[DEBATE] : What's new at Links: Georgia-Russia; carbon trading; Bolivia; Ernest Mandel; Martin Luther King

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    Russia-Georgia: Behind the war on South Ossetia
    <http://links.org.au/node/577>

August 16, 2008 -- On August 7, after a week of border clashes, 
Georgia's pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili launched a military 
attack against South Ossetia. South Ossetia, while internationally 
recognised as part of Georgia, has been predominantly under the control 
of a pro-independence administration since Georgia separated from the 
former Soviet Union in 1991. Since a 1992 ceasefire, the South Ossetian 
statelet has been protected by Russian peacekeepers. Within 24 hours, 
Georgian troops had taken the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, after 
destroying much of it with artillary. More than 30,000 refugees (out of 
a population of 70,000) fled across the border to the Republic of North 
Ossetia-Alania, which is part of the Russian Federation. Using this, and 
the killing of 20 Russian peacekeepers, as pretexts, Russia intervened 
in full force: bombing targets throughout Georgia, driving the Georgians 
out of South Ossetia (including territory not previously held by the 
South Ossetian administration) and crossing into Georgia-proper to take 
the town of Gori.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/577>


    Boris Kagarlitsky on the Russia-Georgia conflict & video
    <http://links.org.au/node/576>

August 14, 2008 -- Georgia has resolutely condemned Russia's actions in 
Chechnya. Russia has severely criticised NATO actions towards Serbia. 
Later on the Georgian authorities tried to do the same thing in South 
Ossetia as the Russian authorities had done in Chechnya. Moscow decided 
to treat Georgia in the same way as NATO had treated Serbia. Bad habits 
are contagious.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/576>


    Video: The Carbon Connection -- The human impact of carbon trading
    <http://links.org.au/node/575>

Two communities affected by one new global market - the trade in carbon 
dioxide. In Scotland, a town has been polluted by oil and chemical 
companies since the 1940s. In Brazil, local people's water and land is 
being swallowed up by destructive monoculture eucalyptus tree 
plantations. Both communities now share a new threat. As part of the 
deal to reduce greenhouse gases that cause dangerous climate change, 
major polluters can now buy carbon credits that allow them to pay 
someone else to reduce emissions instead of cutting their own pollution. 
What this means for those living next to the oil industry in Scotland is 
the continuation of pollution caused by their toxic neighbours. 
Meanwhile in Brazil, the schemes that generate carbon credits gives an 
injection of cash for more planting of the damaging eucalyptus 
plantations. The two communities are now connected by bearing the brunt 
of the new trade in carbon credits. The Carbon Connection follows the 
story of two groups of people from each community who learned to use 
video cameras and made their own films about living with the impacts of 
the carbon market.

Read more <http://links.org.au/node/575>


    Bolivia's struggle for justice, against right-wing offensive
    <http://links.org.au/node/574>

By Hugo Moldiz, translated and introduced by Federico Fuentes

<>August 10, 2008 -- "Given everything that is occurring in Tarija, 
Santa Cruz, Pando and Beni, we have to denounce ... that we are on the 
threshold of a real coup d'etat against the constitutional order", 
announced Bolivian minister of the presidency, Ramon Quintana, on August 
7. The day before, two bullets were fired into his car in an 
assassination attempt during a visit to the city of Trinidad, in Beni. 
Beni is part of the "half moon" of the resource-rich eastern departments 
including Santa Cruz, Tarija and Pando, that are a stronghold of the 
opposition to the left-wing government of indigenous President Evo 
Morales. "What the prefects are doing today is nothing more than an act 
of sedition, of contempt, or organisation of illegal forces, 
paramilitaries, to go against all public liberties", added Quintana.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/574>


    Bolivia: The COB and Morales -- `Over the shoulders of Kornilov'
    <http://links.org.au/node/573>

By Jorge Sanmartino

On July 21, 2008, some 15 days before the recall referendum, the 
Bolivian Workers Central (COB) initiated an indefinite general strike 
with roadblocks and permanent protests until its pension law project is 
approved by Congress. It was the most important protest that the COB has 
organised in years. Jamie Solares, the most radical of all the COB 
spokespeople, even maintained that if the law was not approved the COB 
would call for a "protest vote". With a combative tone, Solares tends to 
invoke Lenin to justify some of his own actions. Could we therefore 
invoke the advice of the old Bolshevik leader in order to explain what 
the COB is doing today?

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/573>


    The revolutionary life and tumultuous times of Ernest Mandel
    <http://links.org.au/node/572>

By Barry Healy

A Life for the Revolution, Documentary by Chris Den Hond, 90 minutes, 
2005; A Man Called Ernest Mandel, Documentary by Frans Buyens, 40 
minutes, 1972, available of two-disc DVD, available from http://www.iire.org
Ernest Mandel, said to be perhaps the most important Marxist 
theoretician of the second half of the 20th century, died aged 71 on 
July 20, 1995. These two documentaries reveal why he was so respected 
but also expose a great deal more. A Life for the Revolution uses 
Mandel's life as a lens to examine some of the most significant 
revolutionary developments of the last few generations, with stirring 
archival footage and interviews with participants. The 1972 "talking 
head" interview A Man Called Ernest Mandel, in which he explains 
important aspects of socialist democracy and workers' control of the 
means of production, is packaged as an extra.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/572>


    Martin Luther King's last struggle -- a talk by Brian Jones
    <http://links.org.au/node/571> 

Teacher and actor Brian Jones educated and moved his audience with his 
talk, ``Martin Luther King's last struggle'' at the United States' 
International Socialist Organization's ``Socialism 2008'' conference in 
Chicago on June 20, 2008.

    * Read more <http://links.org.au/node/571>

* * *

/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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