People Before Profit blog

General strike in Portugal protests austerity measures

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 12:11:00 +0000

A massive one-day general strike paralyzed Portugal November 24, as major labor federations united to denounce austerity measures being imposed by the Socialist Party Prime Minister, Jose Socrates.

The unions claim the strike was 80 percent effective. Media reported complete shutdowns in many areas of airlines, public transportation, government administrative offices, schools and health care facilities, throughout Portugal and in the autonomous island territories of the Azores and Madeira. Although the backbone of the strike consisted of government workers, there were reports of bank and factory closings as well. Between a million and a half and three million workers may have stayed home in this country of barely 10 million.

Portugal is the "P" in the "PIIGS" group of poorer Western European nations that are members of the European Union and share the "Euro" currency. The others are Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain. All of these countries have been hit by debt crises, with budget deficits far beyond what the European Union rules allow, as well as national debt close to or exceeding the annual Gross Domestic Product (in Portugal, more than 80 percent). This is leading to sharp increases in the cost of borrowing. In spite of differences in the political composition of their current governments, they have all responded by imposing austerity measures, designed to reassure the financial markets that hit workers and the poor especially hard. Several of the countries have been negotiating bailouts with the Council of Europe, the European Central Bank and even the International Monetary Fund. Mr. Socrates says that Portugal will not need such a bailout, though this is what the Irish government was saying a week ago, just before it was forced to go hat in hand to seek just such help.

Portugal already saw massive protests against the austerity program back in May. Now the government, still faced with large budget deficits, has decided to impose a new austerity program, including a one percentage point rise in the regressive value added tax (from 20 percent to 21 percent), a hike in income taxes, cuts in pensions and the pay (of up to 5 percent annually) of civil servants, and cutbacks in public services in general. A vote on these measures took place in the Portuguese parliament November 26.

The two major union federations in Portugal united to oppose and protest the cuts through the general strike. They are the General Confederation of Portuguese Workers (CGTP), which is the largest union federation in the country and which is close to the Portuguese Communist Party (PCP), and the General Union of Workers, UGT, which is close to the governing Socialist Party.

This unity between communist and socialist led unions is a first in 22 years, and is especially significant because the Prime Minister, Jose Socrates, is from the Socialist Party. So a large proportion of his social base is in fact repudiating his policies.

The PCP and labor see the government as trying to resolve the crisis on the backs of workers, small farmers and the poor. They demand that the government rather impose a sharp increase in taxes on the rich, who they consider to have caused the problem in the first place.

In a statement on its website, the Communist Party of Portugal hailed the striking workers for their courage in adversity: This was "a success all the more outstanding given how many hundreds of thousands of workers are confronted by situations of indebtedness and with the worsening of the cost of living. [These are] workers for whom a one day strike implies a loss of a day's wages".

Meanwhile in Ireland, Prime Minister Brian Cowan of the Fianna Fail party is seeing his house of cards nearer to collapse. His coalition partner, the Green Party, has pulled out of the governing coalition and there is a rebellion in the ranks of Fianna Fail in the Dail (the lower house of the Irish parliament). Also, while swearing that there would be no need to ask for a bailout from the European Union, Cowan is now forced to negotiate for just such help.

In Greece, merchant sailors staged a strike on November 24, which cut off all transportation among Greece's many islands.

Now all eyes are on Spain, with 35 million people the second largest of the PIIGS countries after Italy. If Spain should catch the Greek-Irish-Portuguese disease, the survival of the Euro currency might be severely threatened.

Photo: Check in counters are empty at Lisbon's international airport Nov. 24 during the usually busy early morning. Dozens of flights were cancelled due to a general strike protesting the government's austerity measures. Francisco Seco/AP

World AIDS Day: Post offices deliver HIV prevention advice

Tue, 30 Nov 2010 11:54:00 +0000

(ILO) - The international community marks World AIDS Day again this Wednesday, Dec. 1. It is almost thirty years since AIDS, caused by the Human Immuno-deficiency Virus (HIV) first began to have a devastating effect on individual lives, workplaces and societies. Currently, about 33 million people are living with the virus globally. There are another 7,500 new cases of infection every single day. Workplaces can play a key role in the HIV response according to the first international labor standard on HIV and AIDS adopted by the ILO last June. Andrew Bibby, a London-based journalist, reports for ILO Online.

The ILO's Recommendation 200, approved by an overwhelming majority of the world's governments, employers' and workers' organizations at this year's International Labour Conference, provides a new tool in the global fight against the virus. The Recommendation concerning HIV and AIDS and the world of work is the first international labor standard focusing on human rights explicitly on HIV and AIDS in the context of work. It operates on the basis that HIV/AIDS is a workplace issue, not simply because it affects the workforce but also because the workplace can play a vital role in limiting the spread and effects of the epidemic.

This principle is being put firmly in practice in a highly innovative program being coordinated jointly by the ILO, UNAIDS, the Universal Postal Union and UNI Global Union, which makes use of the key role which post offices and postal workers play in their communities. Brazil, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, China, Estonia, Mali and Nigeria have already been using their post office networks to communicate basic health information and preventative advice about HIV/AIDS, and the idea is now being extended to post offices in other countries.

For Assane Diop, executive director of the ILO's Social Protection Sector, the initiative makes enormous sense.

"The campaign is creatively using the opportunities of the postal network and its structure in each country to raise awareness of HIV/AIDS, and to counter stigma and discrimination," he says.

His view is echoed by Edouard Dayan, director general of the UPU, "With 600,000 post offices around the world, the postal network is a natural partner for this HIV prevention awareness campaign. It is the single largest health-awareness initiative ever launched globally by the postal sector, demonstrating the huge outreach and value of the universal service that it provides," he says.

The campaign was launched in Brazil in February this year, just in time for the Carnival period. More than 12,000 post offices have been displaying leaflets and posters, and around 800,000 letters with HIV prevention advice have been delivered to households in three pilot areas of the country. The posters and leaflets carry the slogan, "The post offices are fighting against AIDS. What about you? Protect yourself: use a condom." A dedicated website at www.correioscontraaids.org.br was also established for the campaign.

In Nigeria, Nigeria Post (NIPOST) focused first on raising awareness among its own employees through training workshops designed specifically for counter staff and managers. These employees were then encouraged to cascade the information down both to other NIPOST employees and to the public using the post office network. To launch the campaign, ceremonies were held in different parts of the country with employees wearing colorful T-shirts bearing the slogan NIPOST cares, protect yourself.

"The Post is now seen as a carrier of health information, not just mail," says Maayen Ujong, NIPOST's director of operations.

In neighboring Cameroon, postal workers have also been given a particularly key role to play in the success of the campaign. CAMPOST launched their campaign in July last year, putting employee communication at the heart of their effort. Campaign coordinators visited post offices to liaise with local staff and to deliver the visual materials. CAMPOST estimates that more than 36,000 people visit the country's post offices each day and are therefore being made aware of the message of the campaign.

The four partner organizations behind the campaign are now developing the second phase of the initiative, which focuses less on general public awareness and more on raising HIV awareness specifically among postal employees rather than the general public. The postal and logistics sector is a major source of employment worldwide, with five and a half million people working for the main national postal operators, and a further 2.5 million working for private, informal and courier services.

Among postal operators who are developing good practice is the South African Post Office, which has launched a booklet, the Employee Guide to understanding HIV and AIDS and which has pioneered voluntary HIV testing and counseling for its staff.

Initiatives such as these, as well as the active participation of UNI Global Union which represents postal workers, reflect the spirit behind ILO Recommendation 200, which stresses the value of social dialogue. A successful HIV/AIDS policy and program needs cooperation and trust between employers, workers and governments, the Recommendation advises.

The ILO recommendation, adopted in June 2010, builds upon and reinforces the principles of the ILO Code of Practice on HIV/AIDS and the world of work , developed in 2001. The ILO code, as well as Recommendation 200, is available on the ILO website at www.ilo.org/aids.

A more specialist ILO publication, providing guidance on establishing workplace policies on HIV/AIDS, entitled Guidelines on HIV and AIDS for the postal sector, is under preparation and will be launched shortly.

Photo: (max_thinks_sees/CC)

At Cancun meet world leaders feel heat on climate change

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 16:57:00 +0000

This week 193 governments from around the world will convene in Cancun, Mexico, for the United Nations's annual climate change conference. They're hoping to lay foundations, set up frameworks and install building blocks toward practically addressing the dire consequences of global warming.

