IV570 - July 2022

“Indeed, all the regimes in this swirl of regional and imperial rivalries — Egypt and Sudan, Iran and Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and Eritrea, Russia and China, Israel and the United States — are engaged in the most vicious and anti-democratic oppression. May the rulers sink together in the Red Sea.”

Representatives of the British trade union movement yesterday delivered a heavy 4×4 pickup vehicle to their counterparts in Ukraine, where it will be used by the XX Battalion of the Territorial Defence, based in East Ukraine. This is the first of several planned deliveries on behalf of UK trade unions.
The unit, which is largely staffed by miners, put out a call for funds, medical supplies, and vehicles last month via the Ukrainian miners’ union PRUP.
The National Union of Mineworkers, (…)

Representatives of the student movement and trades unionists are jointly calling on the people of Quebec to mobilize for climate justice on 23 September. Unions have called for a strike, and plan to organize demonstrations in several major cities in Quebec, including Montreal, Quebec City, Sherbrooke, and Gatineau.

Ajay, Atul and Rajesh Gupta are the three most famous brothers in South Africa. Two of them were arrested a few weeks ago in the United Arab Emirates. With the help of Jacob Zuma, South Africa’s president from 2009 to 2018, they managed to siphon the equivalent of nearly 3.6 billion euros from the state and infiltrate the main administrations, to the point that we can speak of “state capture”". This massive corruption speaks volumes about the state of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) and reinforces a sense of despair among the people, reflected in recurring waves of xenophobia.

Like the rest of the world, Turkey is going through a multitude of interconnected crises, in continuation with its own trajectory over the past decade. To maintain his position in this period of multiple crises, the country’s president Tayyip Erdogan is firing on all cylinders: repression, wars, blackmail, negotiations, breaking of alliances and new alliances.

In Italy, Prime Minister Mario Draghi resigned as prime minister last week after three parties in his government refused to back him in a confidence vote. The country’s President, Sergio Mattarella, has asked him to remain as caretaker leader and early elections will take place this autumn.

On July 25, 2022, Ferdinand Marcos Jr will deliver his first annual State of the Nation Address (SONA) before the National Assembly. On the eve of this address, we publish below an article written at the beginning of the month, after the inaugural speech of the new president on the occasion of his assumption of office, an article whose publication had been unfortunately delayed.

The Belarusian regime is threatening “railway partisans”, arrested for sabotaging signalling equipment to disrupt the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with the death sentence.

Phil Hearse and Sarah Parker report on the betrayal of the Kurdish people as Erdoğan of Turkey uses the threat of veto on NATO membership for Finland and Sweden.

B. Skanthakumar reports from Colombo