Japan: Doctor denounces the murderous attitude of the government with their denial of radiation and its effects

From The Asahi Shimbun (via EneNews):

Katsuno Onozawa: Government's lethargic response stresses Fukushima mothers

I regularly join children's health consultations organized in Fukushima, Koriyama and other cities by a group of physicians gathered from across the country at the behest of a Fukushima NPO (nonprofit organization).

What shocked me the first time I participated in January of last year was the gap between what the newspapers and TV news were reporting and the reality in Fukushima as attested to by the mothers who came for consultations.

Wanting to protect their children from radiation, they pleaded with the prefectural and city governments and local doctors, but none would take their side.

They just said things like, "It's safe. You don't have to take any special action. There are lots of radiation-phobia mothers, and we can't deal with them all."

They worry that they have to continue living amid high radiation levels due to their inability to evacuate the prefecture for financial or other reasons.

... full article at The Asahi Shimbun.

USA: growing brutal exploitation of workers

From Alternet (Lynn Parramore):

When Your Boss Steals Your Wages: The Invisible Epidemic That’s Sweeping America

Wage theft is fast becoming a top trend of the 21st-century labor market.

Imagine you’ve just landed a job with a big-time retailer. Your task is to load and unload boxes from trucks and containers. It’s back-breaking work. You toil 12 to 16 hours a day, often without a lunch break. Sweat drenches your clothes in the 90-degree heat, but you keep going: your kids need their dinner. One day, your supervisor tells you that instead of being paid an hourly wage, you will now get paid for the number of containers you load or unload. This will be great for you, your supervisor says: More money! But you open your next paycheck to find it shrunken to the point that you are no longer even making minimum wage. You complain to your supervisor, who promptly sends you home without pay for the day. If you pipe up again, you’ll be looking for another job.

Everardo Carrillo says that's just what happened to him and other low-wage employees who worked at a Southern California warehouse run by a Walmart contractor. Carrillo and his fellow workers have launched a multi-class-action lawsuit for massive wage theft ( Everardo Carrillo et al. v. Schneider Logistics) in a case that’s finally bringing national attention to an invisible epidemic. (Walmart, despite its claims that it has no responsibility for what its contractors do, has been named a defendant.)

What happened to Carrillo happens every day in America. And it could happen to you. 

... continue reading at Alternet.

Greece: hunger stike in immigrant concentration camp

From I Can't Relax in Greece...:

“We live like dogs and sleep in shifts”

“We could die without anyone even learning about it. It is our fifth day on hunger strike in the detention facilities of the Police Station of Moshato. We live like dogs”, says Armen Mourantian: “We sleep in shifts in a room full of dirt. Six people sharing three mattresses. Three full rooms. In the fourth one, which is the largest, they have cornered more than 15 people”.

It was already past midnight when the young Armenian made a phone call to ‘E’ in order to make a plea for help. “This moment we are aloud to make phone calls. We were arrested by men of DIAS group [special police group on motorbikes] in the street. Our papers were expired. None of us has been charged with theft or any felonies. We are held for 7-8 months with a deportation decision”.

He mentions his co-inmates one by one, with their name. With him in the detention facility there is M. Arhani, Iranian, whose parents were murdered by the regime. He came asking for asylum. With him there is also A. Stanti from Iraq and Ah. Asfer from Pakistan. And the “grandpa”. A 55 year old Egyptian who has already committed suicide once. He has been living in Greece for 28 years. He has a child. But his papers expired. He needs to be examinded by a doctor. Every morning he asks for hismedication. He suffers from serious psychological problems. The policemen ingore him. The Pakistani guy started having a delirium. “He has been surrounded by walls for four months. He have not seen the sun. We have rotten from the humidity here”.

... continue reading at ICRIG.

Greece: 15,000 public servants to be fired

The Parliament of Greece passed a new EU-imposed law that allows for the firing of some 15,000 public servants, some of which may be offered early retirement, in the current and next year.

It also allows for the state to hire workers for significantly less than the minimum salary. Hence the new public servants will earn a ridiculous €490 (€427 if younger than 25), what is a clear recipe for continuity of corruption.

The new law was passed with 168 for and 123 against. Considering that the electoral law gifts 50 extra seats to the more voted party (ND), this is clearly short of a genuine majority, because 168-50=118, which is five votes less than opposition. 

Again the bourgeois legal cheats trump democracy.

Source: Naiz Info[es].

Paraguay: heading for narco-fascism again?

From Antifascist Calling...:

In the Wake of Last Year's 'Soft Coup' Against Paraguay's President, Will a New Narco-Dictatorship Emerge?

Paraguay's April 21 election of Horacio Cartes, a dodgy "tobacco magnate," rancher and banker, whose Banco Amambay has been accused of laundering drug money, tax evasion and other crimes, raises the specter of "state capture" by powerful drug cartels linked to US intelligence agencies.

In the context of US efforts to manage not eliminate, the multibillion dollar global trade in illegal narcotics, Cartes electoral victory might very well be a shot in the arm for certain three-lettered US intelligence agencies, eager beavers always on the lookout for new allies--and an endless supply of black funds--to carry out hemisphere-wide dirty ops against leftist governments. The current US destabilization campaign targeting Venezuela's newly elected president, Nicolás Maduro and the Bolivarian revolution, is instructive in this regard.

... continue reading at Antifascist Calling...

