–It is also an attack on the next generation of workers.

“The people running the Misrata detention centre told the BBC they were aware of inmates being taken away to be tortured, but were powerless to stop it.”

Readers may also want to listen to CBC Radio’s interview with the Director of Doctors Without Borders about the violence they are seeing in post-Nato Libya.

“Bani Walid, 90 miles (140 km) south of Tripoli, was one of the last towns to surrender to the anti-Gaddafi rebellion last year. Hundreds of fighters loyal to the interim government have surrounded the isolated town after hearing word that a pro-Gaddafi uprising had broken out.”

On February 28th 2012 over 100,000,000 Indian workers will come out on strike. Workers from many unions and sectors are trying to gain improvements in areas such as, pay, pensions, and employment rights.

The US is Supporting Egregious Human Rights Abuses | Dan Kovalik | Counterpunch

Christoph Hermann | Socialist Project | While in previous crises shorter work hours were discussed as a measure to combat growing unemployment, an astonishing feature of the current economic downturn from 2007 on was that work time reductions were nowhere on the political agenda.

The dreadful debt saga will only come to a close when Greece takes charge of its predicament | Costas Lapavitsas | guardian.co.uk

“The uprising in Bani Walid could not come at a worse time for the ruling National Transitional Council (NTC). It is already reeling from violent protests in the eastern city of Benghazi and the resignation of its second most senior official.”

See also: Anger, chaos but no revolt after Libya violence | Reuters

“[A] day after townsmen put to flight a force loyal to the Western-backed interim administration in Tripoli, elders in the desert city, once a bastion of support for Muammar Gaddafi, dismissed accusations they wanted to restore the late dictator’s family to power or had any ambitions beyond their local area.”

“His endorsement of Dewar marks the first time Arar has stepped into the realm of partisan politics, although his wife, Monia Mazigh, ran for the NDP in 2004. She has also endorsed Dewar.”

“Liberal and left-leaning groups behind Mr. Mubarak’s ouster say that, except for putting Mr. Mubarak on trial, the generals have left the old regime largely in place. They say that the Brotherhood has tacitly accepted this, concentrating its efforts on winning Parliamentary seats rather than working for the realisation of the uprising’s goals social justice, democracy and freedom.”

See also: Atlanta Jewish Times publisher resigns over Obama ‘assassination’ column | Ha’aretz

By Karl Nerenberg | Rabble.ca | The First Nations-Crown summit: Is it doomed to the same fate as a long list of previous such encounters that produced nothing?

An Interview with Doug Henwood | by Sasha Lilley | MR Zine

By Conn Hallinan | Foreign Policy in Focus | “Why is the New York Times concealing the key role that the United States played in the 1965 coup in Indonesia that ended up killing somewhere between 500,000 and 1 million people?”

“The Gulf Co-operation Council also called on the UN Security Council to put new pressure on Damascus … The GCC’s move is an illustration of how divided the Arab League is over the Syrian crisis, our correspondent says.”

See also: Syria Rejects Arab League Request that Assad Step Aside | Syria Comment

“Firm action is prevented by the split between the two main camps within the League. The Iraq, Algeria, and Lebanon camp does not want to see foreign intervention. The Gulf camp led by Qatar is eager for intervention and a tougher international line on Syria.”

And: Arab League says Syria monitoring will continue | Reuters

“There were now 110 Arab monitors left in Syria after 55 Gulf Arab monitors withdrew”

See also: CIA, NATO pushing Libya into chaos | Press TV

And: Libya’s Vice President to quit | BBC

by Gabriel Kolko | Counterpunch | “At no time has the U.S. based its foreign policies on facts — as opposed to its conceptions reliant on sheer wishes, interests, or pretensions, (its ambitions are often a mixture of all of these). Nor has it had fears that are warranted by reality. It has needs, whether economic or geopolitical.”

Ashley Smith looks at the nightmarish conditions that the U.S. has left behind after the withdrawal of military forces from Iraq late last year. | Socialist Worker

http://m.guardian.co.uk/ms/p/gnm/op/sBrIMdvtm92Cuj41C1_S3Xg/view.m?id=15&gid=politics/2012/jan/18/unison-accuses-ed-miliband-naivety-cuts&cat=top-stories

“At least nine people were killed in last week’s fighting, officials say. … His body is currently in cold storage at a mortuary in the capital. The BBC has seen marks on his legs and buttocks that suggest he was subjected to brutal treatment.”

Slavoj Žižek | London Review of Books |”The possibility of the privatisation of the general intellect was something Marx never envisaged in his writings about capitalism (largely because he overlooked its social dimension). Yet this is at the core of today’s struggles over intellectual property: as the role of the general intellect – based on collective knowledge and social co-operation – has increased in post-industrial capitalism, so wealth accumulates out of all proportion to the labour expended in its production. The result is not, as Marx seems to have expected, the self-dissolution of capitalism, but the gradual transformation of the profit generated by the exploitation of labour into rent appropriated through the privatisation of knowledge.”

Currently New Brunswick is debating the notion of a two-tiered minimum wage wherein workers earning tips will receive a lower hourly rate of pay than other workers. The NB Media Co-op interviewed Jason Edwards, a Halifax-based researcher with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, on his analysis of minimum wages in Canada, what stimulates their growth/reduction and the function they perform.