Without energy and without a strategic partner, Cuba is currently fighting for its survival. While the population is literally sitting in the dark, the Trump administration is trying to definitively break the socialist project through economic blackmail. What lies ahead for the island, asks MARC VANDEPITTE
The great Marx-Engels rift – where to go on holiday?
KEITH FLETT explores the seaside divide afflicting the founding fathers of communism
Bridlington was a firm favourite on Engels
A setback for IG Metall at Tesla’s Berlin plant has ignited claims of intimidation and raised fears for the future of collective bargaining and workplace democracy, says TONY BURKE
The question for the media, in the US and across the globe, says ROGER McKENZIE, is will they do their job fearlessly and call Donald Trump out?
A recent Financial Times column on the Iran war exemplifies how the Western elite worldview is more concerned with strategy and power than legality or human life, writes ANDREW MURRAY
STEVE BISHOP considers the prospects for a settlement of the conflict and how the demands of both sides are being viewed
The PM is drawing cautious distance from Donald Trump over Iran – but history suggests Britain’s support may run deeper than it appears, just as it did during the Vietnam war, says KEITH FLETT
MARX and Engels’s love of the Victorian seaside is well known. Their visits to Margate, Ramsgate and Eastbourne as well as Brighton and the Isle of Wight are documented.
However the two had a rare split when it came to location. Marx favoured the sea water and arguably slightly warmer conditions of southern seaside towns. His main concern was his health. He did venture north, not particularly in the summer, to visit spa towns like Harrogate and Buxton. Again the emphasis was on his health.
Engels by contrast spent at least some summers pursuing an interest in geology.
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The summer saw the co-founders of modern communism travelling from Ramsgate to Neuenahr to Scotland in search of good weather, good health and good newspapers in the reading rooms, writes KEITH FLETT
KEITH FLETT revisits the 1978 origins of Britain’s May Day bank holiday — from Michael Foot’s triumph to Thatcher’s reluctant acceptance — as Starmer’s government dodges calls to expand our working-class celebrations
From bemoaning London’s ‘cockneys’ invading seaside towns to negotiating holiday rents, the founders of scientific socialism maintained a wry detachment from Victorian Easter customs while using the break for health and politics, writes KEITH FLETT