Unemployment and desperation behind the Rome attack

As you may know by now, Luigi Preiti, 49, unemployed bricklayer and lone desperado, shot several military police agents (carabinieri) in Rome. Himself and a random pedestrian also resulted injured in the shooting. One of the agents is in critical condition. 

Apparently Preiti did not originally intend to shoot the policemen but rather the political leaders of the country, whom he blames for his own desperate situation, which is similar to a quickly growing fraction of the European citizenry.

Recently I met an old friend in the street and she, always so expressive and direct, wondered how with all this situation of growing unemployment, generalized draconian cuts in salaries and social services, absurdly high direct taxes, etc. the situation was still so relatively calm, how is it possible that the people is not taking the streets and burning everything... yet. I shrugged and replied that it was obviously because of fear of the police and that anyhow, it would not be long before that happened.

I also mentioned that some of that was already happening, especially in Greece, but that the level of desperation elsewhere was only then beginning to reach the red lines. 

First people protest peacefully, then they set themselves on fire or jump out of balconies that they don't own anymore and eventually they begin doing what Preiti just did. It's unavoidable: when you destroy the economy to satisfy the greed of the rentier high bourgeoisie behind the banks, when you get people dumped to the streets and tell them to look for a job that does not exist, almost literally removing the ground under their feet... they get very angry. 

When they see that the word "democracy", literally: "people's power", has become empty and meaningless and that the only people ruling here are a bunch of selfish bloodsucking banksters, with almost no hope of things changing with the necessary speed (or any at all, because the electoral systems are rigged everywhere to keep all revolutionary options marginal, while the media is in the same hands as the banks and the non-democratic governments), then you get Luigi Preiti. 

For example. 

And more that will unavoidably come: governments that do not serve the people will unavoidably find the people uprising, no matter what "democratic" varnishes they use. 

Alright, this is so far a single man uprising, but there are obviously so many that feel exactly the same... just that they don't own a weapon, just that they may be hold back out of fear or realization of relative pointlessness of such a solitary act or that they feel it would not be fair to kill any single individual for a problem that is so terribly collective. 

But unavoidably desperation feeds violence and if tyranny becomes more visible, more painfully obvious, as it seems to be the plan of our bourgeois masters, it can only further legitimize any sort of violence. 

I really feel that Europe is in a cul-de-sac in which the only option is revolutionary change. Obviously the managers of the economy, the high bourgeois (or banksters), and their subservient managers of the res publica, political leaders, are failing to provide the basics of life and that can only lead in one direction: revolutionary change. 

It will be painful, of course, but it is already unbearably painful.

Spain: journalist prosecuted for denouncing Falange's crimes against Humankind

In yet another case of fascist political persecution, the tribunal no. 37 of Madrid has brought to trial journalist Gerardo Rivas (El Plural) who, in an opinion article, criticized the procedure against judge Baltasar Garzón (carried on by the fascist organizations Falange Española de las JONS and Manos Limpias) and denounced the notorious historical record of crimes against Humankind of the former.

This record is well known to anyone with the slightest knowledge of Spanish history: Falange and similar fascist organizations did not just promote and collaborate with the criminal coup of Franco in 1936 but also were a most active force in the roadside mass murders of civilians that fascist historians have tried to cover up with no or very limited success. It is estimated that one million people died in the Spanish so-called "civil" war, most of which were simply murdered by death squads in the Fascist zone in a relatively successful attempt of ideological cleansing.

It is just unbearable that Fascist forces like Falange are given this kind of protection while working class forces like the Basque Nationalist Left are systematically persecuted. It evidences who actually rules Spain, even today, 36 years after the death of Franco: the Fascists!

Source: Deia[es].

Massive worker protests sweep Bangladesh

Riots swept through the two main Bangladeshi cities of Dhaka and Chittagong in angry protests against the Capitalist tolerance for slavish working conditions which caused thousands of victims in the collapse of a factory days ago. At least two factories have been burned in these riots of clear class war nature. 

Quoting from the World's Socialist Web Site (K. Ratnayake):

Labels for the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart, the Spanish chain El Corte Inglés and JC Penney have been found in the rubble. Web sites for the factories in the building indicate that they also supplied Germany’s Kik, Belgium’s C&A, Benetton UK, Spain’s Mango, Canada’s Trimark and Premark in Ireland, to name a few.

This illustrates how this is not at all a merely local problem but that those murders, as the Information Minister described them, are caused by global Capitalism and that the same companies, like the infamous El Corte Inglés, which demolish worker rights in the Capitalist Core, do exactly the same in the Capitalist Periphery with the only goal of satisfy their bottomless greed at the expense of workers.

The overriding concern of the government and employers is to ensure that the country’s thousands of garment factories, which account for 80 percent of Bangladesh’s exports, continue operation as usual. They are acutely aware that any improvement in wages (on average $US37 a month), or to the appalling conditions confronting millions of garment workers, could undermine the country’s competitiveness.

...

The health, well-being and lives of workers are constantly sacrificed to the relentless drive for profit, not only in the sweatshops of Asia, Africa and Latin America, but in the advanced capitalist countries. Just last week, a fertiliser plant in Texas exploded, killing 14 people and injuring another 200. In April 2011, 11 workers died in an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in Gulf of Mexico that resulted in the largest environmental disaster in US history.

These tragedies are crimes that are ultimately rooted in the profit system itself. Globalised production, which has the potential to provide everyone on the planet with a decent standard of living, is leading under capitalism to enormous profits for the wealthy few and the deepening immiseration of working people around the world.

