What's new at Links: Honduras, Iran, Slump and the poor world, forests,
Marta Harnecker on Lat Am, Jean Hale, W. Sahara film scandal, Arabic,
Boycott Israel

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Patrick Bond, Adam Hanieh (video): World slump and class struggles
in the global South <http://links.org.au/node/1135>

Toronto, June 28, 2009 - The political period that has opened up since
the financial turbulence of 2007 began to grip the world market has led
to both a crisis of neoliberalism and an attempt to reconstruct it. The
overaccumulation of capital in key sectors in the US and Europe,
particularly in real estate markets, auto production and financial
services, has led to an economic contraction that has spread across
global capitalism.

* Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1135>


Honduras: (Updated July 3) Solidarity and left movements condemn
coup, demand elected president be returned to powe
<http://links.org.au/node/1130>

Below are just some of the statements released by solidarity groups,
left parties and governments, and international organisations demanding
the return to power of Honduras' elected presidet Manuel Zelaya.

* Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1130>


Can carbon trading save our forests? <http://links.org.au/node/1129>

By Susan Austin
June 26, 2009 - Hobart, Tasmania -- Along with over 400 other people, I
turned up to the Wrest Point Casino here to attend the premiere of The
Burning Season on June 1. I had the film's headline -- "As inspiring as
The Inconvenient Truth was frightening" in the back of my mind, hoping
for a good news story. Instead I sat through a well-orchestrated promo
for a carbon trading company, set up by a young Australian-based
millionaire whose message was that it is possible to make money and save
the environment at the same time.
By setting up a carbon trading company called Carbon Conservation, and
brokering high-level deals between big banks and provincial Indonesian
governors, the film's "star", young entrepreneur Dorjee Sun, was able to
secure the protection of large areas of forests that may otherwise have
been logged or burnt.

* Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1129>


Marta Harnecker: Popular power in Latin America -- Inventing in
order to not make errors <http://links.org.au/node/1136>

By Marta Harnecker, translated by Coral Wynter and Federico Fuentes
Closing lecture given at the XXVI Gallega Week of Philosophy,
Pontevedra, April 17, 2009.

* Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1136>


Iranian and Sudanese communists on Iran protests: `A deeply genuine
struggle for democracy' <http://links.org.au/node/1134>

Joint statement by the Sudanese Communist Party and the Tudeh Party of Iran
Recently, representatives of the central committees of the Tudeh Party
of Iran and the Sudanese Communist Party exchanged views and consulted
on the political situation unfolding in Iran, in light of the rigged
elections of June 12 and the mass protests that quickly took place and
began to gain momentum shortly thereafter. The two parties discussed the
political situation in their respective countries and the conditions in
which the struggle for peace, human rights, democracy and social justice
is taking place. Based on their discussion and deliberations the
leaderships of the two fraternal parties hereby issue the following
statement:
The existing electoral process in Iran is a mockery of democracy,
designed to disenfranchise the Iranian electorate. Its entire se- up is
not related to the pursuit and furthering of democracy or any concept of
progress within Iranian society but to keep the reins of power firmly in
the hands of the despotic theocratic regime regardless of the wishes and
aspirations of the Iranian people. Despite using every method to
orientate the electoral process in their favour, the ruling guard of the
theocracy still sought fit to directly rig the outcome of the ballots
cast on the day of the election.

* Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1134>


Jean Hale, 1912-2009 -- Farewell to a `most revered activist'
<http://links.org.au/node/1133>

By Sylvia Hale
June 13, 2009 -- Jean Hale (nee Heathcote) was born on July 29, 1912, in
Brisbane. Her grandfather, Wyndham Selfe Heathcote, was an Anglican
clergyman who opposed the Boer War. His opposition to the Anglican
Church's social policies and his opinions, such as this from one of his
essays -- "The death of Jesus, as a social reformer using direct action,
has been transmuted into the death of a God dying for the world" --
found him at loggerheads with the church and resulted in his leaving to
become a Unitarian minister. His public speaking skills, which Jean
inherited, were considerable. In October 1916 the Woman Voter reported
that, "despite the large seating capacity of the building, thousands of
people were turned away" from a debate between himself and Adela
Pankhurst (the youngest member of the British suffragist family).

* Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1133>


Australia: Damage on many fronts in false charge of slavery in
Western Sahara <http://links.org.au/node/1132>

A documentary on Western Sahara refugees marks a low point, Kamal Fadel
writes.
July 1, 2009 -- Last month in Sydney, the notion of democracy took a
pounding. The launch of the documentary Stolen at the Sydney Film
Festival marked a low point in local film culture, and signified the
tenuous grip on truth we now have in contemporary society. That such a
film should be financed with about A$350,000 of public money -- through
Screen Australia -- and accepted by the prestigious festival raises
questions about the nature of reality and on how it is depicted in
mainstream media, such as through the medium of the film documentary.
The film purports, in a sensationalistic way, to reveal widespread
evidence of racially based slavery in the Saharawi refugee camps on the
Western Sahara-Algeria border. Central to the apparent scoop is an
interview with Fetim Sallem, a 36-year-old mother of four. She was in
Australia to explain her story, which is significantly at odds with the
film's take on it (so much so that Fetim requested unsuccessfully to
have her interviews removed from the film).

* Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1132>


The Flame, June-July 2009 -- Green Left Weekly's Arabic-language
supplement <http://links.org.au/node/1131>

With the help of Socialist Alliance members in the growing Sudanese
community in Australia, Green Left Weekly -- Australia's leading
socialist newspaper -- is publishing a regular Arabic language
supplement. The Flame covers news from the Arabic-speaking world as well
as news and issues from within Australia. The editor-in-chief is Soubhi
Iskander, a comrade who has endured years of imprisonment and torture at
the hands of the repressive government in Sudan.

* Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1131>


Pro-Israel lobby alarmed by growth of boycott, divestment movement
<http://links.org.au/node/1128>

By Art Young
June 24, 2009 -- The movement to call Israel to account for its crimes
against the Palestinian people is growing, it is "invading the
mainstream discourse, becoming part of the constant and unrelenting
drumbeat against Israel". It could eventually threaten the existence of
the Jewish state by undermining the support it receives from its
strongest backer, the US government.
That was the message of alarm delivered by the executive director of the
American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Howard Kohr, to the AIPAC
Policy Conference on May 3.

* Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1128>


Selling Iran: Ahmadinejad, privatisation and a bus driver who said
`no' <http://links.org.au/node/1127>

By Billy Wharton
June 26, 2009 -- A creeping assumption lies just beneath the surface of
arguments concerning the disputed election in Iran. Incumbent Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad is cast as an anti-US populist crusader resisting the
materialistic advances of the West. His opponent, Mir-Hossein Mousavi,
as his foil - a Western-backed liberal intent on implementing
free-market policies. Violent street battles have been presented as a
reinforcement of the Western disposition to see the two idealised
positions as the limit of what is politically imaginable. Such arguments
conveniently avoid a third force - the people of Iran, whose street
politics threaten to move well beyond the confines of the electoral
campaigns. Questions remain. Is Ahmadinejad really a populist - the only
force preventing a wave of pro-market policies in Iran? Does Mousavi's
campaign mark the limits of the reform movement?

* Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1127>


Iranian workers in action for democratic rights
<http://links.org.au/node/1126>

Introduction by Robert Johnson and John Riddell
June 29, 2009 -- The mass protests in Iran, sparked by charges of fraud
in the June 12 presidential elections, express deeply felt demands for
expanded democratic rights. The establishment press has been silent on
the aspirations of rank-and-file protesters. Socialist Voice is
therefore pleased to be able to publish several statements by components
of Iran's vigorous trade union movement, which has been a major target
of repression by Iran's security forces. We have provided the titles and
some introductory comments.

* Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1126>


Iran: (Video) Not a Twitter revolution, not a CIA revolution
<http://links.org.au/node/1125>

By Reese Erlich

June 26, 2009 -- Iran is not undergoing a ``Twitter Revolution''. The
term simultaneously mischaracterizes and trivialises the important mass
movement developing in Iran. Here's how it all began. The Iranian
government prohibited foreign reporters from traveling outside Tehran
without special permission, and later confined them to their hotel rooms
and offices. CNN and other cable networks were particularly desperate to
find ways to show the large demonstrations and government repression. So
they turned to internet sites such as Facebook and Twitter in a frantic
effort to get information. Since reporters were getting most of their
information from Tweets and You Tube video clips, the notion of a
"Twitter Revolution" was born.
We reporters love a catch phrase and, Twitter being all a flutter in the
West, it seemed to fit. It's a catchy phrase but highly misleading.

* Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1125>

* * *
Links seeks to promote the international exchange of information,
experience of struggle, theoretical analysis and views of political
strategy and tactics within the international left. It is a forum for
open and constructive dialogue between active socialists coming from
different political traditions. It seeks to bring together those in the
international left who are opposed to neoliberal economic and social
policies. It aims to promote the renewal of the socialist movement in
the wake of the collapse of the bureaucratic model of "actually existing
socialism" in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.

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