It is nowadays obvious that the European Union has, in reality, nothing to do with the heavy promises and colorful declarations that from time to time have been. If for the former generations it has been related with feelings of well-being, prosperity and security, as expressed by the moto “A powerful Greece of Euro, part of the European Elite” etc, for the young generations it is not the case anymore. The youth has known a European Union, which: - Imposes unending Memoranda, faces our country as a colony and auctions its wealth and its productive forces, like in the case of the public corporations (ex. The case of the Greek Airports), which, through Public Debt imposes the Privatizations’ Fund, which passes companies from the Greek public sector to… the German … [read more]

The “All Syrian Consultation on the future Constitution of Syria” took place under the auspices of the international “Peace in Syria” initiative. The latter was set up in the early stages of the conflict when the popular revolt was already showing substantive signs of turning into a civil war with an increasing sectarian momentum. It has been based on the principle of opposing foreign intervention and defending the right to self-determination. From the very inception we shared the view of many Syrians that militarization will drive sectarianism and vice versa. We wanted to lend a platform to all those searching for a political solution in the triangle of historically diverging interests the Assad regime proved to be unable to reconcile: The Sunni Islamic pole with its political … [read more]

New ascendancy of FPÖ – social-cultural protest from below The sweeping success of Hofer, the Freedom Party’s candidate, is first of all expression of the protest by the subaltern classes. If the post-poll analysis can be trusted, about two-third of the workers cast their ballots for him. The pattern is known from earlier elections. In the historically industrial cities the lower segments of the former SP constituencies turn to FPÖ. For SPÖ has tied itself organically to the party of the big capital, ÖVP. Even more, it has taken the lead of the historic bloc of neo-liberalism. Parliamentary expression of this amalgamation is the explicit exclusion of the FPÖ from any governmental participation spelled out in the late 80s and adhered to ever since. Only by keeping this door … [read more]

Before the press conference in Zaporizhzhya City Vasily Volga was attacked. More than 30 radical neo-Nazis took part in beating the leader of the UL. Vasyl Volga was unguarded, and refused for their demand to leave the Zaporizhzhya. Vasyl Volga in the framework of his visit to the cities of Ukraine draws the attention of the citizens of Ukraine on the need to stop the war and confrontation in the society, to start a public dialogue between the parts of Ukraine torn by war. Vasyl Volga also believes that the nationalist propaganda of the Ukrainian authorities are trying to cover up the catastrophic rate of decline of the economy, well-being of citizens and the impoverishment of the state. Thus, the current government is for the military theme a convenient excuse not to carry out … [read more]

The crash came from the United States in 2007-2008 exposed the structural flaws of the single currency regime and its unsustainability: many eurozone countries are grappling with the biggest recession in its history, acute imbalances instead of convergence between the countries; extermination of companies and destruction of productive forces; collapse of investment; Growth of bank insolvencies and parallel paralysis of loans; increase in public and private debt; double-digit unemployment; decline in consumption, growth of social inequality. From the economic sphere, the crisis is thus passed to the political and institutional. The jump to the United States of Europe, recondite goal of the new neoliberal financial aristocracy, there will never, we go instead toward a new stage of the … [read more]

Find here the announcement and programme of the conference. First of all one will notice that the former Greek finance minister Varoufakis has disappeared from the agenda. The four figureheads remaining: Oskar Lafontaine (former German minister), Stefano Fassina (former Italian minister), Zoe Konstantopoulou (former Greek parliamentary president) and Jean-Luc Mélenchon (leader of the French Left Party). A reason for this further zigzag of Varoufakis’s might be his announcement of a plan C. Claiming that the return to national monetary sovereignty would result in a disaster, he actually recovers the failed plan A – as if nothing had happened: No lessen drawn from the humiliating capitulation inflicted on the Greek people by the troika, Varoufakis continues to float the … [read more]

Do not harm the good name of the Robert Bosch Foundation by collaboration with the JNF Dear Professor Rogall, Dear board members of the Robert Bosch Foundation, Dear Minister Schmid, On 3 December 2015, there was a meeting in Stuttgart between the board of directors of the Robert Bosch Foundation (which owns 92% of the multinational automobile supplier Robert- Bosch GmbH), the Jewish National Fund (JNF) and representatives of the Israeli embassy, the Baden-Württemberg State government (Minister for Economic Affairs Nils Schmid) and prominent businesspeople and politicians. According the reports by the Jüdische Allgemeine newspaper on 10 December and the Jewish National Fund itself (on its website), the main topic was joint projects in third countries. The two organizations … [read more]

