Last Sunday, November 1), Utopia (the broad-left bookstore/ “salon” in Beijing) hosted a screening of the Japanese documentary film “Freeters’ Revolt” (《素人之乱》, translated elsewhere as “Amateur’s Revolt”), and a discussion with the filmmaker, freeter activist and second-hand shop owner Hajime Matsumoto (松本 哉), along with Higuchi Takuro (樋口拓朗), billed as the main organizer of the 2008 anti-G8 protests in Japan and researcher at Tokyo University’s Global COE [Centers of Excellence] Program. Call Utopia at (010) 6276.0856+11/0. http://chinastudygroup.net/2009/10/freeters-revolt-screening/

http://www.u-tokyo.ac.jp/coe/english/greeting/index.html

http://www.wyzxsx.com/Article/Class1/200910/110902.html

http://www.douban.com/event/11136827/

a Regal struggle in Chengdu by husunzi | 28 October 2009

Today about 50 construction workers assembled outside the gate of the “Manhatten” office building in Chengdu, on behalf of over a thousand workers, demanding 30 million yuan in back pay from Chengdu Xinda Real Estate Development Co. (成都鑫达房地产开发有限公司) for 12 months work building the five-star Regal Master Hotel (成都富豪首座酒店), from July 2006 to July 2007...

Several news agencies were contacted, but apparently none came to investigate. (One commented that such incidents are too common to be newsworthy, and besides, no newspaper’s editors would be willing to publish it.) The workers went “home” to the construction site where they currently live in makeshift shacks, but they say they’ll be back every day until they get paid.

READ MORE: http://chinastudygroup.net/2009/10/a-regal-struggle-in-chengdu/

http://libcom.org/library/hong-kong-where-anarchists-blackbirds-sing-about-freedom

Brief report on anarchist elements in the Hong Kong activist scene ca. 2009, focusing on Lenny Guo of the band Blackbird, veteran of the 70s Collective. Also deals with HK independent media, the Social Movement Resource Centre and the 2005 WTO protests.

By Norman Nawrocki of Rhythm Activism. Published in Fifth Estate #381 (2009). www.fifthestate.org/

Norman Nawrocki http://www.nothingness.org/music/rhythm/en/html/bio.html

VIDEOS

http://www.youtube.com/user/fmaf08

http://thekarmaofhope.net/

related:

http://www.smrc8a.org/

http://freedomfair.artivist.org/

http://www.inmediahk.net/

http://chinastudygroup.net/

http://meanwhileatthebar.org/blog/?p=286

http://www.bopsecrets.org/PS/hongkong.htm http://www.bopsecrets.org/SI/11.China.htm

http://chinastudygroup.net/

ChinaStudyGroup.net just relaunched. The people posting on the site now range from lib-com to Maoist to social democrat, but we're all anti-capitalist and interested in understanding different perspectives on China - including Chinese perspectives. Our political diversity and our emphasis on translating and introducing Chinese anti-capitalist perspectives means there's a lot of stuff on the site that may put off anti-authoritarians - defences of Mao's legacy and so on - but if you dig around a little you'll find some interesting things, and of course feel free to criticize anything you disagree with.

At this point we're looking for more stimulation. Also feel free to repost anything from there, as long as you indicate the source, and we'll do likewise. CSG is not a centralized organization and does not have a line, but we are united by:

* an opposition to the global capitalist system,

* an understanding that China has been increasingly integrated into that system since at least the 1990s,

* a concern for the well-being of people oppressed by that system,

Going it alone: report on the state of the workers' movement in China 2007-2008 China’s workers are taking to the streets in ever increasing numbers. Angered by management abuses, and emboldened by the passage of new labour legislation, they are staging strikes, roadblocks and protests to demand the payment of wages in arrears, better working conditions and even the right to set up their own trade union branches. In a new research report published 9 July, China Labour Bulletin looks at how the workers’ movement in China has developed over the last two years, how the government has responded to it, and why the official trade union has been unable or unwilling to play a positive role in it. available as a 57-page PDF. http://www.clb.org.hk/en/node/100507/ Alternatively, listen to CLB’s latest podcast introducing the report. http://www.clb.org.hk/en/podcasting_list ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ AMERICAN WAR ON VIETNAM - INSUBORDINATION ! A US military officer reports on the increasing incidence of insubordination, desertion and rebellion in the US army over the course of the Vietnam War.

