Cuba: Australian Workers Union tips its hat to Washington

More than a million Cuban workers mobilise each year on May Day, organised by the Central de Trabajadores de Cuba trade union federation.

[See also "Cuban trade unionist: `Workers are key participants in the Cuban revolution'".]

By Tim Anderson

January 26, 2011 -- This January the Australian Workers Union (AWU) wrote an insulting letter to the new Cuban ambassador to Australia, Pedro Monzón. The union’s response shows the tight ideological hold that the US has over the weaker, more compliant sections of the trade union movement in Australia.

United States: Obama out of touch with the people, State of the Union shows

"What a distance from the White House to the unemployment line. From the Rose Garden to the food pantry."

By Billy Wharton

January 25, 2011 -- Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal -- The 2011 State of the Union speech revealed just how far out of touch US President Barack Obama is from the reality of working people in the United States. What a distance from the White House to the unemployment line. From the Rose Garden to the food pantry.

Tonight’s State of the Union sent the message one final time that the Obama presidency was and is designed to protect the privileges accrued by the richest 5% in society. Obama lived up to the characterisation of him as a “hedge-fund Democrat”, a politician assigned the task of deflecting the real demands of the people for a society and economy based on solidarity, peace and justice.

A call for more corporate globalisation

Nepal: ONU retira entre punto muerto

[English original at http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/46486.]

Domingo, 23 de Enero de 2011

Por Ben Peterson, traducido por Sean Seymour-Jones

Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal/Green Left Weekly-- El primer ministro, Madhav Kumar Nepal, ha argumentado que las balas, los explosivos y otras municiones ya no constituyen “armamento letal” con tal de que sea usado para “el adiestramiento y otras obras relacionadas”.

Tariq Ali on `The Palestine Papers': Total capitulation

Mahmoud Abbas with US President George W. Bush and Israel's Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at the Red Sea Summit in Aqaba, Jordan, on June 4, 2003.

Cuba: The Campesino-to-Campesino agroecology movement: sustainable peasant agriculture and food sovereignty

The following article was recommended by Raj Patel. Patel writes:

Want to know what a sustainable climate-change-proof agricultural system might look like? Here’s an example from Cuba, in an academic paper written by my friend, comrade and former boss, Peter Rosset, together with folk from Cuba’s peasant agriculture movement. The article’s free to download (for now), but the key parts from the abstract are:

Our key findings are (i) the spread of agroecology was rapid and successful largely due to the social process methodology and social movement dynamics, (ii) farming practices evolved over time and contributed to significantly increased relative and absolute production by the peasant sector, and (iii) those practices resulted in additional benefits including resilience to climate change.

Bolivia: Fuel subsidy backdown reveals pressures on Morales

Protest against fuel subsidy cut, El Alto, December 30.

By Federico Fuentes

January 24, 2011 -- Green Left Weekly -- On December 31, the Bolivian government of President Evo Morales repealed a decree, passed five days earlier, to remove subsidies for fuel. The repeal came after protests and discontent at the resulting price increases from many of the government’s poor supporters.

“Why is the government making us suffer during these days … I don’t understand, I don’t understand”, Carla, a housewife in El Alto told Radio Atipiri on New Years Eve. An elderly woman expressed the shock of many supporters of Bolivia’s first indigenous president: “We are poor, we don’t have anything, what are we going to now, Evo has betrayed us, he must go.”

They were among the many that came out against the government’s decree, which sent petrol and diesel prices up by 73% and 83% respectively. It also caused spikes in the price of transport and food.

Tunisia: Masses create people's power bodies in neighbourhoods and workplaces

Demonstration against RCD ministers, January 19. Photo by Nasser Nouri.

Martin Hart-Landsberg: China and the jobs issue

"Approximately 90 per cent of China’s high technology exports to the US are produced by multinational corporations and many of them are being bought and sold in the US by other multinational retailers."

[단독]홍익대 투쟁에 대한 국제적 지지가 조직되다

http://left21.com/article/9168

2011-01-22

저 명한 국제적 지식인들과 좌파단체·노동조합 등이 홍익대 미화 노동자 투쟁에 연대 메시지와 서명을 보내 왔다. 1월 22일 현재까지 미국의 저명한 경제학자 마틴 하트-랜즈버그, 세계적으로 저명한 마르크스주의자이자 영국 사회주의노동자당 중앙위원인 알렉스 캘리니코스를 포함해 지식인, 좌파·노동조합 주요 활동가 27명과 2개 단체가 동참했다. 아래 명단은 1차분이고, 이 서명은 앞으로도 계속 진행될 예정이다. 이 서명은 다함께 국제연락팀 박준규가 주도적으로 조직했다.

연대서명과 메시지(1월 22일 현재까지 1차분)