Workers belonging to the Coalition Against Contractualization (KONTRA) today marched to Mendiola to mark the anniversary of the signing of Proclamation 1081 that imposed Martial Law 37 years ago and to reaffirm their vows to never again let the country slip into darkness.

We have just published a booklet, "From Nationalism to Internationalism. "

Steve Early is a 25-year veteran of the labor movement, journalist and author of the new book Embedded With Organized Labor (Monthly Review Press, 2009). His is a voice for a more militant rank-and-file democratic form of trade unionism which attempts to challenge the bosses by re-energizing a mostly dormant labor movement.

After taking part in a demonstartion for lack of job security in 2006, 14 workers of contractor “Transportes Camila de Sidor” could be sentenced to 5 to 10 years in jail.

For more than a week, Iran has been convulsed by mass demonstrations denouncing election fraud. Hundreds of thousands have repeatedly taken to the streets to denounce the government, which is now threatening, and beginning to carry out, a bloody crackdown. This time around, imperialist intervention is veiled: the White House feigns neutrality, the Western media go all out for the opposition, while in the background various agencies provide vital technical aid. In reality, all candidates in the presidential vote swear allegiance to the Islamic Republic, and the supposed moderate reformers are no less butchers and enemies of poor and working people than the conservative "populist" government. The situation cries out for revolutionary leadership independent of all factions of the theocracy, to wage a struggle for workers revolution against imperialism and clerical reaction.

* From Madrid the anarchist group Star, linked to the Iberian Federation of Anarchists Youths (Federación Ibérica de Juventudes Anarquistas-FIJA-), has raised questions whose answers will let us know today and in detail what is doing and saying the known Venezuelan anarchist newspaper.

Renato Peñas, Vice-President of PAKISAMA (National Movement of Peasant Organizations), was ambushed dead by unidentified gunmen at 11:00 PM Friday, 5 June 2009, on the way to his farm in Sumilao, Bukidnon.

* After taking part in a demonstration for lack of job security in 2006, 14 workers of contractor “Transportes Camila de SIDOR” could be sentenced to 5 to 10 years in jail.

The economic crisis which has crashed down on society has already had and for a long time will have disastrous consequences for the lives of the masses, as every worker can see in his daily life or her work. The bourgeois economists themselves admit it: they do not know what the causes of the crisis are – satisfying themselves by blaming the greed of the bankers or excessive financial deregulation – and they do not know when it will end and give way to the long-awaited “economic recovery”.

Amidst a deepening economic crisis engendered by the global financial meltdown, thousands of women workers belonging to the Alliance of Progressive Labor (APL) poured out into the streets of key Manila, Cebu, Davao, General Santos and Cotabato, on the occasion of the International Women’s Day to demand full employment and equality between women and men.

The struggle for survival which the crisis is forcing upon us must therefore become the spark for us to turn and fill the streets and squares. We must rebuild the essential bonds of class solidarity against all sectional divisions and racist poison.

More than 1000 people, including 920 elected delegates, attended the inaugural congress of Power of the Masses Party (PLM) on January 30.

In terms of organisation, wildcat strikes are a way forward. Strikes that really do go beyond union control and which instead are run by mass meetings who elect coordinating committees that can be recalled are a model for workers elsewhere. But it will take more than a fight in one sector to hold back the tide of attacks

As a strike wave sweeps the country, the Maoist leadership agrees to banning strikes.

Since the Maoists emerged in the April 2008 Nepal elections as the largest party (though without an absolute majority) to lead the new coalition government, they have failed to heal existing divisions - in their own party, within the parliamentary political system and its ruling class - or within the intermingled social, caste and ethnic tensions across the wider society. In fact, all these divides have widened. And since November a strike wave has spread across the country.

* In the difficult times being experienced by the Venezuelan labour movement, perhaps the most dramatic issue have been the criminal acts that kills tens of trade unionists to the passivity of the pseudo-revolutionary government and the silence of his admirers from outside the country. It speaks about it this text of El Libertario # 55, January-February 2009.