World

  • Brazil: Coup gov't hit with new fraud scandals

    As Brazil’s media focuses its attention on the Rio Olympics, new revelations continue to shine a light on the glaring contradictions in the unelected government's efforts to impeach suspended President Dilma Rousseff for allegations of fraud.

  • Israel cracks down on BDS activists

    Israel is intensifying its efforts to crack down on activists working for freedom, justice and equality for Palestinians. On August 7, interior minister Aryeh Deri and public security minister Gilad Erdan formed a new inter-ministerial task force that will, as the The Times of Israel reported, “target supporters of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement”. The task force aims to prevent the entry of foreign activists allegedly affiliated with groups that support BDS. It also aims to expel those who have already entered territories under Israeli control.

  • Letter from the US: Why I reject a lesser evil and will vote for Jill Stein

    Since the mid 1930s, self-styled progressives and many socialists have often justified supporting one of the United States' two major capitalist parties by claiming that it is the “lesser evil” compared to the other one. The “lesser evil” is frequently the Democratic Party. In this year's election, the “lesser evil” is the war hawk and neoliberal Hillary Clinton as opposed to right-wing populist Donald Trump.

  • Britain: Corbyn's 10 pledges to create a fairer society

    British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has pledged to “rebuild Britain” on August 4 by creating 1 million jobs and homes. The socialist politician put full employment and house building at the heart of his bid for re-election as Labour's leader in a 10-point plan for the country.

  • Venezuela: Slave labour or just growing more food?

    The United States media’s latest offensive against Venezuela’s socialist President Nicolas Maduro targets a new sustainability program that transplants urban workers to farmland. Some quarters of the mainstream media have equated it with slave labour.

  • Philippines: Amid peace talks and mass killings, Duterte 'fine tuning message for elites'

    Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte, elected in May on a platform that combined pledging to defend ordinary citizens against a corrupt elite with carrying out extreme repression against drug users and other “criminals”, gave his inaugural state of the nation address on July 25. The statement below was released by the socialist Party of the Labouring Masses in response. * * *

  • Venezuela: Right-wing threatens marriage equality

    Former National Assembly member Vestalia Sampedro has officially filed the right-wing Movement for Sowing Right's opposition to same sex civil marriage in Venezuela. Sampedro cited “pro-family” as among the reasons for the conservative group's filing before the Supreme Court of Justice (TSJ).

  • Chelsea Manning: 'I'm hopeful people can understand how the world works'

    In a newly released interview conducted last year with Chelsea Manning, the jailed US whistleblower said she was “always afraid” of her government, which sentenced her to decades behind bars in a military prison. “I am always afraid, I am still afraid of the power of government,” said Manning, who leaked thousands of classified documents to Wikileaks in 2010, in an interview with Amnesty International published by The Guardian on August 3.

  • New World Bank rules slammed for disregarding people and planet

    Lending further support to the United Nations' characterisation of the World Bank as a “human rights-free zone”, the notorious lender approved new policies on August 4 that have been widely condemned by rights advocates for endangering human rights and the environment.

  • Campaign for WHO to declassify transgenderism as a mental illness

    Mexico is leading a campaign to demand the World Health Organization declassify transgender identity as a mental disorder in its global list of medical conditions. The petition is based on a study published on July 28 in The Lancet Psychiatry Journal. After more than two years of research, it concludes that transgender people are not “mentally ill”.

  • United States: Black trans woman becomes 17th trans person killed this year

    In a tableau becoming horrifyingly common, a transgender woman of color was found dead in Ohio on July 30, the victim of an apparent homicide. Skye Mockabee was found unresponsive in a parking lot around 8 a.m. on July 30 in Cleveland, Ohio, reports Cleveland.com. Mockabee had an apparent head-wound, and the individuals who found her called EMS. She was declared dead at the scene. She was 26 years old. Police are providing few details about Mockabee's death; no suspects have been arrested, and no possible motive for her murder has been given.