More than 50,000 migrants are known to have died worldwide since 2014, revealing inhuman conditions that force so many people to flee their homes, indifference of governments, and official acts that caused the deaths of hundreds of migrants.
Eugene Walker
World in View: Can the Sudanese Revolution survive?
July 22, 2023Since the April outbreak of fighting between rival forces in Sudan, civilians have suffered and died. Willfully forgotten is the Sudanese Revolution of 2018-19 and the powerful participation of the Sudanese masses who carried it out.
Hugo Blanco (1934-2023), Peruvian Revolutionary
July 19, 2023Marxist, activist and defender of the Indigenous movement, Peruvian revolutionary Hugo Blanco (1934-2023) died in June. His history shines a light on the needed exploration of the conflictive, contradictory story of Marxism and the Indigenous movement in Latin America today.
World in View: Israel’s army terrorizes Palestinians in Jenin
July 10, 2023The Israeli military occupation of Jenin is the latest manifestation of the state terrorism the government is carrying out against the Palestinian population. What is new about this repression? How can continued occupation and neo-fascist tendencies in Israel be overcome?
World in View: France: Police murder sparks mass youth protests
July 7, 2023After Nahel Merzouk, a teenager of Algerian-Moroccan descent, was killed by police at a traffic stop in a Paris suburb, French youth, many of North African descent, responded with outrage. How did France come to this explosive moment?
World in View: Mexico Notes, May-June 2023
June 16, 2023Takes up: how Mexico has increased the number of migrants it has detained five-fold, most at the behest of the U.S.–from 88,000 a year a decade ago to 450,000 now; and that Lopez Obrador is pushing the mega-project “Mayan train” that is invading Indigenous communities, as well as a new airport outside Mexico City, a huge oil refinery, a thermo-electric plant.
World in View: Thailand’s election
In Thailand’s election, the general who seized power in a 2014 coup was unseated as prime minister. But will the military allow an independent civilian government to be formed?
Readers’ Views: May-June 2023
June 15, 2023Readers’ Views on: Violence and Racism Still Put U.S. in the Dock; American Civilization on Trial; Critical Race Theory; Critical Thinking and Education; 2SLGBTQIA+ Good and Bad News; Is Covid Over?; Remembering the Vietnam War; Syria Genocide Whitewashed; Fanaticism of Reactionaries
World in View: Haiti citizens fight gangs
June 14, 2023Haiti in general, and Port-Au-Prince in particular, have come under increasing gang siege. Several hundred Haitians have been killed by the gangs, and over 130,000 have fled their homes. Now residents in scattered neighborhoods are taking the situation into their own hands.
World in View: Sudanese killed by feuding generals
Sudanese generals—Abdel Fattah al-Burhan on one side and Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, “Hemedti,” on the other—are sending soldiers against each other in Khartoum making the masses fair game to be bombed, shot, and forced to flee. Hundreds have been killed since the fighting erupted on April 16. It is the Sudanese revolution that both armed factions fear and aim to suppress.
World in View: Chile moves to the right
June 2, 2023In a stunning reversal on May 7, voters in Chile elected a majority of far-right candidates responsible for drafting a new constitution. The first draft, written by a progressive coalition of elected representatives from below, had insisted on gender equality and Indigenous rights. It was rejected after an extensive negative campaign of misinformation and right-wing media manipulation.
World in View: Turkey’s president
Turkey’s President, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, after 20 years in power—first as Prime Minister, and then with a constitutional change as President—faced a challenging election and failed to receive a majority in the first round, before winning the second round runoff.
World in View: Ortega attacks Nicaraguan human rights
March 21, 2023Fearing defeat in the 2021 Presidential elections, Ortega’s solution was to jail or deport every possible presidential candidate, along with others opposing his rule, including ex-Sandinistas from the revolution like well-known Sandinista Comandante Dora María Téllez.
World in View: ‘Peace’ rallies spurn Ukrainian freedom
While tens of thousands across the globe marked the anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with support rallies for Ukraine’s fight for self-determination, there were a few disturbing “anti-war” rallies bringing together far-right with Left groups calling for an end to supplying arms to Ukraine.
World in View: ‘We are all Africans!’ vs. Tunisia state racism
Tunisia’s President Saied demonized Black immigrants from sub-Saharan Africa as the latest move in his authoritarian takeover.
World in View: El Salvador youth gulag
With the world’s highest incarceration rate, El Salvador is rounding up young men by the thousands and throwing them into its gigantic new prison with shocking inhumanity.
