World Socialist Web Site - Marxist analysis, international working class struggles & the fight for socialism

Over 700 Yemeni civilians killed and wounded by US-backed Saudi airstrikes in December - World Socialist Web Site

▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/12/29/yeme-d29.html

Over 700 Yemeni civilians killed and wounded by US-backed Saudi airstrikes in December
By Bill Van Auken
29 December 2017

The US-backed Saudi monarchy and its allied Gulf oil sheikdoms have dramatically escalated their bombing campaign against Yemen, the poorest nation in the Middle East, killing scores of civilians within the last few days.

In the bloodiest of the airstrikes, Saudi warplanes targeted a crowded marketplace in Yemen’s southwestern Taiz province on Tuesday, killing 54 civilians.

#yémen #arabie_saoudite #700_morts_en_un_mois

US fire death toll in 2017 reaches 2,152 - World Socialist Web Site

▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/12/23/fire-d23.html

As the holidays approach there has been a heart wrenching increase in fire deaths of children, highlighting the deplorable housing conditions and systemic poverty within the US. The US Fire Administration (USFA) collects information on civilian casualties due to fire and reports that as of this writing, 2152 people have lost their lives in fires. The prior year’s total was 2,290.

The three states most impacted in November were Texas, with 21 lives lost, Illinois with 16, and California losing 14. Texas had the most fatalities for all of 2016 - 132. The state’s toll stands at 126 thus far in 2017.

The house fire crisis disproportionately impacts the working class, which faces substandard housing conditions, as well as declining living standards.

#états-unis #inégalités #incendies #désastres_domestiques

Trump’s National Security Strategy : The return of “great power” military conflict - World Socialist Web Site

▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/12/20/pers-d20.html

Trump’s National Security Strategy: The return of “great power” military conflict
20 December 2017

The new US National Security Strategy released this week and the speech delivered by President Donald Trump Monday to introduce it constitute a grim warning to humanity that US imperialism is firmly embarked on a road that leads to a nuclear third world war.

While the document has largely been passed over in silence by the president’s ostensible political opponents in the Democratic Party and given relatively short shrift by the establishment media, more thoughtful ideologists of imperialism have noted the far-reaching changes presented in the document.

#trump #sécurité_nationale #états_unis

One hundred years since the birth of Romanian pianist and composer #Dinu_Lipatti - World Socialist Web Site
▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/12/20/dinu-d20.html

https://www.wsws.org/asset/58e89cd1-14c6-4ccd-83be-058f96e3e282/image.jpg

April 1, 2017, marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of the celebrated Romanian pianist and composer Dinu Lipatti, who died at the young age of 33 in 1950. Despite his premature death, Lipatti left a legacy of outstanding recordings of some of the major works of classical music, and is justly considered one of the greatest musicians of the twentieth century.

Lipatti was born into a musical family of upper-middle-class Greek origin in the Romanian capital of Bucharest. The wealth of his parents, and their connections with Romania’s leading artists and musicians of the inter-war period, provided additional opportunities for Lipatti to realize his musical talent.

#musique #piano

UN rapporteur “shocked” by deep poverty in US - World Socialist Web Site

▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/12/18/pove-d18.html

UN rapporteur “shocked” by deep poverty in US
By Eric London
18 December 2017

On Friday, United Nations Special Rapporteur Philip Alston published a report on poverty and democratic rights in the United States titled “Statement on Visit to the USA.”

In 1831, the French intellectual and diplomat Alexis de Tocqueville traveled to the United States and compiled notes on what he saw, publishing an optimistic report titled Democracy in America. One hundred and eighty six years later, Alston, an Australian academic and New York University professor, traveled through a country in the throes of a social catastrophe. His report might well be titled Destitution in America .

#nations_unies #états_unis #âuvreté #pauvreté_extrême #inégalités

Trade conflicts deepen at WTO meeting - World Socialist Web Site

▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/12/18/trad-d18.html

Trade conflicts deepen at WTO meeting
By Nick Beams
18 December 2017

A three-day meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, last week, barely received any media coverage. Nonetheless, it was very significant for it revealed the deepening divisions wracking the global trading system.

The eleventh ministerial meeting of the 164-member international trade organisation concluded without any final statement because of US intransigence over its wording. In fact, attempts to draft such a statement were abandoned last month when the US insisted on removing longstanding references to the role of the multilateral system in the world economy.

