Category: International News

Don’t Be Fooled: The Most Diverse Cabinet in History Is Pure Demagogy

Wame Handa

Post on: January 8, 2021 Jimena VergaraOlivia Wood Biden boasts that his new cabinet “looks like America.” However, whether the cabinet “looks like” the working class has nothing to do with their interests and politics. Make no mistake: these politicians will always put the capitalists above the workers. Liberals are celebrating what is shaping up to be the most diverse cabinet ever. The new president wants to use the “diversity card” to hide the fact that his cabinet will govern for the super-rich, by applying the neoliberal recipe in times…

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Argentina abortion: Senate approves legalisation in historic decision

Wame Handa

Argentina’s Congress has legalised abortions up to the 14th week of pregnancy, a ground-breaking move for a region that has some of the world’s most restrictive termination laws. Senators voted in favour of the bill after a marathon session with 38 in favour, 29 against and one abstention. Until now, abortions were only permitted in cases of rape or when the mother’s health was at risk. The bill had been approved by the Chamber of Deputies earlier this month. The Catholic Church, which remains highly influential in Latin America, had…

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Farmers’ revolt in India

Wame Handa

Sunday 20 December 2020, by Pierre Mattei Narendra Modi, the current Prime Minister of India and leader of the BJP (Indian People’s Party), a party with a nationalist and Hindu orientation, came to power in 2014 on the basis of an ultra-liberal programme. In the meantime India has been hit like the rest of the world by the covid-19 pandemic from January 2020. On 11 December this year, there were more than 9.8 million reported cases and over 142,000 deaths. These figures are below the reality, given the relatively weak…

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We will not return to normal, because normal was the problem

Wame Handa

South African and Covid-19 Saturday 19 December 2020, by Amandla! But is abnormal possible? Covid 19, the associated lockdowns, wearing of masks and social distancing have disrupted society. On the one hand, there is the obvious desire for things to return to normal. But there is also much talk of the “new normal”, in the knowledge that these conditions are going to be with us for some while. And ironically, the second wave of infections, spreading fear and anxiety in many parts of the world, is the result of the…

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Latin America: Dead ends and limits of progressive governments

Wame Handa

With the collapse of the USSR, the end of history was announced without delay. Nothing seemed to be able to stem the neoliberal global tidal wave, when the Zapatista uprising in Mexico erupted in 1994. Five years later, Chávez took power in Venezuela: it was the beginning of a long process of rupture, through the ballot box, on the Latin American continent – Lula in Brazil, Morales in Bolivia, Correa in Ecuador, Mujica in Uruguay… part of the Western radical left then turned its gaze, not without hope, to the…

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Can U.S. Hegemony Be Restored?

Wame Handa

Post on: December 6, 2020  Scott Cooper Joe Biden wants to return U.S. imperialism to “business as usual” — but conditions have changed. It was May 25, 2017. Donald Trump had been sworn in four months earlier and was on his first foreign presidential trip. That day, at a formal meeting of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) member countries, he called on them to spend more money on security and refused to endorse Article 5 of the 1949 treaty, which treats an armed attack on any one member as an attack on…

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Costa Rica, Guatemala and the mass movement against austerity

Wame Handa

Interviewed by – Stan Miller Rob Lyons is an activist and journalist living in Central America. He comes back with us on the quasi insurrectional movements that recently took place in Costa Rica and Guatemala. 1. Can you please come back with us on the reasons of the recent general strike in costa Rica? There is no easy or simple answer to this question. It is important to understand that the underlying conditions which triggered the mass movement were part of an ongoing process of pauperization of the Central American masses.…

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Venezuela’s PSUV retakes control of National Assembly despite low turnout

Wame Handa

Originally published: Venezuelanalysis by Paul Dobson (December 7, 2020) The ruling United Socialist Party (PSUV) and its allies have swept Venezuela’s parliamentary elections and regained control of the National Assembly (AN). According to the National Electoral Council (CNE)’s results, government-backed candidates are projected to win at least 189 of the 277-seat assembly after netting 68 percent of the vote with 98.63 percent counted. Combined opposition parties, which have controlled the parliament for the last five years, won only 28 percent of the vote, losing control of the legislative body. The traditional Democratic Action (AD) and Copei…

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Election Charade Ends: U.S. Ruling Class Wins Again

Wame Handa

By JEFF MACKLER On the Joseph Biden side of the 2020 capitalist election spectacle stood the military establishment, albeit quietly, including Trump’s Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley and Trump’s Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, the latter fired by Trump a few days after the president’s Nov. 3 election defeat. Trump’s ever-diminishing coup threat, refusing a peaceful transition should he lose, had no takers in the military, not to mention in his own cabinet. Vice President Mike Pence made sure to follow Trump’s post-election podium bluster that he had…

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Trump Leaves Biden Foreign Policy Problems; How Will the Left React?

Wame Handa

USA Wednesday 9 December 2020, by Dan La Botz When he became president, Donald Trump broke with what had been seventy years of post-war U.S. foreign policy. At the end of World War II, the United States government took on the roles of organizer of world capitalism, political leader of the capitalist bloc against the Soviet Union and the Communist bloc, and military superpower with the ability to enforce its policies. All of that was based on a partnership with Western Europe and Japan and the subordination of the nations of…

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