Riding the double-dipper

Capitalist leaders are in disarray as they strive and fail to get to grips with the eurozone crisis and its threat to the global economy. Neither the G20 summit in Mexico, nor crisis talks in Rome offered any solutions, as politicians and economists desperately try to hang on to the eurozone roller-coaster. LYNN WALSH reports.

London Olympics: run for profit

World records will not be the only things broken at this year’s Olympic and Paralympic Games. Promises for a lasting legacy – affordable housing, decent jobs, increased sports participation, etc – are being broken, too. The greatest sporting show on earth has been dragged down by crass commercialisation, and become a test-bed for increased state repression. MANNY THAIN reports on the neo-liberal Games.

Clampdown Kazakhstan

AUTHORITIES IN Kazakhstan are implementing a brutal crackdown on workers and civil rights activists. Show trials, deaths in detention and in suspicious circumstances, spurious arrests and questioning, and military mobilisations for peaceful protests. These are the actions of a brutal dictatorship in fear of an eruption from below. BEN ROBINSON reports.

Website article:

Hong Kong: 15 years since the return to Chinese rule

ON 1 July, Hong Kong marks the 15th anniversary since its return to Chinese rule, amid a massive anti-government demonstration. Last year more than 200,000 took part in what, since 2003, has become an annual event. This shows how strained are relations between the central government in Beijing and the Hong Kong ‘special administrative region’ it regained from Britain in 1997. VINCENT KOLO, of, chinaworker.info, reports.

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Also in Issue No.160:

France
General election win for Francois Hollande's Parti Socialiste

Planning for the planet
Interview with Pete Dickenson on his new book putting forward a socialist alternative to environmental destruction

Greek elections
New Democracy's victory paves the way for further workers' struggles writes Nicos Anastasiades

Capitalism and migration
A new book attempts to analyse the effects of migration on the economy. Hannah Sell reviews

Women and the plough
The roots of gender inequality

Somalia
Piracy in the Horn of Africa

Cover cartoon: Suzanne Muna www.squashdonkey.co.uk