Michael Noonan’s Budget 2014 will take a further €2.5bn out of the Irish economy; in other words a figure of around €600 for every man, woman and child in the state. It is evident also that as anticipated the losers are the old, the sick and the young unemployed. Tony Healy reports on the latest round of austerity in Ireland.

We publish here an article by Stamatis Karayannopoulos, member of the Communist Tendency in SYRIZA in Greece and member of the SYRIZA Central Committee. This article was written before the arrests of the leadership of Golden Dawn. However, the analysis it contains regarding the Golden Dawn – a neo-fascist organisation in Greece – has been absolutely confirmed by the subsequent events.

For 16 days, the world waited with bated breath as the US government was shut down and teetered on the brink of default. At the eleventh hour, a deal was rammed through both the Senate and the House and signed by Obama, thus averting the immediate crisis. What is the meaning of all this? What are the ramifications for American politics and the capitalist system itself? John Peterson of Socialist Appeal USA reports.