With your help, the Cuba Vive appeal hopes to raise over £200,000 by the end of the year
Eighteen months after its launch, the Cuba Vive Medical Appeal for Cuba has raised more than £190,000 and will hopefully surpass £200,000 by the end of the year. Thanks to the generosity of CSC members, affiliates and friends, hundreds of thousands of items of essential medical supplies, from syringes to surgical gloves, are being used by Cuban health workers to improve and save the lives of patients.
Second container on its way with more scheduled for 2025 Another 40ft container of life-saving medical aid departed from the Yorkshire port of Immingham in July and is due to arrive in Cuba in late August.
The container is packed full of much-needed resources such as catheters, tracheostomy equipment, syringes, needles, surgical scrub, colostomy bags, wheelchairs, Zimmer frames, crutches, and specialist operating theatre supplies including eight operating beds.
This is the second container of aid (of three consignments sent so far) that will be delivered working in partnership with UK charity Jacob’s Well Appeal, who organise the logistics, including sorting, storage, packing and shipping. A further container will leave later this summer, and more by the end of the year.
First aid kits for every residential education centre The container includes over 200 first aid packs for every educational residential establishment in Cuba. They form part of medical aid funded by the National Education Union (NEU) for each of the country’s 147 residential schools for children in rural areas and 54 children’s homes.
The NEU is responding to a special request from the Cuban education union SNTECD since the shortages in the Cuban health service also impact the education sector. These are especially acute in educational care and residential settings, where everything from basic first aid kits to PPE and paediatric medical supplies are scarce.
Cuba Vive aid supports Cuban cancer hospital
In May, CSC director Rob Miller visited Havana’s Institute of Oncology and Radiobiology, one of the hospitals that has benefited from the Cuba Vive appeal, and spoke to staff and patients about how the medical aid was helping their work and treatment.
Published by the recently established Newcastle based, Valparaiso Arts, a slim volume of new and selected poems, Like Many Other Things by Brian Topping is now available.
This is Valparaiso Arts first publication.
At only £7 inc p&p all proceeds will go to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
The persistence of the genocide carried out on behalf of the Israeli government by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) continues at a staggering level. The IDF show no remorse for the killing of innocent civilians, 15 of whom died queueing to access food this week. The IDF claim to have been targeting a Hamas ‘terrorist’ so the loss of civilian life was simply collateral damage.
This weekend has seen a further 50 deaths including 10 at a water collection point which saw 6 children killed. This follows the killing of 110 people on Saturday including 34 at a food collection point in Rafah. Since 7th October 2023 the IDF has killed at least 57,882 people and wounded 138,095, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry.
According to the United Nations an estimated 800 Palestinians, many children, have died while seeking food at the so called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) distribution points. The GHF is run by the United States, using American mercenaries, and backed by Israel. GHF has four distribution points, compared to the 400 previously operated by the UN, which Israel will no longer permit to operate.
Random killing was also the approach applied by the IDF in the recent Israeli bombing of Iran, which resulted in the assassination of a number of leading figures in the Iranian armed forces as well as key nuclear scientists. Western media reports played down the fact that in many instances it was not only the military and scientific targets who were murdered but many of their families, innocent of any ‘crime’ as deemed by the Israelis.
Such atrocities are often mis-reported, under reported or not reported at all by the media, keen to play down the extent of Israel’s flouting of international law but also uncomfortable covering any British government complicity in the genocide.
Palestinian deaths certainly don’t warrant the attention any criticism of the IDF does for the British media. Punk rap act Bob Vylan became the all round media villain recently when his Glastonbury set included him chanting “Death to the IDF”. The Mail on Sunday saw fit the following day to go with the banner headline “NOW ARREST PUNK BAND WHO LED ‘DEATH TO ISRAELIS’ CHANTS AT GLASTONBURY”.
The bandwagon rolled on into Monday with the Sun, Daily Mail, Daily Telegraph and the Daily Express weighing in and Kier Starmer proclaiming the comments “appalling hate speech”, stronger language than he uses when mentioning IDF atrocities.
Quite apart from the inaccuracy of the original Mail on Sunday headline, the claim made by the paper, that this was “antisemitic chanting”, was simply not true. The IDF, being the military wing of the Israeli state, does not represent all Israelis, any more than the government of Benjamin Netanyahu, which continues to face internal criticism for its policy and actions in relation to Gaza and the West Bank. Criticism of the IDF or the Israeli government is not antisemitic, it is a perfectly legitimate political stand to take in the face of their ongoing actions against the Palestinian population.
