Sweet Commerce: Mau Mau, Ireland and the British peasantry

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UK: National Shop Stewards Network News

NSSN ebulletin 127Firstly, the NSSN website has had problems over the last week, bear with us. Meantime please use our Facebook group National Shop Stewards Network’ & ‘Stop the cuts’ and/or follow us on twitter NSSN_AnticutsDefend the NHS; health unions should call a national demonstration to stop all cuts and closures!Con-Dem cuts and privatisation plans put the NHS's whole future in jeopardy. But there is a growing resistance to this onslaught...

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US Economy Still Crawling Along

US – still crawlingby Michael Roberts The US released its figures of real GDP growth in Q4’2012.  Against all economic forecasts (the consensus had been for a 1.1% rise), real GDP fell 0.1% at an annualised rate in Q4 2012 after increasing 3.1% in Q3. It was the first quarterly contraction since the Great Recession ended in mid-2009.However, this could all be revised.  And the detail of the GDP release shows that things are...

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Workers Intl. Network on the crisis in the British SWP

Dear Comrades,We believe there are serious lessons to learn from recent events in the SWP. These lessons are of common value to all socialists seriously looking for a means to break out of our isolation and connect with the mass movement against capitalism sweeping the world. Nothing could be more futile than to gloat or score cheap debating points about it.We condemn the process by which an accusation of rape involving an SWP CC member was handled: the judgement of the case by fellow CC members and friends of the accused; the humiliating treatment...

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Pakistan Garment Factory Lays off 1000

Garment Workers protest in PakistanPress Statement by National Trade Union Federation Pakistan (NTUF)From Nasir Mansoor Deputy general secretary National Trade Union Federation Pakistan (NTUFInternational exporter renders 1,000 workers jobless ‘Joe’s Fashion’ likely to render 4,000 more workers jobless by closing anther factory  A garment factory, Joe’s Fashion Export situated in Korangi Industrial Area (KIA) has shut down business and rendered...

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Support Garfield High (Seattle) Boycott of High Stakes Tests

By Jack GersonA boycott of standardized tests -- launched earlier this month when teachers at Seattle's Garfield High voted unanimously to refuse to administer the districtwide Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test -- has attracted national attention as well as support from parent and teacher groups locally and nationally.  Teachers at some other Seattle schools have joined the boycott, while many others have sent letters of support.  The Seattle Parent Teacher Student Association, the Seattle Student Senate, and many leading education...

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Malians exact revenge on Muslim shopkeepers as French and Gov't troops enter Timbuktu

Malians in Timbuktu exacting revenge on Arab or Muslim stores after French and Malian troops take control of the city from Islamic forces. There are considerable mining and resource ventures that imperialist forces need to defend in what is yet another NATO war fought in defense of corporations like French nuclear energy firm Areva’s uranium mines in neighboring Niger. The Islamic fundamentalists that US capitalism nurtured and helped strengthen in its struggle with the old Soviet regime have come back to haunt them as the struggle to contain...

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Korean union official on hunger strike needs your support

From: LabourStartSubject: Call to action - Korean public sector union president on indefinite hunger strikeThe President of the Korean Government Employees' Union (KGEU), Kim Jungnam, launched a hunger strike in the streets of Seoul outside the offices of the Presidential transition committee on 15 January.He is protesting the sacking of 137 workers, among them the union president and general secretary, who are being punished for their union activities. They are accused of being leaders of an "illegal organization" -- the KGEU.President-elect Park...

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Bradley Manning's fight for justice at Ft. Meade

Bradley Manning's fight for justice at Ft. MeadeFrom Courage to ResistRecent rulings in Bradley’s pre-trial hearings–Trial delayed until JuneBy the Bradley Manning Support Network.  January 23, 2013.Bradley Manning, a 24-year-old Army intelligence analyst, is accused of releasing the Collateral Murder video, which shows the killing of unarmed civilians and two Reuters journalists by a US Apache helicopter crew in Iraq. He is also...

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Ireland: ULA statement on SP leaving the Alliance

I Just returned from Ireland where I had the pleasure of spending some time with the comrades in the United Labor Alliance.  Along with that, a number of members of the ULA attended a meeting in Dublin of the Workers International Network where Roger Silverman spoke on our past, and the need for a new approach from the left in the changing world situation.  The meeting was sponsored by Clare Daly and Joan Collins, two members of the Irish...

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South Africa: DLF statement on Farm Workers' Struggles

DEMOCRATIC LEFT FRONTwww.democraticleft.za.netPRESS STATEMENT ON FARM WORKER STRUGGLESORGANISE FOR R150 PER DAY! OUR STRUGGLE CONTINUES29 January 2013The Democratic Left Front (DLF) salutes farm workers for their historic stand against exploitation and calls on progressive forces to intensify efforts to organise, mobilise and advance the struggle for R150 per day.The struggle of the Western Cape farm workers is not only against starvation wages but the system of baasskap oppression that has remained since Apartheid. This has been more than a strike,...

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Meningitis pharmacy bosses looted firm before declaring bankruptcy

by Richard MellorThe Meningitis scandal that broke out last year at the New England Compounding Center is yet another example of the complete bankruptcy of the private for profit medical industry in the US.  As I commented in a blog back then, the deaths associated with this outbreak are not an accident.  Compounding pharmacists are businesses that mix certain drugs for people that might be allergic to a compound in the regular prescription. ...

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Union officialdom responsible for decline in membership

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