In the course of scarcely a month, the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) has begun imploding in spectacular fashion. Arlene Foster – the DUP leader and First Minister at Stormont who survived the RHI scandal, the collapse of Stormont in 2017, and the introduction of Northern Ireland Protocol earlier this year – has finally and unceremoniously been booted out. The straw that broke the camel’s back? Her opposition to gay conversion therapy.

The first round of the French regional elections saw the highest abstention rate in the history of the Fifth Republic, by far, at 66.7 percent. Among those under 35, abstention was around 84 percent. It was of the same order in the poorest and most oppressed layers of the population. This is the main takeaway from the first round. It is an expression of the regime crisis of French capitalism, though far from the only one. 

On 18 June, the Islamic Republic of Iran held its presidential election, which was met by a widespread boycott by the masses. The official figure for turnout was 48%, with the regime’s desired candidate, Raisi, winning with 61.9%, with blank votes coming second on 12.8%. The real turnout however could have been even lower, with some estimates placing it between 25 and 35 percent. There have been reports of some polling stations being completely abandoned. This was an absolute sham of an election, which saw the lowest turnout and the highest number of blank votes in the history of the Islamic Republic. This comes on the back of a continuous wave of strike action and protests that

A bill to reduce CO2 emissions was rejected by a public referendum in Switzerland. While the demagogic far-right SVP and big oil companies were pushing a 'no' vote for reactionary reasons, in reality, this was a rejection of green austerity. The climate crisis will not be solved by making workers pay, but by expropriating the fatcat polluters and fighting for socialist measures.

Today is the 80th anniversary of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in World War Two. This bloody catastrophe, which claimed the lives of almost 5m Soviet troops and saw the Nazis plunge deep into Soviet territory, was facilitated by the wrecking behaviour of Stalin and the bureaucracy. Their decapitation of the Red Army in the infamous Purge Trials, and total mismanagement of the war effort, were paid for in blood by the Soviet people, who were ultimately able to turn things around through their heroic efforts and sacrifice – despite their leaders.

The discredited government of Stefan Löfven in Sweden has faced a successful vote of no confidence in parliament. It’s time to go on the offensive: fight for a snap election on a socialist programme!

Following their recent victory in the Unison NEC elections, the left have won control of the union’s presidency. This is a major step forward in the struggle to transform Unison – and the whole of the labour movement.

For over two months now, the Turkish state and president Erdogan's regime have faced attacks from a seemingly unlikely source. Sedat Peker, a notorious mafia boss in exile, with a long record of criminal activity and of intriguingly short jail sentences, has released a video almost every Sunday for the past two months in which he claims to expose the details of connections between important AKP officials, the Turkish state, and organised crime.

We publish here an edited transcript of a lead-off by Jorge Martín (from the International Marxist Tendency) to the Latin American political education school on 28 May 2021. He analyses the situation in Latin America, which is mired in the COVID-19 pandemic and the capitalist crisis, with the masses erupting in social explosions in response. In his talk, he analyses

Recent revelations surrounding the murder of British private investigator Daniel Morgan have shone a spotlight on the sordid links between the police, media, and politicians. The whole capitalist establishment is in crisis. It must be overthrown.

An activist of the national Italian logistics union has been killed in Novara, after a truck was deliberately rammed into a picket line. Comrades organised in the CGIL have written the following statement (original here) demanding action in the face of this outrageous act of murder. 

The freeing of the American slaves was accomplished by the mass action and heroism of the slaves themselves, hundreds of thousands of whom risked their lives by fleeing to join the Union Army, sabotage the Southern economy, and radicalise public opinion in the North in favour of abolition. The fourth episode of our US comrades' series on the American Civil War will deal with the Emancipation Proclamation up to the end of the conflict. 

In the past few months, discontent among Chinese youth is increasingly bursting to the surface, both online and on campuses, in defiance of state censorship and repression. A widespread proliferation of anti-capitalist memes and open dissent against the regime online speak to a general undercurrent of rage and resentment, which has also seen university students launching struggles across two provinces.

The recent meeting of the G7 nations was heralded as being a comeback for America and its allies, with the aim of stifling the rise of China. But instead, the summit only confirmed the decline and disunity of Western imperialism.

The 12 June parliamentary election was meant to give the Algerian regime a degree of legitimacy and put an end to two years of revolutionary hirak (movement). Instead, the call for boycott was overwhelmingly observed, despite a widespread clampdown in the run up to the polls.