Readers’ Views: March-April 2023, Part Two
Readers’ Views on: Ukrainian Self-Determination and the Idea of Freedom; N&L for the Study Group; Sharing the Paper; Climate Movements vs. Summits; Unsanitary Prison Conditions; Prison Exploitation; Voices from behind Bars
Peru’s Congress targets Indigenous
January 25, 2023A popular rebellion by Peruvian Indigenous and peasants demands self-determination and opposes plutocracy but faces repression under the reactionary Congress and the establishment’s president who replaced the elected president.
Readers’ Views: Azadkar (Tooraj Haji Moradi), 1952-2022
From the January-February 2023 issue of News & Letters
It hurts to hear that Azadkar has passed. He was slightly built, but a giant in making the Iranian Revolution indigenous to Marxist-Humanism, and Marxist-Humanism indigenous to the Iranian Revolution. He and I participated in an international summit of farmers in Ottawa, the capital of Canada, [=>]
World in View: Israeli fanatics threaten Palestine, Israel
January 23, 2023For the sixth time Benjamin Netanyahu has become Prime Minister of Israel. This time he returned to power by bargaining for a government of the most extreme right: an ultranationalist, ultra-Orthodox coalition.
World in View: Right-wing Brazilians storm the capitol
Days after Lula da Silva had taken office as President of Brazil, right-wing supporters of former President Bolsonaro stormed the Congress, Presidential Office and Supreme Court in Brasilia.
World in View: After Brexit come strikes
January 22, 2023Great Britain is in a cost of living crisis. Newspapers are publishing “Heat or Eat Diaries.” Brexit has been an important catalyst for Britain’s dire economic situation. Hopefully the labor militancy now taking place can show a way forward.
World in View: Migrants die in Qatar
Qatar, one of the richest countries in the world, runs on sweated migrant labor. Since Qatar was awarded the World Cup over 6,500 migrant workers have died there building the infrastructure for the games.
World in View: Saied buries Tunisia’s Arab Spring Revolution
November 12, 2022Tunisia’s President Kais Saied has completed a counter-revolution aimed at ending the Arab Spring that the Tunisian masses launched in December 2010. He has gotten rid of Parliament and ended judicial oversight, and now has maneuvered a new constitution for the country. This gives him almost total power.
Indigenous Resistance in Mexico
November 11, 2022The Xonacatlan Indigenous Council (Juanacatlán, Jalisco State) issued a declaration establishing their territory “free of industry, free of megaprojects, free of mining and material banks.”
Readers’ Views: November-December 2022, Part Two
Revolutionary Thinkers’ Dialogue; Trans and Queer Solidarity; U.S. Slavery Today; Prison Kangaroo Courts; Guilty Police and State; FBI’s Aretha Files; Why Read N&L?; Voices from Behind Bars
World in View: Haitians demand self-determination
When the U.S.-imposed non-elected, illegitimate government of Ariel Henry decided to raise highly subsidized fuel prices in September, all hell broke loose in Haiti. Mass protests occurred everywhere, particularly on the streets of the capital, Port-au-Prince.
World in View: Lebanon’s citizens deal with failing state
People are robbing banks in Lebanon as the only way to get to their own money. The economy has experienced a meltdown. Years of war, sectarian violence, and rampant corruption have led to extreme poverty for Lebanon’s citizens and thousands of Middle East refugees there.
World in View: Europe’s racist leaders
In both Sweden and Italy neo-fascist leaders have won great influence: Jimmie Akesson in Sweden and Giorgia Meloni in Italy. They have in common vicious anti-immigrant and other racists beliefs and actions.
Tigray war and famine
September 25, 2022A critical update after the collapse of the five-month “truce” between Ethiopian government troops and the Tigray Peoples Liberation Front. Even before the ceasefire breakdown, the specter of mass starvation loomed over the people of Tigray.
World in View: Tunisia retrogression
A critical note on the post-Arab Spring Tunisia, which has gone back to one-man rule.
World in View: Korea’s labor camps
From the mid-1960s through the 1980s, South Korea’s military dictators created “welfare centers,” which were more like concentration camps. One of those was Brothers Home, in which grave human rights violations took place.
World in View: Grave contradictions plague Mexico
September 13, 2022Two ongoing events in Mexico: 1) The state finally admitted its role in the 2014 murder of 43 Ayotzinapa students, and 2) the administration’s construction of an oil refinery in Dos Boscos.
