1 We welcome the fall of the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria. We congratulate the Syrian people for the final defeat of a dictatorship that had misruled them for over 50 years, killed hundreds of thousands of people, impoverished and displaced millions, and torn the country apart. The democratic and popular revolution of March 2011 has finally been vindicated. 

2 A huge burden has been lifted off the shoulders of the Syrian people. Assad’s fall is an opportunity for them, regardless of religion or ethnicity, to build a new free and independent Syria on the ruins of this murderous dictatorship.

3 The regime responded to the revolution by unleashing the terrible war that devastated Syria during the past decade. Helped by his allies, Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah, Assad succeeded ...

1 We salute all those who took to the streets in South Korea last night to oppose President Yoon Suk Yeol’s attempt to impose martial law and forced him to withdraw his declaration six hours later.

2 The incompetence with which Yoon and his cronies conducted the coup is no reason for complacency. This was a serious attempt to silence the opposition majority in the National Assembly and to suppress all political activity. It was directed particularly against the workers’ movement, with clauses in the declaration banning strikes and protests and ordering striking medical workers to return to work. If they are allowed a breathing space, Yoon and his right-wing supporters may learn from their mistakes and come back for a second try.

3 Korea has been a bitterly divided society ever since the civil war that followed ...

1 The far right continues to advance globally. Javier Milei, the new ‘libertarian’ President of Argentina, doesn’t just advocate hard-line neoliberal economics but is an apologist for the murderous military dictatorship that held power between 1976 and 1983. Another far-right leader, Narendra Modi, is running for re-election in India. Giorgia Meloni, Italy’s fascist prime minister, is trying to change the constitution and centralise power in her hands. Geert Wilders may have been blocked from becoming prime minister of the Netherlands, but his ‘Party for Freedom’ (PVV), came top in last November’s parliamentary elections, with nearly 24 per cent of the vote. The big fascist parties in Germany and France – respectively the Alternative for Germany (AfD) and the National Rally (RN) – hope to gain comparably strong results in the European parliamentary elections and build on their successes in past on ...

1 The attacks launched by Hamas and other resistance organisations on 7 October were a warning that there can be no peace in the Middle East until the Palestinian question is solved. But the reaction by the State of Israel and its Western allies, headed by the United States, is to launch a new imperialist war. Already the assault by the Israel Defence Forces on Gaza has caused thousands of civilian deaths and vast devastation and disruption of ordinary people’s lives.

2 Too many on the liberal and reformist left have been quick follow their governments in condemning Hamas and affirming Israel’s right to self-defence. The flood of media atrocity stories has obscured what actually happened on 7 October. But when oppressor and oppressed clash there can be no neutrality or equivalence. We support the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people and their right to wage armed struggle ...