International

José Mujica’s Latin America: The Dream, The Struggle, The Legacy

JOSÉ "Pepe" Mujica, the former president of Uruguay, passed away on May 13, 2025, at the age of 89. He is survived by his wife, Lucía Topolansky, a fellow former guerrilla and senator. Mujica’s life was a remarkable journey – from guerrilla fighter to becoming a president, from years of solitary confinement to earning global recognition as a man of the masses. The Latin America he once led, and the Latin America he leaves behind, are not the same. Mujica was born on May 20, 1935, in Montevideo, Uruguay, into a middle-class family.

There Is Nothing to Celebrate in a War

A WAR zone is an ugly place. It is a place of noise and dust, the language of blood written on walls, a place of young men mostly who are afraid and allow that fear to produce the adrenaline necessary to kill or be killed; and if they cannot generate sufficient adrenaline, then they turn to captagon (a mixture of amphetamine and theophylline) or some other narcotic to dull their anxiety and their fear. Guns are not fired by the young working-class that is sent to war necessarily out of duty or patriotism; guns are mostly fired out of fear.

Vietnam Marks 50 Years of National Reunification

IN a deeply important and emotionally charged ceremony held in Ho Chi Minh City on April 30, General Secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam (CPV) To Lam delivered a powerful address marking the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the South and the reunification of Vietnam. The programme, attended by top national leaders, revolutionary veterans, and international guests, celebrated one of the most significant milestones in the country’s modern history.In his speech, To Lam recalled the heroic victory of 1975 that ended decades of colonial domination and foreign intervention.

The Terrible, Senseless War in Sudan

TWO years ago, the fragile but hopeful peace in Sudan was broken when the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) both arms of the Sudanese state – went to war against each other. The second-year anniversary of the war was commemorated on April 11, 2025 with a ghastly attack by the RSF on the Zamzam refugee camp in the province of northern Darfur. ‘The bombs were falling on the hospital’, said Hawa, a mother of three who was inside that hospital. ‘Those of us who survived left with only our children on our backs’.

Europe’s Roar Comes from A Paper Tiger

EUROPEAN states have been gradually building up an aggressive posture in the context of the war in Ukraine. As the United States, under President Donald Trump, has called for a ceasefire and peace talks, European leaders have been urging more military supplies for Ukraine. On April 11, 2025, the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, once led by the US and now led by Germany and the United Kingdom, pledged an additional €21 billion in military aid to Ukraine.

Why Is the United States Bombing Yemen?

SINCE November 2023, when Israel began its genocidal attack on the Palestinians in Gaza, Ansar Allah – the group that governs Yemen – began a series of attacks on Israeli-affiliated ships in the Red Sea and in the Gulf of Aden as well as at Israel itself. These attacks – more than a hundred at last count – resulted in a dramatic decline in commercial shipping through the Suez Canal and in the closure of Israel’s only Red Sea port of Eliat.

Association of Indian Communists Holds Conference

AFTER an absence of nearly three decades, the red flags of the working-class movement returned to the stage of the Southall auditorium in London – a venue historically graced by revolutionary leaders like Jyoti Basu and Harkishan Singh Surjeet. It was here that Shaheed-e-Azam Bhagat Singh’s comrades, Pandit Kishori Lal and Shiv Varma, once inspired audiences with tales of India’s glorious freedom struggle. It was also where the late Prime Minister VP Singh vehemently criticised the corruption of an electoral democracy subservient to capital.

The United States Continues to Provoke in East Asia

THE military exercise is called Freedom Shield 2025. But the name is misleading. It suggests that the United States military – including its nuclear assets – provide a shield for its allies (mainly South Korea, Japan, and the Philippines). Yet, the biggest impediment to peace and stability in the region, the biggest destabiliser and contributor to regional tensions is the United States. A Korean proverb is apt here: the US gives the disease and then the medicine.

Impossible for a President of the Imperialist US to be a Peacemaker

ON Friday, February 28, when US President Donald Trump sat in the Oval Office of the White House with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump mused: ‘I hope I will be remembered as a peacemaker’.As Trump talked about the necessity to make a deal between Russia and Ukraine, Zelenskyy fidgeted. The two men, representing two different sets of interests, did not see eye-to-eye either on the nature of this war or on the possibility of concluding it. Zelenskyy sees Russia as the out-and-out aggressor, and he feels that Russian President Vladimir Putin will never agree to a stable peace.

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