International

Nelson Mandela: leader of South Africa’s first great revolution

8th December 2013 Socialist Action 0

By Tom Castle

Nelson Mandela is a hero to all those who have struggled for freedom, for black liberation and for revolutionaries the world over. He was hounded and imprisoned for almost half a lifetime by the apartheid regime, in close collaboration with the imperialist powers led by the US and Britain. In death he is rightly receive tributes from across the world, even including entirely hypocritical ones from the likes of Obama and Cameron.

Tribute to Nelson Mandela

6th December 2013 Socialist Action 0

Every socialist and progressive person will mourn today for the loss of Nelson Mandela.

The struggle he waged was against the greatest inhumanity to afflict the post-war world: the existence of a state where black people were treated as little more than cattle, racially segregated in every aspect of life, confined by pass laws, forcibly removed from traditional homelands, imprisoned, beaten and often killed, denied any democratic voice, banned from protest, forbidden to marry as they chose, under-educated through the ‘Bantu education’ system, subject to discriminatory taxes and denied South African citizenship including the right to a passport.

A glimmer of hope from Warsaw – another failed climate summit

4th December 2013 Socialist Action 0

By Christina Prentice

Anyone keeping one eye on the UN climate negotiations in Warsaw could be forgiven for concluding that the, now routine, spectacle of international bickering is messy but, on the whole, is guiding the world to hold back climate change. Politicians attend, they tell the world’s media that there have been difficult negotiations – even staying up all night. And at the last minute a deal is struck and we are told there has been great progress. It’s all a sham of course.

United States steps up provocations in East China Sea

28th November 2013 Socialist Action 0

By Jane West

The decision of the United States to fly two B-52 bombers unannounced through Chinese strategic airspace was nothing less than a calculated, and extremely dangerous, act of aggression against China, further whipping up tensions in the East China Sea.

The B-52 fly-through was directly aimed at toughening up Japan’s stance vis-a-vis China. Two Japanese airlines that had previously agreed to inform China of flights over the disputed Diaoyu islands withdrew this agreement following the US action.

China’s contribution to the net reduction in poverty is equal to 100% of the world’s total

26th November 2013 Socialist Action 0

The following article by John Ross evaluates China’s contribution to the reduction of human poverty. It previously appeared at Socialist Economic Bulletin.

In 2010 Professor Danny Quah, of the London School of Economics, noted: ‘In the last 3 decades, China alone has lifted more people out of extreme poverty than the rest of the world combined. Indeed, China’s ($1/day) poverty reduction of 627 million from 1981 to 2005 exceeds the total global economy’s decline in its extremely poor from 1.9 billion to 1.4 billion over the same period.’ The aim of this article is to analyse the situation taking data published three years after Quah’s analysis; look at the trends not only of extreme poverty, which the World Bank calculates using expenditure of $1.25 a day or less; examine a slightly wider poverty definition ($2 a day expenditure), and compare the trends in other regions of the world economy.

Photo: Monty Rakusen/Science Photo Library

Time to stand up to the Tory war on green investment

15th November 2013 Socialist Action 0

By Christina Prentice

Cameron’s attempt to regain the political agenda over the cost of living crisis by pledging to “roll back green charges” on energy bills was not only cynical but damaging and should be actively opposed.

Cynical because Cameron knows that green and social investment to insulate the leaky homes of older people and people in fuel poverty are not the main drivers of energy bill hikes – gas prices and super profits are. In the last eight years, energy bills have risen by £520.  The Committee on Climate Change says that the vast majority of this has been because of the rising price of gas.  Low carbon technologies have added just £30 in that time.