International Viewpoint

Ada Colau of Barcelona en Comú (BComú) remains mayor of Barcelona thanks to the promise of a pact with the PSC (Partit dels Socialistes de Catalunya) whose content is not yet known but which will involve a distribution of power in the town hall, and three votes of the Barcelona pel Canvi-Ciutadans group, led by Manuel Valls. This article analyses how this situation came about, how other possible solutions have been ruled out and what the possible consequences are.

“If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.” — Florynce Kennedy

Argentina's looming economic crisis is the result of extreme neoliberal policy: as implemented by the military dictatorship, the IMF, and current president Mauricio Macri.

The election of a new government should be a time of celebration. 25 years since the end of Apartheid should be the time of immense celebration. Yet, 25 years since the “dawn of democracy” and South Africans are engulfed by extreme forms of anger, disillusionment and alienation. 22 million adults of voting age are so alienated that they did not even bother to participate in the national elections that brought the new Ramaphosa government into being.

On May 5, 2019 I spoke with Argentine economist Claudio Katz in his Buenos Aires apartment. We discussed themes from his last two books, Neoliberalismo, neodesarrollismo, socialismo (Neoliberalism, neodevelopmentalism, socialism, 2016) and La teoría de la dependencia, cincuenta años después (Dependency theory, fifty years later, 2018), as well as the complexities of the current regional conjuncture. In an incisive and wide-ranging survey, Katz explains the root causes and timing of the decline of the latest wave of Latin American progressive governments. At the same time, he emphasizes the fragility of the “conservative restoration” as it has unfolded in its wake, captured most eloquently perhaps in the paralysis of the Jair Bolsonaro government in Brazil.

In a week of intense political polarization, the movements of the working class, youth and the oppressed again held a strong national demonstration, in continuity with the expressive acts of 15 May and 30 May. There were stoppages in more than 100 cities. Street demonstrations took place in almost 200 cities, according to the G1 website. A survey by the CUT (Central Unica de los Trabajadores) shows a map with more than 380 protest points throughout the country.

On Friday, the 14th of June 2019, hundreds of thousands of women went on strike throughout Switzerland for the second time after 1991. Women of all ages, from all regions and with different employment situations participated in hundreds of protest activities, ranging from putting up banners to squatting streets and central squares. The reasons for taking to the streets to protest were numerous – the patriarchal and capitalist society keeps producing new ones on a daily basis. Despite the political and economic stability in Switzerland overall, the political left succeeded in organizing one of the most successful mass mobilizations in Swiss history.

Hong Kong's government tried to rush through a bill that would limit civil liberties. Instead they triggered a tidal wave of protests — some of the largest in modern history. Kevin Lin interviews Au Loong Yu, Chris Chan, Lam Chi Leung, Chun-Wing Lee, Alexa and Student Labour Action Coalition.

Mexico City is a place that reverberates with history. The cradle of the “Mexica” civilization is a melting pot of cultures and testimony to unique events in the history of the 20th century. The irregular landscape of houses, the result of the devastation caused by successive earthquakes, houses an immense city with suburbs where 20 million people live. It was the refuge of some of the greatest writers, painters and poets of the last century. A place of welcome for thousands of republicans who fled from fascism after the Spanish civil war. And also, the only country on the “planet without a visa” that had the courage to accept Leon Trotsky's request for asylum.

Women have played a key role in the protests in Sudan since December 2018, and continue to do so since the fall of the dictator al-Bashir in April 2019.

The visit of Paulo Guedes to the Constitution and Justice Commission (CCJ) of the Chamber of Deputies on Wednesday April 3rd provided an interesting snapshot of the political situation. An important representative of financial capital and the ultraliberal wing of the government, the Minister of Economy was there to present his pension reform, and he distilled his usual refrain to justify his attacks on the people. But in fact, it ended in a shambles.

In recent weeks, attempts to deliver ammunition for Caesar cannons and other types of armaments to Saudi Arabia have been interrupted by the mobilization of dockworkers in three different ports in France and Italy.

The feminist women's strike on 14 June in Switzerland was a real success. Here is the story of how and why it was organized from one of the lmeading activists.

We, the undersigned organisations, are deeply concerned about the high-handed approach by the Hong Kong government in dealing with the recent mass protests against the proposed extradition bill.

Mexico's president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), a left-of-center populist in office for only six months, finds himself under enormous pressure from the United States—and he is yielding. U.S. President Donald Trump has demanded that AMLO's government do more to stop the flow of Central American migrants fleeing poverty and violence in their own countries and passing through Mexico and to seek asylum in the United States, threatening Mexico's government with a tariff of 5 percent and possibly rising to 25 percent. Such a a tariff would be devastating to the Mexican economy, and, in fact, to the U.S. economy as well.

The Indian parliamentary elections of 2019 ended with a huge victory for the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA). What was significant was not just the huge increase in votes and seats of the BJP and the NDA, but the total shift of votes and discourse to the right. Any attempt to minimise this by mechanically referring to classical Marxist texts and quotations would be suicidal.

In memory of comrade Achour Idir. Tireless trade union and political activist who passed away on the night of April 3-4, 2019.

The political crisis that engulfs Algeria today did not fall from the sky. It is part of the continuity of a crisis of the regime, which it has deepened.

While some economists claim that the world economy is heading towards long-term stagnation, others claim that what we are seeing is a short cycle. Analysts of the world economy are divided between those who foresee a recession and those who think it is just a question of controlling a slowdown. There is a another, underlying, debate: are we seeing long-term stagnation or are the conditions of a new wave of expansion already foreshadowed?

Dear comrades, we regret to report on the passing away on June 3, of comrade Maria José Maranhão. Brazilian anti-fascist, internationalist, trotskyist, revolutionary socialist, she was also a feminist, a social and labor activist, a geographer, university teacher and academic. "Zé" Maranhão graduated in Geography in the University of São Paulo, Brazil, in 1970.

China's rapid rise as a new center of capital accumulation has increasingly brought it into conflict with the United States. The ISR's Ashley Smith interviewed activist and scholar Au Loong Yu about the nature of China's emergence as a new imperial power and what it means for the world system.