Chorus : It's the same the whole world over, It's the poor what gets the blame, Its the rich that gets the pleasure, Ain't it all a bleeding shame.

AUGUST: Authorities closed a chemical plant after local residents in central Hunan Province protested against cadmium pollution, which killed two people and affected hundreds of others, media reported on Monday, 3rd of August. The closure follows a number of recent high profile "mass incidents" which turned violent and prompted media criticism of officials' failure to respond quickly. http://libcom.org/news/protests-china-over-pollution-08082009

Recent events in China (July) The latest popular riots in Xinjiang highlight not only the ongoing contradictions within current Chinese-style neoliberal capitalism but also the historically long-standing opposition among various minorities against an ethnically dominant state power in China. http://libcom.org/news/uyghur-commoners-against-new-enclosures-xinjiang-china-21072009

jlg france ‘explosion threat’: putting the squeeze on management 19 07 2009 Workers at platform-crane manufacturer JLG in south west France won a 30,000 euro pay-out for each of 53 staff made redundant after three weeks of strike action. The tactics employed by the workers – including blocking a high-speed TGV train in a station and placing gas canisters around four cranes on site, threatening to blow them up – won wide attention in the French press and, as this Sud Ouest article demonstrates, showed the value of determined collective action.

http://thecommune.wordpress.com/2009/07/19/jlg-france-explosion-threat-putting-the-squeeze-on-management/#

more-3075 http://gangbox.wordpress.com/2009/07/18/dynamite-unionism-wins-victory-in-france-american-lift-truck-maker-jlg-agrees-to-pay-decent-severance-pay-to-laid-off-autoworkers-after-they-threaten-to-blow-up-the-factory/

Antony Loewenstein and The Blogging Revolution by Giovanni Torre 2009-04-03

Antony Loewenstein's latest book - The Blogging Revolution - documents his travels through Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran, China and Cuba and his meetings with independent journalists and writers. He recently spoke to Indymedia.

http://perth.indymedia.org/?action=newswire&parentview=143243

Four years ago Antony Loewenstein began work on My Israel Question, a scathing critique of the occupation of Palestine. For a nice Jewish boy from Melbourne, it was a bold move. “Most of the vitriol around my work on Israel/Palestine comes from Jews, sadly, who simply refuse to accept their homeland is a rogue state that commits horrible wars crimes in the occupied territories.

Industrial Worker - Issue #1713, February/March 2009

Headlines: Starbucks: Where's Anna's Money? Workers Occupy Thomson Factory in Poland Independent Unionism in Cambodia

Features: Unionbook.org reviewed Pakistani women workers "unnamed" Wisconsin paper mill closes

Related Links Industrial Worker http://www.iww.org/projects/IW/

PDF copy http://www.iww.org/PDF/IndustrialWorker/IWFebMarch09.pdf

http://www.iww.org/en/node/4613

_________

Iran: Isfahan Steel workers stage symbolic hunger strike It is reported that workers at the Isfahan Steel Mill Factory have begun a symbolic hunger strike on February 28th 2009 which will continue for two weeks. According to reports from Iran, they will not have the meals served at the factory premises. The initiative comes in protest to inappropriate working conditions and both open and veiled discriminations against workers. They are also objecting to a wide gap in pay between full time and part time employees in the factory, as well as lack of job security. Isfahan’s Steel Mill Factory has over 10,000 part time and 8,000 full time workers.