The only solution lies in a unified struggle of the international working class to abolish this outmoded and reactionary social order and establish a rationally-planned world socialist economy to meet the pressing social needs of humanity as a whole.

Ditto.

Humor: Spain's fundamental constitutional "rights" to the psychoanalist

Again the political cartoon artist Tasio nailing it:

Translation: 

Article 36.1 of the Constitution [of the Kingdom of Spain]

All Spanish citizens have the duty to work and the right to work, to the free choice of profession or trade, to the promotion through work and to a remuneration sufficient to satisfy their needs and those of their families, without in any case being allowed discrimination by reason of gender...

Psychoanalyst: You tell me...

Source: Gara.

Italy deports prisoner of consciousness to Spain

Basque citizen Lander Fernández, persecuted by Spain on exclusively ideological grounds (essentially his unwillingness to put up with police abuses or collaborate with them) has been today arrested in Rome and immediately deported to Spain in spite of the protests of Italian internationalists. 

Lander Fernández is a neighbor of Bilbao who in 2009 denounced[es] to justice and the press to be subject of police persecution, kidnapping, brutality and blackmail. To no avail. The result was further persecution against him: arbitrary arrest when he returned from Venezuela[es] just days after denouncing the police abuses. After that unlikely criminal charges were thrown against him, so he exiled himself to Italy. 

On April 15th a Roman tribunal ruled in favor of his deportation to Spain in spite of a long campaign by Italian and Basque human rights activists.

Video of the detention this morning:

Source: Naiz Info[eu].

Spanish Inquisition to censor Basque youth site

The Spanish special political tribunal Audiencia Nacional (aka the Inquisition) has ordered today the closure of the website of Ernai (Basque independentist youth movement) on claim of "apology of terrorism" for its page on the Xabier López Peña[eu], ETA militant killed by prison and hospital neglect in Paris recently.

The page sends a warm embrace to the relatives of the deceased, denouncing the criminal prison policies of France and Spain as the murderers, demanding an urgent change in those prison policies, including the immediate repatriation of all Basque prisoners. It ends with a call for demonstrations in several localities for March 30 and the slogan: Struggle is the way! Farewell and respect, Xabier!

You tell me what in that is illegal. Well, probably all, even breathing is surely illegal for Basques these days... but, meh, seriously...

The real issue here is that Spain obviously wants to divert the attention from its own extremely dramatic socio-economic problems by re-creating the traditional Basque enemy by means of sustained and even increased repression. Threats against Basque politicians have been common in the last months. A real peace seems farther away than ever before but only because Spanish authorities, with full complicity of French ones, etc. want the war to begin again. 

Will they achieve it?

Source: Gara[eu].

Basque Country: occupied social center evicted in Bakio

The gaztetxe (youth house, equivalent to occupied social center) of Bakio (Biscay) has been forcibly evicted this morning by police forces.

Source: Bilboko Okupazio Bulegoa[eu], Torreagaz!![eu].

Japan: court denies children the right to evacuation of high radiation areas

In the very 27th anniversary of the Chernobyl catastrophe, the second worst nuclear accident ever, the Sendai High Court has denied the children of Fukushima department (which is a most clear no-go zone) the right to be evacuated by the government, effectively dooming them to a most likely short and painful survival until their deaths caused by radiation. 

Who wants a government that is unwilling to care for the children or in general the citizenry? 

Source and more details: The Asahi Shimbun (via Fukushima Emergency...)

Spain: protests in Madrid violently repressed

This morning riot police assaulted the Complutense University to evict students who had organized a sit-in in the campus of Somosaguas. Faced with nonviolent resistance, police arrested three. (Source: Kaos[es]).

In the evening 1400 police agents were deployed against the demonstration called by the platform En Pie! (Stand!), which demanded the resignation of Government, Parliament and King and the initiation of a constituent process. 

This protest, which was broken by police violence early on, resulting in several arrests and further police blockades against the columns that attempted to join it from all Madrid. 

Groups of people set fire barricades in various places as night fell on the imperial city. 

By 21:00 the demo seems to have been all but completely annihilated by police intervention.

Main source: Público[es].

USA: Virginia prisoners in hunger strike

At least 16 prisoners at Wallen Ridge State Prison (Big Stone Gap, Virginia) initiated a hunger strike before April 15th. A previous hunger strike was initiated in May in Red Onion State Prison, not far from the former, after which many of the strikers were transferred to Wallen Ridge (famed for being more brutal and corrupt). 

Not many more details are available as of now. 

Source: Kasama.

Greece: massive police operation against free media and university occupation

A huge deployment of police forces surrounded the rectory and evicted the occupants who had managed to reopen the Athens Indymedia site and 98FM radio station, closed by the state in a clear censorship operation (see also here). At least 30 people have been arrested. 

Details are scarce as of now. 

Source: From the Greek Streets. 

Honduras: another farmer leader murdered in Bajo Aguán

Alfonzo Vásquez Bonilla, 50, was murdered last Sunday by a death squad almost certainly obeying the landowner mafia of the region. Vásquez was leader of the Honduran Farmers' National Association, as well as the cooperative Esfuerzos Unidos. He was also active in the National Resistance Front.

While everybody knows who the murderers are, the putschist government and its military branch, never seem to find them. 

Source: LINyM[es].

