Unite to Intensify the Movement Against Nuclear Power. Join 1st December Anti-Nuclear power Convention at Bhopal. The People’s Initiative Against Nuclear Power (PIANP) salutes the victory of the people’s movement in defeating the so-called People’s Hearing for Chutka Nuclear Project in MP during May and again in July. Against proposed nuclear plants at Jaitapur in […]
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Historic Nuclear Deal with Iran – But Spin War Starts says Pepe Escobar
See Also:
http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/why-did-france-thwart-iran-nuclear-deal.html -
Historic Nuclear Deal with Iran – But Spin War Starts says Pepe Escobar
See Also:
http://democracyandclasstruggle.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/why-did-france-thwart-iran-nuclear-deal.html -
India: Red Salute to Vasantada Ramalingachari (10th death anniversary on November 24th) by Harsh Thakor
Andhra Pradesh Map – Srikakulam in black in top right
Comrade Ramalingachari was a veteran leader of the Srikakulam Girijan peasant movement and expired on November 24th,2003.
On November 24th 2013, we commemorate his 10th death anniversary.
His life reminded you of someone traversing the steepest of cliffs or the
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India: Remembering Comrade Kishenji we never forget u johar johar Kishenji anna ku johar
26th November is comrade Kishenji’s birthday we never forget u johar johar Kishenji anna ku johar
Mallojula Koteswara Rao( Kishenji)Born 26 November 1956.Karimnagar district, Andhra Pradesh, India
Democracy and Class Struggle says Comrade Kishenji was murdered two days before his birthday on 24th November 2011 by the Indian State, he is an oustanding revolutionary of the
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West Bengal – Appeal from workers of Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers
G.R.S.E. LTD. WORKMEN’S UNION J/470, 1st Floor, PAHARPUR ROAD, KOLKATA – 700024 Date 23.11.2013 GRSE UPDATE GRSE WORKERS DECIDED TO START INDEFINITE HUNGER STRIKE FROM 28TH NOVEMBER 2013 Against unprecedented postponement of Trade Union Election at M/s Garden Reach Shipbuilders and Engineers Ltd (GRSE) on two consecutive dates on 8th Oct and 21st Nov, the […]
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Filipino Communists extend ceasefire in areas devastated by Typhoon
Fight Back News Service is circulating the following Nov. 23 statement from the Communist Party of the Philippines
Extension of ceasefire in Yolanda – devastated areas
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Philippines hereby announces a one-month extension of the earlier ceasefire declaration issued to commands of the New People’s Army (NPA) and units of the people’s militias operating in the areas devastated by the 8 November super typhoon Yolanda (international name Haiyan). The ceasefire declaration, which practically commenced on 8 November 2013, and was originally set to expire on 2359 hours of 24 November, will now remain in effect up to 2359 hours of 24 December.
This ceasefire declaration covers the following regional commands of the NPA:
Eastern Visayas Regional Command
Panay Regional Command
Central Visayas Regional Command
Negros Island CommandThe ceasefire declaration is being extended by another month in view of the extent and gravity of the devastation of the super typhoon that has been made worse by the gross negligence and inutility of the ruling Aquino regime. This will allow all committees of the people’s democratic government, respective commands of the NPA and units of the people’s militias in the devastated areas to continue with rehabilitation efforts.
Revolutionary forces in the area are currently busy in facilitating the distribution of relief supply from various people’s organizations and media outfits. They are engaged in the reconstruction of homes, as well as in the mobilization of people in efforts to resume production and wage mass struggles. Disaster victims are being organized in order to assert their demand for reforms to address their urgent needs. The demand of the peasant masses for land reform and of the fisherfolk for fisheries reform have become particularly urgent in the devastated areas.
Revolutionary forces in Luzon and Mindanao have carried out efforts to generate funds and supplies for the victims of the recent disaster. They are in close coordination with media and people’s organizations which are busy extending assistance to the devastated areas.
Respective units of the NPA and the people’s militias shall remain in active defense mode within the period of effectivity of this declaration. They shall exert all-out effort to assist the masses but will exercise great caution to remain invisible to the enemy and avoid vulnerabilities. They should maintain a heightened sense of alertness against the hostile acts and encroachments of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in areas within the scope of authority of the people’s democratic government.
