IV533 - June 2019

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.

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 leading 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?