That Kier Starmer, as Prime Minister and Leader of the Labour Party, should join in such baying for blood along with the right wing media is a disgrace. Starmer and the government’s complicity in crimes against the Palestinian people is underlined by the Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) which, in relation to British arms sales to Israel,
“…estimates that between October 2023 and May 2024, over 100 new licences were issued, with a total estimated value of at least £100 million in military equipment since October 7th, 2023. These sales include components for F-35 combat aircraft, which CAAT estimates account for approximately 15% of the value of each F-35 and are used in ongoing conflicts, including those in Gaza.”
The government defends its position by claiming that “no evidence has been seen that Israel is deliberately targeting civilian women or children”. It further claims that “there is also evidence of Israel making efforts to limit incidental harm to civilians”.
The actual evidence, coming back from the UN, Médecins Sans Frontieres and Palestinian people themselves suggests that the British government is either being extremely naïve, or is simply lying.
The latest Israeli proposal, to create a concentration camp for Palestinians on the ruins of Rafah in the south of Gaza, would be a further crime against humanity.
The latest National March for Palestine, organised by Palestine Solidarity Campaign and its allies takes place on 19 July in London. The pressure on the British government to stop arming Israel and stop the starvation in Gaza must continue.
War room: US imperialists Vance and Trump endanger world peace
The bombing of Iranian nuclear sites by the United States overnight (21 June) is a flagrant breach of international law and a further indication of the designs of US imperialism to re-shape the map of the Middle East.
Following the unprovoked attack upon Iran by Israel last week, US President, Donald Trump, called for Iran’s “unconditional surrender”, while preparing to give the green light for overt military intervention by the United States. That order has now been enacted and Trump, in spite of his America first and no foreign intervention rhetoric, has acted like every US President before him. Though without Congressional approval for such action impeachment may be an issue Trump has to face, his action having made the danger of a world war significantly higher than at any time in the past.
The US had already been covertly assisting the Israeli assault by providing back up for its Iron Dome missile defence system, designed to intercept any Iranian missiles fired towards Israel in response.
That the United States has added to the unprovoked Israeli military intervention in Iran, is an international scandal. Israel has a decades long record of flouting international conventions and dismissing United Nations resolutions but, to be backed so overtly in doing so, by its major ally and arms supplier, takes the threat to world peace which US and Israeli actions represent, to a new level.
In addition, it is widely known that Israel has a nuclear capability though, in line with its official policy of “nuclear ambiguity”, it refuses to confirm or deny the existence of a nuclear arsenal. The possibility of the use of nuclear weapons by Israel, given the religious fundamentalist nature of its leadership, cannot be ruled out.
Just as there can be no justification for the Israeli genocide in Gaza, the attacks upon Iran have no legal or moral basis. They do however, have a clear political objective and that is one which has been asserted more prominently in the past few days; regime change.
In line with the wishes of the Iranian people as expressed in their opposition to the dictatorship of the former Shah in 1979 and, as increasingly expressed in their opposition to the theocratic dictatorship today, change in Iran is vital to secure peace, democracy and social justice for the people of Iran.
However, the regime change which Trump in the White House or Netanyahu in Tel Aviv are seeking is not for a progressive and democratic Iran. On the contrary, support for Monarchist opposition in the form of Reza Pahlavi, son of the former Shah based in the United States, is given greater prominence by Western politicians and media.
Netanyahu’s call for Iranians to rise up against the present regime in Iran have been echoed by Pahlavi, who met Netanyahu on a visit to Israel in 2023. The likelihood of Pahlavi being able to mobilise mass popular support inside Iran is slim however, given his distance from the country and the perception of many Iranians that he is collaborating with the aggressor Israel.
Any return to Iran for Pahlavi would need the significant backing of US or Israeli military forces to suppress the opposition which such a reactionary move would provoke. The danger of Iran becoming a state dismembered by Western imperialism, such as has been the case with Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Syria would be all too real in such a scenario.
