Solidarity 399, 6 April 2016

Each week the capitalist economic system pumps new wealth, created by the labour of workers across the whole economy, into the pockets of owners and shareholders and their associates, advisers, bankers, lawyers, and so on. No-one denies that. Those who defend capitalism as the best system available reply only that it is a manageable problem. The greed for riches (so they say) motivates the capitalist class to innovate and improve efficiency. And the rich pay taxes. And they put their wealth into new investments which create new jobs. The Panama Papers show that in fact the rich hide their...

Since late on 31 March, members of the local community in Lambeth, south London, have been in occupation of the historic Carnegie Library in Herne Hill to save it from closure. Over 80 people, young children, grandparents, families, teenagers, students, and local workers occupied in protest at plans to close the library and turn it into a gym, run by Greenwich Leisure Limited. The plans for Carnegie run alongside Labour-controlled Lambeth Council's plans to close a number of other libraries in the borough. Waterloo and Upper Norwood libraries are set to close at the end of April, and Minet has...

As the father of Italian student Giulio Regeni, murdered while researching trade unions in Egypt, said: "Giulio was a citizen of the world, and he didn't only live to study, he enjoyed himself. And here they are, the generation without limits and without borders, those for whom every place in this world is a kind of home, ready to demand the truth for Giulio". Two months after his murder, Italy this week awaits the arrival of the most senior Egyptian investigators who , it is claimed, will consign an exhaustively researched dossier on the death of Regeni into the hands of Rome's leading public...

Wealthy Japan is suffering an wave of shoplifting by elderly people. They do it so in order to get themselves sent to jail so that they can get food and shelter. Over the last 20-odd years, the number of elderly inmates in jail for repeating the same offence six times has risen 460 per cent. Basic living costs for a single Japanese retiree are estimated at 25% higher than the basic state pension, about £5000 a year. Japan has long had a thinner welfare system than Europe. It relied on family networks instead. But now about 40% of the elderly live alone, and often have no family support...

On Monday 4 April Greece began deporting migrants. After making a perilous journey across the Aegean sea, they are being sent back to Turkey. Under a deal with and within the EU, and with the agreement of the Syriza government, all migrants who arrived in Greece prior to 30 March and deemed not in need of international protection are to be deported. The first 500 deportees were mainly from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan. But the deal is, of course, aimed at stemming the flow of Syrian refugees into Europe. Turkey is already a mass refugee camp for 2.7 million Syrians. But with a promise...

The Chicago Teachers Union has once again committed to strike over terms and conditions, and struck on 1 April. Previous strike were successful and notable for the level of popular support, largely as a result of rank and file organising in the community. The latest round of action seems to be no exception. The Chicago area has been hit by a deep financial crisis in recent years, and public sector workers have been made to pay for that crisis. The CTUÂ wants to reduce standardised testing, get smaller class sizes, win teachers more autonomy on issues such as grading, and gain more support...

A Northern Irish woman who bought online and took drugs for an abortion has been given a suspended prison sentence. The woman resorted to desperate measures when she found she was pregnant and could not afford to travel to England for a termination. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK where the 1967 Abortion Act does not apply. When conducting the defence the woman's barrister told the court that if she had lived in any other part of the UK she would not have found herself before the courts. It is a scandal that women in Northern Ireland are still unable to access abortion on request...

A Northern Irish woman who bought online and took drugs for an abortion has been given a suspended prison sentence. The woman resorted to desperate measures when she found she was pregnant and could not afford to travel to England for a termination. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK where the 1967 Abortion Act does not apply. When conducting the defence the woman;s barrister told the court that if she had lived in any other part of the UK she would not have found herself before the courts. It is a scandal that women in Northern Ireland are still unable to access abortion on request...

Traven Leyshon, Vermont Teamsters/AFL-CIO leader and organiser for the Sanders campaign, spoke at Workers' Liberty's London forum about the Bernie Sanders campaign. We are at a real turning point in American political life, and that is very exciting. It is also a challenging time for US Marxists, forcing us to rethink our preconceptions about how we might break the stranglehold of the two-party system so as to help build a mass working-class party. I have certainly been organising outside of my comfort zone. And as someone who has been active for 50 years in unsuccessful attempts to build a...

Every so often, the bourgeois political system runs into crisis. The machinery of the state jams; the veils of consent are torn asunder; and the tools of power appear disturbingly naked. Brazil is living through one of those moments — it is dreamland for social scientists; a nightmare for everyone else. Dilma Rousseff was elected president in 2010, with a 56-44 per cent majority against the right-wing, neoliberal Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) opposition candidate. She was reelected four years later with a diminished yet convincing majority of 52-48 per cent, or a difference of 3.5...