LINDA PENTZ GUNTER reports from the one of 2,700 protests against the Trump government’s power grabs, on a day when seven million people defied fear-mongering in a outpouring of joy and hope in what might be the biggest protest in US history
Oil, natural gas and capitalism
War in Ukraine and the Middle East plays into the hands of the US oil and natural gas imperialists, warns ZOLTAN ZIGEDY
[Boyd Norton / Documerica / Creative Commons]
ALEX HALL interviews PAUL HOLDEN, whose bombshell book uses leaked documents to expose how the Starmer faction used systematic dishonesty to seize power and reopen the door to the corrupting ecosystem of corporate lobbying and sleaze
Our trust makes 3,200 home visits caring for 227 patients despite 198 Israeli checkpoints around Bethlehem; this compassion which transcends boundaries has lessons for the debate on end-of-life care in Britain too, writes FATHER GEOFF BOTTOMS
There is no chance of defending and renewing an NHS which is still savagely undermined by having to pay mark-ups of up to 23,000 per cent to Big Pharma — let’s take control of pharmaceutical manufacturing and distribution, writes DREW GILCHRIST
The polling is looking good for the left’s choice, writes ERNEST WALKER, but there are farcical electoral oddities that are throwing up dangers to the campaign
Lewisham People’s Assembly organiser BEN WOODWARD reports on uproar in south London as campaigners condemn an ‘undemocratic stitch-up’ after the council waved through redevelopment of a vibrant shopping centre into ‘luxury flats’
THE great powers — the leading players in the imperialist system — have always required a source for the energy to drive their economic engines. They needed energy resources to build and empower their military might; they needed energy to grow their national economies and power their vessels of trade and transport. Indeed, their socio-economic systems would have collapsed without ample and available energy sources.
At the dawn of the capitalist industrial era, that source came mainly from coal. Coal powered the machines that grew the productivity of labour to great new heights. It is reasonable to think that only those countries with easy access to coal could then become great capitalist powers.
Beginning at the turn of the last century, oil — an abundant, efficient, and easily stored and transported energy source — became essential for the exercise of economic and military might. As modes of transport became dependent upon petroleum products, an intense rivalry was stoked for access to oil, often found in more remote areas of the world, far removed from the great urban centres of the great capitalist powers.
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