International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

• Britain

  King of north crowned Prime Minister

  25 July, by Dave Kellaway

  Andy 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, by Adam Novak

  The mobilisation in the streets forced a backdown on Zelensky.

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• China
  

  China Hit by “Deadly Weather Events”

  23 July, by Pierre Rousset

  During 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 Israel Dutra

  “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 Manuel Rodríguez Banchs

  “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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...and the rest of the current issue

• USA

  Trump Says U.S. Elections Rife with Fraud, Demands New Election Law, May Send Troops to Polling Places. Is He Preparing a Coup?

• Belgium

  “This mobilization has awakened something in the youth”

• Geopolitics

  Latin America: A hostage to Trump’s United States

• Climate

  Record-breaking heatwave in Europe: Does the continent have a new climate?

• Syria

  Frustration and anger rise in the streets in Syria

Recently posted Features

• Australia

  Australian imperialism and the rise of China

  6 April 2012, by Tom Bramble

  The rise of China has been of enormous significance for the Australian capitalist class. The Sydney Morning Herald’s Ross Gittins outlines three major reasons why the East Asian giant now matters for Australian capitalism. First is its sheer size. With a population of 1.35 billion, it has 20 per cent of the world’s population and is 11 times larger than Australia’s second largest trading partner, Japan. Second, the Chinese economy has grown by 10 per cent a year for three decades, roughly doubling in size every eight years.

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• Global Justice

  Occupy America

  18 March 2012, by Cinzia Arruzza

  Movements always arrive unexpectedly. And those who have worked hardest in previous years and months to push towards an escalation of struggles and mobilizations are usually the most surprised by a movement’s arrival. In spite of the many surprises — Who would have imagined that the occupation of Tahrir Square was possible? Who would have imagined the Spanish acampadas? — Leftist activists tend to insist in thinking that movements and the specific forms the movements take can be predicted. The reality is that one can predict that there will be a struggle, for class conflict is inscribed in the capitalist relations of production. But when, where, and which form this struggle will take is impossible to predict. The impossibility of predicting the specific constellation in which those who are below decide that the situation is simply not acceptable any longer does not mean that movements explode like lightening in the sky.

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• South Africa

  Uneven and combined Marxism’ within South Africa’s urban social movements

  2 March 2012, by Ashwin Desai, Patrick Bond, Trevor Nwagne

  The political dynamics of contemporary South Africa are rife with contradiction. On one hand, it is among the most consistently contentious places on earth, with insurgent communities capable of mounting disruptive protest on a nearly constant basis, rooted in the poor areas of the half-dozen major cities as well as neglected and multiply-oppressed black residential areas of declining towns. On the other hand, even the best-known contemporary South African social movements, for all their sound, lack a certain measure of fury.

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• Women

  Without women there is no food sovereignty

  2 February 2012, by Esther Vivas

  Systems of food production and consumption have always been socially organized, but their organization has varied historically. In the last few decades, under the impact of neoliberal politics, the logic of capitalism has been imposed upon the ways in which food is produced and consumed (Bello, 2009). [1]

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