International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine
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.
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Britain
King of north crowned Prime Minister
25 July, byAndy Burnham became British Prime Minister on 20 July 2026. The former Mayor of Manchester had served in the Labour governments of Tony Blair and of Gordon Brown and in the opposition teams of Ed Milliband and Jeremy Corbyn. He stood twice previously to be Labour leader but this time was the only candidate with active support from people earlier expected to stand themselves. His predecessor Keir Starmer was forced to resign on 22 June after Burnham won an impressive by-election victory in Makerfielld inthe north west of England where Nigel Farage’s far right party Reform had hoped the prize might be theirs. This was in stark contrast to Labour - and Starmer’s - disastrous showing in elections in May. It was clear that Burnham’s success partly came from people supporting him precisely to get rid of Starmer.
Since the article below was written Burnham has appointed his Cabinet retaining many of those who served with Starmer and made a number of announcements of policies to assist with the biting cost of living crisis, while sticking to the fiscal rules. Only 5 days in, it is too early to draw a substantive balance sheet, On the other hand there is no doubt that Burnham is opening up a number of key political discussions - on devolution, on electoral reform and on reindustrialisation, for example, which it will be essential for the radical left to engage with.
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Ukraine
The Streets Are Asking Questions the Leaders Cannot Answer in Ukraine
24 July, byThe mobilisation in the streets forced a backdown on Zelensky.
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China
China Hit by “Deadly Weather Events”
23 July, byDuring the first ten days of July, cyclones (typhoons), tornadoes, storms, severe weather, floods, and landslides wreaked havoc in the central and southern parts of the country—and beyond. China is facing extreme weather events intensified by the climate crisis.
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Brazil
Super El Niño: Chronicle of a Tragedy Foretold
22 July, by“To confront the climate catastrophe—accelerated by neo-fascist denialism—the emergency brake lies in the struggle and mobilization of the social majority”
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Puerto Rico
Some Reflections on the Water Crisis in Puerto Rico
21 July, by“Overcoming the social and environmental problems that afflict us and reversing the reversible effects of the climate crisis is impossible under the rules of this economic system. The climate crisis is perhaps the most dramatic example. It is not possible to address the climate crisis without making the energy sector—as well as water management—public property and administering it democratically with the dual objective of satisfying our needs and reducing environmental impact. ”
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Recently posted Features
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Spanish state
Precarity as contraceptive: conversations on the situation of abortion in Spain
8 March 2014, byread article...The last years have seen strong mobilizations around the right to abortion in Spain: justice minister Alberto Ruíz Gallardon announced the criminalization of abortion in 2012, now the law has been voted through congress. As 8th March 2014 approaches, protests against the re-insertion of abortion into the domain of criminal law are intensifying in Spain as well as internationally. Based on conversations in March 2014 (with Silvia Gil from Vidas Precarias) and November 2012 (with Marcella Arellano from the Feminisms Commission of Sol, and the feminist researcher Emanuela Borzacchiello), this text gives an overview of some of the social, legal, discursive and political matters at stake in the struggles around abortion in Spain. Republished from LeftEast
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Women’s history
100th Anniversary of The Woman’s Dreadnought
8 March 2014, byread article...Katherine Connelly looks at the pioneering revolutionary newspaper created by working-class suffragettes. Republished from Counterfire.
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Women and work
The Making of Capitalist Patriarchy
25 February 2014, byread article...This interview with Silvia Federici, a feminist activist and scholar, and author of Caliban and the Witch: Women, The Body and Primitive Accumulation and Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction and Feminist Struggle was published on The North Star website on 24 February 2014.
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Women’s Liberation
Clara Zetkin in the lion’s den – Workers’ unity and feminism at the 1921 Comintern congress
3 February 2014, byread article...In 1921, when the Communist International (Comintern) held its Third World Congress, Clara Zetkin was the most widely respected Communist outside Russia. Yet she was the victim of vigorous efforts on the eve of the congress to vilify her and drive her out of the Comintern leadership, if not from the movement. Nonetheless, she ranks, together with Lenin and Trotsky, among the dominant intellectual figures at the congress.
