Islamabad administration has announced it is going to demolish the katchi abadies of the city today [24 March 2014]. Hashim Bin Rashid, a member of Awami Workers Party, takes up this question on the editorial pages of the daily Dawn.
Aspects of the involvement of women in the Arab revolutions
24 March 2014, byOf course women have been part of the revolutionary processes in the region. They have been strikers (in Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain); they have participated in general assemblies (in Oman); everywhere, they have demonstrated, marched, occupied squares and camps (in Bahrain, Oman and Yemen). Whatever the kind of demonstration, with mixed (as in Morocco) or separated (as in Libya and Oman) contingents, women have taken to the streets and continue to do so every day. And in some countries, their specific mobilizations have played a remarkable role (students in Saudi Arabia and Sudan). Only the processes of militarization of revolutions (in Libya and Syria) have kept them in the background. And even then, women soldiers in Gaddafi’s army were part of the armed insurrection when the regular army changed sides.
Establishment of the “People’s Liberation Faction” to commemorate the third anniversary of the Syrian Revolution
21 March 2014, byDear comrades
Oh militants and fighters for freedom, justice and democracy
The popular revolution enters in its fourth year a complex and critical phase. The number of victims and injured have exceeded hundreds of thousands, while millions have become refugees and are displaced and destruction prevails in the country. The ruling bourgeois regime has regained, aided by its allies, the advantage on the military field, while at the same time the influence of the fascists forces of the counter-revolution has increased.
Of heroes and villains
21 March 2014, bySome 33 years ago, at the height of Gen Ziaul Haq’s terror, three professors teaching at Quaid-i-Azam University were arrested for ‘subversion’ against the military government. The first of the three to be picked up from the campus premises was a computer science PhD in his late 20s by the name of Jamil Omar. His crime: the distribution of a newsletter entitled Jamhoori Pakistan.
Tuzla, the unknown capital of the Europe of workers and peoples
19 March 2014, byWhy does Bosnia-Herzegovina inspire so little interest and curiosity in the media and the political class when, on the contrary, Ukraine is front-page news? Is it because of its non-membership of the European Union? Is it because its name evokes the war that, twenty years ago, claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of men and women – more than 200,000 dead and 600,000 exiles – in the face of virtual indifference in the West as to what was happening one and a half hours by plane from Paris ? Or because it often wakes up to the call of the muezzin?
Banks speculate on raw materials and food
18 March 2014, byBanks, through their trading activities, have become the principal speculators on the Over the Counter (OTC) markets and ultimately on the futures markets for raw materials and agricultural produce, as they dispose of far greater financial means than other protagonists in the field.
Stand up to Nazism!
13 March 2014, byThis statement was made by the Socialistisk Partiet, Swedish section of the Fourth International, on 10 March 2014.
Die Linke takes another step towards adaptation
12 March 2014, byGermany’s Die Linke party (Left Party) met in a congress of preparation for the European parliamentary elections in mid-February 2014. Die Linke remains the first political reference point for those who orient to the left politically in Germany. In its programme, we find not only a whole series of demands and proposals in the interests of employees, the deprived, women, youth, and ecologically sustainable development, but also the objective of the transcendence of capitalism through a socialist and democratic project of society. Also, the party seems to have overcome the electoral crisis it underwent in 2011-2013 – it is at 11% in polls of voting intentions and thus begins to approach its best result, that of 2009, where it won 11.9% in the federal elections.
Resolution on Syria
11 March 2014, byThis resolution on support for and solidarity with the Syrian people’s uprising was adopted by an overwhelming majority at the International COmmittee meeting of the Fourth International on 25 February 2014.