latin america

What real democracy looks like: a communal council in Merida votes for its electoral commission in July 2010.

[English: http://links.org.au/node/2072]

alterthess :: όλες οι ειδήσεις από την άλλη Θεσσαλονίκη (http://alterthess.gr) --

[See also

By Jane Franklin

September 25, 2010 -- janefranklin.info -- On September 19, 1960, Fidel Castro and Malcolm X had an historic meeting in Harlem’s Hotel Theresa. Fifty years later people packed a meeting hall in the Adam Clayton Powell State Office Building across 125th Street to commemorate that meeting. Among them were Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla and Cuban ambassador to the United Nations Pedro Núñez Mosquera.

What a different kind of commemoration we could have had if such important leaders as Malcolm X, Patrice Lumumba, Martin Luther King, Jr., Fred Hampton and countless others had not been assassinated. When Malcolm X met with Fidel Castro they talked about Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba of the Congo, a leader whose importance for Africa and all of us was globally recognised. Only five days earlier, Lumumba had been overthrown by Colonel Joseph Mobutu with the support of the CIA. Four months later Lumumba was executed. And in less than five years assassination took away the life of Malcolm X himself.

Food Sovereignty Venezuela -- Jose, a campesina leader from one of Venezuela's most prominent campesina organisations, the Ezequiel Zamora National Campesino Front (FNCEZ) tells of his work with campesinos in Portegeusa State. He describes life and land ownership possibilities before and after the revolution and the some of the surprises that are revealed in his ongoing quest of helping the poor reclaim their land. Special thanks to the great translations of Venezuelan activist Yasmin Tovar and the  stunning background music of Ali Primera, renowned Venezuelan singer of revolutionary tales.

By Lisa Macdonald

Yoly Fernandez (left) during her 2009 Australian tour, organised by the Australia-Venezuela Solidarity Network.

By Coral Wynter

Yoly Fernandez lives in a barrio in the city of Valencia in Venezuela. She has been involved in community politics all her life and is a member of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), headed by Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez. Fernandez works in Mission MERCAL, the government agency that sells subsidised food to the population. I interviewed her in May 2010.

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How has the life of women improved over the last 10 years of the Chavez government?

Our lives have improved enormously, mainly in the area of humane values; not so much at the level of work or even at the political level. I say humane because now the role of women is valued, not as an object but as a subject, as mother, wife, daughter and sister.

Delegates at Cuba's National Assembly consider the Draft Guidelines for the Economic and Social Policy of the Party and the Revolution. Photo by Calixto N. Llanes.

Below is a translation of Cuba's President Raul Castro's speech, on December 18, 2010, at the close of Cuba's National Assembly session, where the Draft Guidelines for the Economic and Social Policy of the Party and the Revolution document was debated.

[For more analysis and discussion on the economic reforms in Cuba, click HERE.]

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Comrades all,

Two speeches by Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Cuba's minister of foreign affairs, at the COP16 of the UNFCCC, Cancun, Mexico

December 8, 2010 -- Translation by Granma International -- Powerful forces are assuring us without hesitation that climate change does not exist, that there is nothing to be concerned about and that the serious problem bringing us here today is a total fabrication.

They are those in the United States Congress who are currently opposing the ratification of the weak agreements which control the proliferation of nuclear weapons, in a senseless crusade whose sole purpose is to retrieve a small part of the power that they lost barely two years ago.

Translation by Marce Cameron (Australia-Cuba Friendship Society), corrections by Paul Greene.

[For more analysis and discussion on the economic changes in Cuba, click HERE.]

By Camila Piñeiro Harnecker

Photo by Steve Morgan/Havana Times.

Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal is posting Ron Ridenour's critical analysis of the proposed economic changes in Cuba, with Ridenour's permission, to reflect as many perspectives of friends of the Cuban Revolution as possible, and to inform the discussion among them. For more analysis, click HERE.

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By Ron Ridenour

November 30, 2010 — Havana Times — With the November 2010 publication of 291 proposals for reforms in 12 areas of economic and social life Cubans are once again faced with a national debate on policies. A key question is if the 800,000 Communist Party (PCC) members’ discussion, plus that of non-members, will affect the policies to be taken at the forthcoming PCC VI congress, in April 2011. There is no proposed mechanism to assure such in the 32-page document.