International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

• Britain

  Radicalisation on right and left while centre crumbles in Britain

  4 November, by Dave Kellaway

  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.

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• USA

  Trump Takes Food from the Poor Poor during Budget Crisis

  3 November, by Dan La Botz

  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.

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• Indonesia

  “We Are The Working Class”?: Indonesia’s Labour Party and the Limits of Reformist Politics

  2 November, by Mark Johnson

  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.

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• Venezuela

  Venezuela’s authoritarian turn and the repression of its Left

  1 November, by Edgardo Lander

  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.

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• Serbia

  The streets against the regime in Serbia: one year of mobilization in review

  31 October, by Gaëlle Guehennec

  For a year now, young people in Serbia have been continuing their fight for a democratic society in the face of Aleksandar Vučić’s authoritarian regime. On both sides of Serbia, student marches are criss-crossing the country in the direction of Novi Sad to commemorate the collapse of the railway station, responsible for the deaths of 16 people on 1 November 2024. This tragic event triggered a political protest on an unprecedented scale.

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...and the rest of the current issue

• Ukraine

  Bruised but determined, the Ukrainian people fight on

• Madagascar

  After Rajoelina’s regime collapses - desire for a radical break

• Brazil

  Oil Speaks Loudest: Environmental backsliding and the limits of Brazil’s energy transition

• USA

  The United States Prepares for War on Venezuela

• Ireland

  Catherine Connolly wins: An historic victory for the left in Ireland

Recently posted Features

• Series : Bretton Woods, the World Bank and the IMF: 70th anniversary (Part 4)

  SUNFED versus World Bank

  6 August 2014, by Éric Toussaint

  From 1950 to 1960, having no Marshall Plan to promote their growth, the developing countries proposed that a new UN body be created, based on a “one country, one vote” system designed to facilitate loans to their industries: SUNFED (Special United Nations Fund for Economic Development). The industrialized countries were fiercely opposed to this move, and successfully imposed a counter-proposal, the International Development Association (IDA), a branch of the World Bank, thus effectively putting an end to SUNFED. [1]

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• Series : Bretton Woods, the World Bank and the IMF: 70th anniversary (Part 3)

  Early conflicts between the UN and the World Bank/IMF tandem

  6 August 2014, by Éric Toussaint

  The World Bank and the IMF are specialized institutions of the UN, comparable in theory to the International Labour Organization (ILA) or the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). As such, they are supposed to cooperate closely with the various UN bodies and the other specialized institutions to achieve the objectives set out in the Charter and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

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• Series : 70 years since Bretton Woods, the World Bank and the IMF (Part 2)

  The World Bank assists the powerful witch-hunters

  28 July 2014, by Éric Toussaint

  Contrary to common belief, the mission of the World Bank is not to reduce poverty in developing countries. The Bank’s mission, as originally conceived by the victors of the Second World War, the United States and Great Britain in particular, was to help rebuild Europe, and secondarily to promote the economic growth of the countries in the South, many of which were still under colonial rule. It was this second mission that went by the name of “development” and which constantly increased in scope. The World Bank lent money first of all to the colonial powers (Great Britain, France, Belgium) to help them more effectively exploit their colonies. Then, when these colonies became independent, the Bank made them liable for the debt that had only been contracted by their former metropolis in order to better exploit their natural resources and their population.

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• Series : 70 years since Bretton Woods, the World Bank and the IMF (Part 1)

  Concerning the founding of the Bretton Woods’ Institutions

  28 July 2014, by Éric Toussaint

  70 years ago, July 22 1944, the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, better known as the Bretton Woods [2] Conference, that had lasted for three weeks, reached a conclusion.}} It was attended by representatives from 44 countries [3].

  In order to prevent a recurrence of economic crises like the crash of 1929, but also to ensure world leadership in the post-war era, the United States government began to plan for the creation of international financial institutions as early as 1941. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund saw the light of day at the Bretton Woods Conference of 1944 held in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire. Initially, the Roosevelt administration was in favour of creating strong institutions capable of imposing rules on the private financial sector, including Wall Street. But noticing the hostility of the banking world Roosevelt backed down. Indeed, the distribution of votes within the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund clearly illustrates the will of certain major powers to exert domination over the rest of the world.

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