Official delegates and representatives of non-governmental organizations are expected to address mounting evidence that the Earth's climate is rapidly changing and taking a dramatic toll on both rich and poor nations across the planet.

Meteorologists are expected to report that 2010 will be tied for the hottest year globally since records began 131 years ago, while agronomists are to report on shifting weather patterns destabilizing the world's food supply and access to clean water. Such patterns could lead to mass migrations as farmers flee drought or flood-prone regions.

Last year, President Obama personally attended the summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, joining other world leaders in drafting an agreement that set an aim of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius. However, details of how to achieve such goals were never ratified by the U.S.

During that summit, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton vowed that the U.S. would contribute toward a fund worth $100 billion per year by 2020 to help poor countries worst hit by climate change.

The Obama administration has not been able to win passage of domestic climate legislation due to opposition from the Republican Party, which recently won a majority of seats in the House. The GOP has vowed to oppose a nationwide plan to restrict carbon emissions, which cause global warming, and are highly unlikely to ratify any international treaty. A number of Republicans in the new Congress claim to not even believe the fact of climate change.

Ratifying any new or old treaty seems unlikely with a far more conservative Congress looming.

Although last year's hopes for a binding treaty to limit greenhouse gas emissions fell short, world leaders hope to advance key areas this year toward its eventual achievement. Many hope to clear the way in mobilizing billions of dollars for developing countries and supply them with green technology to help shift from fossil fuels.

At this year's summit scientists say a program to counter deforestation, called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, is likely to win support. Forests are important because they absorb carbon dioxide, the most troublesome greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere.

An agreement by various groups to develop a plan for the payment of up to $38 billion by developed nations to support forest preservation in poor nations is in the works.

Syed Mahmood Nasir, a delegate from Pakistan told Voice of America news, the U.S. government broadcaster, that disaster in his homeland has convinced people of the urgent need to confront global warming. "After the recent floods it has become the main concern, because the floods were so devastating, and, now, people are seeing that these were due to climate change," he said.

Eighty-five countries have made specific pledges to reduce emissions or constrain their growth, but those promises amount to far less than required to keep temperatures from rising to potentially dangerous levels.

Developing nations say they are focused on setting in motion needed funding for more vulnerable countries. However the U.S. says it won't move until China agrees to some form of reliable third-party inspection system. The U.S. has insisted it will agree to binding pollution limits only if China also accepts legal limitations.

China is now the world's biggest polluter but it's also the biggest investor in renewable energy. Still, China still faces widespread poverty and argues they bear no historic responsibility for the global problem. Despite a lack of any signs pointing to a possible treaty with the U.S., two recent studies note that China's investment in green technology has outpaced that of America.

Analysts say the current negotiations are similar to those made under the landmark 1997 Kyoto Protocol treaty that mandated industrialized nations slash greenhouse emissions. The U.S. signed the treaty, but Congress never ratified it, arguing that the treaty did not demand that China or other emerging powers also cut emissions. It expires at the end of 2012.

Meanwhile U.S. envoy Todd Stern said at a press conference that the U.S. is "standing behind the pledge" of cutting emissions 17 percent below 2005 levels in the next decade. He added the long-term goal is a legally binding treaty that allows industrialized and developing countries to take different types of targets but holds them all legally accountable.

Global warming: more or less?

Mon, 29 Nov 2010 10:53:00 +0000

Many Republicans and other rightists deny there is any problem of global warming at all. The New York Times complains that Congress doesn't take the threat seriously. Meanwhile six billion tons of coal a year, half by China alone, is set to be burnt to fuel the world's industries.

So is global warming getting worse or not?

Climate scientists rely on complicated and sophisticated computer modeling to come up with their estimates of global warming and its future consequences. Below is a brief review of four major scientific studies, done between 2008 and 2010, that will give us some idea of what is going on.

A Cornell University study, in 2008, based on an examination of black carbon, claimed global warming was being overestimated. Black carbon in the earth's soil results from the burning of organic material. There are many types of carbon in the soils of the earth and they are continuously releasing CO2, or carbon dioxide, into the air - at different rates depending on their source.

It only takes a few years for organic matter in the soil to be released into the atmosphere as CO2 - except for black carbon. Scientists have found that it takes from one to two thousand years for this type of carbon to convert to atmospheric CO2. Many popular computer models have not been taking this into consideration.

Once adjustment is made for this, the Cornell scientists reported, the amount of CO2 predicted to be released from the soil in the next 100 years is reduced by 20 percent. This is really significant because soil based carbon annually produces 10 times more CO2 than that produced by all human activities combined.

This may reduce the estimate of future climate change; nevertheless, global warming is still heating the earth and a future catastrophe cannot be avoided if we do not act to reduce this heating trend.

A June 11, 2009, report by scientists at Concordia University shows that there is a direct relationship between the amount of CO2 emitted and the rise in global temperature. Maybe we can't control natural CO2 emissions, but we have to control human emissions, which are exacerbating the natural carbon cycle.

Professor Damon Matthews, who headed this study, says that if there is to be hope limiting global warming to just 2 degrees [Celsius] we must limit all our future carbon emissions to 500 billion tons, "about as much again" as we have emitted since the start of the Industrial Revolution. That "all" means forever! Good luck with that.

On July 13, 2009, another report, from scientists at LuLea University in Sweden, found that neither converting to nuclear power nor trapping CO2 (two of most popular capitalist solutions, besides cap and trade), would solve the global warming problem. That's nice to know but they don't provide any alternative solution.

But just this past week, an article that doesn't give us much to look forward to was published. Scientists from the University of Hawaii-Manoa have constructed what they think to be the most up-to-date computer model of the earth's cloud cover over the next 100 years as it reacts to global warming. Clouds reflect much of the heat from the sun back into space before greenhouse gases trap it. Their model shows that the cloud cover will be much thinner than other computer models have considered and, if they are correct, even the worse predictions of climate change would be underestimates of "the real change we could see."

It is up to us. Neither monopoly capital nor its politicians can solve this problem.

Image: Mikael Miettinen // CC BY 2.0

Study: Wi-Fi radiation harmful to trees

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 22:08:00 +0000

Perhaps Facebook, Twitter, email, the iPhone and really the entire digital revolution sweeping the world on the Internet these days are not so great after all especially when it comes to protecting the environment. Although the World Wide Web brings millions across the planet closer than ever before, there could be consequences when it comes to our trees.

A recent study based in the Netherlands finds that radiation from Wi-Fi networks is harming trees, causing significant variations in growth, as well as bleeding and fissures in the bark.

According to the study by Wageningen University all deciduous trees in the Western World are affected. Five years ago officials found unexplained abnormalities on trees that couldn't be ascribed to a virus or bacterial infection throughout the city of Alphen aan den Rijn, prompting the study.

Researchers found about 70 percent of all the trees in urban areas throughout the Netherlands showed similar symptoms, compared with only 10 percent five years ago. Trees in densely forested parts are hardly affected, they note. And additional testing found the disease to occur throughout the Western world.

Electromagnetic fields created by mobile-phone networks and wireless LANs, ultra-fine particles emitted by cars and trucks all share the blame, scientists say. These particles are so small they are able to enter the organisms.

Twenty ash trees were exposed to various radiation sources for a period of three months. Those placed closest to the Wi-Fi radio demonstrated a "led-like shine" on their leaves that was caused by the dying of the upper and lower epidermis of the leaves. Eventually the disease would lead to parts of the leaves decay. The study also found that Wi-Fi radiation could also inhibit the growth of corn cobs.

Researchers say further studies are needed to confirm the current results indicating that long-term effects of wireless radiation is harmful toward trees.

Many critics refute the study's findings and argue the whole concept is absurd.

However the study sheds light on a real environmental danger and despite different opinions on the cause of the diseased trees, many note pollution in all its forms including new types shared by the digital revolution also play a role.

Supporters of the study encourage more to be done in order to ensure that the positive aspects of sharing information on the Internet does not further harm the Earths natural elements more than humans already have.

In Europe, poor countries in economic straightjacket

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 15:52:00 +0000

If you owe $500,000 to your bank, the bank owns you. If, however, you owe $500 million to your bank, you own the bank. Big debtors have the potential leverage to defend themselves because it is not in the interests of their creditors to see them default completely.

This was discovered by the former president of Argentina, Nestor Kirchner, who died suddenly on October 27. When Kirchner was elected in 2003, Argentina was drowning in debt and the living standards of its workers, once the highest in Latin America, were plunging. But Kirchner stood up to his own ruling class and international lenders and backed them down, rescuing his country and protecting workers' living standards, as well as laying the basis for a remarkable period of economic growth.

