Portuguese communists demand hiring of more health care workers

The Communist Party of Portugal has called for the government to hire more health care workers. In a statement issued on June 7, the party criticized a budgetary proposal to reduce by 35 percent the contracting of health care worker from outside firms.  The phasing out of subcontracted hiring of health care workers is something the Communist Party sees as positive and necessary, but the statement warns that this must be accompanied by the direct hiring by the National Health Service of enough personnel to serve the needs of the people.  The party, the statement says “at no moment will accept measures which, decided for budgetary or other reasons, are translated into the degradation of the National Health Service or the harming of the people’s right to health care.

The Communist Party notes that after years of neoliberal privatization and austerity measures under the former right-wing government, “what the Portuguese expect from the government are positive measures that facilitate access to health care”.  The current Portuguese government is run by the Socialist Party which is supported by the communists and others “from the outside”.

Communists warn against Duterte’s abuse of martial law

The Philippine Communist Party (the one founded in 1930) expresses alarm at the danger that the country’s president, Rodrigo Duterte, will use recent terrorist attack in the Southern island of Mindanao as a pretext for even greater abuses of power, reminiscent of the dictatorship of the late Ferdinand Marcos.

On May 23, elements of the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group and allies, which have been kidnapping and murdering people for years, carried out an attack on the city of Marawi in Mindanao, in which Christian churches were targeted and hostages taken.  The government responded by imposing martial law on the whole of Mindanao,

While agreeing that everybody should support efforts to wipe out terrorism, the communists express their doubts that sweeping declarations of martial law are justified or can be efficacious. “Duterte has been lusting for emergency powers for his war on drugs [which has killed thousands] (and even just to solve the Metropolitan Manila traffic problem). The communists decry Duterte’s statements that he will extend martial law far beyond Marawi and even Mindanao as a yet another dangerous power grab.

Iran’s CP condemns Tehran terror

The Tudeh Party of Iran, the country’s repressed communist party, has denounced U.S. President Donald Trump plus the governments of Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab states for abetting the terrorist attack that left twelve people dead in Tehran on Wednesday June 7.

The attacks on the Iranian Parliament and on the tomb of the late Ayatollah Khomeini were evidently carried out by the Islamic State, called Daesh locally.  The United States is supporting Saudi Arabia and other Gulf monarchies in a very bloody civil war in Yemen.  The rebel forces in that country are based in an area whose inhabitants are, like most Iranians, Shiite Muslims, considered heretical by the Saudis and by the Islamic State.  Immediately after the attacks in Tehran, President Trump issued a deeply offensive statement in which he seemed to be saying that the Iranians had brought this on themselves.

The Tudeh statement reads in part:  “The Tudeh Party of Iran strongly condemns the criminal acts of the terrorists affiliated with Daesh (IS)…In recent months, the Tudeh Party of Iran has repeatedly commented about the dangerous policies of …U.S. imperialism and regional reaction, including the Saudi regime, its regional allies, and Israel, and has warned about the fact that these regimes are organizing and steering terrorist regimes in the region….the threatening, irresponsible and mainly unfounded words of Donald Trump [and other U.S. officials …has placed our nation in a critical and dangerous position’.  However, the Tudeh statement goes on to warn against retaliatory measures by Iran, citing  the great danger of a general war in the region.

Photo: CP of Portugal

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