USA: oil flowing to Arkansas river

The spill that destroyed a neighborhood and polluted Lake Conway in Arkansas is flowing downstream to the Arkansas River, which goes through the homonym state and feeds the Mississippi, according to an expert consulted by ABC-7.

Wikileaks launches a search engine for US diplomacy cables

Wikileaks is making easier for people to research the US cables with the tool PLUS D (Public Library of US Diplomacy), which allows World citizens to search and research the cablegate files in depth much more easily than before. 

For the Nixon era only, map and time charts are also available. They request donations/support to expand the library.

Example of Wikileaks' timegraph (click to expand)

Greece: Indymedia Athens and 98FM back up

I mentioned their closure by the philo-Nazi Greek government earlier this month here and here.

According to From the Greek Streets, popular occupation at Athens University has managed to get them back up.

Spain: robbing the salaries and pensions

Basque labor union LAB denounces that the Spanish Government is surreptitiously stealing money from the salaries and pensions agreed for the former workers of large companies (AHV, Babcock Wilcox, BP, La Naval, etc.), which were closed in the late 20th century on request from the pernicious EU among very harsh class struggles.

The Spanish Government, via decree an violating the General Law of Social Security, is detracting amounts of as much as 11% from the salaries and pensions owed to these workers, totaling some €2000 from each worker yearly.

Source: Bilboko Branka[es].

Bilbao: closure of the main homeless shelter

The town of Bilbao (Basque Country), where I live has closed its main homeless center without opening a new one (there's one planned but who knows when and where it will open, if at all). The dramatic problem of homeless citizens has only grown in the past years with more than a thousand living in the city without a stable home and at least 250 sleeping in the streets daily. The shelter could only have at most 100 people. This situation leaves lots of people in a terrible situation, not just without shelter but also without official residence and therefore ineligible for welfare assistance. 

Years ago the town also closed the public showers that had been operative for decades. 

Source: Bilboko Branka[es].

Nepal heading to revolutionary showdown

From Kasama (Eric Ribellarsi):

“Life and Death” for Nepal’s Coup Regime

For more background of the current crisis in Nepal, read this.

For 7 years, post-monarchy Nepal has been without a unifying constitution. Its Constituent Assembly has collapsed as of 2011, and its reactionary forces have been unable to cohere a new legitimate form of rule in Nepal. It is in this context that reactionary leaders of Nepal declare that staging a coup and holding elections under this coup is a matter of “life and death.” (1)

And it is in the face of all of this political corruption on the back of the people that Nepal’s Maoists are continuing to boycott the elections which are being organized by a coup d’etat regime led by unelected Prime Minister Regmi. The Nepali Maoists have gathered a growing political coalition of 57 political parties (grown from the 33 that participated in this month’s general strike) against these coup elections. (2)

The CPN-Maoist “People’s Volunteers” have begun organizing people to refuse to take part in the elections, have fought and chased away state election officials, and have worked to defeat a new “Nepal citizenship” scheme aimed at warping the election results. The citizenship scheme is suspected of granting citizenship to Indian businessmen residing in Nepal, and making it impossible to register for indigenous people in the remote regions of Nepal. (2)

One after another, reactionary leaders of Nepal have pompously declared that they will bring the CPN-Maoist into these elections, or that CPN-Maoist will be crushed (Prachanda’s language). Baburam Bhattarai, a leading counter-revolutionary, has assured everyone that “The CPN-Maoist led by Mohan Baidya will be incorporated in the four-party political mechanism,” (1) but once again, the Maoist revolutionaries and their coalition have rejected all offers under the coup regime. Instead, they refused to even attend talks with the government: “It is meaningless to hold dialogue regarding the elections to be conducted by the unconstitutional government. We want to inform about our inability to sit for such talks,” said Mohan Baidya (Kiran). (2)

Former US President Jimmy Carter, who is part of organizing the elections, called for state repression of the Maoists: “My hope is that if he [Baidya] persists in trying to keep people from registering as voters or holding successful elections, the people who interfere should be arrested and prevented from illegal activities,” said Carter. The CPN-Maoist cannot resort to violence and intimidation, which are illegal, while raising concerns over the legitimacy of the current government, he said. (3)

Mass demonstrations and assemblies are planned for the early month of May, beginning with a mass demonstration in Kathmandu on May 1st, followed by local assemblies throughout the country.

Sources:

1. http://www.nepal24hours.com/en/?p=20384

2. http://ekantipur.com/2013/04/21/top-story/cpn-m-led-alliance-to-foil-voter-roll-update-plans/370318.html

3. https://revolutionaryfrontlines.wordpress.com/2013/04/06/in-nepal-jimmy-carter-urges-arrest-of-opponents-of-elections/

Evidence of intentional massive fires at BP oil disaster 2010

Al Jazeera published photo evidence provided of what is dubbed the biggest fire in the World by one of the fire ignition workers, who denounces the company and their government protectors for not providing any sort of safety protection, which has caused him (as to many others) serious health problems. 

Watch the video HERE.

Via: EneNews.

Britain: Ken Loach promotes new party: Left Unity

One can hardly imagine a more charismatic figure in Britain (or even all Europe) to lead an attempt to reorganize the Left, the Working Class, into a unitary project. Whether it succeeds or not is something I can't foresee but it's clear that something like that is very much needed. 

The new embryonic party is known so far as Left Unity and you can find more information at their site.