The poorer countries in the European Union are in turmoil today, partly because of the world financial crisis and partly because of situations in individual countries. These countries, insultingly called PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain), entered the European Union and the common euro currency because this promised to open the markets of the wealthier countries to their products. Now they see the downside.

In the spring, Greece was the focus of concern when it was found that the previous government of Kostas Karamanlis' right wing New Democrat Party had engaged in massive fraud to conceal huge deficits. The new government of the social democratic PASOK's Prime Minister George Papandreou implemented an austerity program which led to massive street protests, and the European Union and International Monetary Fund came up with a trillion-dollar temporary emergency fund to finance Greece and, potentially, other countries in similar straits.

But in exchange, the recipient country has to take drastic measures to get its finances in order, either increasing taxes or cutting the social welfare budget and other worker-unfriendly measures, such as sharply increasing the age of retirement.

Ireland achieved temporary prosperity by setting its corporate tax rate so low that investors came flooding in. But the country was hit in 2008 by a massive mortgage crisis like the one that hit the United States. A number of Irish banks were headed for the cliff. The government of Taoiseach (Prime Minister) Brian Cowan, of the center-right Fianna Fail party, slashed the social welfare net and bailed out the banks, instead of letting the banks fail and saving the living standards of the workers. As a result, the solvency of the Irish government is severely endangered and Cowan is super-unpopular. On Friday, the UK Guardian reported that Ireland's opposition Labour Party has demanded Cowan's resignation, and his Green Party coalition partners may ditch him. Either way, he would have to call new elections which Fianna Fail would probably lose.

Meanwhile, the estimate of the Greek deficit has now been revised sharply upward to 13 percent of gross domestic product. The euro area's rules only allow 3 percent. The situation in Greece and Ireland is freezing credit and jacking up its cost, thus endangering Portugal, Spain and Italy. Everywhere, the governments, whether rightist or social democratic, are opting to preserve the interests of the ruling class and international monopoly capital by shifting the immense load onto the backs of workers, small farmers, poor people, youth and students.

The beleaguered PIIGS countries now find that the rules of the European Union and the euro currency are a straightjacket. One tactic that countries in such conditions could use is to devalue their currency. This would boost their exports (because their goods would be more attractively priced) and shrink the size of their debt. But they cannot do this because they no longer have their own national currencies, and the richer European Union countries do not want to devalue the euro.

In each case, resistance has been organized by the local communist parties and the labor-based left. In Greece, this has led to electoral advances for the KKE, Greece's communist party, whose vote in recent local elections rose to nearly 11 percent of total votes cast, up 3.3 percent over the last elections. In Portugal and Greece there have been massive protests backing a demand that the wealthy and the corporations pay for the crisis they have caused. More strikes and protests are scheduled for late November. These countries are finding themselves in the position that the poor countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America have faced for so many years: no fair deal in international trade, and being forced to accept loans from international agencies controlled by monopoly capital, who then demand that they adopt neoliberal policies including rigged "free" trade, privatization, austerity, layoffs, and, eventually, repression.

Art Perlo contributed to this article.

Photo: Signs at a demonstration in Dublin, Ireland, Sept. 29, protest cuts in bus services. informatique CC 2.0

Pope's condom statement offers Rorschach theology

Tue, 23 Nov 2010 12:54:00 +0000

Pope Benedict XVI set off a firestorm this week when the Vatican released excerpts from a new book in which the pontiff obliquely says that HIV prevention might be a reason for condoms.

"There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility," he said in Peter Seewald's book, "The Light of the World."

The author then asks him, "Are you saying, then, that the Catholic Church is actually not opposed in principle to the use of condoms?" To which the pope replies, "She of course does not regard it as a real or moral solution, but, in this or that case, there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality."

Jon O'Brien, president of Catholics for Choice, which has often tangled with the Vatican, welcomed Pope Benedict XVI's acknowledgment that "condoms have a role to play in preventing the transmission of HIV."

"We are delighted that the pope has acknowledged that condoms can help reduce the risk of sexually transmitted infections, including HIV. It is a marvelous victory for common sense and reason and a major step forward towards recognizing that condom use can play a vital role in reducing the future impact of the HIV pandemic," O'Brien said in a statement to the media.

O'Brien said it was an "admission" by the Catholic hierarchy in "addressing the realities about sex and sexuality."

The Catholics for Choice leader said condoms should be available for men - and women.

The Catholic Church, through its global network of aid agencies and other charities, is, despite its official stance, one of the largest HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention programs in the world.

O'Brien, whose organization has been involved in HIV prevention for 25 years, said the ban on condoms by the hierarchy forces Catholic aid workers to hand out condoms in secret.

The pope's statement will be "especially significant for the many, many people who work for Catholic aid agencies and have been secretly handing out condoms while fearing that they will lose their jobs," O'Brien said, adding that U.S. taxpayer money earmarked for Catholic agencies should "be used to fund comprehensive prevention programs."

The pope's statements are evasive enough to be open to other interpretations.

Writing for Foreign Policy, Joshua Keating says the pope did not justify the use of condoms in HIV prevention. "I don't read this as arguing that male prostitutes are justified in using protection, but rather that it could be a stepping-stone toward giving up their behavior," he said.

Andrew Sullivan of The Daily Dish focused on the angle of homosexuality. "His holiness thought of male prostitutes for some reason," he says with tongue in cheek

But Sullivan claims it was a "revolutionary" step in church thought that any kind of gay sex may even be on the church's moral spectrum. "Previously, it was simply: whatever you do is so vile none of it can be moral. Now, it appears to be: even in a sexual encounter between a prostitute and his john there is a spectrum of moral conduct."

There were reports that blamed translation problems and the pope actually referred to a female prostitute.

Regardless, the Vatican was quick to walk back any liberal interpretations. An official spokesman said condoms could be used only in "exceptional" situations.

But the pontiff's statement seemed an about face from his utterance last year during a trip to Africa, when he said condom use "increases the problem" of HIV/AIDS.

The church forbids condom use as a method of birth control and says only abstinence and/or fidelity are the only way to prevent HIV.

Some analysts see the most recent uproar as part of a larger pattern of erratic behavior by a church hierarchy in decline, caught in a turmoil caused by the global pedophilia-and-cover-up scandal. In addition, the church leaders worry about a decline of membership, a shortage of new priests and demands from the rank-and-file for modernization of church doctrine to be more relevant to real life.

"It seems that the pope is trying to move in different directions, appease different sectors of the Church, and all the while claim he's never changed his point of view," one analyst said.

Photo: (robertelyov/CC)

Artists protest funding cuts

Mon, 22 Nov 2010 14:40:00 +0000

Singers, painters and television presenters demonstrated across the Netherlands on Saturday against government plans to slash funding and subsidies for the arts as part of an 18 billion euro ($24 billion) austerity package.

Around 75,000 people attended anti-cuts events across the country.

The protests followed the Dutch parliament's approval on Thursday of plans to raise the sales tax from 6 percent to 19 percent on tickets to theaters, movie theaters, rock concerts and other cultural events.

The new right-wing administration has also pledged to cut arts funding by 200 million euros ($272 million) in the next five years.

In Amsterdam musicians, presenters and comedians gathered on the Leidseplein to hear one-minute speeches, sing protest songs and scream against the regressive plans.

Members of the public gathered in The Hague after theaters and cinemas closed to listen to a trumpeter from a local orchestra play "The Last Post" and hold a minute's silence.

Organizers warned that the cuts will narrow access to culture.

"A 13 percent rise in sales tax hits all of the public because tickets get more expensive," they said.

"By cutting culture budgets and raising tax on tickets culture will become an elitist pastime and less accessible for people with less money."

Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the neoliberal VVD party presides over a right-wing coalition with the Christian Democrats and the xenophobic Freedom Party, led by Geert Wilders.

Wilders has characterized state-sponsored cultural programs as a "left-wing hobby."

Reposted from Morning Star.

Photo: Saturday's protest in the Leidseplein, in central Amsterdam. Karen Eliot CC 2.0

Haiti cholera crisis provokes street protests

Fri, 19 Nov 2010 15:34:00 +0000

The cholera epidemic in Haiti has now spread to the capital, Port au Prince, and has killed over 1,000 people while sickening up to 19,000.

