"There is a great divide between what freedom means to the capitalists and workers.

Farooq Tariq.

[English at http://links.org.au/node/3352.]

Por Farooq Tariq

26/05/13 -- Sinpermiso.info -- La derecha barrió como una ola en las elecciones generales del 11 de mayo en Pakistán. A nivel federal, la conservadora Liga Musulmana de Pakistán-Nawaz (PML-N) formará gobierno después de haber ganado el 35% de los votos.

El partido del ex capitán del equipo de cricket de Pakistán, Imran Khan, Pakistán Tehreek Insaaf, ocupó el segundo lugar con el 19% de los votos y sorprendió a muchos. El Partido del Pueblo de Pakistán (PPP), que ha estado en el poder durante los últimos cinco años, quedó en tercer lugar con sólo el 15%, pero gracias a la provincia de Sindh, donde fue capaz de recuperar la mayor parte de sus votos.

Jock Palfreeman interviewed by Tony Iltis, Sofia

May 17, 2013 -- Green Left Weekly -- “I’m in Villawood!”, Jock Palfreeman exclaimed, with the cheerful exuberance he displayed throughout an interview conducted through glass and wire-mesh partitions in the gloomy surroundings of the visiting room of Sofia central prison.

He told Green Left Weekly that it was the plight of refugees illegally detained in Sydney's Villawood detention centre by the Australian government that first radicalised him. His first protest, as a high school student in Sydney, was a blockade of the offices of Villawood’s then operator Australasian Correctional Management on May Day in 2002.

A year later he organised students at his school to attend the “Books Not Bombs” student walkouts to protest against the war on Iraq.

It was because of his seeming inability to ignore injustice that he is now serving a 20-year sentence in Bulgaria.

Front de Gauche (France) leader Jean-Luc Melenchon with SYRIZA (Greece) leader Alexis Tspiras.

For more on the developments on Europe's far left, click HERE (see also the pink tabs and the end of the article)

By Francois Sabado

May 20, 2013 -- International Viewpoint -- The situation of the "lefts" in Europe cannot be understood without starting from the crisis, its multiple dimensions and its effects on the social and political field. Hitting head-on all the organisations and parties linked to the history of the workers’ movement, precipitating ruptures, it obliges political forces to recompose around new axes.

Our urgent common priorities for a democratic, social, ecological and feminist Europe

[The following is the manifesto to be di

[For more articles by or about Michael Lebowitz, click HERE.]

Michael A. Lebowitz interviewed by Darko Vesić and Aleksandar Stojanović

May 7, 2013 -- Left East,suggested to Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal by Michael Lebowitz.

Darko Vesić and Aleksandar Stojanović: Capitalism has been in crisis for several years now and in response to this crisis the capitalist states practice  so-called austerity measures. If we look at the historical dynamics of capitalism in the last half century, we see that they responded to the crisis of the 1970s with what is now called “neoliberalism”. If the restoration of growth is what must be carried out as a response to the crisis, we can say that neoliberalism of the 1970s was successful. Yet, can we say same of present-day “austerity measures”?

By Richard Seymour

By Nalini Elumalai, executive director, SUARAM

May 21, 2013 -- Malaysia's human rights organisation Suara Rakyat Malaysia (SUARAM) requests your urgent intervention in the detention of Adam Adli (pictured above), student activist from Malaysia. SUARAM is dedicated to the protection of human rights defenders and aims to offer them concrete support in their time of need.

Brief description of the situation:

SUARAM condemns the arbitrary and unlawful detention of Student Activist, Adam Adli under the Section 4 of the Sedition Act[1] which prohibiting discourse deemed as seditious and if found guilty under the act, Adam could be jailed for up to three years, fined not more than RM5000, or both.

The Awami Workers Party's Farooq Tariq on the campaign trail.

By Farooq Tariq

May 20, 2013 -- Green Left Weekly -- A right-wing wave swept Pakistan in the May 11 general elections. At the federal level, the conservative Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PMLN) will form the government having won 35% of the vote.

Former Pakistan cricket captain Imran Khan's party, Pakistan Tehreek Insaaf, came second with 19% of the vote and surprised many. The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), the ruling party for the past five years, came third with only 15% ― thanks to Sindh where it was able to fetch most of its votes.

Almost 62% of total votes went to right-wing and religious parties, for the first time in the history of Pakistan. Although the religious parties were not united in a single platform, the pro-Taliban Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUIF) still won 10 seats nationally. It also won 22% of the votes in Baluchistan and 1% in Khaiber Pukhtoon Khawa province, the two provinces bordering Afghanistan.

The right

By Murray Smith

[The following document is the program of Slovenia's Initiative for Democrati