THIS IS CAPITALISM! Smartphones made by blood; child labour in Congo's cobalt mines

It's Capitalism, Stupid...

A Sky News investigation has found children as young as four working in Congolese mines where cobalt is extracted for smartphones.The mineral is an essential component of batteries for smartphones and laptops, making billions for multinationals such as Apple and Samsung, yet many of those working to extract it are earning as little as 8p a day in desperately dangerous conditions.

TESIS DEL CC PARA EL 20º CONGRESO DEL PARTIDO COMUNISTA DE GRECIA (KKE)

TESIS DEL CC PARA EL 20º CONGRESO DEL PARTIDO COMUNISTA DE GRECIA - PRÓLOGO

THESES OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE FOR THE 20th CONGRESS OF THE KKE (Full Text)

THESES OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE FOR THE 20th CONGRESS OF THE KKE

PROLOGUE

The Central Committee of the KKE publishes its Theses for the 20th Congress of the KKE, which will be held from the 30th of March to the 2nd of April 2017, four years after the 19th Congress, in line with our Statutes.

From the 19th Congress we have a new programme that expresses the elaborated strategy of the party for workers' power, socialism, and provides directions for the leading activity of the party under all conditions.

The Programme that was adopted by the 19th Congress of the KKE and the Congress decisions as a whole have met with  mass acceptance inside the party and KNE, and also amongst the supporters and friends of the party, more broadly amongst working class and popular forces in Greek society. This acceptance is borne out in practise by the significant activity developed by the Party and KNE on the basis of the decisions of the 19th Congress.

Despite all this, this deep agreement with our decisions, as well as the work developed in all the party's fields of activity in the framework of the efforts to implement these decisions, does not lead us to complacency, self-satisfaction, and even more so to a lack of concern about the weaknesses, deficiencies and about how and to what extent the Programme and Statutes have been understood and are best served by our activity.

Operation "Atlantic Resolve": How Greece's SYRIZA government facilitate the imperialists

Back in 1999, during the bombing of Yugoslavia by NATO's imperialists, the port of Thessaloniki in northern Greece had been a major gateway for U.S. army. The then Greek government of Kostas Simitis, leader of the social democratic PASOK party, had been proved a valuable ally of the U.S-led coalition thus providing the country's ports and bases to the imperialists. 

Today's Greek coalition SYRIZA-ANEL government, led by Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, walks on the same path; it does anything in order to facilitate its imperialist "allies". 

Communists in Greece and Turkey denounce nationalist "cockfights" over the Aegean

Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos and Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu
have been engaged in a warfare of nationalist and provocative statements over the Aegean.

Ankara and Athens resurrect old nationalist tension, writes soL international:

"Greece will do everything to prevent Turkey from getting to its territory", Greek Minister of National Defense Panos Kammenos said Sunday, adding that Greece is ready to rebuff Ankara in a case of any provocation. After his statement, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu called the Greek minister "a spoiled child". 

New Developments in Political Economy: The Demise of “Globalization”

New Developments in Political Economy: The Demise of “Globalization”.

By Zoltan Zigedy.

“Globalization” is a slippery term: 1. Sometimes it is used as a description of the quantitative changes in the global economy that emerged in the 1980s. 2. Sometimes it is used to express a set of policy prescriptions that gained traction in that same period. 3. Sometimes it is used to name a theory positing a new era, epoch, or stage of capitalism, a qualitative change in the way that contemporary capitalism functions.

And sometimes the word is used in all three senses:

Kemal Okuyan on Turkey's referendum: "Everybody should stick to their own guns"

Kemal Okuyan, First Secretary of the CC of Communist Party of Turkey (TKP) and soL columnist wrote an article on February 20, 2017, on the stance of the communists in Turkey regarding the upcoming referendum for constitutional amendments. 

Everybody should stick to their own guns…

By Kemal Okuyan / Source: soL.

We are facing a well-known front on the road to the referendum: the front of "yes." I have no idea about the covert aspect of the cooperation between [President] Erdoğan and Bahçeli [the Nationalist Movement Party’s leader who supports Erdoğan’s presidential system]; some mention blackmailing and some others talk about awarding. There is, however, politically and ideologically close links between them and between the social groups they represent. Furthermore, we can say that the "yes" votes are merged within the devotion to the Ottoman past, i.e. anti-Republicanism…

Antifascist victory in Greece! Communist Mayor Peletidis acquitted of all charges by court

Not guilty! The KKE-backed Mayor of the city of Patras Kostas Peletidis was acquitted of all charges by Patra's magistrate court earlier today. The public prosecutor's proposal was also "not guilty". The decision of the court consists a victory not only for Mayor Peletidis himself, but primarily for the popular antifascist movement in Greece against the neo-Nazi criminal organisation of Golden Dawn. 

