International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

• Brazil
  

  Dispute in the Supreme Court disrupts elections in Brazil

  17 September, by Luís Leiria

  On one side is Alexandre de Moraes, the judge who led the investigation into and prosecution of the Bolsonaro-led coup against President Lula; on the other is Judge André Mendonça, appointed during Jair Bolsonaro’s presidency. Both are suspected of having ties to the banker responsible for the biggest financial fraud in Brazil’s history.
  With less than a month to go before the presidential elections on 4 October, Brazil finds itself plunged into a crisis that, for the first time, has (…)

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• Democratic Republic of Congo
  

  Constitutional tampering in DRC

  16 September, by Paul Martial

  Officially, the second and final term of Félix Tshisekedi, president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), ends at the end of 2028. But the latter, in several of his statements, has said he is ready to run for a third term if “the people want it”. The opposition is calling for a large demonstration on 15 September 2026 against a third term for Tshisekedi, who is retaliating with a tailor-made national dialogue.

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• Turkey
  

  ‘My family is safe’: the Turkish regime’s crackdown on LGBTI+ people

  15 September, by Uraz Aydin

  A new milestone was reached in the Erdoğan regime’s homophobic crackdown on Sunday 13 September. Police forces launched a large-scale operation against LGBTI+ organisations and activists, as well as organisations campaigning against HIV/AIDS. Raids were carried out in Istanbul, Ankara and Izmir, amongst other places. The Ministry of Justice states that the operation, dubbed “My family is safe”, involves a total of 162 people, nine organisations and thirteen premises across fifteen provinces.

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• New Zealand/Aotearoa
  

  Beyond the Labour Machine: Aotearoa, the Alliance, and the Question of Working Class Independence

  14 September, by Kyle Barrett

  On October 23, 2025, more than 100,000 workers walked off the job in Aotearoa (the Māori-language name for New Zealand): 60,000 teachers, 30,000 nurses, 5,000 doctors, 20,000 allied health workers, firefighters, and public servants. It was the largest day of industrial action since the 1979 general strike—a forty-six year interregnum finally broken. 56 percent of New Zealanders told pollsters they backed the strikers.
  By the end of the year, that energy had been buried. The Post Primary (…)

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• Latin America
  

  Latin America: Patterns and Pendulum

  13 September, by Marc Becker

  RECENT ELECTIONS ACROSS across Latin America appear to have placed the hard right firmly back in power. While the landscape may appear to be dim for the left, other factors signal glimmers of hope.

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...and the rest of the current issue

• Situation in East Asia and Japanese Politics/Economy

  Oppose the Takaichi Administration’s Military Expansion and Constitutional Revision

• “War on Terror”

  9/11: A Quarter Century of Imperial War

• Germany: regional elections in Sachsen-Anhalt

  The AfD just short of an absolute majority

• USA

  Gloria Steinem, prominent American feminist, 1934-2026

• Germany

  Eastern elections and Die Linke: anything but an all-party government

Recently posted Features

• Series : Bretton Woods, the World Bank and the IMF : 70th anniversary (Part 8)

  World Bank and IMF support to dictatorships

  29 September 2014, by Éric Toussaint

  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.

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• Series : Bretton Woods, the World Bank and the IMF : 70th anniversary (Part 7)

  Domination of the United States on the World Bank

  9 September 2014, by Éric Toussaint

  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. [1] 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.

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• Series: Governments submit to “Too Big to Fail” banks (part 3)

  Private banks shamefully enjoy a monopoly of lending to the public sector

  8 September 2014, by Éric Toussaint

  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.

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• Series: Governments submit to “Too Big to Fail” banks (part 2)

  Governments make Gifts Galore to Private Banks

  8 September 2014, by Éric Toussaint

  Government aid is made up of guarantees, and injections of capital in order to recapitalize the banks. In the period from October 2008 to December 2011, €1,174 trillion (9.3% of EU GDP [2] ) worth of guarantees were underwritten by European Governments as a contingency measure. To these guarantees must be added €442 billion (3.5% of EU GDP) of public capital support to banks. During 2012 and 2013 the recapitalizations continued: about €40 billion in Spain in 2012 alone, more than €50 billion in Greece, about €20 billion in Cyprus, €4 billion more for Dexia bank in Belgium, €3.9 billion for Monte dei Paschi in Italy, €3.7 billion for the Dutch bank SNS, €4.2 billion in Portugal on top of the Portuguese bail-out of the Banco Esperito Santo in July 2014., not forgetting Ireland, Slovenia, Croatia This assistance was granted without any government supervision of the use made of the funds. [3]

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