With under a week to go until Scots head to the vote, the results of the independence referendum are too close to call. A recent surge in support for the pro-independence campaign has struck fear into the leaders of the NO camp. The maintenance of the union is now seriously under threat, providing yet another demonstration of the weakness and crisis within the Establishment in this epoch of capitalist crisis.

With just 7 days left until the Scottish independence referendum, the past week has seen a big shift in the polls. Up until now most polls were putting the “no” campaign ahead by around a 10% margin. This lead was down from what it had been last year, but still seemed to predict a comfortable victory for the pro-union camp.

On Sunday 6th September, the labour movement celebrated the centenary of the longest strike in British history, the Burston School strike, which ran from 1914 to 1939 in Norfolk.

On the eve of the NATO summit in Wales, the Ukraine crisis has seen an escalation in rhetoric. The same people who told us about Saddam’s “Weapons of Mass Destruction” are now raising a hue and cry about thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of Russian troops having invaded Ukraine and demanding swift action to counter them.

The crisis of British capitalism expresses itself at the economic, social and political level. Its latest political manifestation, the defection of a Tory MP to the UK Independence Party (Ukip), demonstrates the dialectical law of sharp changes and sudden turns. The British establishment has always whipped up xenophobia and racism in an attempt to divide the working class. Today, however, under conditions of crisis,  the issue of immigration and anti-EU hysteria has served to highlight divisions with the ruling class, especially its political representatives.

A fish rots from the head down. It is the same for the crisis-ridden British Tory Establishment.

The Kiev mayor Vitali Klitschko and the Ukrainian government have forcibly removed the remaining Euromaidan protesters, clearing away protesters’ tents and replaced them with an army recruitment office. Claiming the objectives of Euromaidan accomplished and the movement no longer necessary, Kiev is reigning in the movement that had brought them to power.

We are publishing the translation of an article by Svetlana Tsiberganova, a Borotba activist based in Donetsk. It deals with the reasons for the bankruptcy of part of the Ukrainian left that have capitulated to anti-communist liberal prejudices and Ukrainian nationalism.

We publish this resolution unanimously approved by the IMT World Congress (Greece, July 29 - August 3, 2014).

The death of almost 300 innocent men, women and children on a Malaysian airline flight has shocked the world. Flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur was travelling over the conflict-hit region when it disappeared from radar. A total of 283 passengers, including some 80 children, and 15 crew members were on board.

Last week saw the Polish Parliament vote on motions of no confidence in the interior minister and the ruling coalition as a whole. These motions, which were tabled in the wake of a massive corruption scandal involving politicians at the highest level, were both defeated. However, surviving the votes of no confidence will do little to rebuild the reputation of the ruling coalition and the ideas they represent in the eyes of Polish people. They are rightly being seen, now more than ever, for the corrupt clique they really are.

The Brazilian Communist Party and Esquerda Marxista have followed with concern the developments in Ukraine. It is yet another chapter of imperialist intervention in the country and of struggle between factions of oligarchs of the kind that have marked the history of Ukraine after the breakup of the USSR. These oligarchs emerged as a dominant group after having taken over, through shady manoeuvres and privatizations, the achievements built with much sacrifice by the Soviet people. Their actions have brought the country to its current state, on the verge of economic and social bankruptcy.

The first time I saw a comparison of the war in East Ukraine with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was three weeks ago in an article by the liberal journalist Vitaly Portnikov in portal Facets pv. Today, this analogy is already established in the Ukrainian and Russian liberal mainstream. "Israel and the Ukrainian regime -are seen as the embodiment of European civilization, light and goodness. Palestinians and eastern Ukrainians are terrorists, "quilted", "scoops", and can only understand the language of bombs and missiles."

Ukrainian Prime Minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, has announced that: “Ukraine will experience the largest privatization plan in its history” in the name of fighting corruption.

On July 8, the Ukrainian Minister of Justice filed a lawsuit in the Kiev District Court to ban the Communist Party of Ukraine (KPU). This is the last step in a growing campaign in the last few months to prosecute anyone organisation which raises its voice against the interim government and its “anti-terrorist operation” in the East.