On the 19th of October, 2015, Grubnik Vladimir Yurievich, a doctoral candidate of Medicine, a lecturer at Odessa National Medical University (Department of surgery) and a surgeon at Odessa Municipal clinical hospital was arrested in Odessa by force. He was an activist who participated in the events on Kulikovo Field [massacre committed by right-wing Ukrainian nationalists in Odessa where dozens of anti-Maidan activists we killed] and contributed medical aid to his comrades who suffered traumas during those events. He refused to accept the inhuman and illegal regime and after that he shared the fate of many who dared to speak up. Ukrainian authorities incriminate him participation in terrorist activities which he totally denies. During the very process of detention he was beaten and the … [read more]

Dr. Saibaba is a professor of English in Ram Lal Anand College of Delhi University and a democratic rights activist who has spoken for the rights of dalits, adivasis and oppressed masses for over twenty years and led a campaign against the state sponsored war codenamed Operation Green Hunt in Central India. He is also a man with 90% physical disability and moves in a wheelchair. Despite this, the Maharashtra Police has charged him under various sections of UAPA, declared him a “dreaded Maoist”, held him in the ‘anda’ cell of the Nagpur Central Prison for 14 months. During this time it has not been able to prove any of charges made against him. He was released on interim bail by the Bombay High Court in May 2015 on medical grounds as his health deteriorated rapidly inside jail, the … [read more]

1. After the 2013 Cyprus events, when the unanimous “no to the Memorandum” of the Cypriot parliament was turned to a “yes” into a week’s time under ECB’s threat of halting economic support, the violent reversal of the popular "no" at the referendum of July 5th into a "yes" by A. Tsipras comes as a confirmation that staying at the E/Z-EU directly counters democracy. The third memorandum signed by Syriza also demonstrates that even modest attempts to challenge austerity policy cannot stand in the E/Z-EU context. 2. The events on Cyprus and Greece are thus added to the long list of violations of the will of the peoples by Eurozone / EU and various governments. Characteristic instances in this respect are the bypassing of the rejection of the “euroconstitution” that the … [read more]

The basis of Popular Unity lies in the resistance of the Greek people, unprecedented in its persistence and numerical strength, particularly in the first two years of imposition of the memoranda. This struggle expressed generalized resistance to the strategic plan for imposing permanent austerity, the stripping of workers of every right, seizure of property, the dissolution of democracy, and the imposition of a regime of limited sovereignty. A mere month after the Greek people’s “oxi” in the referendum, the passage of the third memorandum has brought dramatic changes to the political landscape. The leadership group in the government that emerged from the elections of January 25 violated the very social contract that linked it to the popular majority, sowing disillusion and … [read more]

Ukraine launched a widespread campaign against dissidents. Leftists and communists are persecuted by the authorities and neo-Nazi militants. Thousands of people have already suffered from such repression. The regime is heating up the atmosphere of hatred and fear in the country, promoting denunciations and physical violence. Union Borotba calls on all concerned people to help spread information about the crimes of the Kiev regime, support the political prisoners, and demand that their governments end all support for the military action in Donbass and stop turning a blind eye to political repression in Ukraine. Please take a look at the attached .pdf file for detailed … [read more]

Since May of 2014, the Ukrainian authorities, as well as radical right-wing organizations, have repeatedly undertaken all manner of actions against the Vesti holding and its head Igor Igor Guzhva (the holding includes the newspaper, internet site and radio station of the same name, the magazine Reporter and the television channel UBR). On May 22, 2014, the activities of the editorial team of the Vesti newspaper (the largest daily newspaper in the country) were entirely locked down by personnel of the tax police on the pretext of a search being carried out. It should be noted that this happened two days before the presidential elections in Ukraine, despite the moratorium declared by the authorities on checks on the mass media. It was at this point that it became known that there was an … [read more]

