THE mild applause that greeted the Egyptian Chair gaveling through the Agreement reached at the end of COP27, after almost two full sleepless days of last-minute extensions, probably best captured the spirit at Sharm el-Sheikh. The delegates and all the observers were not just tired, they were simply relieved that the Summit was finally over, with some or other agreement.

THE 37th AIKS Bihar state conference, held at Nawada from November 11-13, 2022, gave a call for intensifying struggles on land, MSP legal guarantee and other burning peasant issues and for strengthening the organisation manifold, with the objective of combating the anti-people, pro-corporate and communal BJP-RSS regime at the centre.The conference was held in Comrade Ganesh Shankar Vidyarthi Nagar, named after the great freedom fighter and respected Left and kisan leader who hailed from this district.It began with a large public meeting which was presided over by AIKS state president, Lalan

THERE are two defining and portentous features of the current world economic situation. One, which is well discussed, is the world-wide increase in interest rates in response to the pervasive inflationary upsurge; it would indubitably generate recession and unemployment, which, notwithstanding all protestations to the contrary, is the real objective behind it.

THE CPI(M) state organising committee of Puducherry organised a special conference on November 13. This special conference, which was the first major public programme being held in Puducherry after it was given recognition as a state committee by the Party Central Committee, witnessed an unprecedented mass gathering of Party members and public, at the Kamban Kalai Arangam Auditorium.This was preceded by a colourful rally led by hundreds of red volunteers, who marched with flags to the sound of the thappattam – the drum beat of the oppressed.

ON November 13, 2022, US President Joe Biden met with Japan’s Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korea’s President Yoon Suk Yeol on the sidelines of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The focus of their public remarks was North Korea. ‘For years’, Biden said, ‘our countries have been engaged in a trilateral cooperation out of a shared concern for the nuclear and missile threats North Korea poses to our people’. Kishida concurred, worrying that the tension in the Sea of Japan would continue.