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The Cuban Communist Party said heroine Melba Hernandez, a member of the party’s Central Committee and parliamentary deputy passed away March 9, from complications linked to Diabetes Mellitus, a disease she had suffered from during years. Hernandez was born July 28, 1921, in the town of Cruces, in the former Las Villas province, today’s Villa Clara in the centre of the country. Hernandez graduated as a lawyer in 1943 at the University of Havana.
Dancing to the festive sounds of cumbia and ska music, thousands of supporters of the left-wing Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front (FMLN) celebrated the expected victory of their candidate, Salvador Sanchez Ceren, as the vote counts in El Salvador’s presidential run-off election poured in on the night of March 9.
Members of the National Tertiary Education Union (NTEU) at Macquarie University held a strike and picket on March 11 as part of their campaign to win a fair enterprise agreement and a quick resolution to bargaining. Union members picketed the main entrances to the university and distributed leaflets to students and staff explaining the reasons for the strike.
Socialist Resistance -- We are deeply shocked at the news that National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers general secretary Bob Crow died suddenly of March 11 of a heart attack at the age of 52. We send our heartfelt condolences and solidarity to his family and friends, and to the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union and its members. His death is a huge blow to the RMT and to the wider trade union movement and to the cause of militant class-struggle trade unionism.

The Organization of American States (OAS) approved a statement on March 7 expressing solidarity and support for the Venezuelan government in light of recent events. After two full days of heated debate at its summit, 29 states of the OAS voted in favor of a declaration lamenting the victims of protest-related violence in Venezuela, detailing the need for ongoing dialogue, and decidedly rejecting any intervention into, or sanctions against, Venezuela’s democratically elected government.