International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

• Sweden
  

  The Right Loses the Election – Social Democracy Records a Historic Low

  1 October, by Socialistiska Politik

  The policies pursued since 2022 have been among the most reactionary, racist, and repressive in modern Swedish history. Examples include restrictions on the right to asylum, attempts to retroactively revoke residence permits, significantly stricter requirements for obtaining Swedish citizenship, stop-and-search zones in working-class suburbs, repressive legislation that allows 14-year-olds to be imprisoned, deportations of young people separated from their families, legislative changes that threaten democracy, and welfare reforms that severely worsen conditions for the poorest and for those without citizenship.

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• Brazil
  

  Elections Crucial to Curbing Far Right

  30 September, by Israel Dutra, Mariana Riscali

  The Partido Socialismo e Liberdade (PSOL) and the anti-capitalist left have two gigantic challenges to face simultaneously in the coming Brazilian elections: to contribute to the broader struggle against the main Brazilian expression of global neo-fascism, and to build a radical and independent left pole.

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• Spanish state
  

  The spark that lit a prairie fire: let’s organise a hot autumn

  29 September, by Anticapitalistas

  On Wednesday, 23 September, the police evicted Maricarmen in Madrid. Maricarmen is an 87-year-old woman whose rent was gradually increased by a vulture fund, until the fund decided it wanted the flat for new business ventures. In that sense, her case is not so unusual: in Spain, there are thousands of evictions every year. The housing movement fights against them every day, often in the face of a media blackout that looks the other way when it comes to a tragedy that is part of everyday life in working-class neighbourhoods.

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• USA
  

  Protestors Rally against Mass Murderers Speaking at U.N. General Assembly

  28 September, by Dan La Botz

  Hundreds marched in three separate demonstrations to protest the mass murderers—President Donald Trump, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian—speaking at the United Nations General Assembly held in New York last week. The event became a kind of macabre circus with these monsters in the big ring as some delegates walked out while others protested outside.

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• USA
  

  A Reign of Anti-Immigrant Terror

  27 September, by Dianne Feeley

  IN AUSTIN, TEXAS an ICE agent shoots a food delivery driver after he was rammed and pulled over by an unmarked van. Wilber Rafael Garces Perez, from Venezuela, entered the United States legally and is seeking asylum. He is now in ICE detention with his serious gunshot wounds inadequately treated.

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...and the rest of the current issue

• European Union

  Anti-migration measures: the EU Pact worsens an already hostile reality for exiles

• USA

  Battle over AI Creates New Political Allies and Enemies

• Climate

  Global warming and the headlong rush of fossil-fuel capitalism: the number one threat to global public health!

• Brazil

  We must turn up the volume and confront Bolsonaro’s supporters in the streets and at the polls

• Palestine/Lebanon

  Israel continues ethnic cleansing

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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