This is in view of the fact that despite the widespread sufferings and hardships brought about by the recent disaster, the Aquino regime and the AFP have refused to relent in their offensive military operations and campaigns of suppression being carried out under the Oplan Bayanihan war against the people. The AFP has deployed several specialized units for transportation into Eastern Visayas. This is, however, a token effort considering the fact that it has 10,000 soldiers under the command of the 8th Infantry Division which remain focused on carrying out “counterinsurgency” operations within the region and continue to be on an offensive rampage. The Aquino regime has virtually garrisoned Tacloban City and placed it under military rule.
In Panay and Negros, the 3rd Infantry Division adamantly carries out offensive military operations in complete disregard for the recent devastation. As a result of the relentless offensive operations of the forces of the 3rd ID, two successive armed encounters erupted between a local NPA unit carrying out rehabilitation efforts and a platoon of the 47th IB on offensive operations in Barangay Magbalyo, Kabankalan City last 16 November, resulting in the wounding of an AFP soldier.
While maintaining a high degree of alertness against the offensive operations of the AFP, the NPA and the organized peasant masses must heighten efforts to wage revolutionary mass struggles to advance the democratic cause of the people in the face of the disaster and grave economic hardships.
The CPP leadership rejects the Malacañang proposal for a nationwide ceasefire of indefinite duration. The CPP ceasefire declaration is localized and has a definite period of effectivity with the aim of addressing the urgent need of extending emergency services to the people and carrying out rehabilitation efforts.
A ceasefire of longer duration and nationwide scope can be carried out only on the basis of fundamental socio-economic and political reforms. Otherwise, such a ceasefire will be of no benefit to the people and will only be taken advantage of by the most reactionary and fascist elements to push for the pacification and surrender of the people’s revolutionary forces.
If Malacañang is really serious in its proposal, then it should immediately end its unilateral suspension of peace negotiations and resume talks with the duly authorized panel of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines and forge agreements on the basis, parameters and mechanics of such a ceasefire.
Ceasefire declaration to concentrate on rehabilitation work in Yolanda devastated areas
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Jesus Huerta: Youth killed in Durham police custody
Durham, NC – Another Durham resident has now died in a controversial encounter with the Durham Police Department. This time it was teenager and local Riverside High School student, Jesus Huerta. An official response from Durham Police Chief Jose Lopez claims that 17-year-old Jesus Huerta died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound while under arrest in the back seat of a police squad car. After Durham police officer Samuel Duncan arrested Huerta, reports state that Officer Duncan heard a loud noise from the vehicle’s rear seat and jumped out of his moving patrol cruiser. Duncan’s squad car then slammed into a parked van, leaving Huerta shot and killed in the process. This incident occurred right outside of the Durham Police Department headquarters parking lot.
Personally, I don’t believe one word of what the Durham Police Department has stated. It seems to me, and many others throughout the city, Durham police officers are simply covering their tracks with a concocted story that makes no physical or logical sense whatsoever. Judging from the city’s buzz of conversations, many residents believe Officer Duncan was directly responsible for Huerta’s death. It is also quite disturbing how the first thing Durham police chose to highlight in this controversy was Huerta’s past juvenile offenses. Trespassing and misdemeanor possession of cannabis was not the cause of Jesus Huerta’s death. Such sheer lack of accountability on behalf of the Durham Police Department is not only disrespectful, it’s outright despicable. Entertaining such ploy is merely a distraction from gathering the truth of what actually happened here. Maybe someone should pull up the Durham Police Department’s criminal record. Fact is, a 17-year-old boy who was allegedly handcuffed, mysteriously died in police custody. Many residents are pointing to police brutality and excessive use of force.
Unfortunately, Jesus Huerta became the third Durham resident killed by or in Durham police custody over the last five months. 33-year-old Jose Ocampo was killed July 27, shot four times in the chest for possessing a knife. 26-year-old Derek Deandre Walker was executed Sept. 17 by a Durham police sniper for publicly threatening to commit suicide.
Personally, I’m not worried about the ‘Bloods and Crips’ in Durham. I’m worried about our local thugs in pressed blue uniforms. I’m worried about gang members who carry badges, Tasers, steel batons and handguns, ‘law enforcers’ who are paid with public tax money to terrorize people. Jesus Huerta deserves more than blanket apologies from city officials. Phony condolences are of no use, here. Huerta’s family members deserve justice; local Durham residents deserve the truth. A young man has been killed and we need answers. We need answers and Officer Samuel Duncan arrested. Now!
Lamont Lilly is a contributing editor with the Triangle Free Press, Human Rights Delegate with Witness for Peace and organizer with Workers World Party. He resides in Durham, NC.
