Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was re-elected in October 7, winning more than 55% of the vote. He stood on a detailed 39-page program to deepen the popular revolution his government is leading, which has already lowered extreme poverty by more than 70%. The plan to push for a socialist transition over Chavez's next six-year term will be debated in communities and popular organisations across Venezuela over the coming months, before it is put to the National Assembly for adoption early next year.
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The resolution below was adopted by the national board of the Left Bloc in Portugal. The Left Bloc in Portugal was founded in 1999 by the People's Democratic Union and Politica 21, a current from the Portuguese Communist Party. It is abridged from the .
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The article below was presented by Karl Cloete, deputy general-secretary of the National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) on October 10 at a conference at Cornell University in New York. NUMSA is South Africa's second-largest union, with almost 290,000 members in the smelting, manufacturing, auto and electricity generation industries. It is abridged from
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Recently re-elected Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said his next six year term would mark a period of βgreater advanceβ towards building socialism, as well as βgreater efficiency in this transition from capitalismβ.
The Venezuelan president made the comments on October 10 during a ceremony with the National Electoral Council (CNE). Three days earlier, Chavez beat right-wing candidate Capriles Radonski by 11.11% in presidential elections. Chavez took more than 55% of the vote.
I deplore his politics, yet cannot help admiring his fiction. Are there two Mario Vargas Llosas out there? Will the real one please stand up?
Like the conflicted characters who populate his novels, the Peruvian novelist, 2010 Nobel laureate and one-time Peruvian presidential candidate Mario Vargas Llosa embodies contradictory tendencies that make him difficult to dismiss entirely as a rightist reactionary (though it is certainly tempting at times).
Cubaβs ongoing socialist revolution has consistently shown it is adaptable and capable of renewal in the areas of feminism, environmental sustainability, political participation, health and education.
Despite the constant and concerted campaign by the United States to undermine the Cuban Revolution, it has achieved many great outcomes, including universal health care, universal education, eradication of illiteracy, low levels of birth mortality and low levels of HIV and AIDS.
Fanaticism, On the Uses of an Idea
Alberto Toscano, Verso 2010
269 pages, $43.00
Review by Barry Healy
βNothing great has been accomplished in history without fanaticism,β Leon Trotsky wrote in 1938. Certainly, the great turning points in human history, such as the Anabaptist peasant revolt in Central Europe or the Russian Revolution, required their participants to set aside their normal dispositions and assume a single-minded dedication to a cause greater than the self.
The United Nations has warned that world grain reserves have fallen to critically low levels as world food prices have risen to levels close to that of 2008 β a year in which food riots took place in more than 30 countries.
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Channel 9's morning news program showed footage of Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard stumbling and falling during her official visit to India over and over again β at least 10 times in succession.
Then for βbalanceβ it showed footage of a similar stumble by former PM John Howard (who, unlike Gillard, wasn't wearing high-heeled shoes on grass at the time) β replayed just three times.
Over the past three years Christian Super, a not-for-profit industry fund, has engaged in dialogue with Australian company Wesfarmers over its sourcing of phosphate rock from Western Sahara. Phosphate is used in its production of agricultural superphosphate.
βWestern Sahara is a disputed territory where human rights abuses have been reported,β said Tim Macready, chief investment officer for Christian Super. βCompanies doing business in this area may unwittingly aggravate the conflict or become complicit to oppression.β
Unionist Bob Carnegie was charged with 54 counts of contempt of court on October 17 for taking part in a community protest during a dispute between builders' unions and building firm Abigroup at the Royal Children's Hospital (RCH) construction site.
It is a sign of things to come for community activists. About 650 workers took strike actions against Abigroup for refusing to meet demands over working conditions, subcontractor terms and an enterprise bargaining agreement (EBA).
Twenty-four hours after that "people need to start showing some respect for the environment they live in", WA environment minister Bill Marmion showed what he meant by that statement by approving Western Australia's first uranium mine.
The October 9 decision gives state approval to Toro Energy for its Wiluna uranium mine. The mine still requires approval from the federal Labor government, but the state approval is considered to be a major hurdles passed.
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