FRAN HEATHCOTE believes that while the the Chancellor outlined some positive steps, the government does not appreciate the scale of the cost-of-living crisis affecting working-class people, whose lives are blighted by endemic low pay
ISDS: how imperialism wages lawfare on the poor
BERT SCHOUWENBURG reveals the iniquitous institution of Investor State Dispute Settlements by which rich corporations sue the developing world for the 'loss of profits' they have not even made yet
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is pouring €11.5bn into the Kiev swamp, blocking Trump’s peace plan, and pushing Nato right up to Russia’s borders – no matter if it costs hundreds of thousands of lives, warns SEVIM DAGDELEN
The 2025 Budget shores up the PM’s political position with headline-grabbing welfare U-turns, but with no improvements on offer to declining public services or living standards, writes MICHAEL BURKE
The unifying victory of Irish progressive forces in the presidential campaign should be a salutary lesson to the left in this country, argues MARY GRIFFITHS CLARKE
Martin Taylor, the hedge-fund multimillionaire who has poured millions into pushing Labour rightwards, helped finance Lucy Powell’s supposedly dissenting campaign — suggesting her victory was not the ‘soft-left’ rebellion some have claimed, says SOLOMON HUGHES
A November 15 protest in Mexico – driven by a right-wing social-media operation – has been miscast as a mass uprising against President Sheinbaum. In reality, the march was small, elite-backed and part of a wider attempt to sow unrest, argues DAVID RABY
IN 1902, Britain, Germany and Italy imposed a naval blockade on Venezuela after president Cipriano Castro refused to honour debts and pay damages incurred by European companies and citizens during the civil wars that followed the Republic’s independence from Spain.
Violent intervention is still employed by Western governments nowadays when they consider it necessary — but more often as not their commercial interests are protected by international trade treaties and investment agreements.
Of these, more than 2,750 bilateral investment treaties, multilateral investment treaties and free trade agreements contain what are known as Investor State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) mechanisms whereby foreign investors can sue host countries for discriminatory practices that affect their future profitability.
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After brutal police crackdowns on pensioners and the forced approval of secret IMF deals, trade unions are finally responding to grassroots pressure and fighting back against savage neoliberal reforms, reports BERT SCHOUWENBURG
Two months into Donald Trump’s second run as president, what can we glean about his policies towards Latin America so far, asks TIM YOUNG, ahead of this Saturday’s Socialism or Barbarism day school in London
Global South governments’ sovereignty and ability to decide future economic policy are severely compromised by signing free trade agreements, whose terms are heavily weighted in favour of the already wealthy countries of the global North, writes BERT SCHOUWENBURG