News from around the world

The Awami Workers Party condemns the senseless and merciless slaughter of innocent school-children in the attack by militant jihadists in Peshawar.

The mainstream media, such as the BBC, are headlining the scope of the nationwide strike in Belgium on 15 December which “has brought air, rail and road transport to a standstill and forced many businesses to close”.

Since 2004 – the year when a devastating tsunami hit the coasts of the Indian Ocean —, Europe solidaire sans frontières (ESSF) launched numerous financial campaigns to assist Asian victims of humanitarian disasters. As a complement to such specific initiatives, we opened in 2012 a permanent Solidarity Fund for Asia. Today, with growing climate chaos, industrial safety hazards, wars, poverty, we feel more than ever its need.

The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (Numsa) has rejected reports that it and other forces are plotting to overthrow the South African government.

Declaration of the South Asian Caravan 2014 on Climate Justice, Gender and Food Sovereignty Submitted to the People’s SAARC, Kathmandu, Nepal and UNFCCC meeting (COP 20), Lima, Peru.

We, 60 women from 18 European countries gathered in the European Coordination Meeting of the World March of Women in Donostia, Basque Country, salute the resistance of Kurdish women in Kobane (Rojava) – in the border of Turkey and Syrian state, where Kurds, Assyrians, Armenians, Yezidis, Arabs, and Chechens from different religious coexist in peace and develop out alternatives of sharing leadership at every level of democratic life.

The Awami Workers Party (AWP) called for the immediate release of its jailed leadership, including Baba Jan and Ghulam Dastageer and demanded that state authorities stop the abuse of anti-terrorist laws to repress peaceful political protest in the country here on Thursday. AWP members and supporters gathered at Aabpara chowk on November 20 as part of a countrywide Call to action by the party, which included demonstrations in Karachi, Lahore, Hyderabad, Multan, Faisalabad, and Moro among others.

The imminent climate crisis that we confront today is a grave threat to the preservation of life on the planet. Many academic and political works have confirmed the fragility of life on earth to temperature change. Only a few degrees can cause – and are causing – an ecological catastrophe of incalculable consequences. Now we are experiencing the deadly effects of this situation. The melting ice, the contamination of the atmosphere, rising sea levels, desertification, and the increasing intensity of the weather, are all proof.

On November 11, 2014, unorganized and informal sector workers of different trades and occupations assembled at Kolkata to march at the rally and attend the public meeting organized by the Osongothito Khetra Sramik Sangrami Mancha (Struggle Forum for Unorganised Sector Workers), a platform of trade-unions organising unorganised sector workers. Nearly 20, 000 workers brought the city to life, demanding proper wages, social security, employment guarantee, communal harmony and class unity.

Workers in all the tea gardens of Terai, Dooars and Darjeeling Hills of West Bengal observed a total strike on November 11th & 12th, 2014 bringing the industry to a halt. The strike was called by a joint forum of 23 trade unions demanding minimum wages of tea garden workers who still get paid a paltry wage of Rs 90 to Rs 95 per day.