DEM VOLKE DIENEN

In the state of Pernambuco in north-eastern Brazil, poor peasants have been blockading the highway in the town of Escada for several days. The reason for these massive road blockades is the murder of the poor peasant Deyvison Batista da Silva, who was first arrested by the military police for no reason on the afternoon of February 21 of this year and then detained.

Yesterday, the first Ruhr Area Care Conference took place in Gelsenkirchen under the slogan "Care Triage Summit".The conference was organized by public bodies such as the AWO, Diakonie, various foundations and private companies such as "Humanitas" from Essen as well as the interest group for carers in NRW. Neither part of the organizing committee nor represented in the conference's supporting programme were the North Rhine-Westphalia Chamber of Care Professionals, which represents all carers, or the trade union Verdi, which represents care workers in their labour struggles.

On Monday in the evening, Daniela Klette, a former militant of the Red Army Faction, was arrested by special police units in Berlin. Daniela belonged to the so-called third generation of the RAF and had been on the run with two other RAF members since its dissolution in 1998.

In Brazil, a paramilitary organization has been formed by and on behalf of right-wing to fascist big landowners, whose aim is to combat the land invasions of poor peasants.

There has been another raid in Essen in North Rhine-Westphalia. This is not unusual in itself, except that this time it was not a raid on so-called "Arab clans", but an operation against "social benefit recipients".

The democratic and revolutionary news site "Sol Rojista" has also reported on the current situation in Mexico itself in its weekly news roundup on class struggles and revolutionary actions around the world.

The economy of German imperialism is in recession, in other words in an economic crisis as part and expression of the general crisis of imperialism. This is noticeable in many areas and, interestingly, now also in the unemployment figures. The whole thing is interesting because there is "actually" a great shortage of skilled workers in the FRG, or rather, and this is the more correct version, a great general shortage of labor. It should also be said that, firstly, there are demographic reasons for this shortage, which are repeatedly brought to the foreground in the media, but secondly, it also has a lot to do with the increasingly poor working conditions and the intensification and prolongation of exploitation, which young people and young adults in particular reject.