THE African National Congress (ANC) is in a deep crisis and if the recent election results are any indicator, is in a real decline. This crisis naturally has a reflection on the South African governing tripartite alliance – ANC-SACP-COSATU. South African Communist Party (SACP) and Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), recently, have been openly expressing their dissatisfaction on ANC led government and called the ANC leadership responsible for deviating from the path of National Democratic Revolution (NDR).

IT has been some time since visiting international heads of state offered to mediate on the Kashmir dispute while on official visits to India. The president of Turkey, no doubt took New Delhi by surprise when he politely suggested in an interview the need for India and Pakistan to calm down the volatile situation in Kashmir and offered his good offices to mediate between the two countries. Erdogan fancies himself as the pre eminent leader of the Muslim world. He has been outspoken about the treatment of Muslim minorities in other countries.

THE thorough-going economic and political crisis in which France is now enmeshed (outlined in part one of this article) has speeded up and intensified processes of change within the French Left. Older organisations, including those which once exercised hegemony on the Left, have seen their influence and membership curtailed and their strategies displaced.

FOUR months after Donald Trump took over the presidency, America finds itself more deeply enmeshed in the conflicts that his predecessors in office had left unresolved. Trump on the campaign trail had railed against America's foreign military involvements and military alliances like NATO. He had promised that if elected, he would ensure that America will no longer play the role of a self appointed “global cop”. In his short inaugural speech, his main emphasis was putting “America first” and improving the nation's economy and crumbling infrastructure.

THE election of Emmanuel Macron as president of France has received a rapturous welcome across much of the mainstream media as well as in the boardrooms and financial markets of international capital.In the second round of the presidential poll, held on Sunday May 7, Macron trounced his opponent, Marine Le Pen of the fascist Front National, gaining 66.1 percent of the valid votes against 33.9 percent for Le Pen.  The scale of his victory has been greeted with relief, and in many quarters it is being presented as some sort of revalidation of France’s credentials as a liberal democracy commit