In a television programme broadcasted to
the whole of the country on July 31st, President Chávez announced the nationalisation
of Banco de Venezuela, the Venezuelan bank owned by the Spanish banking
multinational Grupo Santander.
Most had already proclaimed it dead, and were surprised to learn that
the WTO was meeting in a frenzied attempt to conclude its "Doha Round"
negotiations. The prospects for wrapping up a deal were slim, and many
expected the WTO to lapse quickly back into coma. With the collapse of
the talks, that is precisely what happened.
After years of Bush’s open-ended war on working people at home and
abroad, many on the “left” are desperate for an alternative. For many,
that alternative is Barack Obama, a Democratic Senator from Illinois. However,
far from being a “progressive” alternative, Obama is at his core a
typical representative of the bosses’ political parties.
The SNP victory
in the Glasgow East by-election certainly marks a new low in the recent history
of the Scottish Labour Party but the question is now posed: does it mark the
seismic shift in Scottish politics that Alex Salmond has declared?