Under its “America First” agenda, the Trump administration has criticised the operations of the WTO for acting in ways inimical to the US and accused its disputes-settling procedures of creatively interpreting trade rules rather than applying them. In the lead-up to the meeting, US officials reportedly wanted language to be included in the final statement to prevent the WTO’s appellate body, which decides on trade disputes, from violating the “sovereignty” of its members.

#commerce #omc #commerce_international

Right-wing extremists enter government in Austria - World Socialist Web Site

▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/12/18/aust-d18.html

L’#extrême-droite au ministère de l’intérieur en #Autriche, même dans mes pires cauchemars...

The conservative Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) and the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) agreed on a coalition deal and presented the government’s programme and ministers on Saturday. The government is to be sworn in today.

It will be the most right-wing government in Vienna since the Austro-fascist state under Kurt Schuschnigg, who governed Austria as a dictator from 1934 until the Anschluss with Hitler’s Germany in 1938. The FPÖ is a member of the “Europe of Nations and Freedom” group within the European parliament, which includes France’s Front National, the Dutch PVV of Geert Wilders, Italy’s Lega Nord and other right-wing extremist parties.

Dover Quartet recital offers unusual program, including works by “forgotten composers” Viktor Ullmann and Szymon Laks - World Socialist Web Site

▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/12/18/dove-d18.html

https://www.wsws.org/asset/41453121-8389-46e2-8114-968ff36e5528/image.jpg

A recent recital in New York City by the Dover Quartet offered an unusual program. It included wonderful renditions of Romantic works by Felix #Mendelssohn and Robert #Schumann, but what made it special was the presence on the program of quartets by #Viktor_Ullmann and #Szymon_Laks. Ullmann and Laks are among the “forgotten composers” whose careers were ended or derailed by the Nazi Holocaust, and who are too slowly being rediscovered today.

#musique #musique_de_chambre

UN rapporteur reports extreme poverty “unseen in the first world” in #Alabama - World Socialist Web Site

▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/12/13/sewa-d13.html

A United Nation team’s tour of Alabama last week exposed what many Alabama residents have known for decades: residents of the state’s Black Belt region are suffering in social conditions most frequently encountered in Sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. Notably, Lowndes County, the home of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, suffers from poor sewage disposal and resultant hookworm infection otherwise unknown in the United States.

Phillip Alston, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, witnessed communities where raw sewage flows into open pits or into surrounding creeks and streams.

#états-unis #pauvreté

Trudeau slams door on desperate Haitian refugees - World Socialist Web Site
▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/12/05/cana-d05.html

Less than two years after he posed with Syrian refugees for the media at Toronto’s Pearson airport, Liberal Prime Minister Justin #Trudeau has once again made clear that his “pro-refugee” posturing was a sham.

Speaking at an event in Charlottetown late last month, the Liberal Prime Minister declared that impoverished Haitians, together with millions more forced to flee war and poverty around the world, have no right to a better life. “Refugee status means that you have nowhere to go, you cannot be protected by your home state,” Trudeau intoned. “It’s not just a question of, ‘I’m looking for an economic future, so I want to come to #Canada’.”

#réfugiés #haiti

Warnings of new financial bubble as #bitcoin price hits $10,000 - World Socialist Web Site
▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/11/29/bitc-n29.html

Warnings of new financial bubble as bitcoin price hits $10,000
By Andre Damon
29 November 2017

The price of the digital currency bitcoin reached $10,000 late Tuesday, an eleven-fold increase since the start of the year, when it was valued at $900.

The explosive surge of bitcoin, the first so-called “cryptocurrency,” or digital money, has eclipsed the run-up of any comparable asset in modern history. As the New York Times noted Tuesday, “The Dow Jones industrial average, in its biggest year, 1915, went up 82 percent, or one-tenth as much as Bitcoin has gone up this year. Amazon’s red-hot stock is up only one-fifteenth as much as Bitcoin this year.”

Jeff Bezos’ $100 billion: The case for expropriation - World Socialist Web Site

▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/11/27/pers-n27.html

Jeff Bezos’ $100 billion: The case for expropriation
27 November 2017

After a Black Friday surge in Amazon’s stock value, CEO Jeff Bezos’ wealth surpassed the $100 billion mark, making him over $10 billion dollars richer than the world’s second wealthiest man, Microsoft CEO Bill Gates.

