IV448 - May 2012

Sarkozy has been beaten. This is an inspiring result and we rejoice. We should analyse the relationship of forces that it reflects and the situation that it opens.

Carl Finamore returned to Egypt for ten days in 2012, on the one-year anniversary of the 18-day revolt that began on January 25, 2011. This followed a reporting trip of ten days in 2011. On that occasion he arrived on February 11, 2011, the day President Hosni Mubarak was deposed. On both occasions, he travelled to Egypt with letters of introduction from his union and the San Francisco Labor Council. He is former president (retired), Air Transport Employees, Local Lodge 1781, IAMAW and current delegate to the San Francisco Labor Council. He can be reached at local1781@yahoo.com.

One of the striking events of the 2012 French presidential election was the campaign of the Front de Gauche and Jean-Luc Mélenchon: tens of thousands of participants at its meetings, a significant place in the political debate and 11.01% of the vote in the first round, a notable score.

This international appeal in defence of Argentina’s right to recover its energy wealth was initiated by the MST (Movimiento Socialista de los Trabajadores) of Argentina.

Syriza, the radical left-wing coalition comes first in all major cities and among people aged 18-35. Its campaign advocated suspending debt payment and cancelling austerity measures.

Euskal Herria [1] experienced a day of total general strike, in the literal sense of the word: a strike with 100 per cent participation on March 29. The sector of workers who worked was residual and the 30 per cent of minimal services imposed by the governments did not make it possible to give the impression of normality that they sought. More than that, in the transport sector, the requisitioned workers circulated while announcing: “We are on strike — minimum service”. Only the banks showed some activity on the inside, but the establishments remained closed to the public.

During the last week we have received particularly alarming information on the fate of five political prisoners in the territory of Gilgit-Baltistan, the Himalayan "Northern Territories" of Pakistan.

The following three articles are reports which appeared in the Algerian press of a press conference held by the Socialist Workers’ Party (PST, Algerian section of the Fourth International) during the campaign for the May 10 legislative elections

With the bastions of Mexican combative and democratic trade unionism present, a “Provisional Junta for a new Confederation of Workers” was set up on Saturday, April 21, 2012 at the headquarters of the primary school teachers of the Federal District.

On the 17th of December 2011, Northeastern Mindanao had been hit by a never-expected disaster. Thousands were killed in a short a time, millions of pesos worth of properties were destroyed and several hundreds of people were missing. This disastrous event was brought by the strong current of water from the river with tons of logs and mud in it. The darkness and the destructive flood buried and flashed away the dreams and future of those families, communities and children. Experts named the typhoon in local and international as Sendong and Washi respectively.