Now street protests have arisen against the United Nations peacekeeping force that has been in Haiti since 2004, with protesters blaming troops of the Nepalese contingents of the "Blue Helmets" for the epidemic.

On top of this crisis, there will be very controversial and problematic elections on November 28.

The cholera epidemic which began a couple of weeks ago in the Artibonite Valley and now has spread to the capital, Port au Prince, is being blamed by rumors on the Nepalese United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, part of the United Nation's military contingent. Cholera had not been seen in Haiti in many years and is known to be a mostly in Asia.

Though MINUSTAH - The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti - has denied that the Nepalese brought cholera into the country, rioting against the U.N. mission started on Monday, November 17 in Cap-Haitien on Haiti's northwest peninsula and other places. Three civilian protesters are reported to have been killed.

And to top it all off, there are going to be elections on November 28. These elections, to choose a new president, 10 of the 30 senators, and all of the 99 members of the lower house, had originally been set for February 28. However, the massive disruption caused by the earthquake forced a postponement. But reconstruction has been going very slowly, so the country is still disrupted and it is going to be very difficult to carry out the election without problems.

To make things worse, a number of political parties and their candidates have been denied the right to run. Aristide's party, Fanmi Lavalas, is among them. The reasons given are technical. Support which would have gone to a Fanmi Lavalas candidate might instead go to another candidate, Henry Ceant, who has been holding big rallies to which many Aristide supporters have been thronging http://www.forumhaiti.com.

Haitian-American musician Wyclef Jean has also been denied the right to be on the ballot as a presidential candidate, on the grounds that he has been living mostly in the United States for several years. However, there will be 19 candidates in all. In Haiti there is a requirement for a runoff if no candidate for president gets a majority the first time round.

The current president, Rene Preval, appears to have lost popularity due to perceived slowness in coping with the earthquake crisis.

There is background as to why the anger towards the "Blue Helmets." The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti, or MINUSTAH, was sent there after the 2004 overthrow of President Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

Many Haitians and others suspect that both the French and U.S. governments were complicit in the overthrow, and Aristide supporters accuse MINUSTAH of being biased against them.

Aristide now lives in exile in South Africa, but his supporters have not ceased to demand his return. While president, Aristide abolished the army, which had a record of coup plotting and human rights violations, and which had also overthrown him in 1991. In the resulting power vacuum, numerous armed street groups developed, which have often clashed with MINUSTAH forces.

MINUSTAH's 7,000 peacekeeping "Blue Helmets" have been under mostly Brazilian command, and include troops from that country, Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Canada, Croatia, France, Guatemala, Jordan, Nepal, Paraguay, Peru, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Uruguay and the United States. There are civilian and police personnel from an even greater number of countries.

In January 2006, MINUSTAH's Brazilian commander, General Urano Teixeira da Mata Bacellar, committed suicide. The previous year MINUSTAH forces had been accused of attacking supporters of President Aristide and his political party, Famni Lavalas, with a number of deaths to civilians (up to 80, by some accounts).

So the MINUSTAH troops were unpopular with Haiti's poor to begin with. In January of this year, MINUSTAH itself suffered heavily from the massive earthquake which may have caused the death of as many as 300,000 Haitians. Its civilian head at the time and a number of its military and civilian personnel were killed.

The desperation of the Haitian people is rising because only a small amount of the aid promised in the wake of the earthquake has been deployed, because hundreds of thousands of people are still living in tents and squatter camps, and because more misery was caused when Haiti was sideswiped by Hurricane Tomas with its torrential rains. The spread of the cholera epidemic adds to this.

This will be an angry election.

Photo: An officer from the Indian Formed Police Unit, working with Brazilian UN peacekeepers, helps to secure the perimeter of a bank in downtown Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Jan. 19, 2010. (Marco Dormino/UN)

Obama in land of Gandhi

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 13:40:00 +0000

Standing before the joint houses of India's parliament, U.S. President Barack Obama began his speech by addressing the "representatives of more than one billion Indians and the world's largest democracy."

The president continued, "I bring the greetings and friendship of the world's oldest democracy --- the United States of America, including nearly three million proud and patriotic Indian Americans."

The recently concluded visit of President Obama to India did not see the massive protests that previous U.S. presidents may have experienced.

(Although in Indonesia, 20,000 were there on the streets, saying "We do not distinguish between Bush and Obama." However the overwhelming number of Indonesians were proud of Obama's visit, especially since he spent part of his childhood there.)

The left parties in India did hold a protest of the U.S. president's visit, but for the first time ever, the parliamentarians of the two Communist parties of India decided to attend the dinner with this American president.

The Indian media reported that a leader of Communist Party of India-Marxist, Sitaram Yechury, shook the president's hand. Obama reportedly said he was "glad" to meet Indian Communists and had heard they were part of Indian mainstream politics. Yechury replied the Indian Left have always believed in parliamentary democracy.

Yechury told the press the president talked of human rights in Myanmar (Burma) but did not apply them universally to the Palestinian Occupied Territories and Iraq. Yechury said the left has had long-standing demand to free Myanmar's Aung San Suu Kyi.

President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama visited terror-stricken Taj Hotel in Mumbai and lauded the staff's bravery. He also praised India's Green Revolution -- where indigenous techniques and technology were implemented to increase agricultural output at reasonable prices.

And Obama paid homage to the Father of India, Mahatma Gandhi, who "influenced champions of equality in my own country, including a young Martin Luther King Jr. After making his pilgrimage to India a half century ago, Dr King called Gandhi's philosophy of non violent resistance 'the only logical and moral approach' in the struggle for justice and progress."

While Indians celebrated the visit of the U.S. president and the support given for India's bid to the UN Security Council and his noting that India has "emerged" as a world power, there were specific U.S. interests that Obama needed to carry out.

One was a plea for the struggling U.S. economy and for India to open its markets to U.S. exports. Obama held a round table conference with manufacturers, business tycoons and CEOs, including from the Reliance Group and Pepsico. Obama said he wanted to take on the "myth" of "India stealing U.S. jobs."

"The myth needs to be broken," he said, adding that the order India has placed for U.S. exports will create 50, 000 jobs in the U.S.

However, already critical and wary of U.S.-India "strategic alliance" first started under President George W. Bush, the left said the crisis-ridden U.S. is promoting drastic increase in exports and pushing its agenda to open our "family-based" agriculture to America's corporations like Monsanto, which would be detrimental to millions and millions of small farms and retailers

The Communist Party of India said in its editorial, it was "obvious that the U.S. president will be more interested in getting things done than in the good will his predecessor never enjoyed."

But the editorial warns, "Like his predecessor Bush, he too is going to openly hawk for the retail trade by multi-national corporations like Wal-Mart," which will mean depriving over 30 million Indians of their living as this will completely ruin the retail trade in this country. In India, millions of Indians run stores from micro-sized and up.

There is worry over the fallout from India signing the Convention on Supplementary Compensation for Nuclear Damage, an international covenant on liability and the last of India's commitments to the United States stemming from the 2005 Indo-U.S. nuclear pact.

The Indian Parliament had already passed a liability law last month, to which the U.S. objected to certain sections. The U.S., along with General Electric and Westinghouse lobbyists, said the government of Prime MInister Manmohan Singh should delete the "offending" sections that opened up the corporate giants to legal action if a nuclear accident is caused by faulty or defective equipment.

Other disturbing trade trends are India's purchases of U.S. military equipment. The CPI says, "India is under pressure to help revive America's sagging arms industry."

On the eve of Obama's India visit, the U.S. announced a new round of military aid to Pakistan. The CPI charged, "Though the declared intention of giving arms assistance to Pakistan is to counter the terrorism threats, the real aim is to intensify arms race on this subcontinent."

And the left noted the discrepancy between honoring Gandhi's nonviolence and selling arms. "Who do you think these arms should be used against? Pakistan? China?

The left also lambasted PM Singh for not raising the long-standing resolution of the Bhopal gas tragedy, the world's worst industrial catastrophe, or the handling of Mumbai terrorist suspect David Headly, a U.S. citizen and, at times, agent. The Afghan-Pak policy that U.S. and India endorsed in a joint statement "will not resolve the problems in Afghanistan, which requires multi-lateralism," the left stated, including neighboring Iran and China.

Lastly, on Kashmir, Obama's support on bilateralism inspired many. Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said, "A telling indicator that for resolving the vexed issue, India and Pakistan will have to find a solution that is acceptable to the majority."

