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 […]
THE referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union, EU, is now likely to take place no later than the Autumn. David Cameron was forced to promise a referendum in his election manifesto under pressure from UKIP. Now he wants to get it out of the way as quickly as possible because he knows a […]
When Spain adopted its post-Franco constitution there was a fierce battle over the character of the state. The Right insisted on its unitary character with all its inhabitants simply “Spaniards”. The Left wanted a “plurinational state” with a federal character. The Right basically won and the 1978 constitution referred to “the common and indivisible homeland […]
With new elections likely, workers’ mobilisations could shift the balance of forces THE Spanish general election of December 20 created a political impasse. Although the Partido Popular, PP, the governing party under Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, won the most seats, this was a hollow victory indeed. With just 28 percent of the vote and 123 […]
By Jeremy Dewar South Africa, one of the world’s major emerging markets, is about to tip into recession. Its currency has slipped to a historic low against the dollar. The country’s stock exchange, at 320 per cent of South Africa’s annual GDP possibly the world’s most over-valued, is set for an almighty crash. Indeed, the […]
We need to challenge the social causes of sexist and racist attitudes inflamed by the refugee crisis ON New Year’s Eve, in Cologne, hundreds of women were intimidated and threatened. At least two rapes were reported. There are now over a hundred reported assaults, often including sexual harassment and robbery at the hands of so-called […]
By Marcus Halaby For all David Cameron’s boasting that he has 70,000 “moderate” Syrian oppositionists ready to act as boots on the ground in the fight against ISIS, there is precious little sign of them being brought into action. It now seems that they will only be usable after a “political process” has engineered a […]
LIKE Putin’s strategy in Syria, Britain’s and the USA’s also involves double-crossing old allies and co-opting new ones. The case that Cameron made for war included a reference to 70,000 “moderate opposition” fighters, whose existence many have been far too quick to dismiss, given the likely far larger size of the Syrian armed opposition. Cameron […]