You may also want to read what The Commune has to say about it (mostly welcome):

Left Unity was initiated by Andrew Burgin & Kate Hudson, both of whom use to be in George Galloway’s Respect – itself an attempt to build a left alternative to Labour. Burgin & Hudson are married & have both been involved with the Stop the War Coalition. Hudson is the General Secretary of CND & was previously in the Communist Party of Britain. Burgin use to be in the Trotskyist Workers’ Revolutionary Party, as was the film director Ken Loach.


With such revolutionary pedigree, the hope is that Left Unity will try to be something more than ‘old’ Labour. That it can attract the support from the myriad revolutionary groups of Britain’s left who have often spent more time attacking one another than the common capitalist enemy...

Britain: fire at nuclear station

Nuclear Event in United Kingdom on Sunday, 21 April, 2013 at 04:05 (04:05 AM) UTC.

Description

A "small fire" at a UK nuclear power plant, which provoked a major response by the emergency services, has been extinguished without anyone suffering injuries, police say. The blaze at Hartlepool Power Station caused smoke to billow from the plant, but Cleveland Police said it was drifting away from homes. Police and fire crews remained on the scene as a precaution, the force spokeswoman said. The force statement said: "During incidents such as this, there are several procedures that take place including the venting of steam generators. "This particular process causes noise, which residents of nearby areas such as Seaton Carew may hear. "There is smoke billowing as a result of the fire, but it is currently heading in a direction that does not cause any implications for members of the public. "Police and fire (officers) remain at the scene as a precautionary measure." 

Source: RSOE EDIS (via Fukushima emergency, what can we do?)

Video: Basque police beats and abuses a journalist in nonviolent resistance arrest

As I mentioned on Friday, Western Basque Autonomous Police Corps (Ertzaintza) arrested several youths sentenced to six years of prison on purely ideological basis by the Spanish special political court of fascist foundation Audiencia Nacional (aka Inquisition).

To the videos attached then we have now to add this one (with trilingual subtitles: Basque, Spanish and English) in which an accredited journalist of Argia magazine is beaten, insulted and abused by these dangerous masked and armed elements. Let him die, they say with their usual criminal arrogance:

Source: Ateak Ireki.

Basque Country: transport sabotages in protest for arrests

The electric system of a railroad was sabotaged at Erriberabeitia (Araba) with leaflets spread denouncing the recent political arrests. 

Also chains were placed at various roads in Donostia (Gipuzkoa) blocking traffic. Four people have been arrested for this last incident.

Graffitti denouncing the collaboration of regionally ruling EAJ-PNV with the Spanish Inquisition have been spotted at the see of this party in Barakaldo (Biscay). It read: PNV: keep your dogs tied.

Source: Naiz Info[es].

Guatemala: Ríos Montt trial suspended

The trial for Crimes Against Humankind of former dictator Efraín Ríos Montt has been suddenly suspended. 

On April 18th, judge Carol Patricia Flores, previously suspended in her attributions but then restored, decided unilaterally the suspension of the procedures including the contrast of witnesses, which had already seen more than one hundred testimonies. 

The trial against the fascist mass-murderer dictator has been delayed once and again by means of these kinds of legal tricks, denying the right to justice to the victims of the Guatemalan Genocide, most of them Native Americans (who make up more than 40% of the population but are systematically excluded from power in a clearly racist regime). 

Source: LINyM[es].

Italy: political standoff highlights contradictions in the PD

First of all we must remind that the extremely low democratic quality of the Italian electoral law, that requires 20% of votes for any coalition to be able to be represented in that mockery of Parliament, radically corrupts the democratic representativity of the system, leaving out the real Left. This authoritarian distinction between party and coalition lists is also present in the Greek electoral system, what has forced SYRIZA to become a party in order to hope for electoral victory within the system (when originally and logically they were a coalition of multiple forces, some of which preferred to stand aside). Of course there are many other tricks to distort popular representation and favor the bourgeois twin party system like Anglosaxon "winner-takes-all" districts but... another day. 

Then we must recall that the Democratic Party (PD) in Italy comes from the Left Democratic Party (PDS), which in turn comes from the once very combative and highly popular Italian Communist Party (PCI). The Bersteinian bourgeois decadence of this once communist party has no parallels in the recent history of Western Europe: once carefully kept out of the system by a coalition of bourgeois parties, led always by the Christian Democracy, sponsored by the Mafia and NATO, it first became "Eurocommunist" as reaction to the military invasion of Czechoslovakia, then Socialdemocrat after the collapse of the late Stalinist system in Eastern Europe, adopting the name of PDS and finally merely Liberal Bourgeois with the US-mimicking name of Democratic Party. 

However the grassroots of the party have not changed that much yet and they feel betrayed by their support of Mario Monti's perpetual exception semi-colonial government and now again by the flirting with Berlusconi's PDL in the name of stability and what-not, what resulted yesterday in the re-election of ailing right-wing President Giorgio Napolitano.

From Struggles in Italy (emphasis mine):

This situation has already taken its toll on the Democratic Party. On April 19, Pierluigi Bersani, Secretary of the PD, resigned after the failure of his proposed ‘mediation’; so did Rosy Bindi, former Christian Democrat and current president of the Party’s General Assembly.