The rise of the $100 billion man is a further milestone in the unprecedented growth of social inequality worldwide. Bezos’ wealth would make the robber barons of the 19th century green with envy.

#Jeff_Bezos #riches #pauvres #accumulation

LBJ and Marshall: Film biographies deal with mid-20th century US struggle for racial equality - World Socialist Web Site
▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/11/25/mars-n25.html

https://www.wsws.org/asset/d9082ad5-cfc2-4f57-bdf3-915e4664ef19/image.jpg

LBJ and Marshall: Film biographies deal with mid-20th century US struggle for racial equality
By Fred Mazelis
25 November 2017

LBJ, directed by Rob Reiner, written by Joey Hartstone; Marshall, directed by Reginald Hudlin, written by Jacob Koskoff, Michael Koskoff

Two new biopics—LBJ and Marshall—dealing with figures who played a major role in American politics in the mid-20th century have been released in movie theaters over the last two months.

Lyndon Baines Johnson, taking office as President after the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963, went on to sign the major civil rights legislation of 1964 and 1965 into law. Thurgood Marshall, the longtime chief legal counsel of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) Legal Defense and Educational Fund, was appointed by Johnson to become the first African-American Justice of the US Supreme Court in 1967.

#cinéma #états-unis

A third of UK children in poverty, with rate set to rise - World Socialist Web Site
▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/11/20/pove-n20.html

A third of UK children in poverty, with rate set to rise
By Margot Miller
20 November 2017

Over the next four years, 37 percent of UK children will be living in relative poverty, according to the latest Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) report.

“Living Standards, Poverty and Inequality in the UK: 2017,” funded jointly by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Economic and Social Research Council, predicts a 4 percent national increase in children in families living in poverty. It means a rise of 400,000 children in poverty in families with incomes of 60 percent or less of the median.

#royaume-uni #pauvreté #richesse #inégalités

An artist’s eye view of the Russian Revolution - World Socialist Web Site

▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/11/17/revo-n17.html

https://www.wsws.org/asset/c58a9f27-e67c-40a4-9b0f-a320c587cde1/image.jpg

An artist’s eye view of the Russian Revolution
1917: The Real October—An animated documentary by Katrin Rothe
By Sybille Fuchs
17 November 2017

An animated work about the most important event of the 20th century, the Russian Revolution, could have gone badly wrong. However, German writer and filmmaker Katrin Rothe’s 1917: The Real October is an interesting experiment.

Rothe, who has twice won the prestigious Grimme Award (for work in German television, in 2014 and 2017), wanted to know how artists responded to the tumultuous events a century ago.

#art #1917 #russie #urss #révolution_russe

Detroit Manufacturing Systems and the new face of auto parts production - World Socialist Web Site

▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/11/17/rush-n17.html

“It’s like organized crime”
Detroit Manufacturing Systems and the new face of auto parts production
By Nick Rodriguez
17 November 2017

Behind the remaining “legacy workers” at the Big Three assembly and stamping plants stand the more recently hired second tier, or “in progression” workers, followed by increasing numbers of temporary part-time workers and a vast army of workers at the auto parts plants.

Parts workers employed by hundreds of different so-called OEMs, or Original Equipment Manufacturers, produce, assemble and sequence the bulk of the components that feed the assembly plants of the major automakers. Some pay dues to the United Auto Workers (UAW), while many others are not unionized.

#detroit #automobile

Democrats’ neo-McCarthyism echoes red-baiting attacks on civil rights movement of the 1950s - World Socialist Web Site
▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/11/17/mcca-n17.html

Democrats’ neo-McCarthyism echoes red-baiting attacks on civil rights movement of the 1950s
By Fred Mazelis
17 November 2017

A 21st century #McCarthyism has emerged in recent months, in the form of a frenzied campaign spearheaded by the Democratic Party alleging that “Russian meddling” is responsible, not only for the defeat of Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, but also for instigating or deepening social, racial and political divisions in the US.

