Venezuela: Nicolas Maduro, driving the revolution forward
Nicolas Maduro drove a bus to the National Electoral Council to register his candidacy for president.
By Luis Hernández Navarro, translated by Ewan Robertson for Venezuelanalysis.com
March 29, 2013 -- La Jornada -- Nicolas Maduro is a robust, burly man, 1.9 metres tall with a thick black moustache. He drove a metro bus in Caracas for seven years, was foreign minister for six more and is now interim president and candidate for the country’s top office. He is part of the a generation of Latin American leaders like metal worker Lula da Silva and coco-leaf unionist Evo Morales, who entered politics from the trenches of opposition social struggles [translator: in opposition to the neoliberal administrations that governed Latin America before the continent’s "pink tide", which began in the late 1990s].
Declaration of the Social Movements Assembly of the World Social Forum, Tunisia 2013
By the Social Movements Assembly of the World Social Forum, Tunisia, 2013
March 29, 2013 -- We are gathered here to affirm the fundamental contribution of peoples of Maghreb-Mashrek (from North Africa to the Middle East), in the construction of human civilisation. We affirm that decolonisation for oppressed peoples remains for us, the social movements of the world, a challenge of the greatest importance.
Through the WSF process, the Social Movements Assembly is the place where we come together through our diversity, in order to forge common struggles and a collective agenda to fight against capitalism, patriarchy, racism and all forms of discrimination and oppression. We have built a common history of work which led to some progress, particularly in Latin America, where we have been able to intervene in neoliberal alliances and to create several alternatives for just development that truly honors nature.
Russia: An oligarch’s mistake, an oligarch’s fate
Boris Abramovich Berezovsky diedin London on March 23, 2013.
Boris Kagarlitsky on the current state of the left and social movements in Russia
Anti-Putin protest in Moscow.
[For more by Boris Kagarlitsky, click HERE.]
By Boris Kagarlitsky, translated by Renfrey Clarke
March 30, 2013 – Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- In Russia, the first two weeks of January are a time when nothing happens. Members of the well-heeled layers, bureaucrats, politicians and the bourgeoisie, set off to spend their holidays abroad, distributing themselves around various locations on the basis of their means, tastes and vanity. Their destinations might range from comparatively cheap hotels in Egypt to ski resorts in France, Austria or Switzerland.
People who cannot afford such things simply drink, and shed their stress in front of the television, at their dachas in the countryside, or in the sauna.
Venezuela's April 14 presidential election campaign: start of a new era
"We are all Chavez"
By Tamara Pearson, Merida
Senior Chinese communist: `Industrial civilisation is unsustainable'
A group of volunteers wave green handkerchiefs as they ride their bicycles in Beijing on November 21, 2012, for the launch of a world-tour to promote low-ca
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe votes yes to the new constitution.
Reducing production: How should socialists relate to struggles against capitalist growth
By Don Fitz
March 19, 2013 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The question is not should we advocate reducing production within capitalist society but rather: How do we best relate to those struggles that are already occurring? Activists across the globe are challenging the uncontrollable dynamic of economic expansion which threatens the survival of humanity. It has never been more urgent to provide a vision of a new society that can pull these efforts together.
France: Parti de Gauche launches ecosocialism manifesto; Jean-Luc Mélenchon on ecosocialism
Above and below, five-part video of Parti de Gauche leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon's seminar on the "Ecosocialist Revolution" presented on February 10, 2013, in Tunisia.
By Mathieu Agostini and Corinne Morel Darleux, Parti de Gauche, France.
March 29, 2013 -- Ecosocialisme -- On December 1, 2012, the Parti de Gauche (PdG, Left Party), organised a roundtable in Paris to discuss the ecosocialist project. This gave the opportunity to debate a new ecosocialist manifesto (Premier manifeste 18 thèses pour l’écosocialisme) around 18 themes. [PdG is a key part of the Front de Gauche, or Left Front (FdG), which is led by the PdeG's Jean-Luc Melenchon.]