The high ranks of the party are shaking under the rage of the many rank-and-file members of the Party who carried hopes of a political renewal. Many old-school militants have publicly announced their disappointment with a party that systematically refuses to listen to its base of supporters. Meanwhile, old hawk of the PD Massimo D’Alema (who briefly lead the Executive in 1999) was spotted calmly strolling in Rome, and many see his shadow in the disastrous outcome of the PD-PDL mediation. Finally, this situation opens a breach in the already fragile centre-left electoral cartel, with SEL publicly walking out of the alliance to give open support to the M5S candidate.

(...) this solution seems to mark the end of the Democratic Party, undermining its already compromised political representativeness. Once again, the left failed to achieve real change but fell prey to its internal divisions, promoting an old name that failed to satisfy its own core of activists and members.

What now? Either the twin party Berlusconi-PD agree in another Monti-style perpetual emergency joint cabinet or they agree to call new elections, elections in which the PD may easily collapse, yielding power again to the corrupt gerontocracy of Bunga-Bunga Berlusconi.

An alternative may be the rise of billionaire buffoon Beppe Grillo but I seriously doubt that this populist movement without ideology can actually win elections, even if their rise clearly highlights the limitations of the current semi-colonial partitocracy.

Protests in the Basque Country

Donostia (San Sebastian):

Hundreds surrounded the Spanish government delegation in solidarity with the prisoners of conscience arrested yesterday in Donostia because of their peaceful political activities:

Source: Ateak Ireki[es].


Iruñea (Pamplona):

Hundreds marched in support of politically persecuted class pickets:

Source: Ateak Ireki[es].


Bilbao:

Hundreds marched in San Inazio neighborhood against the harsh penalties imposed to political prisoners Ibai Beobide, Eider Zurriariain, Euri Albisu, Xabier Atristain, Juan María Maizkurrena, Miren Josune Balda and Jose Agustin Camacho. They denounced this persecution as war strategy, i.e. opposed to the peace process unilaterally impelled by the Basque Nationalist Left and ETA.  

Source:  Bilboko Branka[eu].

Update: In Iruñea-Pamplona there was also another demonstration, gathering some 3000 people in demand of social rights and against poverty. 

They spoke against the "government of bankers and capitalists" and in favor of "a government that ends with poverty and not with the poor as they are doing now". One of the main demands present was the right to a decent home because there are many empty homes which are not being rented to the people who need them.

Source: Naiz Info[es].

Aragon: police arrests one in antifascist protest

Zaragoza has become a nest of international fascist activities under the protection of the "conservative" government. Today the Nazis were allowed to commemorate Adolf Hitler's birthday.

Against those meetings of hatred, the lively antifascist camp of the Aragonese city gathered a multitude which was attacked by police resulting in one arrest. 

Source: El Ventano[es].


Update (Apr 21): arrested person was released at 19:30. Previously a protest had been organized before the police station gathering dozens. 

Source: AraInfo[es].

F1 kills: 5 y.o. kid loses eye to Bahraini repression

Source and more details: Bahrain Center for Human Rights.

Greece: mafioso terror and banking corruption

Greek journalist hero Kostas Vaxevanis, who published the Lagarde List of probable tax evaders months ago, is again digging, at risk of his life, on the muddy waters of the deeply corrupt and parasitic Greek banking system. 

Yanis Varoufakis publishes today an English translation of his latest research:

In May 2012, I investigated the functioning of Greek banks, with special emphasis on a certain Greek Bank (The Bank henceforth) and its Chairman (The Chairman). I found that The Chairman’s family members were the secret owners of a number of offshore companies that would receive loans from the bank without any real collateral. These loans would then: (a) be written off as unserviceable, or (b) be used to buy office space that would immediately be resold to other parties which would then lease them to The Bank or sell them to The Bank at inflated prices. In addition, other offshore companies were used by The Chairman to borrow substantial amounts from two other Greek banks, again with no collateral, for the purposes of buying shares The Bank (thus helping the bank demonstrate its capacity to draw in private capital). Since then the owner of one of these two other banks has been imprisoned (on different charges) while the second bank involved has played a central role in bringing down the Cypriot banking system (after its merger with one of the island’s now collapsed banks and the transfer of its headquarters from Greece to Cyprus).

... continue reading at Yanis Varoufakis blog. 

Men in black with large black backpacks at Boston attack scene

A military or paramilitary unit of some sort seems to have been active in the scene of the Boston bomb attack. Their "plain clothes" are actually an informal uniform (beige trekking pants and boots, black jackets and backpacks) with many of them wearing also a black cap with a stylized white skull, an icon used variedly by the US Navy SEAL unit, as well as Blackwater (Xe, Academi) and other military subcontractors.

Source: Infowars (link 1, link 2), via Ex-SKF.

These images raise a lot of questions: who exactly are these men in black? Who they obey to? What were they doing in the Boston Marathon? Neither the US Navy nor paramilitary contractors have any jurisdiction on civilian affairs and while the FBI insists on a discourse of "nothing to see here, move along", they do not seem FBI agents either. 

Let's not forget that the US Navy has been previously involved in strange affairs, notably the drill they were performing on invading Haiti on humanitarian pretext exactly when they got one such humanitarian pretext in the form of shallow unexpected massive earthquake. And, of course, they invaded immediately. Earthquake causing weapons do exist nowadays, indeed.

Basque Country: police arrests prisoners of consciece after facing massive nonviolent resistance

A human wall of some 800 people was not enough to counter the violence of police forces at the service of the Spanish autocracy. The popular resistance succeeded yesterday but not tonight.

