International Viewpoint

International Viewpoint

Belgium: Massive demonstration against the federal government

21 hours 11 minutes ago

On Thursday 13 February, 2025, 100,000 people marched through the streets of Brussels in response to a call from the trade union common front: a multitude of sectors (trade unions, feminists, anti-fascists, among many others) mobilised against the all-out attacks by the new federal government, the “Arizona coalition” which has been in power in Belgium since the beginning of February. This remarkable turnout represents a real acceleration in social tension. The Gauche anticapitaliste (Belgian section of the Fourth International ) was present and marched with Commune Colère, a unitary pole bringing together workers from many backgrounds (trade union left, feminist, anti-racist and anti-fascist collectives, environmental activists and so on), whose bloc brought together several hundred people around combative slogans.

- IVP601- February 2025 / Belgium
LCR-SAP

Trumps' first days in power: Is the US heading toward fascism?

1 day 21 hours ago

Trump's narrow victory in the popular vote in the November 2024 US presidential elections has given rise to speculation that the US is headed towards authoritarianism and even fascism. While a full discussion and definition of fascism is beyond the scope of this article, and the Trump presidency at this writing is only one week old, a flurry of presidential decrees issued within the first few days give an indication of what can be expected.

- IVP601- February 2025 / United States (USA)
Kay Mann

Lethal Trumpery in Africa

2 days 8 hours ago

In a matter of seconds, the time it takes to sign, Trump and Musk put the lives of millions of people in danger, confirming the precariousness of aid from rich countries.

- IVP601- February 2025 / Africa
Paul Martial

Trump-Musk Coup Leads to Resistance in the Courts and in the Streets

6 days 17 hours ago

President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk have been on a rampage, closing government agencies, firing thousands of workers, and pressuring two million federal employees to resign, actions that threaten the well-being of millions of Americans—children, the elderly, the disabled, federal workers, and others who depend on the federal government. Their actions constitute an on-going technocratic coup from the top and from within the government itself, what in Latin America is called an auto-golpe (a coup against one's own government) as Musk's techies, mostly young men employed by him, effectively take control by commandeering the state's computer systems. Trump's assault has left the country in a state of shock and confusion.

- IVP601- February 2025 / Migration, LGBT, Racism and Islamophobia, Fascism
Dan La Botz

Palestine: In Gaza and the West Bank, the ceasefire does not stop Israel's colonial machine

1 week ago

On Sunday 19 January 2025, the ceasefire in Gaza and the release of prisoners came into effect. Within a very fragile framework, 1,967 Palestinian political prisoners from all over Palestine were to be released. Released but, as is often the case, only to be re-arrested. Since 1967, according to the UN, 800,000 Palestinians have spent time in Israeli jails. In the first phase, 69 women and 21 children were released, while 70 of those released in the second phase were sentenced to deportation and exile.

- IVP601- February 2025 / Palestine, Israel
Theo

Leonidas Iza: “Elections are an extension of the people's struggle”

1 week 1 day ago

In conversation with Jacobin América Latina, the Ecuadorean indigenous leader and presidential candidate analyses the country's economic and political crisis, the impact of popular mobilisations and the need to articulate a project from the grassroots that combines social struggle and electoral dispute.

- IVP601- February 2025
Iain Bruce, Leonadis Iza

Niger: for the release of Moussa Tchangari

1 week 2 days ago

It has been almost two months since Moussa Tchangari, secretary general of the NGO Alternative Espace Citoyenne (AEC) in Niger, was arrested, prompting widespread protests. Held incommunicado for 48 hours, Tchangari was transferred to the ‘central counter-terrorism service' on charges of ‘undermining state security', ‘criminal association in connection with terrorism' and ‘apology for terrorism'.

- IVP601- February 2025 / Niger
Paul Martial

Iran: Storm warning for the Islamic Republic

1 week 3 days ago

The ‘Women, Life, Freedom' uprising has profoundly shaken the foundations of the Islamic Republic. Regional defeats, including the weakening of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the fall of the dictator Assad, have further weakened the regime in Tehran. With the social and economic crisis into which the country is sinking, the very survival of the Islamic Republic is at stake.

- IVP601- February 2025 / Iran
Babak Kia

The Age of Neofascism and Its Distinctive Features

1 week 4 days ago

With each passing day and at an accelerating pace in recent years, it becomes increasingly obvious that we are witnessing a new era of rise of the far right on a global scale, similar to the era of the rise of fascist forces between the two world wars of the twentieth century. The label “neofascism” has been used to designate the contemporary far right, which adapted to our time, out of its awareness that repeating the same fascist pattern witnessed in the past century was no longer possible, in the sense that it was no longer acceptable to the majority of people.

