The rainy weather and mountain of security guards didn’t deter some 12,000 Minnesota nurses from going on a one-day strike at 14 different hospitals across the Twin Cities on Thursday, June 10th. The Minnesota Nurses Association, which is part of the newly formed National Nurses United, voted overwhelmingly for the strike, after hospital administrators refused to respond to even one of the contract negotiation proposals the nurses put forward. This was the largest nurses’ strike in U.S. history. A solidarity strike by 13,000 California nurses was also planned, but was eventually blocked by a judge in San Francisco.

The public clash between Obama and his top general in Afghanistan highlight the difficulties US imperialism is facing in what is clearly an unwinnable war. What the general has done is to express in public what is normally reserved for private conversation, but it does bring out clearly the impasse the US is facing in Afghanistan.

Hundreds of workers, activists, youth, trade unionists, and students gathered this past weekend at Toronto’s Ryerson University to organize “The 2010’s People’s Summit: Building a movement for a just world.” Aside from the scores of workshops, the summit was aimed at organizing the week-long series of events and demonstrations against the G20 summit in the city, culminating with the giant rally at Queen’s Park on 26th June.

After last weekend’s successful intervention at the “People's Summit” in Toronto, the Canadian Marxists of Fightback are preparing for the G20 summit this weekend with a tent at Queen’s Park and a meeting in the evening. If you are in Toronto look us up and come to the meeting.

The Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico highlights the real state of US capitalism today. While making a lot of noise, Obama is not prepared to take on the oil companies in any serious meaningful way. What he is doing is passing the buck to the US working class.

This document was drafted in the Spring of 2010, and discussed, amended, and approved at the May 2010 National Congress of the Workers International League. A new phase is opening up in U.S. politics and the Labor Movement as American workers find their backs against the wall and have no option but to fight back.

The leaders of the world’s 20 richest nations are visiting Toronto in June, and they want your money. They want your job, your home, your education, your health care, your public transport, your social services, your pension, and your paycheque. They want to take anything that makes life even halfway bearable. They want all of these things to pay for the mess that they, and their capitalist buddies, created. But, we are not just going to sit and let them.

América Socialista – the Panamerican magazine of the International Marxist Tendency, interviewed Tomás Andino, a leading member of the Honduran Resistance.

On May 15^th, Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez took a bold and historic initiative, when he decided at a meeting in Puerto Ordáz in Guayana, Bolívar state, to put workers at the forefront of the running of the primary industries located in this region.

The earthquake in Haiti has been presented by some preachers in countries like Nigeria as the vengeance of God against the sins of the Haitian people. This reveals the true nature of these people, who use religion to distract the attention of the masses away from the real causes of poverty and devastation. The earthquake is a natural phenomenon; the deaths that it caused are not.

It’s been close to a month since the Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig exploded and sank into the Gulf of Mexico, just 45 miles south of the already beleaguered gulf coasts of Louisiana and Mississippi. The ensuing oil spill may well surpass that which followed the wreck of the Exxon Valdez, which poured over 11 million gallons of oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound in the spring of 1989. British Petroleum, which was the operator of the oil platform, had been leasing the rig from the deep seas drilling conglomerate TransOcean. BP initially estimated the daily oil spillage to be 1,000 barrels. Within a week of the disaster, that figure was ratcheted upwards by the United States

Well over a year since Obama came to power, virtually nothing has been done for the labor movement. No Employee Free Choice Act, no universal health care, no universal living wage, no equal rights for immigrant workers, no repealing of anti-labor laws like Taft-Hartley. The mines are as unsafe as ever and workers continue to die for the profits of the shareholders...This all highlights yet again what Socialist Appeal has explained since our founding issue: we need a mass party of labor to fight for and represent the interests of working class majority of this country. As representatives of the bosses the Democrats simply cannot and will not do this.

A recent New York Times/CBS Poll presents interesting findings for those interested in the demographics and opinions represented by the so-called “Tea Partiers.” The poll finds support for the Tea Party at just 18%, much lower than the 27% reported in earlier polls. They also added a second and far more relevant category, “Tea Party activist,” for those who have actively done something to “build the movement.” They found that just 4% have actually attended rallies, donated money, etc., which is hardly the “grass roots rising tide” that has been presented in the media.

Reports from Canada and the USA indicate that the crisis of capitalism is having an effect on the trade unions, with radical speeches being given, particularly in Canada. In the USA, in spite of May Day not being an official celebration, there was a massive turnout in Dallas, and rallies in many cities, where the immigrant workers were present in sizeable numbers, but also workers in general involved in ongoing disputes.

Canada may be some distance from Greece geographically, but the economic policies being adopted look strikingly similar, with public sector wage freezes, cuts in spending and increased costs of services. And for people in Britain who may be thinking of voting Liberal, take a look at what the Canadian Liberals are doing in Ontario.