Comrades and supporters from around the world are continuing to put pressure on the Pakistani state to release the Marxist student activist, Rawal Asad, who is still being held on the scandalous charge of sedition and has been denied bail. Meanwhile, protests are ongoing in Pakistan, where comrades, students and workers are demanding that Rawal be immediately released.

The Dutch Marxists have launched a new paper, Revolutie(Revolution), which has replaced the old paper, Vonk. On 24 March they held a public event to announce the name change. The change did not come from nowhere. The new name connects much better to the new objective situation in the Netherlands.

The International Marxist Tendency has been celebrating the centenary of the Russian Revolution all year, releasing articles, videos and reading guides to commemorate the occasion. Around the day of anniversary itself (7 November by the modern calendar), we hosted a series of meetings, parties and events throughout the world. We have already published reports from Mexico, ...

In normal times, the Dutch general elections would not make headline news around the world. But we are not in normal times. The Netherlands, for decades were considered one of the solid, stable, north European countries. That is no longer the case, as the crisis of world capitalism impacts on this small country.

Hans Gerd Öfinger interviewed Zowi Milanovi, editor of www.marxisten.nl, about tomorrow's general elections in the Netherlands.

On December 9th, 2016, Geert Wilders was sentenced in The Hague for group defamation and incitement of discrimination. However, the court did not impose any punishment. In their understanding Wilders was already punished enough by the media attention the court case got. The reaction to this from wider society reflects the polarized situation in the Netherlands.

On the April 6th the Netherlands held a consultative referendum on the Association Treaty of the European Union with Ukraine. The referendum was organised by a coalition of right-wing “Eurosceptic” groups that wanted a “No” vote in order to deliver a symbolic blow to the EU and to create friction between the EU countries.

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.

Last week, the new king of the Netherlands, Willem-Alexander, declared that the era of the welfare state was over and that the Netherlands are moving towards a ‘participation society’. This is a reflection of the crisis of capitalism, where all the gains of the past will be destroyed, unless the capitalist system is overthrown.

On April 30th, the Netherlands celebrated Queensday as usual. However, this time the ceremony was different, as it was also the day Queen Beatrix abdicated and her son Willem Alexander was inaugurated as the first King of the Netherlands since 1890.

Last Wednesday (September 12) the Dutch parliamentary elections were held. The end result was polarisation between the right-wing Liberals and the Labour Party. The left-reformist Socialist Party at one stage seemed to be positioned to come first in the polls, but eventually lost its gains to Labour.

The Dutch comrades of Vonk have now published the first edition of their paper in May. This is a big step forward for the IMT in the Netherlands.
The comrades are planning to release at least 4 papers a year. Click on the picture if you are interested in a subscription, or for further information.

The Dutch government has collapsed. After seven weeks of discussing a new austerity package, rightwing populist Wilders decided to stop supporting Rutte’s coalition of Christian Democrats and rightwing Liberals. Centre parties in parliament now have ‘saved the day’ and helped to implement a smaller package of austerity cuts before the September general elections.

At the beginning of February we reported on the militant strike of the cleaners in the Netherlands. Now, after a long drawn out battle, they have won most of their demands, setting a good precedent for the rest of the Dutch labour movement.

In the Netherlands there is a very militant cleaners’ strike that has been going on for more than a month. This is not the first time; in 2010 they were out on strike for nine weeks, the longest strike in the Netherlands since the 1930s. There are lessons in this for the whole labour movement.