On Thursday, July 22, Venezuelan
president Chávez decided to put the
border with Colombia on maximum military alert, after Colombian
president Alvaro Uribe made accusations that Venezuela was harbouring
FARC guerrillas and demanded an “international commission of enquiry”.
The FIAT plant at Pomigliano d’Arco
(Naples) has become the centre of attention for all militant trade
unionists in Italy. The bosses are trying to implement new draconian
work conditions and in the process have used all kinds of bullying
methods. But they can push too far and the workers are reaching the
limit and preparing to fight back.
The recent G20 summit in Toronto brought
to the surface all the
contradictions of global capitalism. Every capitalist nation wants to
climb out of the crisis at the expense of its competitors. Everyone is
calling for demand to be kept up, while at the same time applying cuts
in public spending at home. At the heart of this are the mountains of
debt that have accumulated everywhere.
The public clash between Obama and his
top general in Afghanistan
highlight the difficulties US imperialism is facing in what is clearly
an unwinnable war. What the general has done is to express in public
what is normally reserved for private conversation, but it does bring
out clearly the impasse the US is facing in Afghanistan.
The mood leading up to this weekend’s G20
summit and the protest
against it became increasingly tense throughout the week. The police
and the state spent plenty of time informing the public of its vast
arsenal, troop numbers, facilities, and readiness to defend the
fence—itself a graphic symbol of the growing class divide not only here
in Canada, but around the world. Rob Lyon reports on the action on the streets.
Alan Woods concludes his analysis of the unfolding crisis of capitalism
in Europe and how it is impacting on the organisations of the working
class.
Alan Woods continues his analysis of the crisis facing European capitalism and their institutions.
After months of build up, the World Cup is finally underway. As it
approaches the end of the first week, in what is a month-long bloated
competition, something has become rather clear. Hype is
everything.
Marxists in the US have just finished discussing and agreeing a new perspectives doument on the ongoing crisis of the system in America. Given the importance of what happens in the most powerful capitalist country on earth, we are reproducing that document for UK readers.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, June 1 and
2, most workers returned to work at the Honda plant in Foshan, China,
after strike action which had started on May 17. As www.marxist.com reported
earlier, the workers were fighting for substantial wage increases.
Last Saturday’s HOV conference, held in London, was a great event. Here are some photo’s by HOV’s resident snapper, Will.
When watching
Comic Relief or any other sort of international aid fundraiser, viewers
are
often startled with images of starving children, and an attempt is made
to
portray the African continent as a complete humanitarian disaster,
composed of
destitute countries that are plagued by famine, drought, disease,
corruption,
and civil war. Whilst it is true that natural disasters and adverse
conditions have
hindered the development of many African countries, these media sources
do not
attempt to address why the continent is prone to civil war and
corruption and
no effort is made to explain the root cause of the problem: imperialism.(Photo: Paul Shaffner)