On March 23, 2020, Britain’s first lockdown in response to the global Covid pandemic began. By the end of the year, death figures in Britain were the worst in Europe. By the end of the […]
The policies of the Tory government, putting profit before safety, continue to punish working-class communities with unsafe workplaces and a cost of living crisis. It is vital that the trade union movement mobilises the strength […]
New Covid-19 variants are inevitable but the threat to world health comes from profit-driven capitalism. Early reports indicate the Omicron variant is more infectious than Delta. It is not yet known whether Omicron infection is […]
The pandemic hasn’t just exposed the class divide here in the UK. It’s also brought many tensions and inequalities between nations in an already fractured world to the surface. If the rapid spread of the […]
In recent weeks new Covid infections have fallen steeply. Over 32 million people have had their first vaccination. Most of us are looking forward to activities we’ve been deprived of for much of the past […]
The first UK death from Covid-19 was recorded on 2 March 2020. Twelve months and over 120,000 deaths later, most people have been through greater upheavals than since the second world war. The UK has […]
The European Commission has been forced into a humiliating climb-down following its attempts to control exports of the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, which threatened a ‘vaccine hard border’ in Ireland. The EU’s threat to stop vaccines […]
Covid-19 vaccines in record-breaking times have raised millions of people’s hopes that life will return to normal next year. But speed has also made many worry that corners are being cut in the race to […]
News that early results from a Covid-19 vaccine – produced by US-based pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, in conjunction with German company BioNTech – showed 90% effectiveness has been greeted with relief. Another vaccine trial, by US […]
More than six months of the global COVID pandemic and global crisis have exposed everything that is rotten in this era of capitalist decline. Global capitalism is in a putrefying prolonged death agony, which is […]
Thousands of university and college students are returning to further and higher education campuses despite warnings this will lead to significant outbreaks of Covid-19. The University and College Union (UCU) and other education unions are […]
Governments around the world failed to protect people from Covid-19. Now they are desperately looking to vaccine development. Mass vaccination seems the best way to end the nightmare of further waves of infection, repeated lockdowns, […]
Covid-19 has disproportionately hit disabled people. This is one of the effects of capitalist society, which is disabling and puts profit before lives, including the people it disables. Around one-fifth of the population of England […]
The devastating impact of coronavirus in Scotland was underlined on 11 June when National Records of Scotland reported that 4,000 people had so far died from confirmed or suspected Covid-19. Scotland’s ‘excess mortality’, while slightly […]
Anatoly Chubais, the Russian oligarch, Chairman of Rusnano and one of the main initiators of privatisation in the 1990s, warned Forbes magazine recently about the consequences of the pandemic and the global crisis of 2020 […]
Covid-19 recognises no borders. It has killed hundreds of thousands, ravaged economies across the world and is not finished yet. All governments have been put to the test and poured billions into protecting their economies, […]
Just six months ago, Boris Johnson swanned into office as British Prime Minister, with the biggest Tory parliamentary majority since 1987. The Socialist newspaper, in our special edition produced the day after the general election, […]
On May 11, Vladimir Putin ended the “non-working days” regime and local authorities are gradually ending the self-isolation rules. This is happening while Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin, Putin’s Press Secretary, Dmitry Peskov, and the head […]
During the spread of coronavirus into Malaysia in the middle of February, the ruling government – the Pakatan Harapan (Coalition of Hope) – which was in power for one and a half years, collapsed. A […]
According to the Iranian regime, towards the end of May, the number of people in Iran infected with covid-19 was over 140,000, and the number of people who have died as a result of the […]
The figures for Covid-19 deaths in Britain, broken down by ethnicity, caused widespread shock and anger when they were released on 7 May by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). After adjusting for age, black […]
Tens of thousands of angry demonstrators poured onto the streets of Hong Kong last weekend, not only defying social-distancing regulations, but confronting police armed with tear gas, pepper spray, and water cannon. The sudden announcement […]
Few could have imagined when the Tories won the 2019 general election in Britain that five months later they would be carrying through measures of state intervention beyond the scale even of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour […]
It was always unavoidable that mistakes would be made during the handling of this pandemic. No public health threat on this scale has existed in any developed economy for many decades – and given that […]
Five months after Covid-19 reached the United States, the Trump administration and US capitalism have still failed to mobilise an effective response to the pandemic. Parts of the country began reopening for business on 1 […]
