AS WE go to press, the ceasefire in Syria agreed in Geneva on 9 September between US Secretary of State John Kerry and Russia’s foreign minister Sergei Lavrov seems to have taken hold on some fronts, though the bombardment of eastern Aleppo seems to be continuing. If the truce lasts for seven consecutive days and humanitarian […]
By Marcus Otono Karl Marx once said, when discussing the realities of politics and elections in the bourgeois state, that: “The oppressed are allowed once every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and oppress them”. Although this has always been true, it seems that it’s never been […]
By Svenja Although the attempted coup by elements of the Armed Forces on July 15 was successfully defeated, since then, there has been a decisive shift in the balance of power by which the president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has concentrated greater state power in his own hands. Even while the coup was still in progress, […]
By Marcus Otono We have compared the police and vigilante terror against black people in the United States to a horror version of the film “Groundhog Day” before. The overt murder of unarmed, black citizens killed by police is a recurring theme in the news and on social media. And it’s on social media that […]
By Hassan Raza On July 8, Indian soldiers shot dead Burhan Wani in the forests south east of Srinagar, the capital of Indian-administered Kashmir. Although Wani was only 22 years old, he was a leading figure in the biggest of the Kashmiri independence movements, Hizbul Mujahideen, and his death triggered a new wave of mass […]
By Svenja AFTER a series of bomb outrages, including the killing of 41 people in Istanbul’s Ataturk Airport on 29 June, the resumption of the war against the Kurds and the expulsion of legal parties from Parliament, one might have thought that no report from Turkey could come as a shock anymore. The events of Friday […]
By Lars Keller ON MAY 7, Warsaw witnessed its largest demonstration since the end of Communism. Around 240,000 people answered the call of the “Committee for the Defence of Democracy” (KOD). Liberals, conservatives and left-wingers took part. Participants included the main centre-right opposition party, the Civic Platform (PO), and the neoliberal Modern (Nowoczesna) Party, led […]
London Supporters of Tony Taylor are holding a picket of Secretary of State for Northern Ireland Theresa Villiers’ surgery on Saturday 2 July between 11am and noon. The constituency office is 163 High Street, Barnet EN5 5SU. We are demanding the release of Tony Taylor, a Republican activist from Derry. Tony was arrested on 10 March […]
By KD Tait More than a million people marched in Paris in protest at the government’s attempt to demolish the Code du Travail [Work Law] which regulates labour rights, including the 35 hour working week, collective bargaining and overtime rates. The head of the demonstration arrived at its destination, while those at the rear were […]
By Dave Stockton The murder of 49 people at Pulse, a gay night club in Orlando, Florida is a horrific event which provokes the deepest sympathy both for the survivors and for the grieving families, partners and friends of the dead and injured. Our sympathy and solidarity should also be extended to LGBT communities throughout […]
By Dave Stockton Five years after the NATO-led intervention into the revolutionary civil war that ended in the overthrow of dictator Muammar Gaddafi, Western powers are preparing to send ground troops into Libya. Britain, France and Italy may well play some sort of role.Their declared objective is to destroy Islamic State (IS) forces in Libya, […]
By KD Tait French Trade unions have staged two nationwide days of action in response to the Socialist Party government’s use of emergency powers to impose its reforms to the Work Law without a vote in the National Assembly. This reform is the most serious attack since the pension reform carried out by the right […]
Beneath the rubble ordinary Syrians defend the democratic ideals of the revolution as western governments remain complicit in Russian bombing By Marcus Halaby Syrians in the rebel-held “liberated zones” marked the beginning of the US and Russian-brokered “cessation of hostilities” by coming out onto the streets in their tens of thousands, with anti-Assad rallies reported […]
By Chris Clough Dublin, Easter weekend 2016, saw tens of thousands of people line the streets. Flags, banners and photos of martyrs were displayed on every street corner, shop and building. Socialists and Republicans marched through the city while the government held a military parade, complete with a fly over. Graffiti and stickers called for […]
In the north of Ireland the picture appears similar to past elections. The Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) and Sinn Fein remain the largest parties and will continue to lead the Executive in pursuing the austerity dictated from Westminster. However the DUP vote was down 0.8 per cent and Sinn Fein was down 2.9 per cent. […]
