International Viewpoint - online socialist magazine

Tribute: Ernesto Herrera (1949-2024)

Charles-André Udry — 2024-01-28T16:43:41Z

A belated tribute to Ernesto Herrera, who died on 10 January 2024. The shock had to be absorbed. A comrade-friend, with a hyphen of fraternity and not of union, in order to respect his personal trajectory.
Born on 22 May 1949, Antonio Maria Nuñez Guglielmi was part of the Spanish and Italian emigration that settled in Uruguay, a country that experienced exceptional growth from 1910 until the early 1950s. An activist, he chose as his pseudonym the name of a writer who, among other things, (…)

- In Memoriam - Obituaries and appreciations / Obituary, Fourth International, Uruguay

Portugal's political impasse

Charles-André Udry — 2016-03-14T07:13:36Z

The election of conservative candidate Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa as Portugal's new president on January 24 (with 51.99 percent of the vote and a 48.84 percent voter turnout) adds a new element to the existing "tripolar" situation.

- IV494 - March 2016 / Portugal, New parties of the left

Austerity, the destruction of the health system and the urgency of a debt moratorium

Charles-André Udry, Louise Irvine — 2015-04-26T06:58:08Z

A meeting of the Red Network was held in Athens on April 4, 2015. One of the three workshops brought together about a hundred people who are active to varying degrees in the health sector: doctors, nurses, paramedics, those responsible for hospital pharmacies, cleaners, members of local committees who have prevented the closure of a primary care centre, one of the doctors responsible for the social dispensary at Hellinikon. The discussion combined testimony, analysis and initiatives. A common thread ran through all the interventions: we should stop waiting for the results of the permanent and highly-mediatized negotiations of the government, which maintain the population in a passive attitude; we must build initiatives that ensure the connection between caregivers, population, the trade-union structure (META) influenced by Syriza and the members and supporters of Syriza. Given the massive and continuous state of decay of the health system, a slogan has to be put forward: immediate refusal to pay the interest on the debt and repayments that are presented as unavoidable, and the immediate use of these funds for the health sector.

- IV483 - April 2015 / Greece, Public services

August 14

Charles-André Udry — 2013-08-24T13:02:32Z

This article, recounting the events of the day, was written on the evening of 14 August, at 9pm Central European Time.

- IV463 - August 2013 / Egypt, Arab Revolutions

An equilibrium that is precarious and full of dangers

Charles-André Udry — 2013-03-09T15:25:58Z

There is one “economic” forecast which is unlikely to be proved wrong as far as Greece is concerned: the one regarding unemployment. ELSTAT (the Greek Institute of Statistics) has just published the “results” for October 2012: the official number of unemployed amounted to 1,345,715; an increase of 36,000 in a month. As a reminder, the number of unemployed stood, for the same month of October, in 2007, at 398,085; at 375,528 in 2008; at 498,211 in 2009; at 694,508 in 2010 and 977,614 in 2011. An increase in one year of 368,701.

- IV458 - March 2013 / Greece

The cradle of what kind of Europe?

Charles-André Udry — 2012-06-29T08:55:40Z

"Everyone" - because in Europe many people still believe that this continent is the centre of the world – is talking about the elections on June 17, 2012 in Greece: the "cradle of democracy", according to a history that is partly fable. The possible results of the election interest not only the "Right" and the "Left" – including the PCF (French Communist Party), put back in the saddle of a tottering horse by the Left Front sponsored by Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who are all "friends" of Alexis Tsipras, the leader of SYRIZA - but also the political institutions of the European Union (EU), the bankers and their "bailed-out" banks, the speculators in the currency market. And, of course, those who make a living from forecasts that are uncertain, but lucrative, of an economic conjuncture which makes the front pages of the daily press: Roubini and Co.

- IV449 - June 2012 / Greece, Economy, European Union

The point of no return

Charles-André Udry — 2012-02-10T06:15:53Z

On February 1, 2012, Robert Fisk ended his article in the British daily newspaper “The Independent” as follows: “But there is one unasked question. Just suppose the regime [of Bashar al-Assad] did survive. Over what kind of Syria would it rule?” In other words, the revolt has reached a point of no return.

- IV445 - February 2012 / Syria, Arab Revolutions

A new social war is opening up in Europe

Charles-André Udry — 2010-08-08T13:16:09Z

A class war on a new scale has been declared in Europe: what remains of the social state, resulting from the period following the Second World War, must be dismantled.

- IV427 - August 2010 / Economy, European Union

A new social war is opening up

Charles-André Udry — 2010-07-22T11:50:39Z

Since May 8, 2010 - i.e. the emergency meeting of the European Central Bank (ECB), ECOFIN (finance ministers of the EU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) held in order to establish a rescue plan for various countries of the EU - all the governments are announcing plans for budgetary austerity “to save the eurozone”. A class war on a new scale has been declared in Europe: what remains of the social state, resulting from the period following the Second World War, must be dismantled, except for a “social safety net” of the World Bank kind.

- IV426 - July 2010 / Economy

Oiling the war machine

Charles-André Udry — 2002-11-15T00:00:00Z

When will the US-led war on Iraq begin? Instead of "if", 'observers' now ask "when". But hasn't this war already begun? During August 2002 alone, US and British bombers carried out '10 sorties' over Iraqi territory to bomb 'command centres'.

- IV345 - November 2002 / War drive/Anti-war movements