An alternative for the West could be backing the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK), an exiled group that enjoys support in the US from hawks such as veteran Republican John Bolton. During the 1980s, the MEK backed Iraq in its war with Iran, and the Islamic regime often accuses it of collaborating with Israel. Like Pahlavi, the MEK does not enjoy popular support inside Iran and would require significant external backing in order to maintain any grip on power.
The US and Israeli cover story for their actions against Iran, to halt the nuclear programme, simply do not hold water. Recent years have seen increasingly popular opposition movements inside Iran. Millions protested disputed elections in 2009 in what became known as the Green Movement. In 2022, the Women, Life, Freedom Movement mobilised millions across Iranian cities, calling for an end to supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s rule following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in police custody after she was arrested for allegedly not properly wearing her hijab.
Workers in the transport, oil, public services and teaching sectors have taken action to improve wages and conditions in spite of trade unions being effectively outlawed in Iran. These are the potential movers of regime change that Trump and Netanyahu do not want to see. Those who are opposed to the theocratic dictatorship but equally do not want to see Iran’s future shaped by the outside interests of Israel or US imperialism.
Change in Iran has been coming for a long time but it must be change for the people, by the people, not change shaped by foreign intervention and an imperialist agenda, imposed upon the people of Iran.
Out on a limb – the US once again vetoes a ceasefire in Gaza at the United Nations
The so-called Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) is nothing more than a trojan horse created by the United States and Israel to facilitate the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Gaza. The BBC and international media continue to report on its activities as if it had some credibility when in reality it has none.
Established two weeks ago, the GHF was set up to bypass the work of the United Nations and other international aid agencies, who have tried and tested methods of delivering international aid through well established local networks.
The Israelis claim that aid through these routes is being hi-jacked by Hamas and is not reaching the people who need it. They have produced no evidence whatsoever to back up such claims. The GHF, which is not run by experienced aid workers, but is staffed by private US security agencies, lacks local knowledge, local networks and has only four centres from which aid can be accessed.
The UN and international aid agencies have 400 sites across Gaza from which aid could be accessed should the Israeli military allow. The GHF have a limited number of sites in the south of Gaza, where the Israelis are attempting to drive the Palestinian population, and they are only accessible by civilians going through known combat zones. Nearly one hundred civilians have been killed by Israeli troops and hundreds more wounded in the past two weeks, attempting to access aid at GHF hubs.
The hubs are located in Israeli military zones, where journalists have no access.
To reach the sites in Rafah, Palestinians must walk for miles along a designated route where GHF says the Israeli military keeps security. In statements to the public, GHF has warned people to stay on the road, saying leaving it “represents a great danger.”
Distribution usually starts at 5 a.m. each day but thousands of Palestinians start walking hours earlier, desperate not to miss out on food. That means large crowds passing by Israeli troops in the dark.
Israel admitted on Tuesday for the first time that its forces shot at Palestinians. In a statement, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said troops fired shots near a food distribution complex after noticing “a number of suspects moving towards them”.
This was the third time civilians had been killed by the IDF in three days.
Mirjana Spoljaric, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), told the BBC on Wednesday that conditions in Gaza had become “worse than hell on earth” and that states are not doing enough to end the war, end the suffering of Palestinians and secure the release of Israeli hostages.
The recent killings has resulted in at least one of the GHF hubs being closed temporarily.
That Israel is pursuing a policy of starvation, ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza, in addition to approving more illegal West Bank settlements, is clear to the world. The British government’s continued complicity in the war crimes carried out by the Israeli regime was challenged in the House of Commons this week, in a Bill presented by Independent MP, Jeremy Corbyn, calling for a public inquiry into Britain’s “military, economic, or political co-operation with Israel since October 2023.” The Bill was endorsed but has little chance of being translated into action without government backing.
This week the United States, for the fifth time, vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution calling for an “immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza. All other 14 countries on the security council voted in favour, including Russia, China, France and Britain. The resolution also called for the “immediate and unconditional lifting of all restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza and its safe and unhindered distribution at scale, including by the UN and humanitarian partners”.
US secretary of state Marco Rubio said in a statement after the vote,
“The United States will continue to stand with Israel at the UN.”
Israel’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gideon Saar, thanked the US “for standing shoulder to shoulder with Israel and vetoing this one-sided resolution in the UN Security Council.”
Both countries are clearly guilty of direct engagement and active support for war crimes and international pressure must continue to be brought to bear, in order to bring them to justice for their actions.