Joint Enterprise: Not Guilty by Association (JENGbA) held a demonstration outside Downing St on 16 May to demand the freedom of prisoners incarcerated by the law on joint enterprise. The grassroots campaign is currently supporting over 600 men, women and youth (the youngest of which is just 13) that have been locked up for crimes […]
By Marcus Halaby On the 68th anniversary of the original Partition of Palestine, and in the wake of the Labour right’s smears about antisemitism on the left, we answer a few common questions about the debate on Zionism, antisemitism and Israel-Palestine What is Zionism? Isn’t it just a code word for Jews? Why do some […]
By KD Tait President François Hollande’s Socialist Party (PS) government has used emergency powers to force through Minister of Labour Myriam El Khomri’s labour reform bill. This major plank of the PS government’s austerity offensive had provoked weeks of mass demonstrations, general strikes and the “Nuit Debout” (“rise up at night”) movement. Prime Minister Manuel […]
On March 30, 2012, Brendan McConville and John Paul Wootton, were both convicted and sentenced to spend the rest of their lives in prison for the fatal shooting of constable Steven Carroll in Craigavon on 9 March 2010. The case is widely regarded as a blatant miscarriage of justice with ‘evidence’ used inconclusive, contradictory and in […]
By Jeremy Dewar David Cameron claims, “This migration crisis is the greatest challenge facing Europe today. […] Where we can help, we should.” How to “help”? By sending warships to aid NATO, not to rescue refugees, but to “stop the desperate flow of people crammed into makeshift vessels from embarking on a fruitless and perilous […]
By Rebecca Anderson The year 1890 saw the first ever May Day demonstration, called by the First Congress of the Second International, with more than 300,000 workers filling London’s Hyde Park. Karl Marx’s daughter Eleanor, herself a prominent figure in the New Unionism movement which was then at its peak, addressed the crowds: “I am […]
By Andy Yorke In this year’s US presidential race, a month is a long time. March saw the tensions in American politics stretched close to breaking point. The billionaire demagogue Donald Trump widened his lead, forced out the Republican establishment’s favourite, Marco Rubio, whipped up support with his racist, jingoistic campaign to “Make America Great […]
By Alisha Arshad IN PAKISTAN, women are largely confined to working in the huge “informal” sector, which employs about three quarters of the total workforce of an estimated 65 million in the cities, towns and countryside. Workers in this sector, male or female, are not covered by the country’s labour regulations. They have no entitlement to […]
By Joy Macready WOMEN continue to face fierce austerity attacks on welfare, jobs, trade union rights, education, healthcare and childcare. Shouldering the double burden of unpaid domestic and waged labour, it is left to women to pick up the pieces when the social fabric is destroyed through cuts. They make up the majority of workers […]
The revolutionary legacy of Clara Zetkin By Joy Macready CAPITALISM from its earliest years gave birth to the modern women’s question. Women, particularly the women of the poorest classes, played a major role in its model revolution – in France in 1789. But the Rights of Man and Citizen it proclaimed turned out to be […]
World powers reject calls for coordinated response, settle for status quo By KD Tait GROWING tensions between the world’s imperialist rivals are obstructing efforts to secure a coordinated response to the emerging economic crisis. Crunch talks at the G20 summit in Shanghai assembled finance ministers and central bankers from the world’s leading economies to discuss […]
Ceasefire will bring neither a just nor a lasting end to the civil war By Marcus Halaby RUSSIA’S bombing campaign in support of Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorship has created a new wave of refugees, with 35,000 stranded on the border with Turkey. Its purpose was to encircle Syria’s largest city Aleppo, before a US-Russian brokered “ceasefire” […]
Can Bernie Sanders do more than pave the way for Clinton? By Andy Yorke THE 2016 US Presidential election was expected to be boring, from predictable start to status quo finish. It was supposed to be Jeb Bush against Hillary Clinton: both insiders from Republican and Democrat political dynasties, both with strong ties to big […]
The Irish general election result has delivered a huge blow to the outgoing Fine Gael-Labour coalition government. Although Fine Gael will still be marginally the largest party, despite losing around a third of their seats, the plunge in the Labour vote from 19 to just below 7 per cent rules out a repeat coalition. […]
Taoiseach Enda Kenny has called a General Election for February 26. This will be the shortest election campaign in the history of the state, just three weeks. In response to this indecent haste a Sinn Fein TD’s comment summed it up well as ‘a pathetic end to a pathetic Dail’. Indeed it was a pathetic […]