The global economy is slowing down, heading for a new world slump. A rebellion is taking place across the planet, with mass insurrectionary movements erupting onto the streets from Baghdad to Beirut to Barcelona. And in Britain, the Corbyn movement is preparing for the battle of a generation, as a general election looms.

More than a million people demonstrated in Santiago de Chile on Friday 25 October, in what was called #LaMarchaMásGrandedeChile (Chile's largest march) – and certainly, it was, being larger than the NO campaign closing rally in 1988 that brought together a million people. The mobilisation on Friday was repeated in cities and communes throughout the country and took place one week after the

A powerful movement of health workers is going on against privatisation in Pakistan. The government is snatching the basic right of healthcare from the working class in a country where already more than 80 percent of the population has no access to basic health provision. Rather than building new public hospitals and spending more on health services, the government has planned to close the health department altogether and hand it over to the private sector.

Capital emerged on the stage of history “dripping blood from every pore” – to use Marx’s famous words. Josh Holroyd describes the violent and tumultuous birth of capitalism out of the embers of feudal society.

Splits and divisions have opened up at the top of the Tory government. Given the paralysis in Parliament, they don’t know which way to turn. Depending on what extension the EU offers, they are torn between trying to push Brexit through or going for a snap pre-Christmas general election.

Since 1 October, massive and radical protests have rocked Iraq. Starting (uniquely) this time in Baghdad, they have quickly spread nationwide. The Iraqi armed forces and police responded with extreme violence, resulting in the deaths of at least 150 people (some sources claim over 300), and the wounding of more than 6,000. However, the brutal response has not halted the protests. Since 8 October, they have subsided, but there is a new nationwide demonstration planned for 25 October.

On the morning of Tuesday, 22 October, Max, a comrade of Fightback (the IMT in Canada) was arrested by plainclothes police officers in front of his home in Hamilton. His family was made to watch as Max was placed in handcuffs and forced into the police cruiser.

Two weeks after the parliamentary elections, the new Portuguese government of the PS (Socialist Party) will officially take office on 23 October. This much is certain – what is not so clear is which of the PS’s potential “allies” (Bloco de Esquerda; the Communist Party and the Greens; the petty-bourgeois environmentalist party PAN; and the smaller left-reformist “eco-socialist” party LIVRE) will support this government – and to what extent.

The following is an interview, conducted by our German section, with Lynn Beyrouthy: an activist from Lebanon who is involved in the revolutionary events unfolding in the country. She explains how the movement came about, the grievances behind it, and what its main demands are. Note that this interview took place before the announcement of a general strike.

The 1995 FIFA Player of the year, George M. Weah, has been in power for just a year and a half; and Liberia, often referred to as the “oldest independent African nation”, is suffering from severe austerity. The yoke of capitalism—neo-colonialism, imperialism, corruption and exploitation—has become an overwhelming burden resting on the shoulders of the worker and peasant masses of Liberian society, to such an extent that the soccer legend’s short presidency seems more like a decade.

The following is a translation of an article we received about the current insurrectional movement in Chile, which began with youth-led protests against a hike in public transport fares. From a widespread campaign of fare dodging, a mass movement has developed against the government, which was responded with brutal repression. 

A powerful revolutionary movement has erupted in Lebanon, spanning the entire country and dramatically changing the political situation.

The following is a letter, sent to us by a comrade of the International Marxist Tendency, who is visiting Beirut and is an eyewitness to the revolutionary events unfolding in Lebanon.

Yesterday's general strike marked a qualitative leap in the political situation in Catalonia. For the past four days, mass peaceful demonstrations for the release of the political prisoners have been brutally attacked by Spanish and Catalan police. On Thursday, protesters were also attacked by neo-Nazis protected by police, who brutally beat up an anti-fascist militant. The youth have retaliated setting up barricades.

Opportunism and sectarianism are two sides of the same coin. Both must be combated if the program of revolutionary Marxism is to become a mass force by connecting with the aspirations and movement of the working class, as Socialist Revolution (the IMT in the USA) explains.