Over the last few decades we have seen the official unemployment figures massaged and fiddled time and time again in order to make them seem more 'acceptable' in the official reports and, of course, the newspapers. Michael Roberts has a look at the real rate of unemployment in the US.

On 28 June 2009, a US-backed military coup removed the democratically elected president of Honduras Mel Zelaya from power. The heroic resistance of the Honduran people over the next few months failed to defeat the coup. This is what we wrote at the time (29/06/2009).

In 1998 five members of Cuba’s intelligence agency were arrested in Miami and indicted on 26 counts. Their crime? Risking their lives to prevent the deaths of innocent civilians at the hands of unscrupulous murderers. In May 2009, on behalf of President Barack Obama, Solicitor General Elena Kagan filed a brief asking that the review of their trial be denied and on June 15th, 2009 the Supreme Court denied the review.

One year ago the SIDOR plant was nationalised. Since then there has been ongoing battle between the workers who want to implement genuine workers’ control and those elements who are doing everything possible to make the attempts to build a ”socialist enterprsie” fail. This is part of the general struggle between revolution and reformism within the Venezuelan labour movement.

The Workers' International League held its first National Marxist School over the weekend of June 13th and 14th. As part of the School, a public event was organized jointly with Hands Off Venezuela, to discuss the 50th Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution and the lessons for Latin America.

On 5^th June 2009 the Quebec Marxists launched a new publication, La Riposte (the Fightback). The launch of La Riposte is of extreme significance for the work of the Marxists in Québec. By having a French paper, the Marxists are able to diffuse their ideas to the broadest layers of the overwhelmingly francophone working class and youth.

On Thursday, the 4^th of June, the Société Bolivarienne du Québec/Hands off Venezuela held a public conference on the subject “From Caracas to Montreal: Another World Is Possible.”

A severe crisis has opened up in Peru, with the Garcia government being pressurised by the mass movement, involving hundreds of thousands of workers. The government can now either step back and try and gain time or go on the offensive with repressive measures. Whatever they do, the movement will not go away.

Despite what Obama calls a “glimmer of hope,” the economic crisis continues to unfold and reduce living standards everywhere. This is bad enough news for working people in general, but how do things fare for Black Americans. Has Obama been the “change” that so many hoped for?

Here, Joel Bergman of the La Riposte editorial board presents the view of the Quebec Marxists on the National question. He outlines that there is a huge difference between the “sovereignty” of the workers and the sovereignty of the bosses and the Parti Québécois leadership.

The theoreticians of Big Business and their political leaders believe that workers should not expect higher wages and benefits, but must work harder for less and the labor leaders echo their argument.  However, no class will give up its rights and privileges without a fight and this includes the working class.  The working class will fight back; but the question is not only how to fight back, but how to fight back and win.

President Obama has just passed the 100 day mark of his term in office. What a difference a few weeks makes! Even though GM and Chrysler have already been given millions in public money, Chrysler has now been allowed to go bankrupt. All of its plants will be idled until it emerges from bankruptcy. And despite putting forward the option of a UAW “ownership stake” in GM and Chrysler, Obama is at the same time addressing auto workers with the cold vocabulary of Wall Street: Viability, Profitability and Liability. And these words are not hollow.

A recent survey shows that the United States may be becoming both less religious generally and less Christian specifically.  This may come as a shock to some, as over the past decade, the Religious Right has for many people come to represent the public face of the country.  This has been spurred on and encouraged by the cries coming from many liberals over the past few years of an impending “theocracy.”  However, the facts on the ground are quite different, as the American Religious Identification Survey, performed by Trinity College in Hartford, CT, recently proved.

Today, the corporate media and the creators of public opinion try to present Canada as a peaceful land where class struggle has played no role. The fact is that workers in the past have fought, and even died, to gain their rights and will do so again in the future. The 1919 Winnipeg general strike was one example.

Month after month, we report a seemingly endless stream of dismal economic figures. Behind these numbers are millions of Americans who are beginning to ask themselves a very important question: is the instability of capitalism really the only alternative?