British troops – in even greater danger following defence review
Within days of taking office last July one of the first acts of Keir Starmer’s government was to commission a Strategic Defence Review (SDR). Today that review, headed up by former NATO General Secretary, Lord Robertson, has been published. On one level it holds no surprises, though the suggestion that Britain needs to move to “war fighting readiness” may come as a shock to many. The review is predicated on the assumption that Britain faces “a new era of threat” as justification for its belligerent tone.
As a nuclear power, a big spender on the military, a permanent member of the UN Security Council and with pretentions of still playing an imperial role in the world, the British ruling class has for decades been eager to bolster its ailing power and influence over global affairs.
The Empire upon which the sun never set, and the blood never dried, may be no more but Britain still exercises a powerful neo-colonial reach through the Commonwealth, as well as being one of NATO’s two European nuclear powers, alongside France.
No Labour government has ever challenged this so called defence framework, designed by the ruling class, for the ruling class and benefiting the ruling class and their cronies in the military industrial complex. There has broadly been bi-partisan agreement between the leadership of Labour and the Tories that the military is untouchable and, however inefficient its use of resources, its budget is maintained.
With Labour elected on a commitment to increase the military budget to 2.5% of GDP, increasing to 3% it is no surprise that likely spend by 2034 is predicted to be 3.5% of GDP. Six new munitions factories are proposed to facilitate making weapons to meet this upsurge in spend, billions will be wasted on renewing the pointless and US controlled Trident nuclear submarine fleet and, as part of the AUKUS agreement with the US and Australia, Britain will maintain an aircraft carrier presence in the South China Sea, to help defend against the ‘threat’ posed by China.
The SDR also commits Britain to building 12 nuclear-powered attack submarines as part of the AUKUS alliance, the first of which will launch in the late 2030s, replacing seven Astute-class submarines, tasked to operate around the world.
According to a report in The Guardian (2/6/25),
“Ministers are also considering whether to restore an air-launched nuclear deterrent by buying F-35A aircraft which have been certified to carry the US B61-12 gravity bomb, which has a maximum explosive yield of 50 kilotons, more than three times the size of the 15kT bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.”
China, along with Russia, Iran and North Korea are cited as the main reason behind this arms spending spree, with China deemed to be a “sophisticated and persistent challenge” to Western ‘interests’.
As ever, a bogie is needed to justify spending more on weapons rather than schools, hospitals, housing, roads and green infrastructure, all of which would be of direct benefit to working class families. The Cold War template of accelerating arms spending to counter the mythical Soviet threat is tried and tested, so is being dusted down once again and given a further airing with the assistance of a supine press and BBC.
One sided and clearly partisan reporting of the Russian intervention in Ukraine has heightened public alarm, while the Chinese ‘threat’ to Taiwan, internationally recognised as part of China, is being prepared as justification for intervention in South East Asia.
At a recent summit in Singapore US Defence Secretary, Pete Hegseth, stated that “any attempt by Communist China to conquer Taiwan by force would result in devastating consequences for the Indo-Pacific and the world.” Hegseth further called for other countries in the region to boost their military spending, though this has met with a mixed response, given widespread scepticism in the region regarding the Trump administration’s assessment of the degree of threat China poses.
Only fourteen nations internationally recognise Taiwan and the US is not one of them, so the interest which the US has in Taiwan is merely as a possible stick with which to beat China and to ramp up tensions in the region.
That the British government should be complicit in the misinformation drive to demonise China, Russia and others is ultimately a betrayal of Labour’s working class roots and a drain on even the remote possibility that a capitalist economy could continue to provide anything of significance for the working class.
Warmongering while wrapped in the Union Jack may have a patriotic ring but it will sound increasingly hollow when the consequence of more weapons is the shrinking of the health, education and housing infrastructure even further than they have been reduced over the past 30 years.
Labour’s so called Strategic Defence Review is little more than a wish list for weapons, none of which will defend working class communities but, deployed in other parts of the world, will make working class men and women targets. Continued support for movements such as CND and Stop the War will be essential to try and stem the tide of Labour’s warmongering stance.
The case for a non-nuclear, non-NATO, non-aligned foreign policy could not be clearer. Increasing the stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction will only benefit the arms manufacturers and do nothing but make working class communities potential targets.
