International Viewpoint

The resistance to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and to President Donald Trump's mass deportation program won a victory last week when Trump and Border Czar Tom Homan announced that they were ending the ICE surge in Minneapolis.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the exploitation of oil in Venezuela has shaped particular characteristics of capitalist development: the formation of social classes and their political representation, the model of bourgeois enrichment, and forms of social control. The Brazilian economist Celso Furtado defined the Venezuelan case as “underdevelopment with an abundance of foreign exchange,” manifested in deindustrialisation, corruption, rapid concentration of wealth in the hands of a few, and severe poverty crises.

The neo-fascist in the White House is attempting to bring the Caribbean island and its government to its knees, strangling it economically once and for all, killing its people with darkness and scarcity. But this is not “just” a war against Cuba and its revolutionary tradition. It is the continuation of the war against the sovereignty of all Latin American countries and Latino peoples within the United States. Scheinbaum, Lula, Petro, Orsi and the social democratic governments must emphatically oppose this crime in all international forums and organisations.

The Russian state has forced many antiwar leftists into exile, cutting them off from ordinary Russians. But activists are well aware that change in Russia must come from within, mobilizing ordinary people around their own interests.

Vladimir Putin and his ruling elite are obsessed with the West “which is simultaneously seen as both the main adversary and the only potential partner”, […] that obsession has “its roots in the reactionary legacy of the Russian Empire”.

While Donald Trump fires off threats of military action against countries from Greenland to Iran, Latin America is the main focus for his strategy of imperial retrenchment. The Latin American left will have to build new alliances against US aggression.

Recent agreements between the United States and some fifteen African countries are radically reshaping health cooperation on the continent, even as Washington has just left the World Health Organisation (WHO).
These new partnerships are part of the so-called America First Global Health strategy, which makes aid conditional on US priorities. In December, Washington signed memoranda with some fifteen countries setting specific objectives for epidemic surveillance, laboratory strengthening (…)

“Some … have argued that as the government is still largely intact, nothing has fundamentally changed. But … the balance of forces on which this government rests has fundamentally changed.”

After 59 days of unjust imprisonment, Lyes Touati has finally been acquitted - 59 days of waiting, mobilization, solidarity and determination.

“Daher provides an update on the worrying developments under Ahmad al-Chareh's new government. He also highlights the opportunities opening up for working people and social movements, provided they prove capable of resisting sectarianism and ethnic discrimination.”

António José Seguro was elected President of the Republic of Portugal on Sunday with 67% of the vote, comfortably beating the neo-fascist candidate he faced in the second round, André Ventura (33%).

The dismissal of General Zhang Youxia was officially announced on January 24. This is another step in the purges that have been taking place within the Chinese army's general staff. Zhang was considered “untouchable” given his supposed closeness to Xi Jinping. As for the Central Military Commission (CMC), it is now a hollow shell, having lost five of its seven members. Xi continues to clear the field around him, contrary to any form of collegiality.

“Now things have changed. Republicans have criticized his immigrant deportation policies, his racist posts, and his threat to take over the election process. At the same time support for Trump is declining as shown in polls.”

Gus Fagan reports on the repression of anti-fascists by Germany and Hungary