Debate has opened up over the war in Afghanistan. Big business politicians and military brass have defined their objective as “stability,” and they are failing their own tests. U.S. soldier and civilian casualties are at an all-time high, the Taliban is growing stronger, and al-Qaeda has not been destroyed. Corruption during the recent elections was astounding, and conditions for women have gone unchanged while drug trading continues.

Socialistworld.net has received the following press release. The attack on Laurence Coates – a lifelong socialist - and the banning of material critical of the present dictatorial regime in China must be protested world-wide. We carry below the initial news and will follow up with details of how to protest to the Chinese and Hong Kong authorities and support the struggle for genuine socialist policies and workers’ democracy.

Parisa Nasrabadi is a member of Socialist Students in Iran, a group that has led thousands of students in struggle. They distribute an underground daily paper, “The Street”. She spoke to Kristopher Lundberg (CWI in Sweden).

Within the left internationally, the question often arises about the politics and economy of the Nordic states, particularly Sweden, and whether these societies represent a form of "socialism" or an alternative to neo-liberal capitalism. Here a real socialist from Sweden provides his perspective.

It is worth noting that those who today are proclaiming the end of the global recession are the same "experts" that missed the danger signs last time around. The massive injection of liquidity by world governments, "life support" measures for banks, plus stimulus programs such as tax cuts and support for home and car sales, have succeeded temporarily in cushioning the economic fall, but at the price of stoking record deficits and worsening already unsustainable imbalances in the global economy.

On September 24 and 25, 2009, the G20 will meet in Pittsburgh with the aim of reviving their ailing system: capitalism. All workers and youth who can should come out for mass action against the G20 summit.

For a week in July, over 350 workers and youth from 23 different countries gathered in Ghent, Belgium for the annual CWI summer school. There were CWI members from throughout Europe and all over the globe, including Brazil, Lebanon, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, Quebec, and Australia.

Instead of surrendering to layoffs, pay cuts, and factory closures, workers in a growing number of countries are occupying their workplaces and defying court orders and threats of police violence to fight to preserve their standard of living.

On 22 June 2009, the Pakistani government announced that it would carry out military action against Pakistani Taliban militants in the Swat district in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), primarily aimed at defeating the Maulana Fazlullah’s TNSM (Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi) who are in coalition with Baitullah Mehsud’s TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan).

The Committee for a Workers’ International condemns the recent Iraqi government attack on the Ashraf refugee camp, run by the Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mujahideen (PMOI), in Diyala province. This attack, on July 28 and 29, killed at least 9 and injured over 400 people from the camp, while 38 are still be detained by the Iraqi authorities. Since then a large number of Iranians at Ashraf have been on hunger strike.

Events in the run-up to Ahmadinejad’s formal swearing-in for a second term as Iranian president on August have displayed again the deep splits within the ruling elite which the mass movement after the disputed 12 June election revealed. Significantly, this has been despite only limited street protests taking place recently.

The global economic crisis has eliminated 6.5 million jobs in the U.S. alone since December 2007. Even though it is the corporate elites that caused this crisis, they are receiving million dollar bonuses while it is working people that are filling the ranks of the newly unemployed.

Thirty years after the 1979 revolution, Iran has again erupted in revolutionary convulsions. Millions have taken to the streets to protest against the rigging of the presidential election, in which president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his cohorts in the theocratic dictatorship claimed a sweeping victory.

For the first time in world history, more than 1 billion people will go hungry this year, as more than 4 million new people are going hungry each week. Meanwhile, a handful of the wealthiest people in the world held a secret meeting in New York to discuss "philanthropy" in the midst of financial crisis. The net worth in the room: $120 billion.

Saturday, June 27, 2009 may well be remembered for the day the National Shop Stewards Network (NSSN) really came into its own. As stewards continued to flood into the opening rally of the 3rd annual conference throughout the morning, there was a building feeling of confidence and enthusiasm. This mood continued to grow throughout the day and the vast majority of those attending filed out in the late afternoon exhilarated by the proceedings of the day.