Nigel Farage – delighted to see Reform UK take over Durham County Council
After UKIP and the Brexit Party, the latest incarnation led by right wing nationalist, Nigel Farage, is Reform UK. As with the previous manifestations of the Farage ego, Reform UK is a party of the rich, for the rich, run by the rich, masquerading as the voice of the people. The Farage brand, the ordinary bloke down the pub with common sense opinions, is as phoney as any marketing ploy adopted by the leaders of other parties to try and burnish their fading fortunes.
Like US President Donald Trump, Farage presents himself as an outsider, the scourge of the establishment, the man with a mission to ‘drain the swamp’, stop the waste of taxpayers money, root out corruption, a real man of the people. All part of the branding.
Farage, like Trump, is not against the establishment he is just another, more vicious manifestation of it. The attacks upon concepts of equality, diversity and inclusion; the trashing of targets for net zero carbon emissions; the anti trade unions stance; the attacks upon local government; and the massive emphasis upon reducing migration to Britain are all simply extensions of policies which have been lurking on the right wing of the Tory Party for years and sound like easy solutions to the deepening crisis of capitalism in Britain today.
In taking over control of Durham County Council in the North East of England Farage was quick to pronounce that any staff working on equality schemes or the green agenda should be looking for new career paths. The idea that money spent in such areas of local government activity could be diverted to address the problem of potholes in roads was flagged by Durham CC Reform Cllr Darren Grimes, a man who has recently posted,
“Not a chance I’ll support migrants getting keys to homes while locals get kicked to the kerb.”
This posing of one issue against another, equality work versus potholes, migrants versus homelessness, is classic right wing demagoguery, which is a cover for not wanting to reveal the fact that the entire capitalist system is failing working people and needs to be overthrown in its entirety.
The rise of Farage and his ilk is only possible because the party with the deepest roots in the working class and trade union movement, the Labour Party, has abandoned any notion of tackling head on the real issues faced by working class people in Britain. The shrinking of opportunities through advancement in education; the decimation of local government services on which the most vulnerable rely; the creeping privatisation of the NHS; the waste of money on weapons of mass destruction; the need to invest in green infrastructure in order to create jobs and prosperity.
The Labour Party leadership is afraid of its own shadow, is afraid to stand up and say that we do not have a migration crisis in Britain, that the numbers of migrants is small and can easily be accommodated. The Labour leadership is afraid to say that weapons of mass destruction do not create jobs, they simply divert resources away from more socially useful production while making Britain a target. The Labour leadership is more concerned with clinging to its illusion of power than making the case for real change for the working class of Britain. It’s not that they won’t go down without a fight, it’s that they won’t put up a fight in the first place.
All of which leaves a void to be filled by the ‘bloke down the pub’ politics of the likes of Farage, with no-one piping up to point out that the bloke down the pub is usually half tanked and talking bollocks.
Reform UK gaining 677 councillors and control of eight local authorities, as well as overturning a 14,000 strong Labour majority in the Runcorn and Helsby by-election has to be awake up call. Whether the Labour leadership has the political acumen or nous to realise this is another matter. They clearly have no understanding of the depth of the crisis US imperialism faces globally, with the growing efficiency of the Chinese economic model, even less understanding of that for the British economy and seemingly no clue as to how to begin the process of carving out a place for an independent socialist Britain which could truly address people’s needs.
Pundits across the press and media have been proclaiming the end of the two party system in Britain over the past few days, following the 1st May election results. What they fail to realise is that, whether there are two parties or five, what is broken is the entire system which, whatever combination of parties make up the House of Commons, remains geared to serve the interests of the banks, corporations, the City of London and the military industrial complex.
Begin to challenge that and real change may then be possible.
US President Donald Trump pointing in which direction the US economy is heading
In the midst of the apparently chaotic approach to the international economy taken by United States President Donald Trump, there is an underlying objective which was made clear by the Wall Street Journal this week. The newspaper cited internal sources in the Trump administration confirming that the plan is for the US to use “ongoing tariff negotiations to pressure US trading partners to limit their dealings with China.”
The Wall Street Journal states that,
“U.S. officials plan to use negotiations with more than 70 nations to ask them to disallow China to ship goods through their countries, prevent Chinese firms from locating in their territories to avoid U.S. tariffs, and not absorb China’s cheap industrial goods into their economies.”
