While slashing welfare and public services, Labour’s spring statement delivers a bonanza for death-dealing bomb merchants. We now see the true and terrible face of austerity 2.0, writes MICHAEL BURKE
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Chinese solidarity in Panama’s long struggle for sovereignty against US imperialism
The Trump administration increases its interventionist rhetoric and actions regarding the Panama Canal, as China upholds its longstanding support of Panamanian sovereignty, writes TINGS CHAK
Detailing the deluge of delusion and dishonesty pushed by the pro-war camp, IAN SINCLAIR identifies four key tactics corporate journalists use to confuse audiences and suppress opposition to the proxy war in the east
From ‘moral duty’ to ‘military Keynesianism,’ Labour manipulates language to justify slashing welfare but pouring billions into warfare, condemning communities like Glasgow South West to deeper poverty, writes MATT KERR
With politicians dismissing constituents’ fears of global war, the peace movement must look beyond Parliament to prevent catastrophe, writes TOM MORRISON
The mass movement supporting Palestine represents potential political power that the left must now embrace as central to its strategy, writes HUGH LANNING, ahead of this Saturday’s Socialism or Barbarism day school in London
Health Secretary Wes Streeting taking £53k from Tory-linked recruiter and outsourcer Peter Hearn’s OPD Group is a great example of how Labour’s rich donors shape policies targeting the poor – not their wealth, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
MAT COWARD recalls the communist and pacifist aristocrat whose commitment made a difference in the Spanish civil war, the Blitz and WWII Europe
IN HIS first international trip as the US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio sent a strong warning message to Panama’s President Jose Raul Mulino. Consistent with Donald Trump’s presidential campaign message, Rubio said that “absent immediate changes” to reduce the “China influence” over the Panama Canal, Washington would be required to “take measures necessary.”
In Trump’s inauguration speech two weeks earlier, China’s only mention was linked to the Panama Canal. After declaring that he would rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America,” Trump lamented how the Panama Canal had been “foolishly given to the country of Panama” and claimed that “above all, China is operating the Panama Canal. We didn’t give it to China. We gave it to Panama, and we’re taking it back.”
Trump’s rhetoric fits neatly into his vocal expansionist and imperialist ambitions, from annexing Greenland and Canada to “taking back” the Panama Canal, which itself was a product of US interventionism and imperialist interest in the region.
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Man-made canals like Panama and Suez face unprecedented challenges from extreme weather patterns and geopolitical tensions that reveal the fragility of our global trade networks, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
Trump’s threats to ‘take back’ the canal amid false claims of Chinese influence have sparked nationwide protests and evoked painful memories of 1964, when US troops killed 21 Panamanian student protesters, reports TAN WAH PIOW
