Yesterday
the Greek parliament approved the austerity measures required to get
further lending from the European Union. The PASOK government is
determined to force through its austerity measures, even though 75% of
the population is totally opposed to any further austerity being imposed
on them.

Today (Tuesday) the
Greek trade unions embarked on a 48-hour general strike against the
austerity measures which are being debated today and are to be voted on
tomorrow. Papandreou says the cuts and privatisations are the only way
of rebalancing Greece’s finances, but the workers and youth on the
streets have other ideas.

The introduction of capitalism, accompanied by rapid industrialisation
over the last 30 years, has turned China into a seething cauldron of
discontent. Conditions faced by the workers, many of them migrants with
no rights, are similar to Victorian times in Britain. “Masses of
labourers, crowded into factories, are organised like soldiers”,
explained Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto, which is a fitting
description of working life in China today. The scene is being set for a
massive social explosion.