The so called Liberation Day ‘reciprocal’ tariffs, announced on 2nd April, saw the US propose a wide range of tariffs upon trading partners based upon the trade deficit they had with the US, a methodology which famously included the Heard and McDonald Islands, only inhabited by penguins.
The British government, far from being outspoken in opposition to the tariffs, expressed relief at only being in the 10% tariff band, a category which is now occupied by everyone but China, faced with an outrageous 145% tariff on goods exported to the US. The 90 day hiatus on implementation of the tariff bands subsequently announced by Trump is supposedly to give countries the opportunity to negotiate.
What this means in reality is that those countries who rely significantly on trade with the US are expected to bend the knee to US imperialism or be hit with more punitive action once the 90 days is up. In particular, the negotiations will be a means by which the US tries to compel nations to limit their dealings with China.
The US is used to getting its own way, either through economic manipulation of international bodies such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank, or through the use of military force.
The clearest example of economic pressure is the illegal blockade of Cuba, which has stood up to US imperialism for over 60 years and continues to survive in spite of the attempts of the US to strangle its economic development.
More recently the US has adopted similar tactics in relation to Venezuela in an effort to enforce regime change. Threats to annexe the Panama Canal and take over Greenland are current indicators of US intentions, while the people of Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria can attest to the fallout of direct US military intervention in the Middle East. The people of Gaza and the West Bank are the ongoing victims of the genocide perpetrated by the US’s proxy in the Middle East, Israel.
The unipolarity which US imperialism enforced following the defeat of the Soviet Union in the early 1990’s is now threatened by the rapid economic development of the Chinese economy.
The latest World Economic Outlook data, published by the IMF in January 2025, indicates growth of 2.7% for the US in 2024, the EU at 0.8%, Britain at 0.9% and China at 4.8%. While this only provides a snapshot it is indicative of the trend globally, that capitalism as a model is failing and that economies structured with more centralised state control are on the ascendant.
In recognising this the US trade war, launched by Trump, is a clear attempt by the US to bully so called ‘allies’ back into the US camp. The pressure upon members of the NATO Alliance to increase their military spending to 5% of GDP is also part of this strategy. Not only will public services across much of Europe be impoverished but the main beneficiaries will be the US arms dealers who have access to the most up to date weapons technology.
China’s response to US tariffs has been to impose tariffs of its own, at 125%, on US goods imported into China. Chinese President, Xi Jinping, has undertaken a tour of Southeast Asia this week, as part of an anti-tariff campaign and offering a more stable alternative trading partner to US uncertainty.
As part of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) Alliance, China is already engaged in a process of exploring alternatives to the US dollar as the default international currency measure. The Global South generally is suspicious of US actions and intentions in relation to both economic issues and military threats.
While tariffs will undoubtedly hit the Chinese economy the capacity of China to withstand the impact is arguably greater, as it can more easily replace what it imports from the US from other sources. US exports to China are heavily agriculture focused such as soya beans, cotton, beef and poultry. Conversely the US relies on China for imports of electronics, machinery and processed minerals, far more difficult to source from elsewhere.
Also, as a result of tariffs imposed upon China in Trump’s first term, China has consciously reduced its share of imports from the US, down from 21% in 2016 to 13.4% in 2024, all of which underlines why the US is also putting pressure upon so-called allies to reduce trade with China.
China controls more than two thirds of global rare earth production and more than 90% of processing capacity. The US relies on China for many rare earth metals, essential for electric vehicle batteries for example, which means Trump’s trade war could well backfire even more spectacularly than it already has.
The real danger for the world is that if the economic arm twisting tactics of US imperialism do not work the usual recourse is to military force. Anti-Chinese propaganda is now widespread across Western media and the possibility of action over Taiwan could well be the occasion for a military flashpoint. The peace, trade union and labour movement need to be alert to this possibility and be ready to expose the machinations of US imperialism rather than be fooled by the illusion of a US/Britain ‘special relationship’, which will certainly not be special for the working class if world war is the outcome.
US President, Donald Trump, will cast a long shadow over US/Iran talks
While US President, Donald Trump, continues to play ping pong with the world economy representatives from the US and Iran will meet in Oman this weekend to explore the prospect of a deal between the two countries, which could raise the possibility of de-escalating tension in the region.
The Committee for the Defence of Iranian People’s Rights (CODIR) has welcomed the proposed talks between the United States and Iran as a possible first step towards relieving the pressure upon the Iranian people, caused by ongoing sanctions against the country.
