IVP607 - August 2025

The recent findings by the Auditor-General confirming the Free State as the worst-performing province in South Africa are not just shocking, they are a painful reminder of how deeply broken our systems of governance and service delivery have become. For many residents, especially those in Botshabelo, this is not news. This is daily life.

Over the past one year, the interim government has been part of a difficult chapter in the country’s politics. They came to power amid political instability and economic crisis, but from a Marxist analysis, it is clear that this government does not represent the liberation of the working people; rather, it wields state power to protect the interests of the capitalists.

A letter signed by 52 academics and writers, including Tariq Ali, Judith Butler, Angela Davis, Naomi Klein and Avi Shlaim.

Troublemakers at Work is a network of union activists who organise an annual conference and meetings about union organising, focussed on grassroots organising by lay union activists. It explores areas such as how to get started building a union in a workplace.

B’TSELEM IS THE long-established Israeli human rights information center. It is one of the two organizations in Israel (along with Physicians for Human Rights) that have now formally identified the Israeli state’s war on Gaza as genocide. What follows is the Executive Summary of B’tselem’s report titled “OUR GENOCIDE.” You can also read the full report.

Eighty years ago, the United States government exploded over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki the only two nuclear bombs ever used in wartime against a civilian population. Never before in human history had a single weapon caused such widespread death and destruction.

On 25 July 2025, Georges Ibrahim Abdallah, finally released, returned to his native Lebanon where he was welcomed as a hero. The next morning, Ziad Rahbani, musician, theatre and radio personality, son of the legendary couple Fairouz and Assi Rahbani, took his last breath in a hospital in the Hamra district of Beirut. The Lebanese – and Arab – left is moving from euphoria to tears.

Workers and indigenous peoples are mobilizing against the neoliberal agenda of the government of president José Raúl Mulino in Panama. Antônio Neto, from the Brazilian magazine Movimento, interviewed José Cambra on 27 June 2025 about the reasons for the movement, the relationship with US imperialism and the elements of the program of rupture that has become a symbol of popular resistance against austerity and authoritarianism.

“For our part, we will know, with the Ukrainian left and the social movement, to walk on both legs as we have done since the beginning of the large-scale war.”

“Precarious and migrant workers constitute an important part of the working class, often difficult to organise. The success of this strike can give a boost to this work. It is therefore essential to organise solidarity to support and strengthen the strike.”