It is now a month since the beginning of the movement of students at the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) in Mexico. This is a huge movement involving tens of thousands of students in dozens of schools, mass assemblies with thousands of participants, which has forced the national government to make important concessions in order to prevent a general explosion of the youth movement.

The horrendous incident in which police officers opened fire on students killing six people and injuring 17, and then kidnapped another 43 and handed them over to a drug cartel, has brought out sharply the depth of the rottenness of the Mexican capitalist state, to what degree its structures are linked with those of the drug cartels, and finally, how they stop at nothing in suppressing anyone they perceive as a threat to their interests.

The Ebola epidemic has grown exponentially and now threatens to spread to Europe and America. This epidemic, however, is not simply a medical issue. Ebola is not ‘above’ or ‘removed’ from other general political issues, but is yet another symptom of the decay and stagnation of capitalism.