By Dave Stockton Donald Trump claimed victory over his European allies at the Nato heads of government conference in Brussels on July 11-12. Though he avoided reducing it to the total shambles of the June G7 Summit in Canada, he once again showed his scorn for the multilateral diplomacy that hitherto disguised US dominance over […]

By Hassan Raza, Revolutionary Socialist Movement Pakistan The Pashtun Protection Movement, PTM, is already changing the political landscape in Pakistan. It has rallied hundreds of thousands against military and police repression, the “disappearance” of 30,000 or more and against war and the denial of democratic rights. In the last two months it has been met […]

By Pericles da Lima, Liga Socialista IN THE last days of May almost nothing moved in Brazil. Crucial economic links such as motorway junctions, ports, airports and refineries were paralysed by some 500 blockades, each with around 150 trucks. South America’s largest port, Santos, near Sao Paolo, was closed, as were several major airports. Schools […]

By Dave Stockton THE YEAR 1968 was one of history’s “mad years” like 1848, 1917-18, 1989 and, most recently, 2011. It was a time when the eruption of revolts in one country quickly stimulated upheavals in others. The spread of international revolutionary upheavals seemed to offer the prospect of a dramatic thawing of the permafrost […]

By Katie Pelikanou THE SYRIAN regime is undertaking a thinly-veiled legal manoeuvre to punish the millions of refugees who have fled the civil war, and entrench the postwar sectarian redivision of Syria by repossessing their homes. The government of dictator Bashar Al-Assad enacted this law whilst the remnants of the Syrian army, along with Iranian […]

By Dave Stockton AFTER NEARLY three months of negotiations, a coalition government has been formed in Italy between the Five Star Movement (M5S) and the League (formerly Lega Nord). Coverage of the government’s difficult birth focussed on the Italian President’s decision to veto the coalition’s choice of a eurosceptic Finance Minister, but the real headline […]

By Dave Stockton PEDRO SANCHEZ, leader of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party (PSOE), is now in the Moncloa Palace as prime minister of Spain. Every progressive person in the Spanish state will be glad to see the back of the Popular Party’s autocratic leader Mariano Rajoy. The critical moment came when the Basque Nationalist Party […]

Red Flag Statement ISRAEL HAS celebrated the opening of Donald Trump’s Embassy in Jerusalem with a bloodbath, by massacring at least 60 Palestinian demonstrators, including eight children, and wounding more than 2,270. This brings the total number killed by the IDF since the protests began to over one hundred. Thousands have been injured, with Al […]

By Marcus Halaby “Why would Bashar al-Assad have gassed his own people when he was already winning the war?” This question is frequently asked by many in the West of a generally anti-war disposition, who see in it a repetition of the arguments made around Saddam Hussein’s alleged (and disproven) possession of weapons of mass […]

By Peter Main THE NEWS that the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, has returned from his talks with Kim Jong-un with three US citizens released from prison in North Korea appears, at first sight, to validate the “tough guy” approach to diplomacy of his boss, Donald Trump. This interpretation had already been strengthened by […]

By KD Tait OVER THE past four weeks, at least 37 Palestinians have been killed, and more than 4,000 wounded, by Israeli troops firing indiscriminately into demonstrations organised as part of the Great Return March. As usual, the US and British representatives on the United Nations Security Council have blocked any condemnation of the Israeli […]

By Jeremy Dewar, Lambeth Unison delegate (pc) and Marcus Otono, Workers Power USA. THREE THOUSAND trade unionists assembled in Chicago for Labor Notes’ biennial conference on 8-11 April. Many there claimed it was the biggest Labor Notes conference ever. But numbers alone cannot convey the energy, the diversity, the militancy on display. Workers’ struggles At […]

By Marc Lassalle PARIS – After a month of militant but inconclusive strikes and occupations by railway workers and students, activists are organising to relaunch the mobilisation against the government attacks, with a national day of action in the first week of May. At the beginning of April workers on the state rail network, the […]

By Bernie McAdam THIS YEAR marks the twentieth anniversary of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement (GFA). The ‘peace process’ that this initiated between the British state and Sinn Fein/ Irish Republican Army (IRA), with ceasefire followed by decommissioning of IRA arms and recognition of the police, was crowned with a power sharing government […]

By Markus Lehner “Trade wars are good” – Donald Trump Though Donald Trump’s tweets often seem mere clowning, the decrees he signed imposing import duties on steel and aluminium, and subsequent threats of further punitive duties on Chinese imports, do have to be taken seriously. The US president has used a loophole that allows him […]

