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The crisis which has hit the care home company Southern Cross continues
to get worse and worse. Already 3,000 jobs losses have been announced
and today the FT leaked the news that the company intend to "return to
their landlords" 132 of their homes – about 20% of the total holding.
We are being
constantly reassured that the financial crisis gripping Greece cannot reach
Britain. Many facts and figures are provided to back this up. However, a
closer look at the situation reveals the real underlying financial
crisis that sooner or later must surface in Britain also. In this
article Adam Booth looks at the situation in Greece and Europe as a
whole and shows how Britain cannot escape the inevitable.
2011 will go down in history as the
year of the Arab Spring and could yet go down as the year that also saw
widespread protest and a revolutionary mood develop in Europe, as recent
developments in Spain indicate. For revolutionary socialists this
situation presents an opportunity unlike any seen in decades. Yet such a
situation also poses difficult questions for the activists in the
emerging movements. In particular the seemingly contradictory aims of on
the one hand mobilising as many people as possible and achieving the
clear goals of the movement, and on the other, achieving a revolutionary
change in society
Here are some videos so you can have a better feel of what is going on
in Athens. As you can see the struggle is continuing to develop!
Yesterday a
milestone was passed in the social and political situation in Greece and
throughout Europe. Impressive mobilizations rolled across the country:
half a million in Athens and rallies of thousands of people gathered in
Thessaloniki, Patras, Larissa, Volos, Heraklion, etc. This places
Greece on the threshold of a revolutionary situation. It means that, for
the first time in decades the developed capitalist countries of Europe
are faced with the prospect of a revolution with continental dimensions.
The ferocity
of irregularly regular terrorist attacks in Pakistan has become a
festering wound on the body politic of the country. Malaise and despair
stalk the land. Yet for the masses at large the ever-raging futile
debate amongst the dominant intelligentsia on this issue has only served
to confuse rather than clarify this curse. It is, therefore, crucial to
separate the essential from the inessential and grasp the core of the
problem.
It would be remiss of us not to mention this year’s Sunday Times Rich
List, which was published during April. The opening article is headed
‘Wealth goes through the roof.’ It starts with the blurb: ‘While Britons
feel the pain of spending cuts, high-rollers march onwards and
upwards…’ What! Didn’t the government just tell us that We Are All In
This Together? Well it seems not.
Plans by Royal Mail management to slash around 40,000 jobs over the next five years have been leaked. Clearly the plan is to make the company an ‘attractive option’ for buyers following privatisation. In reality this will turn RM into just another courier service – offering poor service for high prices.
On May 28th,
Mel Zelaya, the Honduran president removed by a coup in June 2009
returned to Honduras where he was met by a massive crowd. On June 1, the
Organisation of American States voted to readmit Honduras as a member,
with only Ecuador voting against. The agreements that made this possible
have provoked a lot of discussion amongst Honduran revolutionaries in
the Resistance Front (FNRP) and throughout Latin America.
At
its annual Congress held at the Harrogate International Centre, from
Saturday 28 May to Monday 30 May 2011, the University and College Union
(UCU) passed a unanimous resolution condemning US sanctions against
PDVSA.
Within the last couple of weeks there has
been yet another outbreak of youth protest internationally with the huge
movement in Spain which encompasses some 80 cities and now a new
movement in Greece has erupted. Meanwhile in North Africa and the Middle
East new waves of struggle are being prepared. However, if the Irish
press are to believed the waves of struggle that are affecting
everywhere else will barely cause a ripple in good ould Ireland. After
all, with the royal and presidential distractions of the last few weeks,
the only revolting youth to get any coverage in Ireland were Jedward.
Workers have been feeling the pinch for
some time, even before the slump of 2008-09. Now they are in for an even worse
time, the most prolonged squeeze on living standards in recent memory.