While the solidarity organisation continues to highlight the human rights abuses of the theocratic dictatorship in Iran, CODIR also recognises that the sanctions regime, which is crippling the economy, is a massive pressure upon the Iranian people.
“We are under no illusions that the engagement of the Iranian regime in talks with the US is about little more than self preservation”, said CODIR General Secretary, Gawain Little, “but any opportunity for dialogue which will reduce tension in the region and avert the possibility of military intervention in Iran must be welcomed, however cautiously.”
The latest report from Amnesty International concerning executions worldwide, Death Sentences and Executions 2024 identifies over 1,500 executions worldwide in 2024, the highest figure since 2015, with Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia being the main offenders.
In Iran alone executions increased by 119 from the previous year, a total of 972, accounting for 64% of all known executions.
The Secretary General of Amnesty International, Agnès Callamard, was trenchant in her opposition to the death penalty, stating,
“The death penalty is an abhorrent practice with no place in today’s world. While secrecy continued to shroud scrutiny in some countries that we believe are responsible for thousands of executions, it’s evident that states that retain the death penalty are an isolated minority. With just 15 countries carrying out executions in 2024, the lowest number on record for the second consecutive year, this signals a move away from this cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment.”
However, the Islamic Republic of Iran appears to be going against this trend, not only with increasing executions, but also continued extra judicial torture and imprisonment without access to legal counsel.
This has particularly been the case in the last two years with the rise of the “Women, Life, Freedom” movement, which has seen mass protests throughout Iran, as well as the wave of industrial action across the country, in response to the impact of state corruption and the repressive sanctions regime imposed by the West.
The Amnesty report goes on to indicate that over half of the executions in Iran are for offences that should not result in the death penalty under international law, such as drug related offences. Also, there is clear evidence that the use of forced confessions has been widespread and that trials carried out by the Revolutionary Courts are grossly unfair and likely to have been based upon torture tainted confessions.
The talks in Oman will not focus upon Iran’s human rights record but will primarily be concerned with reaching agreement around Iran’s uranium enrichment programme for nuclear power generation. However, the reality is that arrest torture and execution remain key tools used by the regime to silence opposition and are an indication of its narrow public support.
The current tension in the region, due to the Israeli genocide in Gaza and the weakening of Iran’s so called Axis of Resistance of Hamas, Hezbollah and Houthi organisations, has increased the likelihood of a further military strike against Iran, either directly by the US or by Israel.
With regard to talks with the US, Iran’s Foreign Minister, Abbas Araghchi, was sounding bullish a couple of weeks ago, saying,
“Our policy is still not to engage in direct negotiations while under maximum pressure and military threats, however, as it was the case in the past, indirect negotiations can continue.”
However, the discussions in Oman will clearly be more direct than Araghchi suggests.
While Iran may grandstand to impress its regional allies, it remains in a relatively weak position. While a strategic partnership treaty was signed with Russia in January, it does not obligate either side to support the other if under military attack, only an agreement not to help any country that attacked the other.
The so called Axis of Resistance has been significantly weakened by the actions of the Israeli Defence Force (IDF). The demise of the Assad regime in Syria has robbed Iran of a key regional ally. Close relations with China, based upon a twenty five year agreement signed in March 2021, does not imply any military support and has yet to yield any significant boost to the Iranian economy.
While links with Russia and China can by no means be dismissed, and a direct attack upon Iran could change the dynamics of those alliances, the Iranian regime cannot expect military support as a matter of course.
Added to the relative isolation of Iran on the international stage is the growing internal pressure, arising from the economic crisis resulting from sanctions, endemic corruption and economic mismanagement. Increased production was once again a theme of the address by Khamenei to mark the Iranian new year in March but this has been rhetoric from the dictatorship for many years, without any significant investment or strategy for increased industrial production materialising.
While the Iranian regime seeks to avert any military conflict to save itself, the US will also recognise that being embroiled in an overseas war in Iran will bring no advantage while a deal, which opens up access to the potentially lucrative Iranian market, would be of far greater benefit to US capital.
As the US relationship with Saudi Arabia shows, the US is by no means adverse to doing deals with theocratic dictatorships if the calculation is that it will bring a strategic advantage for US imperial ambitions.
Avanti Populo 