“The Ba’athist legislation of 1987, which banned trade unions in the public sector and public enterprises (80% of all workers), is still in effect and continues to be enforced against us … It is a grim reminder of the shadow of dictatorship still stalking our country … We call upon you and all the world’s peace-loving peoples to help us to end the nightmare of occupation and restore our sovereignty and national independence so that we can chart our own course to the future.”

–Support First Nations action.

“More U.S. troops also died overall in hostilities in 2007 than in any of the previous years in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

By any measure, the situation on-the-ground in Iraq and Afghanistan is worsening. It is disingenuous for our media and political and military leaders to suggest otherwise.

Capitalism has yet more pain in store for us.

Way to go, Boris. No doubt a brilliant start to a brilliant administration. What a low-down, dirty shame.

“Residents in [a Gazan neighbourhood] were summoned to a local square by Israeli troops with loudhailers before dozens were taken away, witnesses said.”

Desmond Tutu, the former Archbishop of Cape Town and chairman of South Africa’s truth and reconciliation commission, maintains that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is reminiscent of Apartheid South Africa’s treatment of non-whites.

“But crucially, the United States, Russia, China, India, Israel and Pakistan — all major producers and stockpilers of cluster bombs — were all absent from the Dublin talks, and thus not part of the agreement.”

This should be a cue to the NDP on what they should be trying to achieve, and how to go about it. Anyone involved in organized labour, left politics and party-building should read and discuss these ideas with their comrades.

For its proponents, the carbon tax is part of the microeconomic market utopia idealized by believers in efficient markets.
>by Duncan Cameron (from Rabble.ca)

As Mexico’s mining and metals industry ground to a halt yesterday with more than 20,000 workers staging a one-day strike, the union’s leader was calling the shots by cellphone from a secret location in Vancouver. Napoleon Gomez Urrutia has been leading the National Miners’ and Metalworkers’ Union of Mexico while in exile on Canada’s west coast for more than two years now, with help from modern technology.

Thanks to China’s lack of integration with global financial markets as well as the cautious regulatory approach of the CBRC, Chinese banks have emerged relatively unscathed from the global credit crisis, which so far has caused nearly $380bn of losses at western financial institutions.

“Obama’s speech translate into a formula of hunger for the nation (Cuba), the remittances like alms and the visits to Cuba as propaganda for consumerism and the unsustainable lifestyle that he sustains.”

“Latin America is living through a new era, and Puerto Rico is not absent from it.”