By Dave Stockton THIS YEAR’S celebrations of the anniversary of the foundation of the State of Israel were bigger than ever. They were held on 18 April, corresponding to a date in the Hebrew calendar that in the Gregorian calendar corresponds to 15 May. And this latter date is when Palestinians commemorate the 1948 Nakba […]

ON SATURDAY 21 April, a number of democratic and socialist activists were arrested by the Punjabi Police in Lahore, amongst them Ali Wazir, Bilawal Mandokhel, Muzammil and Ismat Shahjahan, all of them leaders of the Pashtun Protection Movement (Pashtun Tahafuz Movement, PTM), and the Awami Workers’ Party Chairman, Fanoos Gujjar. These arrests are designed to […]

By  Marcus Halaby  The overwhelming priority of the Labour movement today is to prevent Britain from taking any further military action in Syria, or from joining any new Trump-led escalations of conflict with Russia or Iran. And we can do that without pretending that Syria’s dictator Bashar al-Assad is anything other than a fascistic monster […]

By Liga Socialista, Brazil THESE ARE tense days in Brazil. The political instability, which began with the parliamentary coup, heightened in the days leading up to the Federal Supreme Court hearing of Lula’s request for Habeas Corpus last Wednesday, April 4. On the eve of the trial, the Army General, Villas-Boas, issued a social network […]

By Shahzad Arshad, Revolutionary Socialist Movement, Pakistan A NEW mass movement is developing in Pakistan. On April 8, tens of thousands of supporters of the “Pashtun Protection Movement” gathered in Peshawar, the centre of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, KPK. Some estimates put the total attendance at more than 100,000. The meeting was the latest highpoint of […]

Israeli armed forces, firing indiscriminately on unarmed Palestinian demonstrators, men, women and children, have killed at least 16 and injured well over one hundred. As is usual in such cases, the US and British representatives on the UN Security Council have blocked any condemnation of Israel, or even any call on it to stop the […]

Liga Socialista, Brazil  ON THE evening of March 14, Marielle Franco (38), a city councillor from the Maré favela in Rio de Janeiro, was shot dead in her car in the street. Her driver died with her in a hail of bullets. Her secretary survived but was seriously injured. Marielle was a member of the […]

PARIS – Strikes and demonstrations have taken place across France in a day of action called by a united front of most public sector unions. The action has been called in response to a new law which targets the rights of railway workers, as a precursor to a general offensive against the 5.3 million strong public […]

THE State of Emergency declared by the government of Ranil Wickremasinghe on March 6, initially for 7 days, was finally lifted on March 18. The attacks by Buddhist gangs on Muslim communities, which were the ostensible justification for the Emergency, left two dead and 450 Muslim-owned homes and businesses burnt out. Most of the violence […]

Statement of the Liga Socialista to the Brazil Social Forum SINCE the impeachment of President Dilma Rousseff of the Workers’ Party (PT) we are essentially in a coup situation. Today it is also clear that it is not only a constitutional overthrow by Congress. There is a consistent front extending from the powerful entrepreneurial association […]

Executive Committee of the Socialist Party of Sri Lanka The declaration of a State of Emergency by the government of Ranil Wickremasinghe and Maithripala Sirisena is further evidence, if more were required, that theirs is a government that cannot resolve Sri Lanka’s long standing economic and social problems. The immediate justification for the State of […]

By Mekdela Ejigu THE limited legal abortion and women’s reproductive rights available in the United States exist in a permanent state of siege enforced by the Republican party and religious conservatives across the country. During President Obama’s terms, Republican House and Senate members repeatedly attempted to block abortion clinics from operating in their districts with […]

By Ella Mertens WHETHER in Chile or Ireland, Germany or Poland – all over the world – women are protesting for their right to control their own bodies. A new generation is standing up to say that we can decide for ourselves whether or not to have a child in the event of pregnancy. Poland […]

By Jaqueline Singh WHILE within Fortress Europe right wing agitation and violence against refugees are on the increase, its external borders are increasingly impenetrable. People who flee from hunger, war, violence and exploitation are drowned in the Mediterranean or herded into massive camps on the borders of Greece or Turkey. War zones such as Afghanistan […]

By Hemamali Wijesinghe  Sri Lanka has had a developed culture and literacy for many centuries. As far back as 1931, when it was still a part of the British Raj, the right to vote was won by a campaign that mobilised women as well as men. In 1933, when the British government launched the Poppy […]