And indeed why do political arrests always take place in the night?

The eight arrested were sentenced to six years of prison by the Spanish special political court Audiencia Nacional (aka Inquisition) for being active politically in an organization of their choice.

Source: Naiz Info[es].

Internationalism: protest at Morocco's consulate for Sahrawi political prisoners

Dozens gathered today at Morocco's consulate in Bilbao (Basque Country) in support of Sahrawi political prisoners especially and in homage to all political prisoners of oppressed peoples of the World (West Sahara, Basque Country, Palestine, Kurdistan, Wallmapu, Colombia, Corsica, Galicia, etc.) under the slogan: "Freedom for the political prisoners of the World". 

"Let out the prisoners of Sahara"

Almost when the protest was scheduled to end, several activists hang a huge banner of solidarity with Sahrawi prisoners from the facade of the Moroccan consulate as can be seen in the image.

Police intervened but could do little other than identify the activists.

Fascist Morocco replaced Fascist Spain as colonial master of West Sahara in 1975. Since then an endless state of war exist.

Source: Herri Kolore[es].

Basque Country: nonviolent sit-in prevents arrests twice

The popular Aske Gunea (Freedom Zone) installed in the Boulevard of Donostia (San Sebastian) prevented twice tonight that police arrested eight Basque youth leaders sentenced to six years of prison for their political activity. 

The victims of the Spanish Inquisition this time are: Imanol Vicente, Nahikari Otaegi, Ekaitz Ezkerra, Aitor Olaizola, Adur Fernández, Oier Lorente, MIkel Arretxe  and Egoi Alberdi.

Videos:

Source: Naiz Info[es].

India: Kalpakkam nuclear station shut down by fire

A "minor" fire forced the shut down of the controversial Kalpakkam nuclear station in Tamil Nadu. It will take a month to restart. 

Source: EneNews.

Greece: immigrant workers shot by capitalist death squad when claiming their 6-month unpaid salaries

At least 34 Bangladeshi workers were injured by shots fired at them by strawberry fields' managers when they were demanding their unpaid salaries from six months in an incident that recalls images of colonial-fascist Honduras or Colombia but pretty much unheard of in Europe... until now. 

Police has arrested the owner but the perpetrators were able to flee to Patras. The crime took place in Manolada, Ilia.

This is not the first time that violent incidents take place around the unpaid salaries to farm workers but it is the first time in which live fire was used. 

Communist parties SYRIZA and KKE have condemned the racist attack.

Source: I Can't Relax in Greece.


Update: international boycott call against Manolada strawberries → I Can't Relax in Greece.

Update (Apr 19): video of the aftermath of the massacre (from ICRING again):

Living quarters of the workers

Update (Apr 21): the three criminal foremen have been arrested, a well as another person who was sheltering them.

One of the criminals was previously involved in a similar racist aggression case, for which he has yet to be tried: he carjacked an Egyptian immigrant. 

None of the assassins has been named and police (which is nowadays essentially an armed extension of Golden Dawn) does not attribute racist motivations to them.

Source: ICRING.

Basque Country: political leader arrested for "organizing" event which he did not organize at all

Yesterday, the Spanish military police corps Guardia Civil arrested Iker Rodrigo Basterrechea, militant of socialist-independentist party Sortu, on the spurious accusation of organizing a homage to ETA militant Xabier López Peña, who died in strange circumstances in a French hospital days ago. 

The event was in fact organized by the relatives of López Peña with a private character and not too many people attended. Some of them however cried vivas to ETA, what has been the pretext of the Spanish authorities to order this arrest, which seems totally arbitrary and politically motivated and a clear move to push for the illegalization of Sortu and the wider coalition EH Bildu (which gets 1/4 of all votes) and any meaningful political activity in the Basque Country, forcing the return to war. 

Ref.: Naiz Info[es].

Reactionaries go on violent rampage in Venezuela after losing elections again: several killed already

The remains of a murdered PSUV sympathizer are taken away

At least seven people were killed and 67 injured by the violence rampage of the reactionary camp after narrowly losing yet another election against the socialists. 

There is little doubt that the elections were perfectly clean, as they have been internationally monitored and a throughout recount (beyond what the law demands) has been accepted by newly proclaimed President Nicolás Maduro (yet Capriles has not issued the formal demand before the electoral commission).

However the right wingers, surely incited by international actors like the USA, Colombia, Spain and the Vatican, have gone on violent, often armed, rampage killing many. 

All the victims seem to be PSUV sympathizers or police agents, as the target of the attacks have been almost invariably PSUV and government sees, as well as the homes of Chavista sympathizers. The government makes reactionary leader Eduardo Capriles responsible for the violence. 

Motorized fascist squad before a barricade

This attitude of violence is not new: electric sabotages happened through the country almost everywhere where Maduro was campaigning, while the few remaining landowners retained stock to simulate lack of supply.

This seems clearly another desperate attempt of coup by the Venezuelan reaction with more than probable support from the imperialist powers. 

I just hope that everyone responsible is arrested and that the steps to full socialism, eradicating significant private property altogether, are accelerated as result of this intolerable coup attempt by the counter-revolution.

Main sources[es]: VTV (photos, video), TeleSur, Tercera Información, La Jornada, Noticias 24, LINyM, Borroka Garaia Da!

