anti-corporate

The stock market has surged past its former high recorded in October 2007, before the financial crash and Great Recession.

“With the Dow Jones Industrial average [at] a record high,” writes a columnist in a front page article in the New York Times, “the split between American workers and the companies that employ them is widening and could worsen in the next few months as federal budget cuts take hold”.

“That gulf helps explain why stock markets are thriving even as the economy is barely growing and unemployment remains stubbornly high.

The central European nation of Slovenia is being shaken by the first huge uprising since it became an independent country in 1991. The protests are directed against all political elites, austerity measures, and the capitalist system as a whole.

Whenever there is a protest in Portugal you are almost certain to hear the haunting song “Grandola, Vila Morena” (“Grandola, sunburnt town”), with its line “who most rules within you, O city, is the people”. On March 2, at huge protests across Portugal, “Grandola, Vila Morena” was sung by more voices than ever before.

Socialist Party of Malaysia (PSM) expresses its deepest condolences to the people of Venezuela, Latin America and all who supported the Bolivarian Revolution, for the loss of our great Comrade Hugo Chavez.

Comrade Chavez had gained the most votes in the history of Venezuela when he elected for the fourth consecutive presidential term. Unfortunately, now the unfinished revolutionary process has to go on without the physical present of comrade Chavez.

At about 5.30pm on March 5, life in Venezuela came to a sudden halt. In a speech broadcast live, Vice President Nicholas Maduro publicly announced that President Hugo Chavez had lost his two year battle with cancer.

Maduro stated that at 4.25pm, Chavez was pronounced dead after the emergence of a severe respiratory infection the previous day.

After urging for calm, the Maduro announced a number of security measures, including the deployment of the Bolivarian National Guard and police to maintain order.

REAL NEWS: In a raw emotional outpouring, hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans walk along side the coffin of President Hugo Chavez. Leaders and people across Latin America have joined the mourning.

The Australian Socialist Alliance released this statement on March 6.

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The Socialist Alliance in Australia expresses its deepest sympathies with the people and government of Venezuela on the death of Companero Hugo Chavez Frias on March 5. His passing is a huge loss for all peoples, across Latin America and the globe, struggling for a world free of inequality, exploitation and oppression.