Malaysia: Mass rallies continue against election 'robbers' (+photo story)
Popular PSM leader Arul at May 25 "Voice of the People 505" rally at Dataran Petaling Jaya. Photo by Keow Wee Loong.
Sweden: 'Unemployment, inadequate schools and racism' behind riots
By Mathias Wåg, translated from Swedish by Petter Nilsson
May 28, 2013 -- Transform! -- Stockholm suburbs have been ablaze. Cars have been torched in suburbs around the city and when the firefighters and police arrive they have been met by youths throwing stones. Why is this? Why now? How come in Sweden?
Seen from the outside, Sweden can still seem like the promised land of welfare, the balanced third way between socialism and capitalism. But inside during the last 10 to 20 years, neoliberal policies have been eating away like termites consuming the welfare state's foundations from within, leaving it as an empty shell. And Stockholm, where the riots started and were centred, is the testing facility for neoliberal reforms large and small.
Bolivia: Nationalisation puts wealth in hands of the people
[For more on Bolivia, click HERE.]
By Federico Fuentes
May 28, 2013 -- Bolivia Rising, posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with the author's permission -- Bolivia is demonstrating to the world why nationalising natural resources is a crucial first step for any government seeking to put people and the environment before profits.
On May 1, 2006, less than four months after becoming president, Evo Morales decreed the nationalisation of the country’s gas reserves. This move restored state control over the strategic resource.
In doing so, Morales followed through with one of his key election promises and met a historic demand of the Bolivian people. The people had overthrown successive presidents unwilling to take Bolivia’s gas out of the hands of greedy transnationals.
Review by Chris Slee
Bolivia: Nasionalisasi Untuk Menempatkan Kekayaan Di Tangan Rakyat
Presiden Bolivia, Evo Morales, ketika sedang mengumumkan pengusiran USAID.
Latin America: Social movements map solidarity with ALBA alliance
By Federico Fuentes
May 27, 2013 -- Green Left Weekly -- An important summit of global significance, held in Brazil on May 16-20, 2013, has largely passed below the radar of most media outlets, including many left and progressive sources.
This summit was not the usual type, involving heads of states and business leaders. Instead, it was a gathering of social movement representatives from across Latin America and the Caribbean -- the site of some of the most intense struggles and popular rebellions of the past few decades.
This region also remains the only one where an alternative to neoliberal capitalism has emerged. Pushing this alternative is the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples of Our Americas (ALBA). Spearheaded by the radical governments of Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Cuba, it has eight member states, but seeks to relate to people's movements, not just governments.
"There is a great divide between what freedom means to the capitalists and workers.
Pakistán: La derecha barre en las elecciones
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.
Bulgaria: Free Jock Palfreeman! Australian activist wrongly imprisoned
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.
Europe's 'lefts' and the capitalist crisis
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.