Three months after the elections which gave her a crushing victory, Yingluck Shinawatra, the leader of the Puea Thai party and the first woman Prime Minister of Thailand has had to face the worst floods since 1942. Since the beginning of the monsoon in late July, around two and a half million people have been affected by the floods in 28 provinces in the North and Centre of the country. More than 400 people have died and thousands of others have fallen ill.
On the European Union crisis and the dynamics of resistances
6 November 2011, byThis report was presented at an open session of the International Organising Committee (IOC) of the Asia-Europe People’s Forum (AEPF) meeting held in Paris October 28 before the alternative summit to the G20 in Nice (south of France). The notes distributed at the time of the meeting have been completed here with some elements raised during the exchanges. The English has been revised by International Viewpoint.
Anti-capitalists approve electoral programme
3 November 2011This is the programme under which anti-capitalists in the Spanish State are standing in the General Election taking place on November 20.
An anti-capitalist and disobedient candidacy
3 November 2011The November 20th elections will not be any elections. They will take place in the midst of a social and economic crisis that has no end and extends throughout the European Union, placing the Spanish state in the eye of the hurricane. Now more than ever it has become clear that global capitalism is unable to satisfy the basic needs of the majority of the population and threatens the survival of all humanity and the planet due to the serious ecological crisis that it has generated.
The Greek general strike of 19 and 20 October
2 November 2011, by ,The 48-hour political strike of 19 and 20 October was another highlight of the class struggle, clearly expressing the intention of the workers and the middle classes to overthrow the government. On Wednesday, October 19, about 400-500,000 demonstrators took to the streets in Athens and a total of around one million in Greece as a whole. The demonstrations were the largest since the fall of the junta in 1974 and unambiguously demonstrate the enormity of social discontent, along with the determination of the working masses to fight against and overturn the barbaric capitalist policies of the government, the bankers, and the luminaries of the Troika. The general strike had been prepared in the best manner by strikes in various industries and by the occupations of ministries, town halls and other public buildings.
The key question is the self-determination of the movements
2 November 2011, byDifferent approaches and criteria can be used to take a position regarding what happened on the 15th October. We are not really interested in a debate about whether people were ‘violent’ or whether there was a conspiracy or counter-posing the ‘good guys’ to the ‘bad’ ones. Our approach and overall perspective is to place ourselves totally within the movement that we want to build and to take seriously its potential, its development, its effectiveness and above all its capacity to take decisions democratically – to self-organise. This is the central aspect to our thoughts on these events. The potential development of the movement suffered a significant defeat on the 15th October.
Europe: A strategy to break with the Europe of Capital
2 November 2011, bySoon the Spanish Government, through an agreement with the Popular Party, will pose the question, unprecedented since entry into the EU, of reforming the Constitution to enshrine budgetary stability, further tightening the criteria of the Euro Pact. Thus the current PSOE government, together with its presumed successor, the PP, are again posing as exemplary champions of rigor, submitting to the demands of the financial oligarchies and the governments of Merkel and Sarkozy.
490 years of jail sentences for labour leaders in Pakistan
1 November 2011, byOn November 1, a protest demonstration and rally was held in Lahore by Labour Party Pakistan to denounce the 490 years of total jail sentences to the 6 labour leaders of Faisalabad. On average, every one of the six will be spending 81 years in jail. An anti-terrorist court judge announced last evening this long term sentences to the six power-loom workers’ leaders who led a strike in July 2010 in Faisalabad to demand better wages. The judge has announced the jail sentences for each of seven charges. The maximum sentence in one case is ten years. All the jail sentences will begin at the same time, so each one of the labour leaders will spend at least 10 years in jail.
Prisoner Exchange, Symmetry and Israel’s Siege of Gaza
1 November 2011, byThe Palestinian political prisoners, women and men, who will be freed are all freedom fighters who fulfilled their political and moral duty in the struggle against the Israeli colonial occupation. Gilad Shalit, on the other
hand, was a soldier, and a soldier in Israel’s colonial occupation army,
which violates international law on a daily basis and regularly commits war crimes. [This article was written on October 17, 2011.]