“The Icelandic economy is prosperous and flexible” (IMF 4 July 2008)

(There is) “a very real danger...that the Icelandic economy, in the worst case, could be sucked with the banks into the whirlpool and the result could be national bankruptcy.” (Iceland's Prime Minister Geir Haarde – address to the nation 6 October 2008)

Communism is suddenly back in fashion in Japan. The reason is not hard to seek. ‘Lifetime employment’ is a thing of the past for young workers, who face a casualised and insecure future. One in three is temping. Some 44% of country's workforce are part-time only, while a profusion of short-term contracts has created a generation of freelancers who are often 'between jobs'. They have already worked out that, as recession bites, they will be first in the firing line. They are drawing political conclusions in increasing numbers.

China's urbanization process has reached a critical juncture. Inequality between town and country is producing explosive revolts surrounding the cities. The problem of how to contain these revolts is at the core of policy making and is reflected in conflicts inside the Central Committee of the ruling Communist Party.

The background to this is that rural rebellions have escalated over recent years. Yu Jianrong director of the Rural Development Institute's Social Issues Research Center at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences gave explicit warnings to the Chinese leadership of a revolutionary crisis developing in the countryside and new proletarian zones in the interior provinces. 

The disarray among ruling circles in the European Union could hardly have been more clearly depicted than at the ‘summit’ over the weekend of October 4th and 5th. In reality the event was little more than a photo-shoot. The meeting brought together the Prime Ministers of Britain, Germany, Italy and France. The Prime Minister of Spain clearly had his nose put out of joint by the lack of an invitation. The other EU members (currently 27 nation states) also may well have asked why they weren’t to be asked to take part in decisions that could profoundly affect their futures.

The only realistic reply could be that the meeting would have been even more of a shambles. Europe cannot get its act together. First the participants at the summit swore to unite in action in the teeth of the crisis. Secondly, when it came to pumping money in to the European banking system (which must come if the plan is serious) they all got cold feet. National interests came first. German finance minister Peer Steinbruck blew the gaff. “We as Germans do not want to pay into a big pot where we do not have control and do not know where German money might be used,” he complained. Since the EU nations are not hanging together, they will hang separately.

Our lives, those of our children, our health and living are subjected to the whims of the gambling table, otherwise known as the ‘world financial system’. In what way can betting on the prices of stock and shares benefit humankind? Rather, it inevitably leads, at some stage, to crisis, as the blind bets get called in.

Now, with the crisis of the capitalist system unfolding, the poverty, hunger and homelessness experienced by some sections of working class people is spreading to wider and wider layers. This is initially being expressed in foreclosures on home loans and an increase in homelessness.

Join us for a picket of the US embassy and public meeting on Wednesday, September 17, in London to defend the Bolivian and Venezuelan revolutions! Download and print off this A4 leaflet and distribute it as widely as possible.

Two-thirds of U.S. corporations paid no federal income taxes between 1998 and 2005, according to a new report from Congress.

The study by the Government Accountability Office, said about 68% of foreign companies doing business in the U.S. avoided corporate taxes.

"It's shameful that so many corporations make big profits and pay nothing to support our country," said
Senator Byron Dorgan.

As food prices soar world-wide it was reported recently on the BBC that ‘Ethiopia has launched an urgent appeal to international donors for more than $300m (£154m) of emergency aid’.

According the news item, ‘a total of 4.6 million people are now thought to need food aid, because of the drought which struck most of the country in the early part of this year. In some parts of the country, health centres and feeding clinics are already being overwhelmed with large numbers of severely malnourished children. Existing stocks of food aid will cover June, but the crunch will come in July.’

Five years ago the USA and Britain invaded Iraq. They lied that it was because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Really they were just going in to steal Iraq’s oil. They killed a million people, but they said Saddam was a dictator, which was true. They were going to set the Iraqi people free.

So what are we to think when we hear that 8 Iraqi trade union leaders are to be transferred from Basra to Baghdad.  Their crime? They oppose the law that passes Iraq’s oil over to the greedy hands of the foreign multinationals. Their lives are at risk. Iraq, and specially Baghdad, is a cauldron.