News from around the world

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.

Dear Comrades and friends of the workers’ movement in South Africa

It is a terribly sad day. NUMSA was expelled in the early hours of this morning. For the record the vote was 33 to 24. As Andrew Chriwa, President of NUMSA said, NUMSA is COSATU. It formed COSATU, with others of course. It shaped COSATU during its different phases and histories.

For instigating prisoners to protest against inhuman conditions, Baba Jan and Iftikhar Hussain gets second life imprisonments.

ISIS launched a major multi-front military campaign against the Kurdish region of Kobanê in northern Syria. This is the third ISIS onslaught on Kobanê since March 2014. As the ISIS was unsuccessful on the two previous occasions, they are attacking with larger forces and want to take Kobanê.