- IVP601- February 2025 / Far Right, Anti-racism and Islamophobia, Fascism
Gilbert Achcar

Greece: Mobilisation for the environment, a key issue

1 week 5 days ago

Greece is one of Europe's worst examples of environmental policy. The most well-known damage is caused by fires, but recent industrial and energy policy, particularly under Prime Minister Mitsotakis, has been a disaster, also in democratic terms.

- IVP601- February 2025 / Greece, Ecology and the Environment, Climate
Andreas Sartzekis

Elon Musk Is Leading an Electronic Coup D'État

1 week 6 days ago

Elon Musk, the multibillionaire and advisor to President Donald Trump who now heads a team called the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), has been taking over U.S. government agencies—the Treasury Department, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM), General Services Administration (GSA), and the United States Agency for International Development, and perhaps others—a process that at least in some cases appear to be illegal. Where officials have resisted, Trump has removed them from their positions. Musk's take-over is tantamount to a coup, and far more effective, serious, and dangerous than the insurrection that Trump organized on January 6, 2021.

- IVP601- February 2025 / United States (USA)
Dan La Botz

“Unity and radicality”

2 weeks ago

“Above all, we must not despair. That may sound silly, but it's important. Last June, we saw in France that the tide could turn. A week before the second round, a victory for the ‘new popular front' was still totally unimaginable. But it succeeded.”

- IVP601- February 2025 / France
Olivier Besancenot

Holcim Philippines against cement workers (Mindanao): End the lockout! Support the workers just demands!

2 weeks 1 day ago

We, the different human rights and organizations of agricultural workers and sectors in Mindanao firmly stand in solidarity with the deprived and exploited workers of the Holcim Philippines Incorporated Lugait, Misamis Oriental Mindanao Plant. We call on Holcim Philippines Incorporated to listen to the just demands of the workers and their families.

- News from around the world / Philippines, Trade unions/workplace organizing
AMKP, Kilos Ka, LAHRA

The Meaning of Trumpism for Mexico and the World

2 weeks 1 day ago

DONALD TRUMP'S SECOND victory in the 2024 U.S. presidential elections, with more social and legislative power and experience than his first presidency from 2017 to 2021, is a political milestone that has shaken the world because of what the arrival of such a reactionary, toxic and malignant character to the White House in Washington represents for the world — and specifically for Mexico, the direct southern neighbor of the North American power.

- IVP601- February 2025 / United States (USA), Mexico
Manuel Aguilar Mora

The crisis and peculiarities of Chinese capitalism

2 weeks 2 days ago

The Chinese regime has never been as opaque as it is today. We are living in a time of uncertainty, not yet knowing how Donald Trump will play his cards in relation to China. Between the climate crisis and chaotic de-globalisation, these are unprecedented times. Let's try to decipher the situation, without trying to remove the question marks.

- IVP600 - January 2025 / China
Pierre Rousset

The Turkish State and the Kurdish Question: Contradictions and fragilities of a new hope

2 weeks 3 days ago

More than nine years after the failure of negotiations between PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan and the Turkish state and the end of the ceasefire, the Erdogan regime is once again trying to force the PKK (and its forces in Syria, in Rojava) to lay down their arms. However, this new "process", initiated by the leader of the far right Devlet Bahçeli, remains unclear for the moment about what rights the Kurdish people could obtain, apart from a possible release of Öcalan, if he calls for the dismantling of the Kurdish armed forces. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has summed up his approach to the "resolution" of the conflict as follows: "Either they will bury their weapons or we will bury them with their weapons."

- IVP600 - January 2025 / United States (USA), Syria, Turkey, Kurdistan
Uraz Aydin

After the Fire: Reconstructing Los Angeles Towards Abolition

2 weeks 4 days ago

When the Eaton Fire first began its retreat from Altadena, I was in one of many self-organized mutual aid teams scattered across the area, cleaning up debris. Around this time, I connected with some Black community members who had just lost their homes. They had returned from evacuation almost immediately to help coordinate mutual aid for their neighbors. But they were harassed by the police as they tried to return to their homes. Hundreds of armed California National Guard, summoned by Los Angeles police and sheriffs, had effectively begun occupying parts of Altadena. The fires already disproportionately affected Western Altadena, the historically Black area of the city where most of the deaths have been located so far and where residents were given notices to evacuate hours after those in majority-white areas of Altadena were informed. [1]

- Features / Ecology and the Environment, Racism and Islamophobia
Promise Li
Checked
7 hours 6 minutes ago
International Viewpoint
International Viewpoint, the monthly English-language magazine of the Fourth International, is a window to radical alternatives world-wide, carrying reports, analysis and debates from all corners of the globe. Correspondents in over 50 countries report on popular struggles, and the debates that are shaping the left of tomorrow.
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