The bourgeoisie are preparing for an onslaught against working conditions in Norway. As we explained after the last general election, the Norwegian business class got what they desperately wanted: a right-wing government dedicated to the dismantling of the Norwegian welfare state and the weakening of the labour and trade union movement. Since the election, the right wing coalition government has been trying to introduce changes in labour laws that will legalise more flexible working practices: meaning increased exploitation of the Norwegian working class. The response of the labour movement has been immediate and decisive: a massive show of strength in the form of a general strike that

The 15^th January decision by the Swiss National Bank (SNB) to revoke the cap on the Swiss Franc has sent shivers around the globe. The Euro-Swiss Exchange rate crashed rapidly, followed closely by the SMI (Swiss Market Index) share prices. This marks the end of the stability which has characterised modern Swiss economic history, and the beginning of a new turbulent period.

Despite all the concessions imposed on Greece by the troika, the February 20th agreement with the Eurogroup has produced very little of any substance and is already starting to unravel. The deep crisis of Greek capitalism, combined with the stubbornness of the troika in humiliating the Greek government, leaves almost no room for manoeuvre.

More than one-hundred years since the first International Working Women’s day on 8th March 1911, what is the situation for women in Britain in today? Seven years after the onslaught of the financial crisis, working class women remain oppressed due to their gender and exploited due to their class.

“You must either conquer and rule or serve and lose, suffer or triumph, be the anvil or the hammer” (Goethe)

“The British public has become deeply cynical about the political class at Westminster”, states a recent Financial Times editorial (11/2/15). This is what is called an understatement. Contempt and anger towards bankers, property speculators, hedge fund bosses and politicians is widespread.

The first two months of 2015 have seen coal miners in Poland, a traditionally well organised and powerful section of the working class in that country, flex their muscles and remind the bourgeoisie of the power of a militant labour movement.

The student struggle has flared up in Amsterdam. In a period of a few weeks, two university buildings have been occupied. At the moment of writing, the building of the executive board of the University of Amsterdam (UvA), the famous Maagdenhuis, is being occupied by students. Their struggle is against the "efficiency-oriented" top-down management, for which the profit motive is more important than the interests of students and lecturers.

In October 1944, the last German soldiers left Greece and on the 12^th ELAS, the Greek People's Liberation Army, moved into Athens. The atmosphere among the masses was electric, especially in the working class neighbourhoods. Not only had they expelled the hated Nazi occupation, but they could feel that power was there for the taking.

Mainstream media have presented Boris Nemtsov as an anti-Putin “liberal” oppositionist. In reality he was part of the oligarchy that began to emerge after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but had fallen out of grace with the main clique that took over. Here Artem Kirpichenok in St. Petersburg gives a very different point of view from within Russia.

Tsipras and his finance minister Varoufakis have toured the European capitals in an attempt to muster support for their debt renegotiation policies but have been met with open hostility. At the same time the workers in Greece are rallying around what they regard as their government in a movement that could escalate in the coming weeks. In this talk Fred Weston of the International Marxist Tendency outlines the fundamental contradictions which are accumulating in Greece and explains why the only way out for the Greek masses is Socialism.

Last weekend the Central Committee of Syriza met. Opposition to the party’s Majority line on the agreement with the Eurogroup was strong. A critical amendment by the Left Platform, the main opposition group led by the Minister Panayotis Lafazanis, won 68 votes, 41% of the total.

Stathis Kouvelakis, member of the Central Committee of SYRIZA and one of the leading exponents of the Left Platform, has written an account of the turbulent meeting of the party’s parliamentary group, which reveals doubt and opposition to the agreement reached with the Eurogroup.

The letter from the Greek government to the Eurogroup detailing the measures it is committing itself to implement as part of the agreement reached on Friday, reveals the extent of the retreat from Syriza’s programme. This has caused an uproar of opposition within the party.

Support the draft law presented by the Communist Party of Greece! A unique opportunity to overturn the humiliating agreement!