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Two paths ahead for the immigrant rights movement
San José, CA – On Nov. 19, President Obama stated in an interview at the Wall Street Journal CEO Council that he was willing to go along with the piecemeal approach to immigration reform advocated by Republicans in the House of Representatives. Obama said that he wanted all the parts put forward by the Senate bill, which include legalization, more militarization of the border, expansion of temporary worker programs, expansion of workplace enforcement and shifting legal immigration from family reunification to employment and education-based visas to meet the needs of business.
But the reality is that the Republicans will block any legalization bill, while business interests will push the passage of expanding temporary worker and employment based visas. In the meantime immigrants are facing a wave of repression, with the Obama administration having deported a record 2 million undocumented people. So the piecemeal approach is most likely to end up being more of the same for the undocumented: more deportations, no legalization and a temporary reprieve for undocumented who came as children and qualify under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program.
So why is Obama retreating in the face of Republican opposition to immigration reform? One reason may be a partisan consideration. By making this concession, Obama is trying to keep the immigration issue in the media, hoping to benefit in next year’s election by looking ‘reasonable’ in the face of Republican opposition to immigration reform, even if this means doing little to nothing to advance any immigration reform. But another factor is that many of Obama’s policies are, in fact, moderate Republican ones. Take a look at his Affordable Care Act (Obamacare). Two of the most controversial parts of the ACA, the insurance exchanges and the individual mandate, were both Republican ideas that were embodied in the Massachusetts health care reform under Republican governor Mitt Romney.
Fundamentally, this reflects the fact that both the Democratic and the Republican parties represent the 1%, the tiny minority who own half the total wealth in the U.S. and control the large corporations that dominate the economy. While the two parties have their differences, with the Republicans wanting more repression of immigrants with militarization at the border, and the Democrats are more interested in meeting the needs of business through expanding temporary and guest worker programs, they serve the same interests.
Up to now, there have been three views of immigration reform. On the one hand, there were advocates for the undocumented, family reunification and workers, who supported legalization and stopping deportations. They also opposed more militarization of the border, more workplace enforcement, more temporary and guest workers, cuts in family reunification and diversity visas and criminalization of the undocumented and expansion of using local police and sheriffs to crack down on immigrants. More and more of these forces are uniting behind a demand that the president issue a ‘Deferred Action For All’ that expands the DACA program to all the undocumented. This would allow the undocumented to come out of the shadows and be able to work and drive legally, while laying the basis for a stronger push for legalization in the future.
Then there were the right-wing Republicans in the House of Representatives, who opposed legalization, and wanted more militarization, more workplace enforcement, more temporary, guest and employment visas and supported criminalization of the undocumented and expansion of ICE-local police programs, as seen in the SAFE act that passed a House committee on a straight party line vote. The House Republicans also support a piecemeal approach so that they can pass what they want (more repression of immigrants) and block what they don’t want (legalization).
In between was the “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” or CIR approach, as seen in the Senate immigration reform bill. CIR tried to combine the other two opposing views on immigration reform, as a way of getting Republican support. But with the overall atmosphere of repression, the Senate bill got steadily worse, with a lot more militarization of the border. The House bipartisan bill was widely known to be even worse, but it never got off the ground as the House Republicans pulled support for any bill with legalization and rallied around a piecemeal approach in opposition to CIR. With Obama’s concession to the House Republicans, the CIR approach is basically dead for now.
Backers of the CIR approach have two choices: they can go along with the President’s approach, either openly or trying to hide behind the fiction that CIR is still possible in the House. This will end up with some pro-business changes, such as more temporary worker and employment-based visas, but no legalization and the continuing deportation of record numbers of the undocumented. Or they can join with advocates of legalization and stopping the deportations by backing the Deferred Action For All or DAFA, which would both benefit the undocumented and put pressure on the House to deal with legalization.
Masao Suzuki is a supporter of the Legalization for All network and a regular contributor to Fight Back! newspaper on the economy and the immigrant rights movement.
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Nov 22: Pact Provides For Permanent US Occupation Of Afghanistan
http://www.countercurrents.org/auken221113.htm Pact Provides For Permanent US Occupation Of Afghanistan Bill Van Auken A draft agreement reached late Wednesday night between Washington and the puppet regime of President Hamid Karzai calls for as many as 15,000 foreign troops, the vast majority of them American, to continue occupying Afghanistan through 2024 and beyond. The deal would also […]