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What's new at Links: World Cup, Palestine solidarity, Thailand, China, Malaysia, David Harvey, Indonesia, Angola, Greece * * * *For more reliable delivery of new content, please subscribe free to Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 * You can also follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 Visit and bookmark http://links.org.au and add it to your RSS feed (http://links.org.au/rss.xml). If you would like us to consider an article, please send it to li...@dsp.org.au *Please pass on to anybody you think will be interested in Links. * * * 2010 World Cup: Africa's turn or turning on Africa? A political economy of FIFA's African adventure <http://links.org.au/node/1738> By *Ashwin Desai* and *Goolam Vahed, *PowerPoint slideshow by *Patrick Bond*. The awarding of soccer World Cup 2010 to South Africa was hailed as a great "victory" for the African continent and the cause of much celebration. It heightened expectations not only about the spectacle itself but about the benefits that would accrue to South Africa and the rest of Africa. This essay examines the notion of the successful bid as an "African victory" in the context of global power relations in football, South Africa's alleged function as a sub-imperialist power on the continent, and xenophobic attacks on African immigrants in South Africa. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1738> `Intensify pressure!' -- (updated June 8) Call by Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee gains support <http://links.org.au/node/1725> By the *Palestinian BDS National Committee* (BNC) Occupied Palestine, June 1, 2010 -- Palestinian civil society calls for intensifying boycott and sanctions as Israel massacres humanitarian relief workers and international solidarity activists. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1725> New book: `Thailand's Crisis and the Fight for Democracy' <http://links.org.au/node/1741> June 11, 2010 -- Associate Professor *Giles Ji Ungpakorn* (pictured above) is a political commentator and dissident from Thailand. In February 2009 he had to leave Thailand for exile in Britain because he was charged with /lèse majesté/ <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A8se_majest%C3%A9> for writing a book criticising the 2006 military coup. His latest book will be of interest to activists, academics and journalists who have an interest in Thai politics, democratisation and NGOs. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1741> World Cup in South Africa: Six red cards for FIFA <http://links.org.au/node/1740> By* Patrick Bond*, Durban A barrage of flag-waving, /vuvuzela/-blowing hypernationalist publicity cannot drown out at least six critiques of the World Cup: * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1740> `People's Daily' columnist -- `Time to defend Chinese workers' rights' <http://links.org.au/node/1737> By *Li Hong* June 7, 2010 -- Wherever exists exploitation and suppression, rebellion erupts. If the exploited are a majority of the society, the revolt draws even nearer and comes with a louder bout. For the past 30 years witnessing China's meteoric rise, multinationals and upstart home tycoons have rammed up their wealth making use of China's favourable economic policies as well as oversight loopholes. In sharp contrast, tens of millions of Chinese blue-collar workers who have genuinely generated the wealth and created the prosperity have been left far behind. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1737> Malaysia: PSM congress debates relationship with opposition Pakatan Rakyat <http://links.org.au/node/1736> June 9, 2010 -- The Socialist Party of Malaysia's 12th Congress was held in Kuala Lumpur on June 5-6, 2010. Three hundred delegates from nine states, and allied organisationd and grassroots committees, attended. The congress was officiated by the PSM's national chairperson Comrade Nasir Hashim. Three papers were presented on the environmental crisis facing the world, leadership transition in PSM and the Malaysian governments economic policies. Resolutions (see below) were debated on the second day touching on idelogical questions, local government elections and the PSM's relationship with the opposition Pakatan Rakyat * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1736> Video: David Harvey -- `The crises of capitalism' <http://links.org.au/node/1735> On April 26, 2010, Marxist geographer professor* David Harvey* spoke to the the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA) to explain how capitalism came to dominate the world and why it resulted in the current financial crisis. He asks: is it time to look beyond capitalism towards a new social order? * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1735> Indonesian solidarity with the people of Palestine <http://links.org.au/node/1734> /Protest in solidarity with the Gaza Freedom Flotilla and the people of Palestine, outside the US embassy, Jakarta, Indonesia, on June 7, 2010. Organised by the Working People's Association (Perhimpunan Rakyat Pekerja//)./ Angola: From liberation to `capitalismo selvagen' <http://links.org.au/node/1733> By *David Sogge *June 2010 -- What's in a name? For the ruling party of Angola, it seems, quite a lot. In December 2009, that party formally abandoned its original name from 1956, /Movimento Popular de Libertação de Angola/, the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola. Henceforth it would be known merely by the old initials: MPLA. Evidently the party thought it best to bury and forget terms like "movement" and "liberation". Besides, it had long ago dropped the word /Popular / from new nation's first name, the /People's / Republic of Angola. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1733> (Updated June 13) Support for Palestinian unions' call for international unions to ban Israeli trade and ships <http://links.org.au/node/1732> *Palestinian trade union movement calls on international dockworkers' unions to block loading/offloading Israeli ships until Israel complies fully with international law and ends its illegal siege of Gaza* By the *Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee*, Palestine June 7, 2010 -- The Palestinian trade union movement, as a key constituent member of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) calls on dockworkers' unions worldwide to block Israeli maritime trade in response to Israel's massacre of humanitarian relief workers and activists aboard the Freedom Flotilla, until Israel complies with international law and ends its illegal blockade of Gaza. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1732> What next? The Freedom Flotilla and the struggle to break the siege of Gaza <http://links.org.au/node/1731> By *Rafeef Ziadah* June 5, 2010 -- While people around the world are still in shock at the killing by Israeli commandos of innocent human rights activists on board the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, those who have been following Israeli state actions for some time are not surprised. This is an ongoing pattern of Israeli state terrorism and collective punishment. While we mourn the dead on the boats, we must not forget that the flotilla itself is in response to an even greater brutality -- the slow starvation of more than 1.5 million people trapped in an open air prison called the Gaza Strip. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1731> Greece: At the forefront of Europe's class struggle <http://links.org.au/node/1730> By *Dimitris Fasfalis* June 7, 2010 -- Workers in Greece today stand in the forefront of the converging European class struggles against big capital's attempt to make working people pay the costs of its crisis. * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/1730> * * * 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. ATTENTION: Sign up for regular ``what's new'' announcement emails at http://www.feedblitz.com/f/?Sub=343373 Follow Links on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LinksSocialism or on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10865397643 ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com