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 […]
The results of the first round of the presidential elections in France
mean that the second round will be fought out between Nicolas Sarkozy
and the Socialist Party candidate, François Hollande.
All the talk about the European crisis finally “turning the corner” has gone up in smoke as crisis ruturns big time to Europe.
On April 12th, around 70 people
gathered at a Hands Off Venezuela meeting at Bolivar Hall in London to
commemorate the 10 year anniversary of the defeat of the
counter-revolutionary coup against Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela.
The meeting served as the premiere of ‘Cuarto Poder’, a documentary
summarising the negative portrayal of the President Chavez in the
Spanish media and the reasons for this negative bias.
Ten years after the defeat of the coup
in Venezuela by the revolutionary mobilisation of the masses it is
worth looking back at the forces that were behind the coup, the reasons
why it was defeated and what happened afterwards, as those events hold
the clue to the class dynamics of the Venezuelan revolution.
The most striking feature of the presidential election campaign in France is the massive support shown for the Front de Gauche
(Left Front) under the leadership of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. Long before
the campaign was really underway, there were clear signs that the most
conscious and active layer of the working class was mobilising around
the Front de Gauche.