International Viewpoint, the monthly English-language magazine of the Fourth International, is a window to radical alternatives world-wide, carrying reports, analysis and debates from all corners of the globe. Correspondents in over 50 countries report on popular struggles, and the debates that are shaping the left of tomorrow.
The implications of climate-unjust politics are ever more important to interpret and resist. United States President Donald Trump, an unabashed ‘climate denialist’, withdrew his country, the main historic emitter of greenhouse gases, from United Nations negotiations, and should now be sanctioned. But annual UN COPs (Conferences of the Parties) won’t, because the ‘climate action’ approach is dominated by the West and BRICS. They continue to deny the world long-overdue ‘climate justice’ and they won’t punish Trump’s climate crimes.
read article...The centre cannot hold! In the wake of Reform’s massive gains in local elections, Dave Kellaway investigates the new political landscape.
read article...Once France had been defeated after the Vietnamese victory at Dien Bien Phu (1954), the great powers imposed the Geneva Accords, which were highly unfavourable to the Vietminh, temporarily dividing the country into two military regrouping zones.
read article...May Day is not a holiday in the United States. In most states and cities, it is not celebrated. In some places, in schools or public parks, people put up a May pole and dance around it to celebrate the arrival of spring. We did that in my elementary school in Chicago when I was a child. The official Labor Day in the United States, which is a national holiday, is celebrated on the first Monday in September and marks the end of summer and students’ return to school. But maybe this year things finally changed.
read article...The Niger Delta has been totally devastated by decades of oil exploitation in Nigeria by the major Western oil companies. Huge tracts of land and mangrove swamps have been totally contaminated by oil, destroying all living things. People’s livelihoods, such as fishing and farming, have been wiped out. There is no longer any drinking water, and the air is polluted by the dozens of flares that burn continuously.
read article...Since 2008, the Fed has granted unlimited credit to banks at an official rate of 0.25%. In fact, as the General Accounting Office (GAO) has revealed, the Fed has lent close to $16 trillion at an interest rate below 0.25%. [1] The report shows it has not followed its own prudential rules and has not notified Congress.
After the Second World War, in a growing number of Third World countries, policies diverged from those of the former colonial powers. This trend encountered firm opposition from the governments of the major industrialised capitalist countries whose influence held sway with the World Bank (WB) and the IMF. WB projects have a strong political content: to curtail the development of movements challenging the domination/rule of major capitalist powers. The prohibition against taking “political” and “non-economic” considerations into account in WB operations, one of the most important provisions of its charter, is systematically circumvented. The political bias of the Bretton Woods institutions is shown by their financial support to dictatorships ruling in Chile, Brazil, Nicaragua, Congo-Kinshasa and Romania.
The concept of the World as a huge bureaucracy, gradually freed from the influence of the US, is actually a far cry from reality. This mistaken conception is revealed in particular by the North American environmentalist Bruce Rich in his insightful book on the World Bank. [2] In real terms, the institution is firmly under the control of the US government which negotiates, with the governments of other major capitalist powers, the policies to be followed within the World Bank, and under its leadership. It has frequently failed to make the effort to reach a consensus with its principal partners (since the end of the 1950s, these are Japan, Germany, Great Britain and France) and it imposes its views directly on the Bank.
The eurozone banks have the monopoly of lending to the public sector. It is prohibited for the ECB and the eurozone’s central banks to grant loans to public authorities (see box on the ECB). The governments in the eurozone have the possibility of borrowing from publicly owned banks where they still exist, but they do not do so.
Statement from the Haqooq Khalq Party (HKP) of Pakistan
- read article...Thousands rallied in Panama City on May Day, in the midst of a general strike against privatisation, copper mining and Donald Trump’s threats to Panamanian sovereignty.
- read article...The election of Donald Trump as President of the United States framed the discussion at the second Congress of Democracia Socialista [section of the Fourth International in Puerto Rico].
- read article...Deputies and councillors from parties such as PT and PSOL call for respect for Ibama’s decision and demand an energy transition plan.
- read article...APPEAL to the ITUC, ETUC, Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD, national trade unions on support of the Strategy of Ukraine on Peace and Security
- read article...International Viewpoint is published under the responsibility of the Bureau of the Fourth International. Signed articles do not necessarily reflect editorial policy. Articles can be reprinted with acknowledgement, and a live link if possible.
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