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We're back!  With some very good news: ManiFiesta is coming back in 2021! More than ever, we need solidarity, friendship and celebration... In short, everything you can find at ManiFiesta. Make a note of September 11 and 12 in your agenda. We will cross paths, in compliance with the sanitary measures in force, of course. New : ManiFiesta is moving ! This year we will celebrate at the Wellington hippodrome in Ostend.  For all the information, answers to your questions and, of course, your tickets, it's here: www.manifiesta.be We can't wait to be there. What about you?

With Marianne, the women's organisation of the PTB, we held actions on 8 March. For a minimum wage of 14 euros, for a real handling of violence against women and for a real decriminalisation of the right to abortion. Photo: Maartje De Vries, president of Marianne

Solidarity and unity in the four corners of the country. From Liege to Antwerp via Brussels, Ghent, Charleroi, Genk, Ostend... Today, on the occasion of the International Day against Racism, 21 rallies took place in 14 Belgian cities. Citizens, associations, trade unions mobilised against racism and hatred at the call of the Platform 21 March. The PTB-PVDA and its youth movements, RedFox and Comac, were present with a message against the division of the working class. Peter Mertens, president of the PTB-PVDA, was present in Brussels. Together we make the world go round. Together, let's fight against racism and discrimination, whether in employment, education, access to housing... #21March #TogetherAgainstRacism #Solidarity

A joint initiative of the PTB-PVDA, the PS (French-speaking Socialist Party ) and the sp.a (Dutch-speaking Socialist Party ) : No less than 23 members of the Belgian parliaments - including 11 from different PTB-PVDA parliamentary groups - have proposed the Cuban Medical Brigades for this year's Nobel Peace Award. This is an important support to the international campaign calling on Members of Parliament to nominate Cuban doctors for this prestigious peace award.

There is no longer any doubt about the fact that we are dependent on a handful of multinational pharmaceutical companies as far as the Covid-19 vaccine is concerned. Calls to break their monopoly are multiplying. Even Gwendolyn Rutten, former chairperson of the Open Vld (Flemish liberal party), is now turning to Twitter to support our plea to make the vaccine a public good," says Sofie Merckx, PTB-PVDA MP. This comes to prove that things will move when pressure is exerted."

Let it be a year of life, of wonder and of hope (free from coronavirus) May the coming year be one of friendship, empathy and resistance (free from exploitation) We raise our glasses to your health, for you are not alone (Long live solidarity) Peter Mertens, chairman PTB-PVDA

The PTB-PVDA has just launched the national campaign "A winter of solidarity" under the slogan "We leave no one behind". All over Belgium, 300 local PTB groups are implementing various solidarity actions in the coming weeks.

Thierry Bodson, the president of the FGTB (socialist trade union), and sixteen other trade unionists were sentenced today for "malicious obstruction of traffic" to suspended prison sentences and fines ranging from 600 to 4,800 euros by the Liège criminal court. Thierry Bodson gets a one-month suspended sentence.

Ministers have been neglecting health care for months, aren't they ashamed? Healthcare workers are at the end of their rope, but Health Minister Frank Vandenbroucke repeats that the promised resources "cannot be released quickly". 'Today the health workers of Medicine for the People went out in their underwear in front of their health centers to denounce the government's policy that leaves the entire health care sector naked in the cold. Aren't you ashamed? We are not ashamed either!

In our newsletter of September 10th, we announced the coming publication of the latest book by PTB-PVDA chairman Peter Mertens, They have forgotten us. The working class, health care and the coming crisis. Today we have the pleasure of inviting you for the evening launch of the French translation of the book, published by Le temps des cerises.