Laura Spinney’s book, Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World (published by Cape), on the 1918 flu pandemic, was first published in 2017. Now in the midst of a […]
The corona crisis has entered a new phase, in terms of health, the economy and geopolitical relations. It has confirmed the main trends outlined in previous statements produced by the CWI. A new era of […]
With planning, personal protective equipment (PPE), ventilators, and other key products should have been easy to provide. Yet as each day goes by, the scale of the government’s unpreparedness for the Covid-19 crisis becomes more […]
“Meet the new messaging: same as the old messaging. Only even vaguer and more confusing. Not so much 15 minutes of TV fame as uncomfortably like watching someone have a breakdown in front of you. […]
After a pause for a little over a month with the covid-19 lockdown, new protests have erupted in Lebanon, as the situation for workers has become desperate. Unemployment has reached 30%, while hyperinflation is worsening, […]
Like many ruling administrations internationally, the Scottish National Party (SNP)-led Scottish government has seen an increase in approval ratings and support during the Covid-19 pandemic. A recent YouGov poll found 74% of Scots held the […]
Donald Trump’s latest outburst against China over the origins of the coronavirus does not come as a surprise. As deaths from the disease and mass unemployment continue to mount and the US economy faces its […]
The cost of the Covid-19 industry-wide shutdown is being passed to workers in unpaid wages, compulsory leave, and retrenchments. Comair has followed SAA and SA Express into business rescue. Cabin crew and pilots are under […]
This week will mark seven weeks since Britain entered lockdown. It appears that the death rate from Covid-19 is finally starting to fall. Nonetheless, the official number of deaths is now higher than every European […]
There is a growing scientific consensus that successful management of the coronavirus crisis requires a comprehensive plan – combining mass testing, contact tracing, and supported isolation of potentially infected individuals. But a managed plan of […]
Two mile queues for food parcels. Corruption and patronage in their distribution. Shops being looted. Schools vandalised and burned. Collapsing household income. Confusion over accessing social grants. Tens-of-thousands of arrests and fines. Harassment, beatings, and […]
Using the covid-19 pandemic as an excuse, the criminal Chilean government, led by Sebastian Piñera, gave a blank cheque to the police – carabineros – to brutally repress a protest of the working class on […]
Last Friday, on 1 May, workers took action to mark May Day – international workers’ day – where they were could, despite the Covid-19 lockdowns. CWI comrades participated in and also initiated May Day actions, […]
Lenin once said that with the 1917 Russian revolution, “Imperialism broke at its weakest link”. Today, the deadly combination of the Covid-19 pandemic and the rapid development of an almost unprecedented worldwide economic catastrophe is […]
Celebrate May Day 2020 with the Committee for a Workers’ International by taking part in this Facebook Live rally hosted by Socialist Party Scotland and the Socialist Party (England & Wales) on 1st May. Hear […]
In the space of one week, the trade union movement is marking two of its most important annual days – International Workers’ Memorial Day, on 28 April, and May Day on 1 May. Coming as […]
The Nigerian federal government ordered the lockdown of Lagos, Abuja and Ogun State as a measure to contain the spread of coronavirus, with effect from March 31, 2020. Lagos is the epicentre of covid-19 in […]
On 3 April Sweden’s Radio P3’s news programme ran an article relating reports from anonymous medical workers who claimed that covid-19 patients who would have survived with intensive care were being denied it. Johan Styrud […]
The Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI) extends revolutionary socialist greetings to workers and the oppressed everywhere. This year’s May Day takes place in extraordinary circumstances. The covid-19 pandemic has fully exposed, in the words […]
Since October 2019, the political and social situation has changed in a very favorable sense for the Chilean working class and other parts of the population. The country saw a mass uprising which was a […]
As is the case the world over, the coronavirus crisis has exposed all the inadequacies, incapacities, and the insoluble contradictions of India’s capitalist state. In popular terminology, India is labeled a “democracy” because the world’s […]
Twenty six transport workers have died from covid-19 in London, the majority were bus drivers. Now London bus drivers have forced Transport for London (TfL) and bus companies to implement safety measures to protect them […]
The US is facing an unprecedented historic crisis with the ongoing covid-19 pandemic. The economy is in ruins, as over 22 million Americans file for unemployment, which is expected to rise to 30% unemployment in […]
In the main, there is support among the working class for the lockdown measures in Ireland. Workers recognise the imperative of defeating covid-19 and that this will necessitate often severe constraints on daily life. Social […]
The devastating consequences of the covid-19 pandemic and the unprecedented economic global capitalist crisis which it triggered, has continued to ravage all continents. It could cause the onset of one of the deepest recessions, with […]
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