After the cement industry, now Chavez has nationalised SIDOR
with its 15,000 workforce. This has come about thanks to the pressure of the
SIDOR workers who were able to contact Chavez directly. The decision is a
correct one. It must now be followed by a general nationalisation of the
commanding heights of the Venezuelan economy and finally complete the
revolution.
In a bizarre but brilliant turn of editorial line, BBC’s
Newsnight has launched an apparently socialist documentary series on China. At
least, that was how it appeared on the basis of Paul Mason’s excellent report
on Wednesday 26th March, to be followed up the following week.
Imagine you have a known terrorist in your custody. He holds
the information that could be used to disarm a bomb. With this information you
can save the lives of thousands, perhaps millions of innocent people. But he
will not give you the information. What do you do?
A London High Court judge on Tuesday suspended a court order
which froze 12 billion dollars (7.6 billion euros) of assets owned by Venezuela
state oil firm PDVSA in a dispute with US energy giant ExxonMobil.
Hands Off
Venezuela activists present in London expressed their joy at the ruling. "This
was part of a campaign of intimidation and threats by imperialism against the
Venezuelan revolution".
Tibet erupted in ethnic based rioting over the past few
days. Undoubtedly there is some outside interference, but this alone cannot
explain what is going on. At the root of the problem is the uneven spread of
wealth, which has been made worse by the introduction of market economics,
compounding the feeling of national oppression of the Tibetans.
The date is the
second of November 2007. Trade unionists from the Sinaltrainal food industry union walk into the central
cafeteria of the Universidad Pontificia, to find an envelope addressed to them from the Black Eagles’ Front of the
AUC, the supposedly disbanded right-wing paramilitary organization. The
contents of this letter were as follows…
An analysis of the growing political and social turbulence in Europe,
the United States, Latin America with an emphasis on Venezuela, the
Middle East and Asia with particular emphasis on the explosive
situation in Pakistan and ends with an appeal to help build the
International Marxist Tendency in all countries. At this stage it is a
discussion document.
This is the first part of a draft document on World Perspectives as approved at the recent meeting of the leadership of the International Marxist Tendency. At this stage it is a discussion document.
On Tuesday, February 19, Fidel Castro announced he was no longer going to stand for the position as President of Cuba. All the talk in the bourgeois is
of the need to remove the regime, but there is no mention of the real social
gains of the Cuban Revolution. We do not stand with these vultures. We defend
the Cuban Revolution by working for an all-Latin American and international
revolution.
Before the results had come in, President
Musharraf appeared on the state-run Pakistan Television, calling the vote "the
voice of the nation" and the "mother of elections" must be accepted. But in
fact this was the Mother of all Frauds.
We are in the final stages of the election campaign in Pakistan. The
masses are clearly backing the PPP in large numbers. Reaction is also preparing.
Blatant rigging cannot be ruled out, but this would only serve to enrage the
masses. In this context the Marxists are standing in several constituencies,
where they are running a revolutionary election campaign that is having a big
impact among the workers and poor.
The crisis in the garments sector goes unabated in
Bangladesh. On January 30, 2008 two workers in World Dresses Ltd, Mirpur,
Dhaka, were attacked and beaten by management staff at the end of an evening shift. One died at 3am, the other is still
hospitalised with broken limbs. Fearing unrest
management closed the factory on Thursday. When knowledge of the attack
reached the company’s workers, hundreds demonstrated outside the factory.