A new statement and discussion document by the Revolutionary Socialists (RS) in Egypt has broken into the Egyptian mainstream media. This is highly unusual as critical voices challenging the official narrative of the “war on terror” rarely get a hearing. The statement and document call on the left opposed to the military dictatorship in Egypt to work alongside the young Islamist activists facing the brutal crackdown of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi’s military regime. They argue that seeing Islamist forces as “counter-revolutionary” is paralysing the left and playing into the hands of the regime. El-Sisi seized power in the coup of July 2013 in order to crush the revolutionary movement that began with the overthrow of dictator Hosni Mubarak in 2011. El-Sisi has used … [read more]

We fully support the demand for the orderly disintegration of the eurozone. Also the reference to positions held in Germany against the bailouts with a tendency to social chauvinist undercurrents (which in difference to Fassina we believe do not prevail) is a correct democratic argument. "If you do not want us we are ready to go." The Euro establishment including dominant Berlin, however, will not accept this as they have no alternative to the eurozone. Eventually we do not want to preserve the EU (like Fassina does) as we believe that breaking with the Euro regimes going for a left Keynesian programme (which we see as the next step) will require the break with the EU altogether. We should not forget that the Maastricht treaty as the very foundation of the Euro regime is an outright … [read more]

See the respective report in the Jerusalem Post: http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Israel-Greece-sign-status-of-forces-agreement-409492 And Mondoweiss: http://mondoweiss.net/2015/07/greeces-syriza-military This hardly can be read as accidental: Although one could claim that Kammenos belongs to the small rightist coalition partner of Syriza, namely Anel, it is difficult to believe that such an important foreign policy decision could have been taken without the acknowledgement of the prime minister and the dominant coalition partner Syriza. This is all the more important as Syriza had vowed in its party programme to severe the relations with Israel. Also this promise together with Tsipras’s visits to Moscow seems to be part of the bluff which ended in the totally lost gamble. … [read more]

The tragic capitulation and decline of the Greek government, which is directly linked to the radical left, needs to generate alarms in all popular, democratic and left forces in Europe. A government that was elected to overturn austerity, agreed on the same or worse austerity measures, after 5 months of “negotiations”. A government that promised to return to the Greeks their dignity and lost popular sovereignty, accepted the ultimate humiliation, such as the dismissal of the Minister of Finance on the Eurogroup on 27/06/2015 and the international humiliation of the Prime Minister at the summit of the Eurozone countries ( 13/07/2015). The most humiliating part for the Greek people was the return of a much more severe and punitive version of the Juncker proposals, which had been … [read more]

The clear NO of 61% of Greek people against the blackmails of the Troika and especially the German government raised up hope of people all over Europe to stop the unsocial regime of cuts. The German „Left Party“ publicly supported the OXI on places and streets. The majority of our M.P.s will vote on Friday against a third loan-package and its neoliberal conditions. With her threats and financial terrorism Merkel speaks for the interests of banks and big companies, whom she wants to save with these credits, but not for the workers and unemployed, who have to pay the bills for it. The „Antikapitalistic Left“ supports your resistance against all attempts to reverse the results of the referendum or to bend the knees towards the blackmails of troika-institutions. We keep our … [read more]

Journalist [Mrs Xenakis]: Mr. Alavanos, you 'welcomed' the Brussels agreement with harsh characterizations. You spoke about “betrayal of the people. "Now, after some days, I would ask you if you insist in this very sharp thesis and why? Alavanos: In the referendum, the question was clear: Yes or No to the plan Juncker. And the message of the people was clear: a sweeping NO. A week after, the government signed the Tsipras Memorandum, which is much worse than the plan Juncker. Let's imagine something very similar: while, in the 1974 referendum, the people of Greece had voted against the king, a week after Konstantine returned not just as a constitutional king but as emperor. If this is not treason, then what is treason? J: Many say that what succeeded Mr. Tsipras was the best he … [read more]

In the 5th of July 2015 the huge majority of the Greek people (61%) rejected the insolent demands of the EU for the extension and deepening of the austerity and pro-capital restructuring policies in Greece. These demands were codified in the so-called Juncker Plan for Greece that set barbaric terms for the extension of the previous austerity program (the 2nd Economic Adjustment Program for Greece) in exchange for releasing much delayed tranches of the troika loans to Greece. These tranches were urgently needed for repaying instalments of previous loans by the troika. As I have argued in a previous note (‘The Greek referendum and the tasks of the Left’) SYRIZA was led unwillingly to call this referendum because of the failure of its unrealistic program for a ‘decent compromise’ … [read more]