The language of leading Democrats today bears more than a passing resemblance to that of Wisconsin Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy more than 60 years ago. Then it was “reds under the bed” that posed an imminent threat to the “American way of life.” Today we are told that Putin’s Internet trolls are responsible for working-class anger over inequality, political corruption and police violence. In the 1950s, McCarthy demanded that the media root out subversives. Today, top Democrats in Congress are demanding that Facebook, Google and YouTube turn over information on users and censor content.

#contrôle #surbeillance #chasse_aux_sorcières

Report notes dramatic increase in homelessness in Germany - World Socialist Web Site
▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/11/17/home-n17.html

Report notes dramatic increase in homelessness in Germany
By Marianne Arens
17 November 2017

“Whoever has no house now will not build one anymore.” As beautiful as the Rilke poem about the approaching end of the year may sound—for the homeless, the onset of winter is the worst punishment. The Federal Working Group for Homelessness (BAG W) reported this week that the homeless now number almost 1 million in Germany, approximately 860,000.

The latest figures mean that in “rich” Germany, one in a hundred inhabitants is without a place to live. So much for the ubiquitous media commentary about how well things are going in Germany: “The Germans live well” (FAZ), “Germany is experiencing the strongest economic recovery in a long time” (Süddeutsche Zeitung), and the Frankfurter Rundschau: ”Is the German economy really too good?”

#pauvreté #allemagne #sdf

Nearly 4,000 US communities have higher rates of lead poisoning than Flint - World Socialist Web Site

▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/11/16/lead-n16.html

http://www.wsws.org/asset/84c54359-cd5d-4721-9406-5861f475870N/image.jpg?rendition=image480

Nearly 4,000 US communities have higher rates of lead poisoning than #Flint
By Jerry White
16 November 2017

In an updated study, Reuters news agency has identified 3,810 neighborhoods where recently recorded child lead poisoning rates are at least double those found in Flint, Michigan during the height of that city’s water crisis in 2014 and 2015. In some 1,300 of these “hotspot” communities, the percentage of children six and under with elevated lead levels was at least four times the percentage in Flint during the peak of the crisis.

In pockets of Baltimore, Cleveland and Philadelphia, where lead poisoning has spanned generations, Reuters reported that the rate of elevated tests over the last decade was 50 percent or higher. An interactive map released with the study shows one census tract in Buffalo, New York—a former steel and auto center that, like Flint, has suffered decades of deindustrialization—where 68 percent of the children had high levels of lead.

#eau #états-unis #Pollution #plomb #flint

Ai Weiwei’s Human Flow is a major work, but what does the defense of immigrants entail? - World Socialist Web Site
▻https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2017/11/15/flow-n15.html

https://www.wsws.org/asset/d429eb43-4aa0-49d1-8ef1-f355a272f7bd/image.jpg

Ai Weiwei’s Human Flow is a major work, but what does the defense of immigrants entail?
By Eric London
15 November 2017

In Human Flow, Ai Weiwei’s remarkable documentary on mass immigration, the Chinese expatriate artist and director includes a clip from an interview with Greek Migration Minister Yiannis Mouzalas, a member of that country’s ruling Coalition of the Radical Left (SYRIZA).

–----

Human Flow review – Ai Weiwei’s urgent look at the scale of the refugee crisis | Film | The Guardian
▻https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/aug/31/human-flow-review-ai-weiwei-refugee-crisis

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/19726f7616c44a39f9270c6d09687fc0c567521b/121_0_7195_4318/master/7195.jpg?w=1200&h=630&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&fit=crop&crop=faces%2Centropy&bm=normal&ba=bottom%2Cleft&blend64=aHR0cHM6Ly91cGxvYWRzLmd1aW0uY28udWsvMjAxNi8wNS8yNS9vdmVybGF5LWxvZ28tMTIwMC05MF9vcHQucG5n&s=e1988816be7a3738b85ca0f454b2d18f

The international co-productions of the mid-20th century often boasted myriad shooting locations in far-flung places. Who would have guessed the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei would pick up where moguls such as Sam Spiegel left off.

Ai’s new film, Human Flow, while certainly epic in scope, is not exactly meant as entertainment. This is an urgent, deep soak in the current refugee crisis. There has been no dearth of documentaries about this topic, but this one comes closest to understanding the totality of the issue.

–----

Review: Ai Weiwei’s ‘Human Flow’ Tracks the Global Migrant Crisis - The New York Times
▻https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/12/movies/human-flow-review-ai-weiwei.html