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Published by the International Committee of the Fourth International (ICFI)

4 November 2009

Workers’ wages to fall further, International Labour Organization warns

By Barry Grey, 4 November 2009

The International Labour Organization (ILO) warned Tuesday that global growth in workers’ real wages, which fell sharply in 2008, will decline even more in 2009, despite what is being touted by governments around the world as an economic recovery.

Japan’s new government seeks to refashion US alliance

By John Chan, 4 November 2009

In the lead-up to US President Barack Obama’s first visit to Japan, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has signalled that his government is wanting to readjust the country’s longstanding alliance with the US.

Australia: Latest refugee deaths—the Rudd government’s SIEV X

Statement of the Socialist Equality Party (Australia), 4 November 2009

The tragic drowning of 12 Sri Lankan Tamils northwest of the Cocos Islands on Sunday is another grim reminder that the election of the Rudd Labor government in November 2007 has changed nothing for refugees and asylum seekers.

FBI knew of CIA torture, considered prosecution

By Tom Eley, 4 November 2009

FBI agents witnessed torture at CIA prisons in 2002, new documents released in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit reveal.

US executives’ pensions soar in value
More Americans have to work past 65

By David Walsh, 4 November 2009

Workers in the US are increasingly giving up on the idea of retiring at 65, or even 67, while top CEOs are planning to quit their positions and live like royalty.

Scotland: Growing calls for tuition fees as universities face funding crisis

By Jordan Shilton, 4 November 2009

The higher education sector in Scotland is facing hundreds of job cuts, as universities declare they are facing a funding crisis.

Julian Moti defence counsel attacks Australian government’s “politically driven prosecution”

By Patrick O’Connor, 4 November 2009

In Queensland’s Supreme Court, defence counsel for former Solomon Islands’ attorney general Julian Moti condemned Australian authorities for “bringing the administration of justice into disrepute”.

Michigan woman dies after Medicaid dental care is cut

By Hiram Lee, 4 November 2009

A Michigan woman died from a severe dental infection after adult dental Medicaid benefits were cut in the state.

New in German

Karl Theodor Freiherr von und zu Guttenberg: Der neue Kriegsminister

Von Ulrich Rippert, 4. November 2009

Die Tatsache, dass der neue Verteidigungsminister auf die 800-jährige Tradition einer deutschen Adelsfamilie zurückblickt, spielt keine unerhebliche Rolle bei seiner Popularität im Offizierscorps.

Die Bedeutung von Europas "Kurswechsel" in Afghanistan

Von Chris Marsden, 4. November 2009

Die Europäische Union hat einen Aktionsplan für Afghanistan und Pakistan beschlossen, um den neokolonialen Krieg in dieser Region zu unterstützen.

Amerikanische Fordarbeiter stimmen gegen Lohnsenkung mit "Nein"

Von Joe Kishore, 4. November 2009

Die Fordarbeiter in den USA haben mit großer Mehrheit gegen die Annahme des Tarifvertrags gestimmt, den die UAW mit dem Unternehmen ausgehandelt hatte. Er hätte Einbußen bei Löhnen und Arbeitsbedingungen sowie Entlassungen und Neueinstellung zu Niedriglöhnen bedeutet.

20 Jahre seit dem Mauerfall
Der Bund Sozialistischer Arbeiter und das Ende der DDR

4. November 2009

Am 4. November 1989 fand in Ost-Berlin die größte Demonstration in der Geschichte der DDR statt. Der BSA vertrat als einzige politische Strömung ein Programm, das die Opposition gegen den Stalinismus mit einer internationalen sozialistischen Perspektive verband.

Perspective

One year since the election of Barack Obama

4 November 2009

One year ago today, on November 4, 2008, Barack Obama won the US presidential election in what was, for all practical purposes, a political rout.

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India erupts in anti-Sikh violence in wake of Gandhi assassination

In the wake of the assassination of Indira Gandhi by two of her Sikh bodyguards on October 31, 1984, pogroms targeting the religious minority kill 3,000 and leave tens of thousands more homeless. Most of the violence takes place in Delhi.

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Massive strike of US steelworkers ends

On November 7, 1959, the nationwide steel strike involving 500,000 workers comes to end on its 116th day after the US Supreme Court upholds by an eight-to-one margin President Eisenhower's invocation of the Taft-Hartley Act, which allows the US president to end strikes if he declares that they threaten a national emergency.

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Republicans routed in off-year elections

The Democratic Party increases sizable majorities in both houses of Congress in the 1934 off-year elections. The result indicates popular support for government intervention to create jobs in the midst of the Great Depression, policies associated with the “New Deal” reformist measures proposed by President Franklin Roosevelt.

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Germany’s US ambassador says war “improbable”

In an address to the Academy of American Political and Social Sciences in Philadelphia on November 6, 1909, Germany’s ambassador to the US attempts to reassure Washington that Germany’s rise to world power will not necessarily lead to war.

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Workers Struggles

Transit workers strike in Philadelphia

By Bill Van Auken, 4 November 2009

More than 5,000 Philadelphia transit workers struck early Tuesday morning over wages and benefits. The action was denounced by Democratic officials, who invoked the economic crisis and rising unemployment in demanding that the workers settle for less.

Video: Ford workers speak on contract rejection

4 November 2009

The WSWS spoke to workers at the Ford Dearborn Truck plant in Michigan on the rejection of contract revisions backed by the company and the UAW.

The “No” vote at Ford

2 November 2009

The decisive vote by Ford workers against contract concessions backed by the UAW is a major advance for the working class internationally.

Book Review

The “Hegel renaissance” and other questions:
Part 2

A comment on The Cambridge Companion to Hegel and Nineteenth-Century Philosophy

By Alexander Fangmann, 4 November 2009

Last year saw the publication of The Cambridge Companion to Hegel and Nineteenth-Century Philosophy. The volumes of the Cambridge Companion series contain collections of essays by scholars working on a particular philosopher or subject area.

History

European Trotskyists mark seventieth anniversary of World War II
Whole families were forced into exile due to their anti-Nazism

By Françoise Thull, 4 November 2009

On October 11 in London, the European sections of the International Committee of the Fourth International held a joint meeting on the lessons of the Second World War. We publish here the remarks made by Françoise Thull, a member of the Socialist Equality Party in Germany (Partei Partei für Soziale Gleichheit, PSG), who spoke on the experiences of her family in France during that period.

Political Commentary

Australian imperialism, the 1999 East Timor intervention and the pseudo-left

By Patrick O’Connor, 2 November 2009

September marked the tenth anniversary of the Australian-led military intervention into East Timor. It is also a decade since a layer of pseudo “left” groups organised “troops in” demonstrations—performing a vital service for the Howard government and the Australian ruling elite.

Arts Review

The postwar novelist in regression: Norman Mailer (1923-2007)

By Andras Gyorgy, 3 November 2009

As we approach the second anniversary of American novelist Norman Mailer’s death, there appear more and more articles assessing his work over a lifetime. They mention only in passing, usually without comment, that Mailer was a socialist once.

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