IVP610 - November 2025

Filipinos in the country (and worldwide) are enraged by the devastation brought by the recent typhoon Tino, with the international name Kalmaegi (November 4, 2025).

A year after the collapse of the canopy of the Novi Sad train station, which killed 16 people, the Serbian political landscape has been radically shaken by a student social movement of an intensity not seen in decades. A delegation from the Fourth International, composed of comrades from the GA (Gauche anticapitaliste, Belgium) and the NPA-A (Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste, France), went to meet political, trade union, associative and student activists, to build bonds of solidarity with them and to bring their words back to our countries.

The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to María Corina Machado (MCM) sparked an unusual debate on social media. However, the arguments for and against are more driven by emotion than by reason. Is it possible to approach Venezuelan reality solely in a Manichean way, from the perspective of polarization?

This brief essay analyzes the political character of the newly formed Takaichi administration and the framework of Japan’s immediate political situation, situating it within the broader international political context. It also seeks to clarify the challenges and tasks facing the left.

Wednesday 22 October marked exactly three years since Giorgia Meloni took office at Palazzo Chigi, the seat of the Italian Prime Minister. Her appointment was the result of the predictable but nonetheless disastrous election results of September 2022, when the right-wing coalition (of which Fratelli d’Italia was by far the largest party) won thanks to a significant abstention rate (36%) but above all thanks to an anti-proportional representation law passed by previous centre-left governments and the deep division between the other political forces that formed the diverse opposition front in parliament.

The Gabès chemical complex was created in 1972 to transform raw phosphate extracted from the Gafsa mines into manufactured chemicals, ready for use in industry and agriculture, such as "phosphoric acid", ammonite, ammonium phosphate and ammonium diphosphate fertilizer.

Dave Kellaway assesses the political situation where creeping fascism is advancing, the Labour centre is not holding but radicalisation to the left is also significant.

President Donald Trump has taken advantage of the current budget crisis, which has lasted more than a month, shutting down the federal government, to stop funding food programs that affect tens of million. Trump said the shutdown provided an opportunity to close “Democrat programs that we want to close up or we never wanted to happen.” By “Democrat programs” he means social welfare programs that provide food and education to low-income people.

When more than 50 Indonesian labour unions gathered in Jakarta on 5 October 2021 to establish the Partai Buruh (Labour Party), it appeared to mark a historic moment: workers organising their own political vehicle to challenge an oligarchic system that had stripped away their rights. Yet from its inception, the party embodied a contradiction. Led by union bureaucrats with histories of elite collaboration, the Labour Party promised working-class independence whilst its president courted the very politicians who had passed anti-worker legislation. It claimed to represent the marginalised whilst maintaining "deafening silence" on human rights abuses and democratic backsliding.

Since Venezuela’s disputed 2024 elections, Nicolás Maduro’s government has escalated its authoritarian turn. More than 2,000 people were detained in the days following the vote, and targeted persecution has widened to include journalists, trade unionists, academics, and human rights defenders. Human rights activist Marta Lía Grajales was disappeared for two days after denouncing the brutal beating of mothers demanding freedom for their imprisoned children. María Alejandra Díaz, a Chavista lawyer and former Constituent Assembly member, was stripped of her license and harassed after calling for transparency in the vote count. These cases illustrate a broader strategy of intimidation and criminalization.