Partisan • Patriotic • Internationalist
■ Reprinted from People’s News, 27 June 2021 Last month, German Defence Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer and her French counterpart, Florence Parly, met to discuss the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) programme. This came amid reports that German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative government is anxious to have the FCAS programme’s financing […]
It has long been held that states do not have friends, they have interests.¹ With that in mind I read the Defence Forces Review, 2020,² to see how an important part of the Irish state bureaucracy, the officer corps of the Defence Forces and the civil servants within the Department […]
Three important events happened in 1979 that continue to explain the modern struggles in the Middle East: the Islamic revolution (i.e. counter-revolution) in Iran, the siege of Mecca, and the sponsoring of anti-communists in Afghanistan. After the Second World War the Middle East experienced the growth of anti-colonial movements, which […]
The Americas are very much the front line in the struggle against US imperialism’s drive for unipolar, planetary dominance. The United States first tested its Monroe Doctrine there—the brazen assumption that the entire continent is America’s “back yard”—and has since sought to export this sense of colonial proprietorship throughout the […]
■ This is the first in a short series of articles dealing with the Middle East Palestine was first occupied by the Ottoman Empire, but after the break-up of that entity in the First World War it was transferred to the British Empire under the Sykes-Picot agreement, which divided up […]
The mass demonstrations of solidarity with the Palestinian people in Dublin, Belfast, Cork and all around the globe show that the craven operation by elements of the bourgeoisie to frame all opposition to Zionism as anti-Semitism has completely failed to hoodwink the working class. As workers, and simply as human […]
Mephistopheles, a demon of German legend, says: “Hell is where I am. Wherever I go I’m still in it.” These words are relevant to imperialism as well. Recently the world’s attention converged on two issues: Ivan Duque’s oppression of the Colombian people’s strike and the Israeli bombing of Palestine. In […]
On 18 May the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications issued a policy statement on the importing of fracked gas, in which it was noted that the Programme for Government contained a commitment to banning it. The press release stated that because of EU membership, in particular EU Directive […]
■ Michala Lafferty works for UNI Global Union and is based in Nyon in Switzerland. She heads a team fighting for the unionising of the contact-centre sector in the Philippines, which employs more than a million people. Here she recounts some of her team’s experiences over the past year. Mother, […]
There is a saying, “Life is an education of a different kind, where exams come before the lessons.” The nineteenth-century cholera outbreak taught England the importance of underground drainage systems. Covid-19 has taught us many lessons; one among them is that there are some sectors that have to be the […]
Sean-fhéile thraidisiúnta ar feadh na gcianta ba ea Lá Bealtaine, an chéad lá den samhradh. D’eagraítí deasghnátha éagsúla ar fud thuaisceart na hEorpa le fáilte a chur roimh an ngrian agus roimh theacht na soininne. In Éirinn, lastaí tinte cnámh, mar aithris ar an ngrian (“tine gheal” ba bhrí le […]
According to its high representative for foreign affairs, Josep Borrell, the EU at present has 5,000 troops stationed around the world under its aegis.¹ Most of its operations are based in Africa (as shown in part 1 of this article). However, the EU’s most significant operation on the European continent […]
T. S. Elliott wrote in “Choruses from ‘The Rock’” (1934): Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? We have all the knowledge and information about climate change, but the capitalist system doesn’t allow us to act with wisdom. As a […]
The article by Alan Farrell in the March issue under the heading “In defence of China” raises some extremely important questions but offers answers that are unsustainable. The writer asks three questions to represent the concerns expressed by many people, and proceeds to answer them. But the questions themselves are […]
Rich countries, with 14 per cent of the world’s population, have secured 53 per cent of the “Western” covid vaccines. Meanwhile you have to search hard for information on vaccines being produced or tested in other countries, including Russia and Cuba. Almost all the Pfizer-Biontech vaccines will go to rich […]
The 8th of March each year has continued to grow in popularity around the world as a day on which to recognise and celebrate women in general. But this increase in popularity stems from a growing disconnection from the radical socialist roots of what was once widely known as International […]