Day after day the public in the West is submitted to a constant barrage of horror stories emanating from Syria. Such scenes are used by those who are experts in the business of shaping public opinion according to certain interests. Alan Woods explains that it is the duty of Marxists to cut across the fog of propaganda, to expose its cynical nature and to lay bare the real interests that lie behind it.

As the US presidential candidates prepare for their final debate, it is now clear that the Establishment has made its choice: Hillary Clinton is the favourite of the bankers, industrialists, military brass, and even key leaders of the Republican Party itself. The role of the detestable Donald Trump has been to make the hated Hillary more palatable.

France witnessed a wave of intense class struggle earlier this year with the strikes and mass protests against the government’s new law on labour relations. The movement later died down, but now the working class and youth is preparing to move from the trade union front to the political. Fred Weston and Jérôme Métellus discuss the growing contradictions within French class society.