Official global list of "too big to fall" banks

I just came to know of the existence of an official FSB list of "too big to fall" banks, which are therefore allowed to operate beyond any law nor common sense.

The list is as follows:

• Top "bucket": none
• Second "bucket": 
• USA: Citigroup, JP Morgan Chase
• Europe: Deutsche Bank, HSBC
• Third "bucket":
• Europe: Barclays, BNP Paribas
• Fourth "bucket":
• USA: Bank of America, Bank of New York Mellon, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley
• Europe: Credit Suisse, Royal Bank of Scotland, UBS
• Asia: Mitsubishi UFJ FG
• Fifth "bucket":
• USA: State Street, Wells Fargo
• Europe: BBVA, Groupe BPCE, Group Crédit Agricole, ING Bank, Nordea, Santander, Société Générale, Standard Chartered, Unicredit Group
• Asia: Bank of China, Mizuho FG, Sumitomo Mitsui FG

Dexia, Commerzbank and Lloyds were dropped from the 2011 list. BBVA and Standard Chartered were added instead.

Let them fall!

Source: Golem XIV, via Raging Bull-Shit, via Naked Capitalism.

Catalonia: Anarchist group claims bomb attack against bank in bourgeois neighborhood

A so-called Affinity Group for Anarchy has claimed a bomb attack (apparently without explosion) against a bank office of La Caixa in the neighborhood of Las Tres Torres of Sarriá district of Barcelona. 

They claim to have chosen this area because of its outstanding bourgeois character and its relation with personalities like "Princess" Cristina Bourbon and her controversial family entourage (involved in corruption scandals: Noós case), with strong connections to Isidro Fainé (CEO of La Caixa, largest domestic bank of Spain, main benefitiary of the CAN/Banca Cívica corruption scandal, member of the Opus Dei pseudo-religious mafia, and vicepresident of many other companies: Telefónica, Repsol and the Sociedad General de Aguas de Barcelona). 

The artifact is said to be made by a 3 kg butane container filled with 2 kg of gunpowder, complemented by two smaller camping-gas containers. 

Full text of the communication: Contra Info → original Spanish, English translation.

Koriyama children fight a desperate legal battle for the right to live free from radiation

From Japan Today:

Lawsuit seeks evacuation of Fukushima children

TOKYO — Their demand: The right to live free of radiation. The plaintiffs who started the legal battle: 14 children.

A Japanese appeals court is expected to rule soon on this unusual lawsuit, filed on behalf of the children by their parents and anti-nuclear activists in June 2011 in a district court in Fukushima city, about 60 kilometers west of the crippled nuclear plant that spewed radiation when a massive earthquake and tsunami hit it more than two years ago.

The lawsuit argues that Koriyama, a city of 330,000, should evacuate its children to an area where radiation levels are no higher than natural background levels in the rest of Japan, or about 1 millisievert annual exposure.

In a culture that frowns upon challenging the authorities, the lawsuit highlights the rift in public opinion created by the baffling range in experts’ views on the health impact of low dose radiation. Although some experts say there is no need for children to be evacuated, parents are worried about the long-term impact on their children, who are more vulnerable to radiation than adults. Consuming contaminated food and water are additional risks.

... full story at Japan Today.

I have already said that most Northern Honsu, including Greater Tokyo, should be evacuated or otherwise restricted for inhabitation. This is particularly true for 2/3 of Fukushima prefecture where Koriyama lays. 

Protest in Madrid demanding investigation of convicted fascist murderer Emilio Hellín

Emilio Hellín Moro was the material author of the kidnapping, torture and murder of Basque communist student, resident in Madrid, Yolanda González in 1980. In spite of being a convicted criminal it was recently known he is assessing with several police forces of Spain, including the Western Basque Autonomous Police Corps (Ertzaintza).

Yolanda González Martín was member of the Workers' Socialist Party (PST) and an active student leader in Vallecas (Madrid), where she studied electronics. She was kidnapped by Emilio Hellín, Ignacio Abad, José Ricardo Prieto and Félix Pérez, who made up a fascist death squad, Grupo 41 (a commando of the Batallón Vasco-Español state terrorist unit). These four and two accomplices were tried and sentenced to several penalties, Hellín getting the maximum possible one back then: 30 years, plus another penalties: 13 years, three months and again three months.

After just 14 years in jail, Hellín managed to run away to Paraguay, where he was protected by the fascist regime of Stroessner. Later, back in Spain, he changed his name to Luis Enrique and never went back to jail. 

Recent homage to Yolanda González in Deustu, Bilbao

While the various authorities have promised to "investigate the matter", so far they have done nothing but a mockery and Hellín remains salaried and protected by the state, evidencing once again that Spain is a terrorist state against its own citizens. 

Main source: Diario Octubre[es].

Basque Country: thousands demonstrate in the anniversary of the murder of Iñigo Cabacas

While the new Security Councilor pretends it was a sad accident, the multitude cried that it was no accident but a murder. 

It was known recently that the policemen on the scene called their commander to tell that there were no incidents, that everything was calm. Yet the commander ordered them to charge against the multitude who was celebrating the football match, resulting in the death of Iñigo Cabacas. The identity of this ultimate culprit is not yet known nor any procedure has been opened against him/her at all.

Source: Bilboko Branka[eu].

Update (Apr 15): the whole communications between police agents the day when Iñigo Cabacas was killed can be heard (or read in the transcription) here (in Spanish language), a shorter version is here.