After eight years of war in
Afghanistan, the inability of Western imperialism to quell the
insurgency has entered into a period of crisis. Cracks and divisions
within the central government are becoming more and more critical as
the military and political situation becomes ever more unstable. Major
conflicts within Afghanistan’s Western-backed ruling clique were first
brought to a head in August during the presidential elections. The
accusations of fraud have left Karzai’s grip on power extremely
strained and have left Karzai wondering whether the NATO mission is more
hindrance than help.

The Venezuelan revolution is at a
crossroads – either it proceeds to expropriate the bourgeoisie and do
away with the bourgeois state or the right-wing reactionary oligarchy
will start to gain ground and threaten all that has been achieved so
far. In this context the PSUV is the key. It must adopt a Marxist
programme. That is why the Marxists have launched Lucha de Clases
(Class Struggle) as a tool for the transformation of the PSUV into a
Marxist revolutionary party capable of leading the socialist revolution.

The recent death of Eugene Terre
Blanche, leader of the AWB (Afrikaner Resistance Movement), at the
hands of two farm workers, has highlighted the situation that exists
today in South Africa, on the one hand the many unresolved problems of
the huge majority of black workers and poor, and on the other a
minority within the white population who cannot reconcile themselves to
the end of Apartheid, upon which their privileges depended.