Archive for the Category 'International'
Lack of information and unprepared schools forced school students to protest
On Friday, June 19, students went out into the streets of Prague to express their opinions about plans to establish centralized state-wide final exams. Their demonstration was coordinated vie popular social networks, i.e. Facebook. The demonstration started at 12:00 pm on Palacky square. 20 minutes before the beginning of the action the square was really full of students equipped with banners, flutes or ratchets. Those who stood near the statue were able to hear speeches from the organizers. The megaphones on hand were too weak to reach everyone in the crowd, so the others began spontaneously chanting slogans against the state finals. »»»»
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A nationwide mobilization of school and university students
After the last major school students’ strike in Germany in November 2008, there were large demonstrations across the country on June 17 in the framework of a week-long “education strike”. The participants nationwide numbered around 250,000: for example, in Berlin alone there were about 27,000 people on the streets, in Hamburg 13,000, in Kiel 3,000 (one week earlier), in Flensburg 2,500… Dresden 3,500 and Bremen 3,000. In over 80 cities people were out on the streets to express their discontent. »»»»
On the New Anticapitalist Party in France
At the beginning of February, a new party was founded in St. Dénis, a suburb of Paris, whose aim it is to unite the French Left and to initiate a new era of class struggles in France: the „Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste“, the New Anticapitalist Party. As of yet, it is not clear what role the NPA will play in France in the future because its political basis is as broad as its name suggests. »»»»
Guillermo Lora, a historic leader of Bolivian Trotskyism, died on May 17, 2009 in La Paz at the age of roughly 87 – his age was never certain because, born in the early 1920s in the town of Uncía in the department of Potosí, he never received a birth certificate. From its foundation in the mid-1930s, Lora’s Revolutionary Workers’ Party (Partido Obrero Revolucionario, POR) – also known by the name of its periodical “POR-Masas” – played an important role in the Bolivian workers’ movement, especially amongst the miners. It was one of just a few Trotskyist parties, along with those in Vietnam and Sri Lanka, to win a mass base in the working class. »»»»
On April 27, 2009, in the Czech city of Brno there was a brutal attack against several members of the Union of Young Communists of Czechoslovakia (SMKČ), the successor organization of the Communist Youth Union (KSM), which was banned by the Czech government for their goal of replacing capitalism with socialism. Even if our ideas of socialism differ significantly from the “socialism” of the SMKČ, we see the legal dissolution of the KSM, accompanied by police harassment of its leaders, as an attack on the entire radical left because, of course, the goal of overcoming capitalism is shared by other groups and organizations. »»»»
Workers protests are spreading across China. The state answers with repression. A conversation with Qichang Huang, worker and socialist from China. He writes for the website chinaworker.info.
The reports available in Europe on the situation of the working class in the People’s Republic of China are quite slim. Now and again we read of protests and strikes. What do you know about this?
Protests by workers and peasants are not just due to the economic crisis. Actually, since the start of this century there has been a rising tide of ‘mass incidents’. This is government language for strikes and demonstrations. In 2006 there were over 90,000 mass incidents, but last year this rose to over 120,000. That’s over 300 per day. »»»»
Will the new constitution in Bolivia break the rule of imperialism and put an end to poverty?
In “A Quantum Solace,” the new James Bond movie, the villain tries to topple the Bolivian government with the help of a former military dictator and the CIA. His plan is to get all the water in the country under his control and sell it back to the Bolivians at high prices.
Something like that really happened in Bolivia: in the city of Cochabamba, a multinational corporation wanted to privatize the water in 2001. This plan was stopped, however, not by James Bond but by mass protests led by then trade union leader Evo Morales. »»»»
Beginning with the discussions about our “Basic Positions”, a debate about the nature of the Cuban regime opened up. Based on the article “Summer, sun and socialism?”, we want to continue this debate in an organized way. There are different opinions within REVOLUTION and we don’t want to hide this. We want to give both sides an opportunity to express themselves because this debate is going on in practically all left-wing structures. »»»»
On March 25, 2009, six activists from Denmark were convicted of “supporting terrorism”. Their crime? Making and selling t-shirts.
The fashion company FIGHTERS+LOVERS was started back in January 2006: they produced stylish t-shirts – pink and mango in color – with the logos of anti-imperialist organizations like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). As Ulrik Kohl from the group explained: “We didn’t want typical, trashy political clothes that people only wore because of the message.” »»»»
Fight Imperialism! Against the NATO summit on April 3-4, 2009!
At the beginning of April we are going to see a showcase of those who organize misery and death all around the world. NATO wants to celebrate its 60th anniversary in Strasbourg and Baden-Baden. The bourgeois media will faithfully report which head of state and which top-ranking general prattles about what in front of the press. We will hear about „worldwide terrorism“, „stabilisation“, about „peacekeeping operations“ and „global security“. In fact, NATO is no guarantee of security. Instead, it stands for the aggressive enforcement of the interests of the most powerful governments and the capitalists standing behind them. »»»»
The capitalist system is responsible for the crisis, and the capitalists at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos can’t repare it.
For years, the World Economic Forum has taken place in late January in Davos, always accompanied by protests and counter-events, because the self-appointed world leaders assembled in the Grison mountains don’t necessarily meet with approval. But this year, everything is different. At least, that is what the organizers of this unequaled parade of the world elite want us to believe. They tell us that in the last few years, most of the participants were only there to the celebrate at the parties held during the forum, which are well-known in higher circles of society. That means they have bled us for years and spent billions so that a few managers and politicians could celebrate in a hermetically sealed-off Davos! »»»»