The leaders of the G20, the twenty largest economies in the world, met on November 3 and 4 for the sixth time in three years. Their meeting, supposedly prepared meticulously for months, has painfully produced a final communiqué that is virtually empty. The insignificant results are not only "because of Greece,” as the media have sought to explain, central though it is to what is happening. They reflect the fact that, to cut a long story short, world capitalism does not have an "alternative growth model."
China cannot save the world from crisis
17 November 2011, byWhile North America and Europe were hard hit, China has resisted the international crisis of 2008 thanks to a rescue plan which combined huge public spending, a low interest rate and consumption subsidies.
Bye Bye Berluska; Ciao Super Mario, the banker’s friend...
15 November 2011, byIrony of ironies... Berlusconi came to power at the head of a new sort of political party cloned on his Mediaset corporation. He was forced out by the very markets he championed when he came onto the political scene. In 1994 he wanted to sweep away the archaic structures of Italian institutional politics with his new party of business managers who would streamline economic policy and create a million jobs. He never did produce those jobs and In the end Italian bonds at 7% did for him. Although he did not fall as a result of mass action most Italians celebrated and many took to the streets to express their joy.
Berlusconi’s government is falling… what next?
15 November 2011, byWe want to be clear from the outset. The downfall, or better still the driving out of the Berlusconi government and the end of the Prime minister’s political career, are cherished goals. It’s over.
Goodbye to Berlusconi – now let’s fight the bankers’ government
14 November 2011, byThe thousands of women and men in the squares of so many cities were right to celebrate the resignation of a man who has caused so much damage in the years he was prime minister or in opposition.
The OPT, a proletarian alternative to the crisis of political parties
12 November 2011, byOn 27 and 28 August the Workers and People’s Political Organization (OPT) held its founding conference. It was the culmination of months of preparation, since October 2010 when Martin Esparza, General Secretary of the SME (Mexican Electrical Workers’ Union) publicly announced at a rally of 50,000 people in the Azteca Stadium, the proposal to create what at that time was called a ’national political grouping’ (OPN). With the OPT’s founding congress a new phase has begun, of consolidation, recruitment and organization, at the same time as the SME’s own resistance struggle continues, alongside the broader call to organize Mexico’s “indignados” against the neoliberal and repressive policies of the present regime.
Urgent finance appeal for “Faisalabad 6”
12 November 2011, byAs you all are aware, six labor leaders from Faisalabad have been handed jail sentences of 490 years in total. Their only crime was to lead a peaceful strike for an increase in minimum wages as announced by the government. They are Akbar Ali Kamboh, Babar Shafiq Randhawa, Fazal Elahi, Rana Riaz Ahmed Muhammad Aslam Malik and Asghar Ali Ansari. Four of them were arrested in July 2010 while the other two were arrested in July 2011 on the same charges.
Three years after "Yes we can"
10 November 2011, byNo he didn’t. That’s the epitaph on the tombstone of liberal and left-wing hopes that greeted the historic election of Barack Obama in November 2008. Did anyone imagine then that the election itself, more than anything he’d do in office, would be the high point of the Obama presidency? Or that three years later, the power of “Yes we can” would be the eruption of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) spreading to one city after another — essentially nothing to do with president Obama?
The left and social movement struggles in Bangladesh
9 November 2011, byBangladesh, (East Bengal before its independence in 1971) is a country with a strong tradition of struggle. Struggles of workers and peasants have always been very widespread and combative there and the Left, although weak and divided, remains powerful, with considerable mass support.
G20 : the Symbol of a System Failure
9 November 2011, byThe G20 is no more legitimate than its progenitor the G7 (Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, UK and USA). It was launched by the industrialized countries three years ago when they were beginning to feel the effects of the biggest economic crisis since the 1930’s. The G20 was thwarted from the start to the finish of its summit in Cannes on 3rd and 4th November 2011. That the EU and Eurozone are in crisis is flagrant, and at the heart of all the concerns. The about-turn exercised by George Papandreou three days before the start of the summit, when he announced a Greek referendum for January 2012, caused uncertainty to hover over the most recent agreements aimed at avoiding a chain reaction of bankruptcies among the major European banks and its collateral effects on their North American counterparts (See Eric Toussaint « Les banques sont le maillon faible en Europe »)