Fightback and La Riposte supporters converged in Toronto for the May long weekend to attend the annual Fightback national conference. This year, over 40 comrades from Fredericton, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, and Vancouver, with international guests from Britain, were able to attend and discuss the rapid changes occurring around the world. The conference also marked the 10th anniversary of supporters of the ideas of the International Marxist Tendency organizing national meetings in Canada; to begin the conference, a picture from the first conference in 2001 was shown, and comrades could see how far we had come in the past decade.

The traditional “Pfingstseminar” of the Der FunkeMarxist tendency in Austria took place recently over a long weekend full of political discussions and self-organised cultural and sports activities in the best traditions of international solidarity.

Fresh from his appearance at Fightback’s 2011 national conference, In Defence of Marxism editor Fred Weston spoke at the University of Toronto’s OISE building on May 24 to discuss the Arab Revolution and specifically its effects on Syria.

Comrade Azzouzi, a student leader of the 20F youth movement at the University of Fes in Morocco is recovering from his injuries, but is now facing severe financial difficulties due to the fact that he has been presented with a sizeable bill for the hospital care he received. Please donate to help this comrade.

This year’s national sellers conference of ‘Socialist Appeal’ was held in London on the weekend of April 16th and 17th. Supporters from all over Britain, from Aberdeen to Torbay, came together against the backdrop of a year of class struggle and revolution in Britain and internationally. Without doubt, the conference marked a new period in the development of the Marxist voice.

Come to the Marxist Summer School June 17-19 in London for a packed weekend of discussion and debate on what relevance the theory and programme of the Marxists has in this epoch of world revolution.

On Friday, April 15 more than fifty people turned up to a panel discussion on the Arab revolution, organised by the Der Funke Marxist tendency. The meeting was also the launch of the German translation of the Manifesto of the International Marxist Tendency on the Arab Revolution.

We publish here a final roundup of Alan Woods’ recent tour of Brazil written by the comrades of Esquerda Marxista. The tour was part of a wider speaking tour taking in Bolivia and Argentina. A total of over 2000 people attended the meetings in the three countries, which bodes well for the development of the forces of the IMT on the South American continent.

On the last day of his tour of three Latin American countries, prior to his final public talk in the evening  in Sao Paulo [see Brazil: São Paulo Chemical Workers’ meeting with Alan Woods], Alan Woods visited the occupied factory of Flaskô where he was warmly received by the workers and residents of the Workers’ Housing Estate [Vila Operaria].

On Thursday, April 7, the very successful Latin American speaking tour of Alan Woods reached its climax with a meeting held in the central office of the Chemical Workers’ Union of São Paulo (Sindicato dos Trabalhadores na Industria Quimica Farmacêutica e Plástica de São Paulo), the biggest union in this sector in Brazil.

Nearly 200 people attended the public meeting with Alan Woods in the most important university of Brazil to debate the question of the revolution in the Arab world and the crisis of capitalism

Following with the activities of Alan Woods in Brazil, there was a public meeting at the Oil Workers’ Union (SindPetro) in Rio de Janeiro. The meeting was opened with greetings from the coordinator of the Union, Cancela.

Since the beginning of the year, comrades from around the world have contributed €2,268 to help our work in the Arab world. We are still have some way to reach our target and would ask comrades to consider making a contribution.

Report from the PCB website:The National Secretariat of the Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) received this morning (April 4th) the visit of British Marxist intelectual Alan Woods, who is in Brazil to participate in a number of public meetings and political activities. Woods was accompanied by his comrade Luiz Bicalho, from the International Marxist Tendency, organized in Brazil in the Marxist Left.