In the last weeks of 2009 Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez announced that the government would be nationalising eight banks. These banks represented 8% of the financial sector in Venezuela and held a significant percentage of Government deposits.

These Government nationalisations however have not been in response to the global financial crisis- as in some other countries. They have been made in response to a recent investigation into banking practices that uncovered corruption and embezzlement of deposits reaching up into to the highest levels of the Government.

By Denise Dudley, Socialismo Revolucionario Venezuela

Continue reading Venezuela: Chavez announces bank nationalisations

Only days after his December 1st announcement that a second surge of 30,000 troops would be sent to Afghanistan, US President Obama accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo. According to Obama, “Whatever mistakes we have made, the plain fact is this: the United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms.”

By Andrew Grant, Socialist Party

Continue reading Bring the troops home from Afghanistan now!

Review of Jeyakumar Devaraj’s “Malaysia at the Crossroads, a Socialist Perspective” by Peter Taaffe

Jeyakumar Devaraj, member of the Central Committee of Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) and Member of Parliament for Sungai Siput, published a book on perspectives for Malaysia in August 2009. Peter Taaffe, General Secretary of the Socialist Party (CWI in England and Wales) and member of the International Secretariat of the Committee for a Workers’ International, reviewed it in a letter to Jeyakumar.

We are carrying a slightly edited (shortened) version of the review which deals with important questions of method, analysis and perspectives for Marxists in the struggle - to overthrow capitalism in Malaysia, Asia and worldwide.

Continue reading Perspectives for Malaysia: A Marxist approach

SP Newsletter No.296

Recent opinion polls have shown that support for an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) remains at just over 70%, despite 70% of respondents admitting they “don’t know enough” about Rudd’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS).

This coincides with 76% of Australians being ‘concerned’ about climate change, with over half the population seeing it as a ‘critical threat’.

Continue reading Market solutions won’t stop climate change

On Wednesday December 23 asylum-seeker George Jacob Samuel Christin died. Christin was one of the 254 Tamil asylum-seekers facing horrific conditions in the Indonesian port of Merak. A spokesman for the asylum seekers said Christin was showing signs of severe illness, but was “neglected by the IOM (International Organisation for Migration) and the Indonesian navy”. It took a seizure to finally get Christin taken to hospital. By then it was too late, Christin died from a stomach illness at 11:30pm, only six hours after being discharged from hospital.

By Corey Snoek, Socialist Party

Continue reading Refugees used by Rudd as a political football

“a historic failure that will live in infamy”

The UN conference on climate change (Cop15), held in Copenhagen 7-18 December, was a fiasco. The Independent called it “a historic failure that will live in infamy”. After years of preparation, the representatives of 193 countries discussed and wrangled for two weeks. In the closing hours, leaders such as Barak Obama and Wen Jinbao (plus Rudd and Brown) flew in, supposedly to break the deadlock.

Editorial from February 2009 edition of Socialism Today

Continue reading Climate change: Copenhagen cop-out

In recent years most states in Australia have introduced new ‘anti-graffiti’ laws. Western Australia followed suit on January 1 with state wide legislation that threatens graffiti artists with up to two years jail or fines of $24,000.

Retailers in WA will also risk fines of $6,000 for selling spray cans or markers to people under the age of 18. In Victoria, where similar laws exist, police have used the legislation to charge more than 120 young people with 1310 offences in the past year.

By Dean Roberts, Socialist Party

Continue reading Scrap all anti-graffiti laws

SP Newsletter No.295

With the worst economic crisis in 80 years rocking the world many workers and young people are starting to question the capitalist system. Capitalism, which dominates the globe, is a system that allows a tiny minority of bosses to own and control the vast amounts of wealth that is produced by billions of ordinary workers.

Continue reading The system doesn’t work - Fight for a socialist alternative!

On 13 January 2010, a 7.3 Richter scale earthquake struck Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. The earthquake caused great destruction and 200,000 people are thought to be dead. Further, 3 million Haitians have been rendered homeless by the quake, which also damaged many public service buildings, such as hospitals and schools.

Continue reading Regional Left groups statement on Haiti

Bankers to pocket $100 billion in bonuses, while impoverished Haitians struggle to cope with disaster

The humanitarian catastrophe that has befallen Haiti beggars belief. The powerful earthquake that struck on 12 January left many thousands dead, with estimates running to 200,000 and more. The flimsy slum dwellings in Port-au-Prince, the capital, collapsed, as did public buildings, including schools and hospitals. Many thousands are still missing and more are badly injured.

Power supplies and communications were destroyed and only one airport runway operates. It is estimated that some three million people, most of whom have been made homeless, are in dire need of water, food, clothes, shelter and essential medicines.

By Niall Mulholland, CWI

Continue reading Haiti: Disaster compounded by capitalism