Faithful to its repressive practices, the Moroccan regime and after failing to cause an implosion from within the movement, led in recent weeks an escalating crackdown that targeted several activists including our friend and member of the national secretariat of Attac/Cadtm Morocco Mostapha Sandia who is always fired from his job and the trade union activist Mohamed Kabbouri and his comrades and other activists of the association of unemployed graduates in Morocco.
The years of 9/11
17 September 2011, byThe decade opened with the attacks of September 11, 2011 may have symbolically closed with the elite U.S. death-squad assassination of Osama bin Laden. But the turmoil of these post-9/11 years, notably the self-inflicted wounds of U.S. capitalism, have exceeded the terrorist mastermind’s wildest dreams. There are the wars that George W. Bush, with the support of congressional Democrats, launched in Afghanistan and Iraq — wars that the government promised wouldn’t have to be paid for — leading to a major U.S. defeat in Iraq, a defeat all the more damaging because it is not acknowledged as such, and a quagmire in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
LPP leader arrested for assisting climate change victims
17 September 2011, byBaba Jan, a federal committee member of the Labour Party Pakistan (LPP), has been taken from jail ... and the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) is torturing him on the name of “investigation”, fears the LPP. Baba Jan, surrendered himself to an”anti-terrorist court" in Gilgit Baltestan last week, had been on the run since July 2011, after police opened fire on a demonstration demanding compensation for those affected by the Atta Abad Lake floods last year, killing two.
The Palestinian UN Statehood Initiative: What’s At Stake?
16 September 2011On September 21, 2011 the Palestinian Authority and Palestine Liberation Organization intend to take an appeal for statehood recognition to the United Nations Security Council. When that is rejected – as it will be, since the Obama Administration has promised to veto it – the PA is expected to turn to the General Assembly, where there’s no great-power veto, for “non-member observer state” status which will give it access to UN institutions, including the ability to bring charges against Israeli occupation practices.
"Work, Freedom and Dignity"
16 September 2011On Friday July 15, 2011 in Tunis an attempt at a “Kasbah 3” was violently halted by the police and the military. But what did all these youths, women, all hese unemployed people, workers, precarious employees want? “Democracy? They have had it, the dictator has fallen and has even been tried, what do they want now?! That is the question the Tunisian prime minister posed on national television at the beginning of the week, after the death of a youth at Sidi Bouzid, killed by the police following demonstrations.
Mass strikes called in Britain
15 September 2011, byIn a remarkable move, at the annual Trade Union Congress, the major British trade unions UNISON, GMB and UNITE, who each have over 1 million members, have just launched a campaign to ballot for strike action on the 30th November to protect the pensions of public sector workers. They are now joining the smaller unions such as the NUT and UCU representing school and university teaching staff and the PCS union for civil servants who took strike action against pension reforms on the 30th June.
Women of Corn
15 September 2011, byIn the countries of the Global South, women are the principal producers of food, those in charge of working the land, safegaurding the seeds, gathering the fruit, obtaining water. Between 60 to 80% of food production in these countries is down to women, and worldwide at a level of 50%. These women are the main producers of the staple crops, such as rice, wheat and maize, which go to feed the most impoverished populations of the South. But despite their key role in agriculture and provision of food, they are, together with children, the most affected by hunger.
“The events are essentially a source of hope”
14 September 2011, byChristian Höller: The recent uprisings in various Arab countries have been accompanied, at least on the side of Western commentators, by equal measures of hope and fear. Hopes that at last a sustained wave of democratization will sweep through these societies, which have resisted reforms for so long. Fears that more reactionary or totalitarian tendencies may gain the upper hand. For you, as a profound specialist on the political systems in the region as well as someone with many personal ties there, what has been the prevailing feeling?
New party founded
12 September 2011, byOn 27 August 2011, the founding congress of the Political Organisation of the People and Workers (OPT), “for national liberation and social emancipation” took place.
September 19 "Goodbye Nuclear Power Plant" Rally in Tokyo
12 September 2011, bySix months have passed since the Northeastern-Japan earthquake/tsunami and the Fukushima Nuke disaster. Faced with the deadly serious situation of the radiocative contamination and its possible effects on their livelihood and future life, people are waging various kinds of activities to decommison all the nuclear power plants. Antinuke campaigns have been gaining momentum in the whole country.