IV455 - December 2012

We have seen climate change related phenomena with intensity never seen before, like Hurricane Sandy, in many parts of the world in the past year.We no longer have the luxury of time as incidents of increasingly severe storms, floods, droughts, disruption of water cycles and other similar eventsare becoming the “new normal” for many countries. It is also becoming apparent that climate change is instigating more forced migration, and will createmore climate refugees. An estimated 200 million people could be displaced by climate change by 2050. In 2010 alone, it was estimated that more than30 million people were forcibly displaced by environmental and weather-related disasters across Asia and this number will continue to rise. Climatechange has also been wreaking havoc on crops and farmlands, worsening the already growing food crisis and pushing even more people into hunger.

The formal signing of the Final Peace Agreement (FPA) between the Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) on September 2, 1996 had bought in so much joy, optimism and new hope to so many people. It had shown a picture of reaching and finally “seeing the long awaited light at the end of the tunnel”. The Organization of the Islamic Countries (OICs) had hilariously celebrated the signing of the FPA for it had a direct hand and even a very decisive role in reaching such historical event. The multilateral bodies and the International Donor countries had promised the release and literally flooding of more funds to Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and its transitory mechanism for expansion of the regional autonomous territory – namely the Southern Philippine Council for Peace and Development (SPCPD).

Catarina Martins (a 39-year old actress), was leader of the Professional Association of Scenic Arts between 2004 and 2006. She was elected to Parliament for Porto in 2009 on the list of the Left Bloc and re-elected in 2011. During the 8th Congress of the Bloc, on 10 and 11 November 2012, she was elected Coordinator of the Bloc, a task she shares with Joao Semedo (a 61-year old doctor), who has been an MP for the Bloc since 2005. We reproduce here the interview conducted by the delegation of Izquierda anticapitalista (IA, Anticapitalist Left, section of the Fourth International in the Spanish State) to the Left Bloc Congress on November 10, 2012, in Lisbon.

On November 11th the Danish government and the Red-Green Alliance – at separate press conferences – announced that they had agreed on a National Budget for 2013. At a National Assembly two weeks later SAP, the Danish section of the FI, characterized this as a major mistake by the RGA.

French employers have just won a victory on the issue of competitiveness. The government has accepted their main demands concerning lower costs for employers, an increase in VAT for consumers and restrictions on public spending by the state.

All correspondents, whether habitually optimistic or pessimistic, have agreed that the demonstrations of November 14, 2012 (14N) were among been the biggest seen until now in the Spanish state. Huge, enthusiastic, young (and very young), many improvised placards, imaginative slogans, a mixture of acronyms in the processions and, where there was no unitary march, a de facto convergence of alternative and official gatherings.

Following the appeal by the Russian left - Russian Socialist Movement (RSD), Autonomous Action, Left Front - for solidarity action between November 29th and December 2nd, published in International Viewpoint with international endorsements, IV correspondents have sent reports of the actions in their countries.