Americas

On Friday 30 December, the South Florida U.S. District Judge Beth Bloom, ordered four Florida-based cruise companies (Carnival, MSC SA, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian) to pay more than US$100 million each in ‘damages’ to Havana Docks. The latter, a US company, had owned a 1934 concession to several piers in Havana harbour, which was expropriated in 1960 by the Cuban Revolution. This decision, the first successful application of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, is capable of having a devastating impact on the Cuban economy and should be strongly rejected as an illegal act of imperialist bullying.

At a meeting of the National Board of PSOL (‘Party of Socialism and Liberty’), on Saturday 17 December, resolutions were discussed and passed drawing a balance sheet of the party’s 2022 election campaign, and on the relationship between the party and its parliamentary faction with the new Lula government.

This is the text of a leaflet, issued by the comrades of the IMT in Peru on 4 January, when there was a call for an indefinite general strike in the southern regions of the country, as part of the struggle to oppose the coup against President Castillo.

The mountain has laboured and brought forth a mouse. Yesterday, the Peruvian Congress once again considered the question of an early election, which it had rejected last Friday. When Dina Boluarte illegitimately took over from president Castillo, she announced she would stay in office until 2026. That has become untenable. Clearly a section of the ruling class in Peru understands that it must reform the political system in order to try to quell the huge wave of indignation raised by the congressional coup against President Castillo on 7 December.

Over the past few months, the US Marxists of Socialist Revolution hosted a series of tremendously successful schools right across the country, as part of the International Marxist Tendency’s #CommunismOnCampus campaign. Hundreds of radical youth flocked to events in Phoenix, Minneapolis, Atlanta, New York City and Bellingham. We commend our US comrades on painting the nation red!

Since the impeachment of Peruvian President, Pedro Castillo, by Congress on 7 December, the workers and peasants have begun mobilising in ever-growing numbers. In some regions, these mobilisations have taken on insurrectionary proportions. The masses clearly see that this is a coup, behind which stands the capitalist oligarchy and US imperialism. Below we publish the text of a leaflet currently being distributed in this mass movement by the comrades of the International Marxist Tendency (IMT) in Peru.

A member of our editorial board, Jorge Martín, was interviewed by the Turkish daily paper BirGün about the recent explosive developments in Peru, in which a Congressional coup has seen left-wing president Pedro Castillo deposed and arrested. This has now provoked a mass protest movement, led by enraged workers and poor peasants. 

A third impeachment motion had been filed against president Pedro Castillo and was to be discussed on December 7, by Congress. However, at 11:45am Castillo gave a message to the nation announcing the dissolution of parliament, in response to the multiple attacks and obstacles that it has placed on his mandate from the beginning.

In the last few hours, the political crisis has accelerated in Peru. President Castillo decreed the closing down of Congress, but was swiftly arrested by police. Congress voted to impeach him and proclaimed his vice president as the new president.

As the long-awaited results of the ratification vote for the contract brought forward by the Ontario School Board Council of Unions (OSBCU) were announced, there was a wave of anger over the yes vote. Workers said they were “bullied”, “this is bull&!”, “you built us up and let us down”, “many will be leaving the position because they can’t afford to work”, “screwed for another 4yrs!!!”, “we were so united and now divided… this contract does absolutely nothing to help students or ease our

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[Note - 01/12/22]: Since the publication of this article, in a bipartisan vote, the House of Representatives has voted 290 to 137 for Biden’s scandalous legislation to ban rail workers from striking over the holiday period. Virtually all the Democrats in the House voted to steal the right to strike from rail workers, including “left-wingers” such as Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Ilhan Omar.

1,200,000 people flooded the streets of Mexico City, according to government figures. The given figure does not seem to be an exaggeration. People from all over the country, and even Mexican migrants living in the US, gathered in the country's capital in response to Andrés Manuel López Obrador's call for a march on the fourth anniversary of his taking office.