Syria: a difficult and complicated situation

The Syrian crisis is getting more complicated and developing into different and dangerous directions, now that the limits of this crisis have gone beyond the geographical boundaries of Syria and assumed a regional as well as international dimension.... Different areas of our country have been witnessing activities ranging from peaceful and un provocative demonstrations that never constitute a danger for the security of the state and should accordingly be dealt with peacefully, provocative features aiming to increasing tension, and finally to plundering operations aiming to devastate public institutions, carry out assassinations, kidnapping, looting and blocking out high ways. These acts should be confronted and stopped. Any reading of the general security situation indicates that armed groups no longer have the initiative. Instead, the state is gradually restoring its role. It is necessary here to emphasize that it is possible to do away with all tense situations, however different they are only through a general peaceful settlement that isolates armed groups, respects the right of the peaceful patriotic opposition to practice political work legally. On the political level, no progress has been achieved as far as national dialogue is concerned regardless of the exerted efforts in which we took part; Basically, the reason of this failure has to do with the fear of the patriotic opposition that the local Syrian National Council, which rejects any initiative for dialogue before the regime is being toppled down and considers any party accepting dialogue traitor. ... It is not acceptable when such a committee agrees to start dialogue with all the world, including enemy imperialist countries and refuses any dialogue with the state, regardless of the justifications.


Communist Party of Syria (Unified)

Occupy Wall Street Gives Award to Pfizer: “Excellence in Profiteering”

Part of National Day of Action against corporate greed and corruption

New York, NY – February 29 – Healthcare workers, doctors, nurses, and Occupy Wall Street activists gathered outside of Pfizer’s International Headquarters in New York City to protest the world’s largest drug company’s connection to theAmerican Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, a right-wing, corporate-funded think tank that develops and promotes radical pro-corporate laws for state legislators to enact.

Healthcare for the 99%, the working group of Occupy Wall Street that organized the demonstration at Pfizer, pointed out that ALEC promotes bills that limit drug companies’ liabilities for defective products and deceptive marketing, prohibits Americans from importing cheaper drugs from other countries, and prohibits states from negotiating lower prices for drugs, especially for programs like Medicaid.

The great democracy that is new capitalist Russia

The elections have just been stolen from Russia. Knocking out the desired result the vertical of power threw into the battle the whole arsenal of fraud and manipulation. The officials were instructed on the voting "outcome" targets. "Law enforcement officials" turned a blind eye to the violations imposed. They did not suppress the issuing of anonymous newspapers like "Lord forbid!" ones. Complaints addressed to the law enforcement agencies were being rejected under various pretexts. The electoral commission compositions remained unchanged. CEC Chairman Vladimir Churov was kept at place. The CPRF Bills on the electoral system "repair" were not accepted by the State Duma. Instead of fair elections a campaign of web cameras installing was proposed to the citizens. On the Election Day the apotheosis of cynicism revealed itself in the removal from the polling places not only of the CPRF observers, but in some regions, of election commissions’ members with decisive vote.

Communist Party of the Russian Federation on the 2012 elections.

Mayra and Cristhina's story: still waiting for wagesMayra and Cristhina's story

From the Worker's Action Center in Toronto

We found work in a hotel in the Muskoka area through an agency.  The pay that we received was always $10 per hour, whether we worked overtime or not.  This is less than the minimum wage.  When we left our job, the employer told us that she would not pay us our last cheque.  This employer works with many Latin American people in different hotels, many of them north of Toronto.  It is not only to us that the agency does not want to pay.

We started working with another Toronto agency that does cleaning work in movie theatres.  Because a family member had an accident, we had return back home to our country.  We gave our employer 10 days notice so he could find someone else, and we agreed that on our last day we would receive all our wages, around $3,000 for each of us.  But when we came to get our cheque, the employer told us he would only give us part of the money and the rest would be paid to us later.

United to stop the growing war against Syria

Bombing Syria would be genocidal, not 'humanitarian'

By Darrell Rankin, People’s Voice, March 1, 2012

Events continue to move quickly towards very dangerous, destabilizing wars of occupation in the Middle East, wars that will trample democracy and conditions for working people in all countries that take part. Imperialist and reactionary countries are pushing ahead with an onslaught of deception and justifications, bringing armed groups to life, and making sure to involve as many countries as they can.

Western-backed armed groups and weapons are flooding into Syria, with the aim of creating conditions where a political solution to the civil war is impossible. Imperialist countries would rather drown Syria in blood than allow democratic elections to take place.

The former colonial powers in the Middle East such as France and Britain, the United States, Israel and the most reactionary members of the League of Arab States, are making every effort to de-legitimize the Syrian government, saying it is incapable of reform and that bloody regime change and foreign “help” are the only options.

More unemployed call center workers, says report

After adding more than 90,000 jobs across Canada from 1997 to 2007, the business support services sector (ie. call centers - RY) saw its employment decline by 28 per cent from 2007 to 2011. Nearly 33,000 jobs have disappeared since 2007. The losses have hit particularly hard in New Brunswick and Ontario. In New Brunswick, the industry lost more than 3,100 jobs between 2007 and 2011. Ontario’s sector took an even larger hit, shedding almost 26,000 jobs since 2007 or a 40 per cent decline. ...employment decline in the business support services sector on a percentage basis has been much steeper than in manufacturing. ... There will be far fewer jobs associated with customer interaction in the future... (because) people are increasingly using the Web and bypassing the need to talk directly to a customer service agent by the telephone.


Source: Globe and Mail, March 8, Why call centres no longer ring up big job gains

Toronto Star: lost generation of youth?

“Set the bar low,” is the advice Ron Sly would give himself a year and a half ago, when he started looking for work in Toronto.

But back then it was a city of opportunity, where he’d get a stable job and become upwardly mobile.

Instead the 26-year-old, armed with a useless B.Sc. in biology, spent months job-hunting while working at a bar.

“I couldn’t go back to school, I couldn’t take on any more debt,” he said. For the last year he’s worked on short-term contract as communications coordinator at First Work, a not-for-profit organization helping youth find employment.

He likes his job, but it would be nice to live like you know where next month’s rent is coming from.

“There is still the stress of being unsure about the future. There just isn’t the stability and job security that was enjoyed by previous generations. That is for me the biggest let down.”

Sly is part what could become a “lost generation,” says TD economist Francis Fong. “There is the threat of it taking half a decade to a decade or even longer to get these people back to where they should have been had they been the same age in an economic boom year.”

Thought of the day: Lenin on religion

Under no circumstances ought we to fall into the error of posing the religious question in an abstract, idealistic fashion, as an “intellectual” question unconnected with the class struggle, as is not infrequently done by the radical-democrats from among the bourgeoisie. It would be stupid to think that, in a society based on the endless oppression and coarsening of the worker masses, religious prejudices could be dispelled by purely propaganda methods. It would be bourgeois narrow-mindedness to forget that the yoke of religion that weighs upon mankind is merely a product and reflection of the economic yoke within society. No number of pamphlets and no amount of preaching can enlighten the proletariat, if it is not enlightened by its own struggle against the dark forces of capitalism.   Unity in this really revolutionary struggle of the oppressed class for the creation of a paradise on earth is more important to us than unity of proletarian opinion on paradise in heaven.


Lenin, Socialism and Religion, 1905