International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

• USA

  Elon Musk Is Leading an Electronic Coup D’État

  3 February, by Dan La Botz

  Elon Musk, the multibillionaire and advisor to President Donald Trump who now heads a team called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has been taking over U.S. government agencies—the Treasury Department, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), General Services Administration (GSA), and the United States Agency for International Development, and perhaps others—a process that at least in some cases appear to be illegal. Where officials have resisted, Trump has removed them from their positions. Musk’s take-over is tantamount to a coup, and far more effective, serious, and dangerous than the insurrection that Trump organized on January 6, 2021.

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• France

  “Unity and radicality”

  2 February, by Olivier Besancenot

  “Above all, we must not despair. That may sound silly, but it’s important. Last June, we saw in France that the tide could turn. A week before the second round, a victory for the ‘new popular front’ was still totally unimaginable. But it succeeded.”

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• Mexico/USA

  The Meaning of Trumpism for Mexico and the World

  1 February, by Manuel Aguilar Mora

  DONALD TRUMP’S SECOND victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential elections, with more social and legislative power and experience than his first presidency from 2017 to 2021, is a political milestone that has shaken the world because of what the arrival of such a reactionary, toxic and malignant character to the White House in Washington represents for the world — and specifically for Mexico, the direct southern neighbor of the North American power.

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• China

  The crisis and peculiarities of Chinese capitalism

  31 January, by Pierre Rousset

  The Chinese regime has never been as opaque as it is today. We are living in a time of uncertainty, not yet knowing how Donald Trump will play his cards in relation to China. Between the climate crisis and chaotic de-globalisation, these are unprecedented times. Let’s try to decipher the situation, without trying to remove the question marks.

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• Turkey

  The Turkish State and the Kurdish Question: Contradictions and fragilities of a new hope

  30 January, by Uraz Aydin

  More than nine years after the failure of negotiations between PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan and the Turkish state and the end of the ceasefire, the Erdogan regime is once again trying to force the PKK (and its forces in Syria, in Rojava) to lay down their arms. However, this new "process", initiated by the leader of the far right Devlet Bahçeli, remains unclear for the moment about what rights the Kurdish people could obtain, apart from a possible release of Öcalan, if he calls for the dismantling of the Kurdish armed forces. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has summed up his approach to the "resolution" of the conflict as follows: "Either they will bury their weapons or we will bury them with their weapons."

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...and the rest of the current issue

• Geopolitics

  With Trump in the White House, China and Latin America may try to forge an even deeper relationship

• Pakistan

  World Bank and IMF — Keeping Pakistan in shackles

• USA

  Trump’s Wrecking Ball

• Britain

  Defend the right to protest

• Geopolitics

  Trump, Europe and outraged virtue: malaise in imperial supremacism

Recently posted Features

• USA

  After the Fire: Reconstructing Los Angeles Towards Abolition

  29 January, by Promise Li

  When the Eaton Fire first began its retreat from Altadena, I was in one of many self-organized mutual aid teams scattered across the area, cleaning up debris. Around this time, I connected with some Black community members who had just lost their homes. They had returned from evacuation almost immediately to help coordinate mutual aid for their neighbors. But they were harassed by the police as they tried to return to their homes. Hundreds of armed California National Guard, summoned by Los Angeles police and sheriffs, had effectively begun occupying parts of Altadena. The fires already disproportionately affected Western Altadena, the historically Black area of the city where most of the deaths have been located so far and where residents were given notices to evacuate hours after those in majority-white areas of Altadena were informed. [1]

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• In memory of Patrice Lumumba, assassinated on 17 January 1961

  27 January, by Éric Toussaint

  On 17 January 2025, we commemorate the 64th anniversary of the assassination of Patrice Lumumba (1925-1961).

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• Ukraine

  Ukraine’s Debt: an instrument of pressure and spoliation in the hands of creditors

  26 January, by Éric Toussaint

  In the present article the author focuses on Ukraine’s debt since the 1990s and more particularly in the years after the invasion of Ukraine by Russia in 2022. It provides answers to several questions. Who are Ukraine’s creditors? How much are they owed? What do they demand in exchange for their loans? What part does the European Union play? Why does Ukraine’s integration into the EU go against the Ukrainian people’s interests? What is done with frozen Russian assets? Why should Ukraine’s debt be cancelled? Why does Zelensky oppose any cancellation? What are the alternatives to current indebtedness? Some questions are not addressed for want of space such as the stage the conflict has reached, the provision of weapons, the debates within the Left.

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• Environment

  Environmental and climate debt: Who is responsible?

  18 January, by Maxime Perriot, Éric Toussaint

  The concepts of climate debt and ecological debt are central to successfully achieving the ecological bifurcation. The ecological debt owed by States – and in particular the wealthiest States and major corporations – of the North to the populations of the Global South must be recognized. That recognition must take the form of cancellation of the debt of the countries of the Global South and paying of reparations by the States of the North. The latter must compel the wealthiest interests to contribute and assume responsibility for climate disruption and for taking the actions that are urgently needed to limit its consequences and its aggravation to the maximum extent possible.

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