The 17th of November 2014 marked the 25th anniversary of what’s known as the "Velvet Revolution" in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. To many it has positive connotations. The capitalist press hailed it as the end of a tyranny and the beginning of freedom and superficially this may seem like the general consensus. However a STEM agency poll in 2013 showed that 33% of Czechs still prefer the old regime to the new. 

Three months after the police attack on teacher training students in Guerrero, Mexico, which left 6 people dead and 43 disappeared, more details are emerging which cast even more doubts on the official version of events and the level of complicity of the state in the affair.

As they danced away the Old Year and welcomed the New with, as usual, copious quantities of the finest champagne, the bourgeois from New York to London must have felt a satisfying glow of confidence. Seven years after the 2008 calamity, are they not still firmly in command? The earlier fears that the crisis must lead to some terrible social and political Apocalypse have dissipated. Capitalism is alive and well. The profits are flowing freely and the rich are ever richer. In short, everything is for the best in the best of all capitalist worlds.

In this speech Alan Woods analyses the present situation in Europe with particular emphasis on the crisis facing the Euro and how all this impacts on Greece, which is now facing a very sudden and sharp turn with snap elections in January that will almost certianly be won by SYRIZA.

The two-day national meeting held by the “EPANASTASI” (REVOLUTION) newspaper and the Communist Tendency of SYRIZA over the weekend of 20-21 December, was a big success. The meeting was attended by more than seventy activists, packed into the very welcoming hall of the "Art Garage". The rich content of the discussions and the participation of many young people were particularly encouraging.

Less than two months after assuming office, the Swedish government consisting of Social Democrats and the Greens has announced that they will call new elections. This marks a turning point in Swedish politics. The political instability in the rest of the world – a result of the crisis of capitalism – is now raising its head also in Sweden. This is the beginning of a deep crisis for bourgeois democracy and the capitalist system.