IV594 - July 2024

The Sheikh Hasina led government in Bangladesh likes to promote itself as anti-communalism and democratic. But in reality, this is an extremely authoritarian government. The raging student movement against quota culture in Bangladesh and the repression that the thugs and lumpens of Awami League is unleashing on it, is rare in India except in Kashmir.

The sudden eruption of a controversy about whether or not to accept Israeli flags at the Amsterdam Pride Walk on the 20th of July 2024, usually one of the few more political events of the two-week Amsterdam Pride, has thrust the issue of the Israeli genocide in Gaza to the forefront of Dutch LGBTIQ politics. It has also exposed some difficult issues around the attempt to incorporate radical queers into Amsterdam Pride, characterized in the past by rampant commercialization and the presence of police, the military and government ministries.

Ashley Smith analyzes the impact of the attempted assassination of Donald Trump on the deepening political crisis in the U.S. and the ever growing weakness of the Joe Biden campaign.

As Britain grapples with the aftermath of its recent general election, the political landscape is shifting dramatically. With the Labour left marginalised and the far-right Reform UK surging, the implications for Britain’s future and the international scene are profound.

The Russian bombing that targeted a children’s hospital in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, last week, killing dozens, naturally provoked a massive wave of denunciation in Western capitals, especially since it happened on the eve of the NATO summit in Washington. Most Western leaders condemned it in the harshest terms, led by US President Joe Biden, who saw it as a “horrific reminder of Russia’s brutality”, and the new British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, who described it as “the most depraved of actions”. Since these same two are among the most prominent enthusiastic supporters of Israel and have both famously justified the most horrendous atrocities committed by the Zionist army, with a huge number of children among the victims, it must come to the mind of every person who places humanitarian considerations above geopolitical affiliations, that this represents an amazing degree of hypocrisy, with multiple standards at work.

Olivier Besancenot, spokesperson for France’s Nouveau parti anticapitaliste (NPA), spoke to Anaïs Fley on 27 June 2024 on the current political situation in the country (before the second round of parliamentary elections on 7 July 2024 at which the Nouveau Front Populaire (NFP) emerged as the largest parliamentary bloc).

CADTM president Eric Toussaint considers the results of the French parliamentary elections.

“The social movements will also have to continue to play a direct political role and help build a common front of political and social forces capable of thwarting the RN’s advance”

There is a new government at Westminster. Rishi Sunak’s gamble of calling a snap election did not pay off.

“This defeat of the far right of Bardella and Le Pen is the fruit of the popular mobilization that took place thanks to the unitive impetus provided by the creation of the New Popular Front.”