Photo: President Barack Obama and First lady Michelle Obama greet children while touring Humayun's tomb in New Delhi, November 7, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

World Notes: Japan, Israel, Cuba and more

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 18:40:00 +0000

Israel: Settlement construction to be halted briefly, at a price

In return for a U.S. offer of $3 billion worth of jet fighters and a promise to veto any anti-Israel resolution coming before the UN Security Council, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed Nov. 12 to a three-month moratorium on new West Bank housing construction. According to IMEMC News, U.S Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is intent upon persuading Israel to resume Israeli-Palestinian negotiations broken off almost two years ago. Under the new accord, Israel may still build in East Jerusalem, and after ninety days, the U.S. government will seek no further construction moratoria. Israel signed the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits civilian population transfers to land, like the West Bank, seized through military force.

Western Sahara: Soldiers attack protesters' camp
Moroccan troops have occupied mineral-rich Western Sahara for 35 years. On Nov. 7, they attacked 20,000 independence movement activists. In the process, they burned an "encampment of dignity," killing ten people, wounding 70 and arresting 65. Soldiers later went door to door in nearby El Aaiún city. The protest coincided with resumption this month of talks in New York under UN auspices between independence leaders and Morocco, which after almost 20 years has yet to implement a United Nations sponsored independence referendum. Writing for Pagina 12, analyst Atilio Boron condemned "brutal repression" and the indifference of former colonial power Spain. On Nov. 14, however, tens of thousands marched in Madrid for Western Saharan independence, and President Zapatero promised Spanish aid for displaced refugees.

Mexico: Workers to form political party

Bent on privatization, the Felipe Calderón government last year fired 44,000 electrical workers. On Nov. 1 in Aztec Stadium, the Mexican Electrical Workers Union (SEM) took fight back to a new level. Some 65,000 unionists and family members heard union head Martin Esparza call upon trade unions and social movements to ready an electoral organization in time for national elections in two years. A convening congress is days away. Quoted by Demotix.com, Esparza challenged Calderon "to correct the course of capitalist economic policy that has left the balance of 60 million poor, eight million young people without opportunities." La Jornada writer Guillermo Almeyra sees "tens of thousands of workers organized into a political struggle [with] the SME becoming a political axis for a mass movement."

United Kingdom: Amnesty raps European torture complicity

In a report issued Nov. 15, London-based Amnesty International called upon some European governments to make good on complicity with the CIA's "rendition" program under which prisoners were subjected to torture, abuse, and/or disappearance. "The EU has utterly failed to hold member states accountable for the abuses they've committed," said spokesperson Nicolas Beger, who added, "We simply can't allow Europe to join the US in becoming an 'accountability-free' zone." According to Amnesty, several countries did press charges against perpetrators and compensated victims. Other states, notably Lithuania, Poland and Romania, have yet to act on their secret prisons. The British government recently admitted to providing airports for U.S. rendition flights, also to prisoner maltreatment by British agents.

Afghanistan: President Karzai has reservations

In a Nov. 14 Washington Post interview, President Hamid Karzai renewed calls for a U.S. cutback on military operations in his country. "Fighting terrorism," he explained, means "not being intrusive in the daily Afghan life." Complaining particularly about NATO soldiers' nighttime raids, Karzai opined that the foreign troop presence worsens his country's security situation. Speaking to reporters the next day in Islamabad, U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke indicated Washington is planning a four-year troop phase-out. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham expressed astonishment at Karzai's remarks. "We [recently] talked about, quite frankly, looking long term with Afghanistan about having two air bases in a permanent fashion in Afghanistan to provide stability[sic]," he told Bloomberg News.

Cuba: Communist Party Congress is set

President Raul Castro recently announced the convening next April of the sixth Cuban Communist Party Congress, the first since 1997. In preparation, the government issued a 32-page "Draft Guidelines for the Economic and Social Policy of the Party and the Revolution." Over 500 party leaders, ministers and economists gathered for a four-day educational National Seminar. "For the Party to exercise supervisory powers it must have knowledge," Castro said. Nationwide discussion of the Guidelines is anticipated. Topics raised there and in the seminar include models of economic organization, macroeconomics, foreign investment and policy aspects of agriculture, education, social services and science. Economics Minister Marino Murillo emphasized, according to the Cuban News Agency, that "planning, and not the market, will predominate in the updating of the economic model."

Japan: Military builds first foreign base

The government announced early in November that construction was underway of a military base in Djibouti, the first overseas military base to have been established under the nation's 1947 pacifist constitution. The government gave as pretext the necessity to counter piracy off Somalia. Two destroyers arrived in Djibouti in 2008, followed a year later by two patrol aircraft and a small troop contingent, all based until now at a U.S. base in the region. On completion, the 30-acre facility will include housing, an air strip, hangers and an office building, reports Japan Press Weekly. Communist Party parliamentarian Akamine Seiken critiqued the government for violating the constitution.

Image: Construction in Jerusalem Photo by Smoochi // CC BY-NC 2.0

Recalling Colombia’s Patriotic Union tragedy

Mon, 15 Nov 2010 11:00:00 +0000

Over three days in late October, family members of those killed and survivors of government persecution paid homage to Colombia's Patriotic Union (UP, for its Spanish-language initials). They memorialized victims of slaughter of UP activists, which, after nearly a quarter century, is still ongoing.

A peace plan forged by the government of President Belisario Betancur and the FARC, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, gave rise to the Patriotic Union, formed in 1985 as an electoral coalition. Most of the candidates for public offices at every governmental level belonged to the FARC or the Colombian Communist Party. The possibility loomed that guerrillas would give up arms for peaceful democratic struggle.

But massacre at the hands of state security forces and right-wing paramilitaries began immediately. Since 1986, almost 5,000 UP activists - including elected officials, candidates, union leaders, human rights activists and two UP presidential candidates - have been killed. Impunity has been the rule.

Carlos Lozano, editor of the Colombian Communist Party newspaper Voz and CCP Executive Committee member, spoke at one of the commemorative gatherings, recalling especially UP presidential candidate Jaime Pardo Leal. Murdered on October 11, 1987, Pardo Leal was, according to Lozano, an "outstanding jurist and revolutionary fighter [and] Communist Party militant." He was "dedicated to establishing a left alternative and a social and political transformation."

October 11 has become the "National Day for Dignity of Victims of Genocide against the Patriotic Union."

Lozano tied the government of current President Juan Manuel Santos to that of predecessor Alvaro Uribe. Both regimes represent the "same exploitative capitalism accompanied by violence from the heights of power - aimed at silencing opponents and critics."

He recognized the left coalition Alternative Democratic Pole as continuing the UP mission, that of peacefully shaping a future of hope, basic change and justice. Having himself recently run for Congress for the Pole, Lozano sees that party as "a bastion of anti-imperialist struggle, breaking ties with imperialism, and maintaining anti-oligarchic struggle to achieve profound political, economic and social changes."

But, he cautions, "These aren't achieved through ways of conciliation, through political weakness and ingratiating oneself with the establishment or by accepting hand-outs to receive crumbs." Lozano insisted upon political independence for working people's political mobilization.

Survivors of the UP killings still face persecution, jail, disappearances and torture. And, according to one organizer of the commemoration events, "Genocide against the Patriotic Union continues, especially [against] members of the Communist Party that are part of the UP," she said.

A prison letter from UP survivor David Ravelo Crespo, distributed last month via the Internet, testified to one survivor's subsequent political work and continuing persecution.

In his letter, Ravelo, a CCP Central Committee member, recounts his jailing on September 14 in Barrancabermeja, an oil-producing city in Colombia's north. Authorities later transferred him to a Bogota prison under anti-terrorism laws. A jailed paramilitary capo had fingered Ravelo as the "intellectual author" of a murder 19 years ago. Family members had previously received multiple death threats.

Ravelo sees himself as "a prisoner of conscience for thinking and believing differently from the establishment." His life has been "dedicated to the struggle against inequality and social disparities. To build a homeland where children do cry, but out of happiness, is why we struggle."

He recounts struggle as a student activist, library worker, university teacher and leader since 1993 of the CREDHOS human rights group. He served as a housing official, regional assembly delegate and city council member, all under the UP banner. Ravelo helped organize strikes in response to killings of the UP activists. He was imprisoned without charge for 27 months in 1992.

Media allegations recently circulated that Ravelo was a leader of the FARC, but he blamed them on his having distributed a video showing former President Uribe conferring with right-wing paramilitary leaders.

Ravelo recently led protests against government plans to privatize Ferticol Fertilizer Company located in Barrancabermeja. The state-owned enterprise is "a source of life for this region," he said in one article.

