News from around the world

Nava Sama Samaja Party (NSSP) Leader, Dr. Wickramabahu Karunaratna asserted he would continue to stand and strive for a free and dignified social fabric, that would assure security and protection for women, children and individuals in a society free of terror, intimidation, criminality, corruption, racism and religious fanaticism.

Demands: immediate arrest and trial of Tazreen Fashion’s owner and other culprits of factory fire, payment of wages-allowances and compensation to 15,000 workers of Hallmark Group, placing and passing in Parliament of the amendment to Labour welfare foundation act and Labour law, establishing safe workplaces in garment sector, and implementation of free trade union rights.

Since the outbreak of the revolutionary in January 2011 and even before that, trade unionists, like workers throughout the region, played an important role in the struggles and the fall of the dictators. Today, the trade union movement of the different countries of the Middle East and North Africa continues its daily struggles for better conditions of life and work, but also to deepen the revolutionary process.

0n Thursday 13 December, for the third time in its long history, the UGTT (Tunisian General Labour Union) is calling a one-day general strike. In so doing, it is not only seeking to protest against the attack on its national headquarters by Islamist militias on 4 December. It is also to defend the very future of the revolution.

On December 6th there was a picket in front of the Russian embassy in Berlin in reponse to the call from the Russian left (see Free Russian political prisoners !).

On December 1, Vladimir Putin sent official congratulations to his Mexican colleague Enrique Peña Nieto, the declared winner of the presidential elections just held in that country. The two presidents truly have a great deal in common. The victory of Peña Nieto, who received just 38% of the vote, was met with mass protests brutally dispersed by the police.
Nieto’s main opponent, the leftist López Obradror, who fell short of the winner by only 6% even according to official reports, spoke (…)

An international call for solidarity with victims of repression in Russia.

On November 16, 2012, the Greek police arrested three unionists, accusing them of participating in the protests against the German deputy labor minister, Hans-Joachim Fuchtel, in Thessaloniki the day before.

The assassination of Hamas military chief Ahmed Jabari on Wednesday was the beginning of Israel’s military operation against the Gaza Strip. The operation, Pillar of Defense, was not a reaction to five days of military escalation on the Gaza border, but a premeditated offensive prepared several months ahead by the Israeli army and General Security Services (GSS) .

The three Left parties, Awami Party, Workers Party and Labour Party Pakistan held their representative meetings yesterday to dissolve their parties and establish a united party of the Left, the Awami Workers Party,