IV495 - April 2016

The Republican Party has a problem. At the time I am writing (March 24, 2016), Donald Trump enjoys a clear lead in the race for the 2016 Republican Presidential nomination. With nearly 60% (739) of the 1,237 delegates required for the nomination, more than both of his remaining opponents, Ted Cruz of Texas (465) and John Kasich of Ohio (143). According to Nate Silver’s FiveThirtyEight.com website, Trump is expected to win all or a majority of delegates from Wisconsin, New York, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Indiana, West Virginia, Washington, California, and New Jersey. If he wins significant minorities of delegations from the remaining states (Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, Oregon, South Dakota, Montana, and New Mexico), he will be in striking distance (1,208 pledged delegates) of the nomination by June 7.

Many African American progressives — and liberal whites — wonder why the Black population voted overwhelmingly for Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Party primaries, particularly in the Southern states. Although the numbers were lower in the North and West, they were still a majority for Clinton. Why?

On Sunday (April 17), the six PSOL representatives – Ivan Valente, Chico Alencar, Jean Wyllys, Glauber Braga, Luiza Erundina and Edmilson Rodrigues – will vote against the opening up of an impeachment process against president Dilma Rousseff.

Infection by the Zika virus is usually not followed by any symptoms; in one case in five, it seems like a not very severe flu; exceptionally, it may lead to a more serious auto-immune disease, the Guillain-Barré syndrome. But the most serious consequence of this disease appears to affect pregnant women, some of whom give birth to children with unusually small heads or are sometimes blind. However, an unequivocal link between Zika and these malformations is not established in an absolutely certain way.

The movement of occupation of squares in France is [over] two weeks old. Its evolution is difficult to predict, because it is open to many unforeseen events, even though its roots are deep.

If we had to describe the European Union’s response to the current refugee crisis with a single word, that word would be “chaos.” If we could use two words, the second word would be “shame,” necessary to refer to what European leaders and technocrats should feel upon reading the statement released by France’s Doctors Without Borders (MSF) on March 22, announcing that the humanitarian organization would cease all activities connected to Moria, the main camp in the Greek island of Lesvos, where refugees are registered and fingerprinted before being relocated or deported.

Every two years since 1981, the Detroit- and Brooklyn-based monthly newsletter Labor Notes has rallied union members and wannabe members, as well as some union staff and elected leaders, to join in a long weekend of sharing stories, strategies and wisdom gained in their workplace skirmishes.

Brazil is experiencing a profound institutional crisis, the biggest since the end of the dictatorship. The Roussef government is seriously damaged, leading to its paralysis, but so are the principal institutions of bourgeois democracy. The main leaders in Parliament are involved in Operation Lava Jato [1], including Eduardo Cunha, president of the Chamber of Deputies, as one of the defendants in the trial. The leaders of the traditional parties, those who are part of the government as well as those in the right wing opposition (including the PMDB, the party of Cunha and Vice President Michel Temer, which recently withdrew from the government) are under investigation.

After the arrest of Saleh Abdeslam on March 18, for his suspected involvement in the attacks in Paris in 2015, the Belgian authorities were crowing about their victory. "We’ve got him!” A few days later the Daesh criminals struck in the heart of Brussels and in Zaventem at Brussels airport. Thirty-two dead, hundreds injured, children mutilated. This was a terrible massacre. Could it have been avoided? Maybe.

Claude Jacquin. Many of us had known him for a long time under his pen name, Claude Gabriel. Jacquin was born in September 1947, he died on the night of April 16 to 17, 2016. He had been suffering for a decade suffering from cancer which proved incurable. This sometimes reduced him to silence, but as soon as possible, he took up his activity again, continuing to facilitate militant militant links between South Africa and France, analysing the news, waging an unremitting battle for the radical left to take on board these realities. Never did his illness force him to surrender, before the very end.