridden regime of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA).
With the entry of the [parts of the] left into to government -- the ascent of the Akbayan party list as a coalition partner of the Noynoy government -- the expectations of some sections of the left were also heightened. Akbayan sees the strategy of working with the presidency as an alliance with a “reforming section” of the bourgeoisie, and through such an alliance it expected a number of reforms to be put in place.
What standards?
Nationality’s role in social liberation: the Soviet legacy
Painting slogans for the Congress of the Peoples of the East, September 1920, Baku. Photo from IISG.
By John Riddell
July 21, 2011 -- http://johnriddell.wordpress.com, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with the author's permission -- Just under a century ago, the newly founded Soviet republic embarked on the world’s first concerted attempt to unite diverse nations in a federation that acknowledged the right to self-determination and encouraged the development of national culture, consciousness and governmental structures. Previous major national-democratic revolutions – in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the United States – had been made in the name of a hegemonic nation and had assimilated, marginalised or crushed rival nationalities. The early Soviet regime, by contrast, sought to encourage, rather than deny, internal national distinctiveness.
Bolivia: Cut war spending to aid victims of climate change
A positive initiative would significantly reduce military spending and allocate monies to a fund that addresses the impacts of climate change in developing countries.
Statement by Ambassador Rafael Archondo, permanent representative of the Plurinational State of Bolivia to the United Nations, in the debate of the United Nations Security Council on maintenance of international peace and security: the impact of climate change, New York, July 20, 2011. Thanks to Climate and Capitalism for the text.
* * *
Thank you Mr. President.
Bolivia joins the statements made by the Group 77 and China, represented by Argentina and the Non-Aligned Movement, whose voice has been expressed by Egypt.
Mr. President:
Climate change is a real threat to the existence of mankind, other living creatures and Mother Earth, and given its systemic nature, can be analysed from multiple dimensions such as social, economic, cultural or environmental.
BDS: The global struggle for Palestinian rights (video)
July 21, 2011 – Wearemany.org – Omar Barghouti is an independent Palestinian commentator and h
[Jeyakumar Devaraj, a federal member of parliament, is one of six Malaysian socialists being held without trial since June 25. Protest letters still are urgently needed to be sent to the Malaysian government, please visit http://www.parti-sosialis.org/en/en/articles/1585 for details of where they can be sent. See also "Malaysia: Protests demand release of democracy activists" and "Asia-Pacific socialists demand: 'Free all political prisoners! Democracy for the Malaysian people!'".]
By Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj, written in detention
Europe: Statement by the Anti-Capitalist Left conference
Mobilisation of the ENOUGH campaign against the IMF in Dublin on July 16, 2011. One of the European actions the European Anti-Capitalist Left pledged to build.
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.
South Africa: Fighting the minerals-petroleum-coal complex’s wealth and woes in Durban
WikiLeaks revealed Washington’s bullying, bribery and blackmail when promoting the non-binding 2009 Copenhagen Accord (being hatched by leaders above), a sham of a climate agreement designed to ditch Kyoto. South Africa’s president Jacob Zuma (in left corner) was an original signatory.
By Patrick Bond and Khadija Sharife
July 19, 2011 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- When African National Congress Youth League leader Julius Malema recently proposed the mining industry’s partial nationalisation – and asked, quite legitimately, “what is the alternative?”, of those in the South African Communist Party (SACP) and Business Leadership South Africa who threw cold water at him – a debate of enormous ideological magnitude opened in public, which workers, communities and environmentalists have already joined in their myriad struggles.
July 19, 2011 – Monthly Review Press has kindly given permission to
Ireland: United Left Alliance confronts big challenges
By Dick Nichols, Dublin
July 16, 2011 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/Green Left Weekly -- Ireland’s seven-month-old United Left Alliance is the “new kid on the block” of European anti-capitalist parties. Launched on November 27 last year, it emerged from the February Irish national elections—where its name didn’t even appear on the ballot paper—with five TDs (Teachta Dála, members of the Irish parliament, the Dail). To date the ULA has also won 20 positions in local councils and one seat in the European parliament.
By Peter Boyle
July 17, 2011 -- Green Left Weekly -- A week after Malaysian authorities failed to stop people taking to the streets of the capital Kuala Lumpur on July 9 to demand free and fair elections, six activists from the Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) remained in detention without trial. The detainees include federal member of parliament Dr Jeyakumar Deveraj, who has been hailed by a prominent local writer as “the Malaysian saint of the poor”.
PSM secretary general S. Arutchelvan told Green Left Weekly that he agreed with the civil society organisers of the July 9 Bersih 2.0 (“bersih” means clean in Malay) that the number of people who defied incredible police repression to come out in the streets that day was about 50,000. Police reportedly detained up to 1600 people and repeatedly fired teargas into peaceful groups of people.