At the root of his persecution, claims Ravelo, is a campaign directed at "weakening the popular movement and especially human rights organizations." He promises to "continue firm in my principles," adding that, "The stem of truth may bend, but never breaks."

Image: Women carry signs demanding negotiations to end violence and terrorism in Colombia. Luis Gomez // CC BY-ND 2.0

Students aim to oust lawmakers

Mon, 15 Nov 2010 10:21:00 +0000

LONDON (Morning Star) - The National Union of Students will launch a campaign today to oust all Liberal Democrat MPs from Parliament.

The campaign aims to build on last Wednesday's successful mobilization of 52,000 protesters against plans to raise the cap on higher education tuition fees to £9,000 (about $14,500) a year.

Seizing on searing anger from students following the Lib Dem's U-turn on pre-election promises to oppose tuition fee rises, the NUS has now called on its members to target Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and his party colleagues.

NUS president Aaron Porter said the campaign would aim to force out Lib Dem MPs who break their pre-election pledge to oppose any rise in tuition fees.

Students will not target MPs who have promised to vote against the policy, such as Tim Farron, who has just been voted Lib Dem president.

Sheffield Hallam University's student union president Caroline Dowd said the 1,000 students at the university were prepared to take to the streets to gather names for a petition and there would be a protest outside Mr. Clegg's constituency office on Thursday.

The news follows a pledge by unions to forge closer ties with students in the wider anti-cuts resistance movement, while police continue to target students caught up in Wednesday's violent scenes.

Unite joint general secretary Tony Woodley said: "Unite and other trade unions are fully committed to linking up with the broadest range of other groups, including students, to make the government change its mind."

RMT union general secretary Bob Crow added: "The political and chattering classes have seriously underestimated the public mood and RMT will work with students, pensioners, communities and our fellow trade unionists to build the strongest possible co-ordinated and peaceful resistance in the coming months."

Around 57 people have been questioned in connection with Wednesday's riots when protesters stormed the Tory headquarters.

A 23-year-old man suspected of throwing a fire extinguisher at police from the roof of the Millbank tower has been released on police bail.

Police Federation representatives have called for the culprit to be charged with attempted murder.

This article is reposted from Morning Star.

Photo: A scene from the Nov. 10 London protest by 52,000 British students against tuition hikes. (National Union of Students)

World unions say jobs first

Fri, 12 Nov 2010 15:00:00 +0000

BRUSSELS, Belgium (PAI) - The leaders of the world's unions are demanding that national leaders put jobs first as the way to get the globe out of its continuing deep recession. But even the unionists' own statement is pessimistic about whether the politicians will agree to that.

In a four-page analysis of the economy, sent to President Obama and other leaders who will meet in Seoul, South Korea, in mid-November, the International Trades Union Congress also warns that without good job creation, the world risks a decade of continued economic stagnation and rising income inequality.

"G-20 leaders meeting in Pittsburgh in September 2009 committed to putting quality employment at the heart of the recovery. They have not lived up to this promise," the Brussels-based ITUC said. "It is of deep concern that employment does not figure on the initial G-20 summit agenda. The economic crisis that has wreaked havoc on the lives and livelihoods of working people is far from over. It is now a social crisis."

ITUC calculated there are now 220 million unemployed worldwide, some 31 million more than before the economic crash started in late 2007. "An extra 100 million people, many in developing countries, have been pushed into extreme poverty," it noted. Both groups need help, ITUC said.

But the G-20 nations - political leaders of top economies, including the United States, Western Europe, Japan, Brazil and China, appear to be retreating in favor of catering to bondholders and investors instead, ITUC says. That means prospects are dim for the unions' demand.

Though the report did not single out any specific country for retreating on jobs, the U.S. may be on that path and Great Britain already is.

President Obama has appointed a debt and deficit commission which is expected to recommend raising the retirement age gradually, starting in 2020, among other actions. And the new more-Republican Congress is opposed to further stimulus. Sen. Bernard Sanders, Ind.,Vt., has noted that raising the retirement age shuts younger workers out of the job market.

Britain's new coalition government is pushing huge budget cuts through Parliament, throwing thousands of public workers out of jobs. French President Nicolas Sarkozy shoved an immediate 2-year increase in the retirement age through his Parliament, despite widespread worker and public protest.

Such measures, catering to the financial markets, will not help the world recover from the crash and will prolong it for a decade, the unions warned.

That didn't stop the union confederation from offering its own agenda of how to help the world recover. It included:

* Retaining and renewing economic stimulus measures that focus on jobs and economic growth, rather than spending cuts. The ITUC said growth - more people at work - is the better way to bring national budgets back into balance.

"The crisis has resulted in a massive transfer of private debt to public debt. Cutting public expenditures, wages, pensions and social programs to pay for this transfer is morally unjust and economically unsound," ITUC said.

"It will serve to increase inequality - a key factor in precipitating the crisis in the first place - and risks tipping the global economy back into recession with catastrophic results."

* Make employment a top priority by "implementing projects with higher employment content, including investing in green infrastructure and quality public services in the social sector." Governments should also "halt the growth of precarious and irregular work that is undermining the recovery and increasing insecurity," ITUC said.

And governments should "prime the pump" until the private sector shows it can consistently create jobs and "unemployment is on the path of falling to pre-crisis levels," the union confederation added.

* Use the International Labor Organization and other international bodies "to prepare the employment and social protection components" of the jobs framework the G-20 leaders agreed to in Pittsburgh. It said that framework should be based on recommendations from G-20 labor ministers who met earlier this year in Washington.

ITUC said the social protection component of creating jobs must include "strengthening social dialogue, including collective bargaining, to ensure wage growth keeps pace with productivity, combat income and gender inequality."

* Raise tax rates on "higher income groups and unproductive or speculative assets." The unions specifically advocated a tax on financial transactions and legislated limits on corporate pay. "This requires a break with the policies of the past whereby direct taxation has been cut whilst indirect taxation inherently more regressive - has increased," ITUC said.

Cutbacks force destitute to line up for food

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 12:49:00 +0000

Hundreds of desperate Romanians left destitute by the country's austerity drive lined up for food aid Wednesday in the Black Sea port of Constanta.

Authorities say nearly 75,000 people currently qualify for rations of flour, cornflour, pasta, sugar biscuits and powdered milk.

High inflation figures revealed Nov. 10 suggest that the number is set to grow.

Government statistics showed annual price rises, driven by fuel and food costs, hit 7.9 percent in October.

Delivery of food aid has been hampered by a shortage of public-sector workers to distribute the handouts.

Romania has cut public-sector wages by 25 percent and jobs, pension and benefits have also been slashed.

The government of Prime Minister Emil Boc launched its massive cuts drive on the orders of the International Monetary Fund, the European Union and the World Bank in return for a 20 billion euro (about $27 billion) bailout loan.

And IMF Romania mission head Jeffrey Franks declared last week that "results have been good so far" as he announced that Romania had agreed to a new round of cuts in return for the release of a $4.4 billion loan.

This article is reposted from Morning Star. http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/97482

Photo: A protest against austerity measures in Bucharest, Romania's capital, Oct. 27. The demonstration by trade unions from all over Romania was the largest anti-government protest of recent times. (AP/Vadim Ghirda)

Communist youth leader murdered in Ecuador

Thu, 11 Nov 2010 11:14:00 +0000

Edwing Perez, secretary general of the Ecuadorian Communist Youth organization, died Nov. 10 from complications resulting from a vicious right-wing assault.

Perez was attacked on October 25 by a group of thugs affiliated with the Madera de Guerrero (Warrior Timber) organization, a right-wing organization based in Guayaquil and connected to Guayaquil Mayor Jaime Nebot. The fatal blow was struck by Neptali Ramirez, a supposed law student, who hit Perez from behind with an iron bar, causing cardio-respiratory arrest. He lingered in the hospital until his death Nov. 10.

Ecuadorian sources say the probable reason that Ramirez, whose nickname is "the Scorpion," attacked Perez was that the communist youth leader and others had been successful in getting a judicial order to redo the elections for the Guayas Section of the Ecuadorian Student Federation (Federacion de Estudiantes del Ecuador). This order went against right-wing organizations with which Ramirez is said to be associated. Those include Madera de Guerrero, and Sociedad Patriotica (Patriotic Society), a party opposed to left-wing President Rafael Correa, as well as the Liga Deportiva Universitaria (University Sports League). Ramirez is vice president of the Student Federation.

