India: Power of protest in the ‘rape capital’
Protesters from the All India Progressive Women's Association in Delhi, December 22-23.
India: 'Defend women’s right to freedom without fear! Ensure swift and sure punishment for rape!'
Demonstration in Jammu, December 20, 2012, in protest at the rape and brutalisation of a young woman in the Delhi.
Rising profits, sinking planet: socialist solutions to the climate crisis
"We have to put limits on the [capitalist] system's operation ... which means building a mass movement that has to build into itself not just the question of ecological justice, but also the question of social justice ... a movement with the radicalism of the 1960s' social movements with the social power of the union movements of the 1930s" -- Chris Williams.
Click HERE for more on Marxism and ecology.
Filmed by Doug Enaa Greene
Michael Lebowitz: What makes the working class a revolutionary subject?
Part of a mural by Crystal Howie.
Australia: Socialist Alliance 9th national conference, Geelong, January 18-20, 2013
The ninth national conference of the Socialist Alliance will be held in Geelong (Victoria), from January 18-20, 2013. It is open to all Socialist Alliance members and invited guests.
The national conference is our highest decision-making body, and delegates are elected from each branch to participate and vote at the conference on a number of resolutions on international and Australian politics and campaigns, party building and the plans of the Socialist Alliance for the coming year. The conference also considers any proposed changes to the Constitution and elects the incoming national executive and national office bearers.
Special international guest from Pakistan
Alia Amirali, the general secretary of Pakistan's National Student Federation (Punjab) and a member of the newly formed Awami Workers' Party (the product of the biggest left regroupment in that country), will be the special international guest speaker at the conference. She has some very important experiences to share, as this interview shows.
South Korea: The presidential election and the radical left
The election of Park Geun-hye as president is a victory for the status quo in South Korea.
By Young-su Won
Introduction and translation by Richard Fidler
Canada: The creative potential of Indigenous social initiatives
Speech by Art Sterritt, introductory comment by John Riddell
Australia: Socialist Alliance to endorse and participate in Marxism 2013
Joint statement by Socialist Alliance and
Supporters rally for PSUV candidate for Merida, Alexis Ramirez. Photo from YVKE Mundial.
By Tamara Pearson, Merida
December 16, 2012 -- VenezuelAnalysis -- With all votes counted to the point of results being irreversible, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) has won 20 states, and the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) coalition, three states in the December 16 regional elections.
The opposition lost control of Zulia, Tachira, Carabobo, Monagas and Nueva Esparta, but retained Amazonas and Miranda and Lara states.
In Miranda, one of the key states at stake, contested by PSUV ex-vice-president Elias Jaua, and the opposition presidential candidate and current governor of Miranda, Henrique Capriles, the opposition won with 50% to Jaua’s 46%.
In Bolivar state, where the results were very close, the opposition candidate Andres Velasquez is refusing to recognise his defeat and has called on locals to “defend” his “victory”.
Venezuelans and residents chose 23 state governors and 237 state legislators. The results of the state legislative voting have yet to be announced.
In the 2008 regional elections the PSUV won 17 of the 22 states being contested.
For state by state results see below.
Philippines left: In wake of Typhoon Pablo, global South demands 'reparations and climate justice'
Typhoon hits the Philippines, December 4, 2012.
By Partido Lakas ng Masa (Party of the Labouring Masses), Philippines
A total ban on all logging and mining activities!
Implement massive reforestation and a sustainable development plan!
Climate justice now!
We demand full reparation from rich countries and their corporations!
December 11, 2012 -- The Partido Lakas ng Masa (PLM) extends full sympathy to the victims of Typhoon Pablo: to the families of those killed and missing, and to the millions suffering from the destruction of their homes and crops and those still waiting for relief. The PLM demands answers to serious questions raised by the government’s response to the catastrophe.
These include: why, despite the authorities warning of the impending disaster in advance, no concrete evacuation plans were in place; evasiveness about the death toll; delays in getting food and other supplies to survivors and diversion of resources to prevent small-scale looting by desperate survivors rather than providing food.