News from around the world

Workers at the Alexandria Tire Company (Pirelli) in Egypt are on strike against management’s arbitrary refusal to implement agreements that were concluded with workers in the presence of representatives of the ruling Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), as well as their refusal to comply with workers’ legal rights. Situated on the Cairo-Alexandria desert road, Pirelli has branches in numerous countries, including Turkey, Greece, Italy, Romania and Brazil.

This press statement on the outcome of the Irish referendum on the European fiscal treaty was issued by the Campaign Against the Austerity Treaty on the 1st of June 2012.

From the Egyptian Federation of Independent Trade Unions website.

La Via Campesina calls on all the peasant organizations of the world and their allies to organize actions in the month of June

While protests in different cities of Pakistan is going on, we received a bad news from Hunza valley. Six activists of Labour Party led by comrade Nasir are arrested in Karim Abad, the main city of Hunza, while flyposting the posters for the release of Baba Jan.

An important petition has been launched in defence of Baba Jan and his comrades. It includes a very useful summary of the case. It was initiated by Tariq Ali, Noam Chomsky, Quanader Bux Memon, Vijay Prashad, Farooq Tariq, atc. Have it signed and use it as a reference for other initiatives.

It is with great sadness that the Intenational Viewpoint team has learnt of the sudden death at his new home in Chiapas, Mexico of the first editor of International Viewpoint, Gerry Foley.

The Argentine Government has just expropriated 51% of the shares of the Spanish multinational Repsol, majority partner in the historic Argentine oil company, Yacimientos Petrolíferos Fiscales (YPF), completely privatized during the 1990s. As in the case of the flagship airline Aerolineas Argentinas (AA), YPF was stripped of its assets by private capitalists. It is therefore a necessary measure in the face of the sharp fall in reserves and production of oil and gas necessitating expensive energy imports, but at the same time it is insufficient and limited because it does not cover the entire oil industry and is an expropriation accompanied by payment.

UPDATE: The two comrades of the Frontline Socialist Party, Premakumar Gunarathnam and Dimuthu Attygale have both been released within the last few hours of Monday 9th night / Tuesday 10th morning.

George Galloway, the former Labour MP, who broke with the party on oppositon to the war in Iraq in 2003, was re-elected to parliament in the northern England town of Bradford.