Comments & Opinion

Heads are beginning to roll thanks to the Panama Papers. The Icelandic Prime Minister has been the first casualty as a result of the leaked data from the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, which specialises in offshore tax avoidance.

Almost everyone is involved from across the Establishment, the rich and the ruling class: current and former heads of state; business magnates; and celebrities. In the biggest data leak in history it has been revealed how the global elite make use of 200,000 shell companies created by the Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca to secure their money in offshore tax havens and to shield them from investigation.

Rob Sewell, editor of Socialist Appeal, looks at the ongoing crisis of capitalism, the growing inequality in the world today, and the potential for transforming our lives on the basis of modern technology, and explains why you should join the fight for the revolutionary socialist transformation of society.

In one hour, the national 24h general strike in Belgium will start. The port pilots of Zeebrugge, Antwerpen etc. will stop working. No ship will enter nor leave the ports of Belgium. At 10 pm the Belgian airspace will come to a halt and no civil plane will land or depart from any airport. All trains will also stop for 24 hours. It will be just the beginning of probably the biggest general strike in the history of the Belgian working class. Truckers have called to block the main roads and blockades will be set up in all industrial zone's. Tomorrow morning the rest of the country will come to a halt, busses, trams, underground, all public services and all industry and distribution. The magistrates have issued a call of solidarity and will also go on strike. Despite the mobilisation of 12.000 police officers (including 500 police students!), the totality of the available police force, the strike will be one of the most general of general strikes ever. Nothing moves without the workers, no wealth is created without the workers. Welcome to working class Belgium!

Written yesterday, December 14

A FPU conference in Kiev was violently attacked by fascist thugs on June 26.

The decision of Lawrence & Wishart to demand that the Marxist Internet Archive (marxists.org) take down the collected works of Marx and Engels from their website has sparked justified outrage across the internet.