May ended in Spain with frantic
attempts to prevent the collapse of the banking system, saddled with a
massive amount of toxic loans linked to the housing bubble. The
government attempted to involve the European Union in the rescue of
Bankia, while there were rumours of IMF plans for a bail out of Spain.
Meanwhile miners have gone out an all out strike in defence of jobs.
The flurry of articles in the Irish press over the last few days
attacking the Croke Park Deal should not come as any surprise. However,
it is noteworthy that these ladies and gentlemen chose the days after
the referendum vote to start putting the boot in.
The Irish Times reports that as soon as the result of the referendum
on the treaty appeared to be in the bag, Enda Kenny was on the phone to
Angel Merckel presumably for a pat on the head as he reported on the
completion of his mission.
On Monday May 21, there was a foiled
attempt against the life of comrade Abraham Rivas. Rivas is General
Secretary of the National Union of Workers of Helados EFE (SINATRASOHE)
as well as General Secretary of the recently created National Federation
of Workers in Food, Beverages and Other Companies (FENACTRALBECA),
which organizes workers in 21 different companies belonging to Grupo
POLAR. He is also a revolutionary Bolivarian activist and a supporter of
the Marxist tendency Lucha de Clases.
The ruling class is scaling up its
dirty war against SYRIZA, and is drawing together its various political
fractions in the hope of preventing a potential electoral victory of
SYRIZA in the elections on June 17. From the point of view of SYRIZA, in
order to achieve our aim of a Left government, we need to correct eight
grave errors and weaknesses.
With two-thirds of its work force in
the rural sector, Bangladesh’s agriculture contributes just 19 percent
to its GDP. Sixty-six percent of exports are from the garment industry
that makes it the third largest clothes exporting country in the world.
It is perhaps the cheapest and most profitable place for garment
manufacturers. However, the conditions of the workers, mainly women, are
atrocious.
Over the past two weeks, the student
strike in Quebec has entered a new stage. What originally began as a
strike against a 75% increase in tuition fees has rapidly progressed
into a movement against the Liberal government itself. Premier Jean
Charest’s government has clumsily fallen over itself, trying to suppress
or divide the movement, with little success. Instead of killing the
movement, every action by the government has only given the movement new
life.
The
elections in France and Greece represent a fundamental change in the
situation. The crisis of European capitalism has entered a new and
turbulent stage. A mood of anger is sweeping across Europe. Of course,
we understand that election results do not reflect the psychology of the
masses with complete accuracy. They are like a snapshot of the mood at a
given moment. But it is necessary to analyse election results
carefully, since they do show certain trends in society.
We continue our analysis of the Greek elections of last week with a look at the critical role of the leadership of the Greek CP.
We publish here the first of a two
part article written by the Editorial Board of Marxistiki Foni) The
results of Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Greece – a political
earthquake –are a clear indication of the growing radicalisation of
society on the basis of the historic deadlock of capitalism and the
movement towards an openly revolutionary situation.
The defeat of Nicolas Sarkozy in the
presidential elections opens a new phase of the class struggle in
France. The socialist candidate, François Hollande, won 51.62 % of the
vote. However, this overall score tends to conceal the social basis of
the election result. Practically all the major towns and cities voted
massively for Hollande – or, to be closer to the truth, to get rid of
Sarkozy.
The Argentinian government of Cristina Kirchner decided to renationalise the oil company YPF from Spanish multinational REPSOL. The Financial Times described it as “economic piracy” and thundered that her actions should not go unpunished. The Venezuelan government has supported the re-nationalisation and offered support on the basis of “sovereign control over natural resources”. To discuss the issues involved we are screening “Memoria del Saqueo” (Social Genocide http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0400647/), a documentary film by Argentinian director Pino Solanas (http://www.pinosolanas.com/memoria.htm), describing the process by which the country’s wealth was looted by the multinationals and Argentinian capitalists during the 1990s, including the privatisation of YPF to Repsol. The film, 114 minutes long, is in Spanish with English […]