Peletidis had been charged with "breach of duty" by the Ministry of Justice's Public Administration Body of Inspectors, because during the 2015 parliamentary elections he refused to provide municipal space for the gatherings of the fascist criminals of Golden Dawn. Furthermore, the mayor refused to provide information to Golden Dawn's MPs about the number of migrant children attending Patras' municipal kindergartens. 

Massive rallies in Greece: Thousands of people demonstrated against government-EU policies

With militant rallies in Athens, Thessaloniki and other Greek cities, thousands of workers, pensioners and young people gave their powerful response to the antipeople policies of the SYRIZA-ANEL government and the EU.

Headed by the All-Workers Militant Front (PAME), numerous trade unions from the public and private sector, mass organizations, people's committees, self-employed associations, the Federation of Greek Women, the Students' Struggle Front, student unions expressed their their determination to fight against the new measures which come as a result of the so-called Eurogroup's "evaluation" and which will be added to those which have led the country's working class to poverty and misery.

KKE: People’s struggle for a united Cyprus without guarantors and protectors

Source: inter.kke.gr.

The Party Organization of the KKE in Cyprus held on Saturday the 11^th of February a meeting in Lefkosia (Nicosia), Cyprus with as its theme the positions of the KKE on the Cyprus issue. Giorgos Marinos, member of the PB of the CC of the KKE, spoke at the meeting.

His speech was as follows:

“The KKE is preparing for the 20^th Congress which will be held between 30^th of March and 2^nd of April and there is an ongoing creative dialogue- on the basis of the theses of the CC- in which members and friends are participating, a large number of working people.

The major objective of the Theses of the CC and the final decisions of the Congress is the all-round ideological-political-organizational steeling of the KKE and its Youth, as a Party of revolutionary overthrow. This steeling is a necessary precondition in order to carry out the complex tasks of the labour movement's recasting, the struggle against imperialist war, the building of social alliance towards an anticapitalist, antimonopoly direction aimed at workers' power.

PAME strongly denounces ETUC for attempting to exploit class Trade Union movement

Snapshot from the article on "equaltimes.org"
where the altered photo from PAME's rally
was used (click to enlarge).

Source: All-Workers Militant Front (PAME).

In article for Greece, published in its e-magazine, ETUC attempts to take credit for the struggles of the Greek, Class Oriented, trade union movement, by using photo from demonstration of PAME!!!

The ETUC, this notorious part of ITUC in Europe, which acts as the right hand of the employers and the European Union, has played an extremely dirty role in the imposition of the memoranda and the antiworkers’ policies of the EU in Greece, raised the level of its lies and hypocrisy.

Though the ETUC has 2 affiliate unions in Greece (GSEE and ADEDY), which have co-signed the wage cuts and attack on workers’ rights in Greece, the ETUC attempts to falsely take credit for the great struggles of the Greek workers, in which has played vanguard role the class oriented trade union movement of Greece, PAME, WFTU affiliate, and opposition to the ETUC’s aims.

Venezuela's Communist Party (PCV) denounces efforts to exclude it from elections

The Communist Party of Venezuela (PCV) is going to challenge new electoral authority rules in court this week which threaten to exclude it from elections. During the weekend the party denounced the new National Electoral Council (CNE) rules which require parties to submit full membership lists for publication on the authority’s website — or be deregistered and barred from elections. 

According to the Communist Party of Venezuela the recent decision is based on a 1965 law, when the then bourgeois governments (including Romulo Betancourt's one) had unleashed numerous persecutions against members of the Communist Party which was outlawed. The General Secretary of PCV Oscar Figuera stated that the Party will seek an injuction from the Supreme Justice Tribunal against the rule of the National Electoral Council.

The Communist Party of Venezuela holds two seats in the opposition-controlled, 167-member National Assembly, and forms part of the Great Patriotic Pole bloc led by President Nicolas Maduro’s United Socialist Party. 

INTERNATIONAL COMMUNIST BULLETIN #3

16 February 2017.

The All-Workers Militant Front (PAME) calls for nationwide rallies in Greece on February 21st

The All-Workers Militant Front (PAME) calls workers, unemployed people, self-employed workers, the youth and women to participate in the nationwide rallies on February 21st, in order to give their own answer to the antipeople policy of the SYRIZA-ANEL government. 

Having as a slogan "No fear, no compliance. Struggle for labor with rights. Life with dignity", PAME calls the working people and the country's popular strata to give a powerful response to the new antipeople measures of the government and Troika and to assert the cancellation of the antiworker laws.

Greece's farmers converge in Athens to protest against government-EU policies

After 22 days in road blockades, small farmers are going to give a powerful response to the provocative intransigence of the government which has ignored their rightful demands. 

After a decision by the national committee coordinating the farmers’ protests, a large rally is scheduled to take place in Athens today as a way of pressure towards the government. Already, since the early hours of Tuesday, thousands of workers with their tractors and pick-up tracks, from all over Greece, began their route towards the Greek capital.

Solidarity with Greek communist Mayor Kostas Peletidis- Fascism shall not pass!