Among his other activities, Perez had been instrumental in organizing the 17th annual Festival of Youth and Students, to take place in Ecuador in December.

Communist youth organizations from Venezuela, Colombia, Argentina and Bolivia as well as other countries denounced the murder and expressed their solidarity, as has the World Federation of Democratic Youth.

Students shake halls of power

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 13:20:00 +0000

LONDON (Morning Star) - Over 50,000 workers and students shook the Westminster halls of power today with a march against the raising of tuition fees.

Anger at the Conservative-Liberal Democrat government cuts and fee rises spilled over just hours after the march with 300 protesters occupying Tory headquarters at Millbank.

Windows were smashed and small fires started inside with nine protesters and two police officers reportedly injured.

Riot police were so overwhelmed by the 2,000-strong protest outside Millbank that as the Star went to press the building remained occupied and they had abandoned plans to retake it.

Protesters from inside Tory HQ released a statement saying: "We oppose the cuts and stand in solidarity with public-sector workers.

"We call for direct action to oppose the cuts. This is just the beginning of the resistance."

But many students distanced themselves from the violence, which they said was committed by "anarchists who weren't even students."

They said they would have supported the Millbank occupation if it had been done peacefully.

The demo was twice as big as expected by organisers. The vast majority of peaceful protesters rallied under the banners of "Fund Our Future" and "Unity is Strength."

They were flanked by stewards from lecturers' union UCU and the National Union of Students as they marched through central London and past the Houses of Parliament.

MPs inside the Commons could hear their anger loud and clear as students, lecturers and their families joined the chorus of chants against the government's education plans.

The increase in fees to £9,000 (about $14,500) on top of inflation and the VAT rise will see the cost of a university education soar by an astonishing 311 percent.

UCU leader Sally Hunt told protesters: "I am here today to send a message to the politicians at Westminster.

"It isn't fair to make our public universities the most expensive in the world. It isn't progressive to discourage young people from going to college.

"And it isn't just to ask the next generation to pay for others' mistakes. Over the next four years while college grants are cut and tuition fees triple, big business will get £8 billion (nearly $13 billion) in tax giveaways from the government," Ms. Hunt said.

Labour MP John McDonnell, one of only a handful of politicians on the march, praised the unity shown on the demo.

"This is the biggest workers' and students' demonstration in decades. It just shows what can be done when people get angry. We must build on this," he said.

Much of marchers' anger was directed at the Lib Dems for their U-turn on tuition fees.

Soas student Joana Pinto told the Morning Star that the Lib Dems had "betrayed students' faith by siding with the government despite pre-election promises not to increase tuition fees."

Cambridge University Students Union president Thomas Chigbo said he felt "particular anger at Lib Dems for their betrayal" and warned they could suffer the consequences at the ballot box.

Young Communist League general secretary George Waterhouse, who led a large contingent on the march, said: "We believe that education is a right not a commodity.

"Government plans would return us to the days when education was a preserve of the rich. It is clear the cuts are being implemented in line with EU diktats."

This article is reposted from Morning Star.

Photo: demo2010.org

Germans get rowdy to stop nuclear waste

Tue, 09 Nov 2010 14:16:00 +0000

DANNENBERG, Germany - Using ropes, some young people descended halfway from railroad bridges to force the train to stop. Others hastily grabbed stones out from under the tracks to make the tracks unusable. Far more, young and old from all over Germany, simply sat down on the tracks until police carried them away.

Banners and witty, sarcastic signs were everywhere, also the many-colored tents of those spending two, three or four days here in this cold, damp, flat stretch of North German landscape. The big yellow X standing here for "NO" was on thousands of caps and coats, it stood out in windows and, giant-size, on crossed poles and beams in surrounding fields.

The long railroad trip with 123 tons of radioactive uranium waste in 11 containers could not be stopped on its long journey from northern France, but committed crowds, in well-coordinated actions, forced route changes and 14 hours of delays in both countries. As the train slowly neared its destination, an estimated 50,000 protesters (only half that, police officials insisted) spread out around the rail line. At one point 2,000 sat down on 2 kilometers of tracks, while at least 16,000 unfortunate, mostly unhappy cops, also from all over the country, had to put in 12, 16 and 20 hour shifts, costing many million euros. Some tactics were legal, some were not, confrontations remained nonviolent for the most part, but one evening tempers ran high and horses, night sticks, water cannon and pepper spray were sent in. Hundreds were arrested.

All Germany watched in near disbelief as news reports overflowed on the latest actions in opposition to the "Castor transport," as it was named. When the big tanks with their potentially fatal contents did at last reach the end of the rail line they had to be reloaded onto trucks for the last 20 kilometers to their final destination, a salt mine deep under the little town of Gorleben. Blocking the way, in addition to protesters sitting and lying on the road or dragging logs or whole trees across it were over 600 tractors of angry farmers - and even a big flock of goats. The shipment will certainly get to Gorleben, but the government will not soon forget and perhaps never repeat what occurred.

There have been protests here since 1995, sometimes more violent but never so huge. To begin with, the underground storage dump is not safe. It may be gradually heating up, and it is highly probable that contaminated wastewater is seeping out. It was chosen, many are convinced, because it was in a thinly populated, out-of-the-way area right across the Elbe from what was once East Germany; the river formed the boundary here. So why should good West German citizens complain? But they did, and they do! The mine was always declared to be a temporary solution, but more and more metal containers with uncertain durability are being piled up while the dangerous radioactivity of their contents will last thousands of years. Thus far, no other site has been proposed.

The reason popular outrage has been so very strong this year is that on October 28 Germany's Angela Merkel government passed a law extending the lives of many nuclear power plants from an earlier government's eight-year limit to a new wobbly limit of 14 years. This extension was so obviously based on a smiley handshake between Merkel and the country's power utility giants that everyone could see how the two governing parties are endangering the whole country to satisfy the greed of four huge companies. It was simply too clear and too much.

The physical protests up north follow huge autumn demonstrations in Berlin and other cities, with over 100,000 people protesting the extension of nuclear production rights instead of investing more in alternate energy. They also follow giant, month-long protests in the usually peaceful, staid city of Stuttgart in the south against the demolition of a popular old central railroad station and a neighboring park with beautiful, ancient chestnut trees - in a dubious deal which would bring billions to favored investors. Somehow, a surprising number of people in Germany are leaving their sofas and demonstrating, angry at being ignored by ruling cliques. As a result, Merkel's government would find it very difficult to remain in power if elections were held today rather than in 2013.

Of the three leading opposition parties the Social Democrats, though still diminished in poll figures, have gained self-confidence with the knowledge that a coalition with their likely partner, the Greens, could now get a majority. This is because of the swift, almost unprecedented growth of the Greens, who have been very active in both the dramatic Stuttgart events and the anti-nuclear movement. Their leaders have constantly been in the limelight. In fact, public television channels have been supporting them to an unusual extent, and the weekend bid by a prominent Greens leader, Renate Kuenast, to lead her party in next year's Berlin elections, with hopes of overtaking the gay, once so popular Klaus Wowereit, mayor since 2001, was planned so cleverly and treated so favorably that it dominated Berlin's local news coverage for weeks, until overtaken by the Gorleben events.

And the Left Party? It, too, has taken part in all the protests and demonstrations. Bundestag caucus leader Gregor Gysi himself drove one of the tractors for a while near Gorleben. But its numbers in the West German states were never too large, and more important, the media are united in downplaying it, except for an occasional obligatory sound bite. More importantly, the Left is still caught up in internal disagreement, which seems to have occupied the most attention among top leaders. A congress in Hanover on November 7 tried to patch up disputes and the 600 attending tried to demonstrate a policy of peacefully agreeing to disagree. The center of debate is the draft party program. It is far too militant for a group of leaders joined in a Forum of Democratic Socialism, and strong among party officials holding office in the Berlin coalition government and those hoping to win out in other East German states, join coalition governments there and possibly even join a coalition national government with Social Democrats and Greens after the 2013 elections. The militants insist that the party reject any and all military expeditions in future, even with the UN, they demand that the party refuse any further privatization of public utilities or housing, and they warn of basic compromises demanded by the Social Democrats and Greens. The party's eventual goal must be to overcome rule by huge capitalist monopolies and banks and, eventually, to achieve socialism. They fear that watering down these principles would put the Left on the same downhill ramp which corrupted both the Social Democrats and the Greens, who despite their current militancy have largely become a party of well-off professionals, interested in the environment but far less in urgent social issues. The "reformer" group calls such demands unrealistic, utopian, and harmful to their attempts to gain positions of government power where they can ease the worst economic woes.

