This week revelations have sparked an explosive scandal: HSBC, the UK’s largest bank, has been caught facilitating industrial-scale tax evasion, committed by some of its wealthiest clients. This latest episode has yet again shone a light on the murky world of capitalism and exposed the Tory politicians who defend their rich fraudster friends.

Newly released figures show that the Chinese economy in 2014 experienced its lowest economic growth since 1990. Such figures illustrate the beginning of the end for China’s ‘miraculous’ boom, as the reality of capitalist crisis is seeping through to the world’s largest exporting economy.

At the beginning of January, 500,000 miners in the nationalised coal industry in India went on strike against governmental plans to privatise coal mining. This monumental show of strength is indicative both of the tensions within Indian society and the pressure that is being brought to bear on the leadership of the working class to put up a fight.