The solidarity movement for the communist Mayor of Greece's third largest city is growing. Kostas Peletidis, the KKE-backed Mayor of Patras, is being litigated by the Ministry of Justice's Public Administration Body of Inspectors for refusing to provide public space to the neo-Nazi, fascist party of Golden Dawn. 

More specifically, Peletidis has been charged with "breach of duty", because during the 2015 parliamentary elections he refused to provide municipal space for the gatherings of the neo-Nazis. Furthermore, the mayor refused to provide information to Golden Dawn's MPs about the number of migrant children attending Patras' municipal kindergartens. 

The trial has been scheduled to take place today, Monday 13th of February 2017.

KKE slams PM Tsipras for visiting Ukraine

With a statement the Press Office of the CC of the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) denounces the recent visit of Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras in Ukraine. More specifically, the statement says:

"Prime Minister Al. Tsipras choosed to visit Ukraine in a period when a regime has been imposed in this country through coup actions, with the support of the US, EU, NATO and with the utilization even of fascist groups. 

The visit coincided with the new sharpening (of the situation) in Southeast Ukraine, with the outbreak of a new bloodshed, under the primary responsibility of the current president P.Poroshenko and his reactionary government. He (Tsipras) visited Ukraine when the parody-trial for the prohibition of the Communist Party of Ukraine is in process, when soviet and antifascist monuments are taken down and the collaborators of the nazis are extolled to the youth as "patriots".

No pasarán! We denounce the attempts to ban the Communist Party of Ukraine

Members from the International Meeting of Communist and Workers Parties (IMCWP) have released a statement denouncing the attempts to ban the Communist Party of Ukraine (CPU). 

The statement points out the invalidity of the trial and underlines the grave responsibilities of the EU, NATO and USA in the process by supporting the ultra-right and fascist forces in Ukraine.

Apart from annihilating the CPU, the Ukrainian authorities attempt to falsify and distort the country's history and turn former Nazi collaborators into heroes, says the statement.

The voice of American Communists: PCUSA on Trump, Cuba-US relations and opportunism

The Party of Communists USA (PCUSA) was founded on May Day 2014. Formed out of the ashes of the Communist Party USA, the PCUSA aspires to become the base for a new beginning for the communist movement in the United States. On the occasion of Donald Trump's rise to power, we asked from the PCUSA to share with us the party's views on some topics. 

Below we publish the response we exclusively received by the PCUSA's Council of Secretaries.

The nature of SYRIZA and why it is supported by the bourgeoisie

Photo credit: IDC.

Source: Rizospastis / Translation: In Defense of Communism.

The identification of SYRIZA's political positioning requires first of all the clarification of the relationship between bourgeois politics and the opportunist (political) stream. In respect to its class substance, the opportunist political line is a bourgeois political line, but as it is manifested within the lines of the labour movement. While it is a policy which supports the strategic objectives of the capital in economy and politics, it appears with a socialist cloak and slogans. The fact that the opportunist perceptions objectively have a common "core" with the bourgeois ideology and politics is expressed both in the occasional convergences between opportunist and bourgeois parties as well as in the convertion of opportunist parties into parties of bourgeois governance, especially in times when this is necessary of capitalism.

When an opportunist party is called to manage the general interests of the bourgeois class from governmental posts, then it de facto becomes subject to a series of political, ideological and organisational adjustments that are characterized by the retreat of its opportunist elements and references without, of course, meaning that these do not continue to be utilized for the entrapment of popular forces in the bourgeois pursuits.

"Trump will be a disaster for the US working class" - Interview with Zoltan Zigedy

On the occasion of the beginning of Donald Trump's presidency and the recent anti-Trump demonstrations throughout the United States, we asked from the US-based blogger and activist Zoltan Zigedy* to share his views. 

Theses and tasks of TKP: Erdogan, capitalism and imperialist contradictions

THESES and TASKS of the COMMUNIST PARTY of TURKEY.

On the Presidency, the orientation of the capitalism in Turkey and the contradictions with in the imperialist world.

Workers, immigrants and refugees have been targeted by Trump's government for the sake of capital's profitability

Speaking at the European Parliament's plenary during the discussion about "US travel restrictions", Kostas Papadakis, MEP from the Communist Party of Greece (KKE), condemned the new measures taken by the Trump administration. More specifically, Papadakis said in his intervention:

"The Trump choice reflects reclassifications between parts of the US capital. The unacceptable restrictions and repressive measures taken by the Trump administration consist a dangerous development. They have targetet millions of immigrants and refugees, the big victims of the capitalist system which the Trump administration manages. The aim is the maximum profitability of the US business groups to the detritment of american workers. 

Canada's communists: Ban racists and fascists such as Trump and Le Pen from entering Canada

Communists Demand Immediate Government Action on US-inspired Hate Crime in Quebec.

The Communist Party of Canada today condemned the deadly attack by a masked gunman with assault weapons which killed 6 people and injured 19 more, who were at prayers in the Grand Mosque in St. Foy, Quebec Sunday night.