Two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no federal
income taxes between 1998 and 2005, according to a new report from Congress.
The study by the Government Accountability Office, said about 68% of foreign
companies doing business in the U.S. avoided corporate taxes.
"It’s shameful that so many corporations make big profits and pay nothing
to support our country," said
Senator Byron Dorgan.
As food prices
soar world-wide it was reported recently on the BBC that ‘Ethiopia has launched an urgent
appeal to international donors for more than $300m (£154m) of emergency aid’.
According the news item, ‘a
total of 4.6 million people are now thought to need food aid, because of the
drought which struck most of the country in the early part of this year. In
some parts of the country, health centres and feeding clinics are already being
overwhelmed with large numbers of severely malnourished children. Existing
stocks of food aid will cover June, but the crunch will come in July.’
The following statements were
unanimously passed at the World Congress of the International Marxist Tendency. A detailed report about the congress will follow in the coming weeks.
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.
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 death of Manuel Marulanda, the legendary leader of the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), reopens a debate over the perspectives
for the FARC and for the class struggle in Colombia.
Tarragona, one of the industrial hearts of Spain, is one of the areas where unemployment is going to hit hard as the current crisis deepens. The region’s high percentage of industrial workers in the petrochemical industries and the big tourism sector is going to make September a difficult time, as hotels close and tourists return home.
There are about 1 billion people in the world subsisting on
$1 a day or less. These people typically spend 80% of their income on food. For
them the present food price rises mean catastrophe. Why are so many going hungry? Why are food prices going up
all the time? These are the questions the United Nations Food and Agriculture
Organisation has been asking at its meeting this June. So far it hasn’t come up
with any solutions.
Lal Khan was speaking
in Birmingham on June 1 at a meeting organised
by the local PTUDC, where he outlined the developing crisis in Pakistan and
highlighted the need for socialism as the only answer to the problems of the
workers and peasants.
There is no such thing as a natural disaster. That may come as a surprise to those of you who were wibble-wobbled out of bed over much of the south of England at the end of February by the UK’s largest ever earthquake, which went over 6 on the Richter scale in some areas.
Following a massive earthquake measuring
7.9 of the Richter scale, a collective shock and grief has gripped China. The
epicentre of the quake was Wenchuan County in the Ngawa
Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture; the majority of people here are ethnic
Tibetans. A new mood of mutual solidarity has been born throughout the
nation, strengthened by the fact that the quake was felt as far away as
Beijing. Present figures are; over 20,000 dead, 25,000 buried under rubble,
14,000 missing, and 64,000 injured. The death toll looks set to rise to over
50,000.
Food prices have gone up worldwide by 75% since 2005. Since Gordon
Brown became prime minister (not that long ago) milk prices have gone
up by 17%, eggs by 28% and bread by 34% in this country. Other items
have shown even sharper increases. There’s no sign of any letup. In the same way as we seem to have seen
the end of cheap oil, this could be the last of cheap food.