The party co-presidents, the popular, calm and collected East Berlin leader Gesine Loetsch and the West German metal union leader Klaus Ernst, said that healthy debate was a good thing and differences would certainly be resolved before the members vote on the new program next year. But regardless of rights or wrongs in the debate, the disagreements have undoubtedly restricted activities of the party in terms of the public, and this has shown up in diminished poll popularity. Many friends of the Left feel that if the party wants to maintain pressures which proved so significant in recent years it must move beyond internal debates or quarrels and get into action. An amazing sector of the German population now seems more inclined towards militant action than in many, many years.

Photo: Germans protesting the "Castor" nuclear waste transport demonstrate in Dannenberg, Nov. 6, below a puppet depicting Chancellor Angela Merkel sitting on a symbolic nuclear toilet. (AP/Jens Meyer)

More wealth than ever, but billions still starve

Mon, 08 Nov 2010 15:44:00 +0000

Despite our global economic hard times, the world has more than enough wealth to ensure every adult on the planet a significant nest egg.

This heartening news comes from the Swiss banking giant Credit Suisse. Its first-ever Global Wealth Report crunches data for over 200 countries and maps the wealth belonging to the world's richest people - and everybody else.

Those inclined to see the sunny side will certainly find it in these numbers. They indicate that total global net worth, despite the 2008 global economic meltdown, has rocketed up 72 percent since 2000.

The world's 4.4 billion adults, note the bank's researchers, now hold $194.5 trillion in wealth. That's enough, if this asset stash were shared evenly across the globe, to guarantee every adult in the world a $43,800 net worth.

But the world's wealth, of course, isn't evenly divided. And this study helpfully breaks down the arithmetic of our staggering global unevenness.

We've got, at the wealth spectrum's uppermost reaches, just over 1,000 billionaires and another 80,000 "ultra high net worth individuals" worth over $50 million each. We can add into this wealthy summit another 24 million adults worth between $1 million and $50 million.

At other end of the global spectrum sit three billion people - more than two thirds of the world's adults - whose wealth averages less than $10,000. About 1.1 billion of them have a net worth of less than $1,000.

"Our analysis," the Credit Suisse study says in a whopping understatement, "finds some stark differences in the distribution of wealth."

Here's perhaps the study's starkest data snapshot: Half the people on earth who are 20 and older hold under $4,000 in net worth, after subtracting debts from assets. They wield less than two percent of global wealth.

Meanwhile, the world's richest 1 percent - adults who have at least $588,000 to call their own - hold 43 percent of the world's wealth.

As the new report underscores, personal wealth actually means much more in some places than others. If you live in a society with a frayed social safety net, your personal wealth is crucial. Without substantial net worth, you're going to be vulnerable "to shocks like unemployment, ill health, or natural disasters."

By contrast, if you live in a society with a robust safety net - a nation that boasts "good public health care, high quality public education, generous state pensions," and the like - the size of your personal fortune matters considerably less.

People in the United States - a society with an inadequate social safety net - need more personal net worth than folks who live in nations with healthier social service networks. But average Joes and Janes in many nations with stronger social safety nets than the United States actually have more net worth than their American counterparts.

Consider Canada, a nation with national public health insurance. Credit Suisse calculates the 2010 median wealth in Canada - the wealth of the typical Canadian family - at $94,700. That's about double the $47,771 U.S. median net worth.

No other nation, to be sure, holds as much total wealth as the United States. With only 5.2 percent of the world's population, the United States boasts 23 percent of the world's adults worth at least $100,000 and an even greater proportion, 41 percent, of the world's millionaires.

"The past decade has been especially conducive to the establishment and preservation of large fortunes," Credit Suisse sums up. Banking giants may be able to live comfortably with that reality. The rest of us need to change it.

Sam Pizzigati is editor of Too Much, an online newsletter on excess and inequality. This article was distributed by Other Words, a project of the Institute for Policy Studies.

Image: Wealth piles up, but it doesn't wind up in many people's hands. Robert Huffstutter // CC BY-NC 2.0

World Notes: Australia, Iran, Cuba and more

Fri, 05 Nov 2010 10:56:00 +0000

Democratic Republic of Congo: Women act against violence

The gathering October 14-17 of the World March of Women in Bukavu, in eastern DR Congo, was a "singular experience of popular diplomacy and international solidarity," according to rebelion.org. Dealing with the region's epidemic anti-women violence, thousands of women from 48 countries, including 900 from the DRC, held panel discussions, demonstrated in the city's streets and heard from public officials. They traveled four hours to Mwenga to commemorate the horror of women buried alive there in 1998. Participants inveighed against mercenary troops, particularly Rwandan soldiers, using rape as a weapon of wars that aim to seize underground mineral wealth. In mid-September, the United Nations Security Council urged the DRC to clamp down on perpetrators.

Australia: Global warming hits coral reefs

Marine scientists reported on October 19 that coral reefs in waters off Southeast Asia and in the eastern Indian Ocean are dying from unprecedented bleaching. They attributed whitening and death of coral to sharply rising ocean temperatures recorded last spring. "It may prove to be the worst such event known to science" and it's "almost certainly a consequence of global warming," declared researcher Andrew Baird, quoted by Agence France Presse. Pointing to fish dependency on coral, the scientists warned of declining fish stocks with "local extinctions," loss of biodiversity and waning tourist revenue derived from the Great Barrier Reef. The Australian Guardian newspaper called upon the government to "cut greenhouse pollution by at least 60 percent by 2050."

Iran: Nuclear weapons development seen as unlikely

Ali Asghar Soltanieh, Iran's ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, told that agency on November 1 that his country would never make the "strategic mistake" of building nuclear bombs. He said Iran, unable to match the nuclear weaponry of nuclear-armed powers, is "as strong as those countries without nuclear weapons." A few days earlier, Iran had indicated readiness to restart negotiations with the major powers over its nuclear program. Reuters reported that nuclear disarmament expert Gareth Evans told the IAEA that Iran "is to be taken seriously when it says it will not actually weaponize." Evans added that any removal of sanctions against Iran would have to be accompanied by Iranian acceptance of strict monitoring.

Russia: Labor protection is precarious

The Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs seeks to modify the Russian Federation Labor Code, in effect since 2002, that contains Soviet-era worker protection measures. Russian news outlets reported that on November 1 the employer group called for return of the 60-hour work week and fixed-term labor contracts. Company owners want freedom to fire employees on short notice and hold back on study leave allowances. Supporters say new rules would provide legal cover for workers already holding down two jobs. The Chairperson of the State Duma Committee for Labor and Social Politics discounted chances the proposed package would become law, particularly because Russia would lose competitive advantage over countries "not willing to make farm animals of their employees".

Venezuela: Steel corporation, housing developments nationalized

President Hugo Chávez recently announced nationalization of the Sidetur steel company, manufacturer of materials used in construction of homes, bridges, and infrastructure. The state will also take over 14 housing developments, some under construction and others ready for occupation. Sidetur, operator of six manufacturing plants and multiple scrap- metal centers, is accused of manipulating the pricing of construction material. Venezuelanalysis.com reports that Sidetur's inability to guarantee delivery of products has interfered with planning. The government's action is in line with its prioritization of new housing and its efforts "to create a national construction industry." Venezuela's largest steel manufacturer Sidor was nationalized in 2009. Sidetur workers reportedly favor their company's expropriation, not least because they see an opening for worker control of production.

Cuba: Serving Haiti

By November 3, cholera deaths were up 40 percent in four days to 442, and a hurricane was bearing down. The $50 million Clinton Bush Haiti Fund had indicated, "Other organizations ... deliver immediate humanitarian aid. We are using our resources to focus on long-term development." Cuba is in the first category. Norway agreed on October 30 to provide an $850,000 medical aid package to be utilized by 930 Cuban doctors in Haiti to prevent and treat cholera, present there for the first time in 100 years. Rather than return home to Argentina, Dr. Emiliano Mariscal, a recent graduate of Cuba's Latin American School of Medicine, was working in Haiti with the Cuban doctors. As quoted by Cubadebate.cu, he was "proud to be part of another page, among many, of Cuban internationalism, proud to be a son of American lands, committed throughout to my homeland, which is Latin America, and to my compatriots, who are sons of that soil."

Image: Pere Ubu // CC BY-NC 2.0