Readers’ Views: September-October 2022, Part Two
Readers’ Views on Hegel’s Third Attitude; Capital, Fascism & Revolution, Grasping the Spirit of the Times, and Voices from Behind Bars
Readers’ Views: September-October 2022, Part One
Readers’ Views on Abortion Rights Struggles; Ukraine, Russia and the Left; Marx and Transgender; World Food Crisis; Normalized Domestic Violence, and Ecuador’s Uprising
World in View: Progressives elected in Colombia
July 19, 2022The stunning electoral victory of Gustavo Petro as President and Francia Márquez as Vice President marks a new moment for Colombia.
World in View: Militant truckers strike in South Korea
July 12, 2022More than 7,000 truckers took part in an eight-day strike for better pay and fewer hours. A measure dubbed the “Safe Trucking Freight Rate,” which ensures minimum pay, is set to expire this year.
World in View: India’s unemployment stirs youth revolts
Double-digit growth in India’s economy cannot hide the gravest of contradictions—massive unemployment especially among the youth.
World in View: Why Haiti is so poor
A new series by the New York Times paints a picture of Haiti’s stark, painful, preventable history of more than 200 years. Slaves who freed themselves in revolution were subverted first by Napoleon’s France—supported by the U.S.—demanding outlandish sums of money as ransom.
Readers’ Views: July-August 2022, Part Two
Readers’ Views on: Dialectics of Philosophy and Organization; Pelican Bay Hunger Strike Pamphlet; Prison and Slavery; On Lockdown; Prison Censorship; Voices from behind Bars
War, climate chaos, capitalism, COVID: World food crisis spreads
July 7, 2022With Russia’s war on Ukraine, a food crisis is emerging globally with lightning speed. Capitalism, with its agricultural-industrial system of commodity food production for the world market, is the cause of, and suffers from the consequences of, multiple, linked crises of war, COVID, and climate. There is radical opposition to this perfect storm of capitalist crises.
Readers’ Views: May-June 2022, part two
May 19, 2022Readers’ Views on: Philosophy vs. Capitalism; Education for What?; Homelessness and Humanism; Religious Oppression; Voices from Behind Bars
World in View: Will Yemenis survive the proxy war?
After seven years of war in Yemen, the UN estimates that almost 400,000 people, primarily civilians, have died, 60% from hunger and disease, with children being 70% of the deaths. The war has become a proxy for the Saudi Arabia-Iran Middle East conflict.
World in View: Latin American Notes
El Salvador: President Bukele’s response to a spike in gang violence was to arrest 18,000 people, mostly youth, and suspend civil liberties.
Peru: a state of emergency was declared at the Cuajone copper mine, where nearby residents shut down the mine’s water supply, demanding compensation and a share of future profits.
World in View: Citizens’ revolt erupts across Sri Lanka
A massive citizens’ revolt is taking place in Sri Lanka. It is focused against the authoritarian President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and his family members, who occupy many government posts. Tens of thousands of Sri Lankans have taken to the streets in the capital, Colombo, demanding that the President leave.
World in View: Tunisia in turmoil
Ever since Tunisian President Kais Saied suspended parliament in July 2021, followed in March 2022 by the dissolution of parliament, Tunisia has been in turmoil. Masses in the street protest the lack of jobs and a shortage of basic food items, especially bread for lack of wheat, massive corruption with black markets and Saied’s single-handed decision-making.
World in View: Resistance in Myanmar
The military junta is detaining 10,000 political prisoners while at the same time there is a growing resistance movement. Tens of thousands of youth from the cities have left for the countryside to join the hundreds of civilian militias across Myanmar, organized loosely into what are called the People’s Defense Forces.
Readers’ Views: March-April 2022, Part One
March 19, 2022Readers’ Views on: Putin’s Brutal War on Ukraine; War on Yemen; Canadian Convoy; Trucks and Tribes; and Abortion Politics.
Climate change report
March 16, 2022A new report issued by a body of scientists convened by the UN, gives the most detailed description of the dangers posed by the climate crisis: a frightening future of flooding, fire and famine which will displace millions, species extinctions and the earth irreparably damaged.
World in View: Ongoing resistance to coup in Sudan
More than four months after the military coup in Sudan last October destroyed the transition to civil rule, dozens of resistance committees continue to launch demonstrations, marches and protest meetings, issue manifestos, and hold assemblies to debate how to defeat military rule